Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Mayor's Plans For 1999 Ambitious

Plans for 1999 within the City of Gurdon were announced Monday night at the regular monthly meeting of the Gurdon City Council.

Mayor Rick Smith gave a list of plans he has for this year, while bringing the council good news concerning the old hospital building.

He told the panel an agreement had been reached between the city and the lessee, Dr. E. Stewart for the sale of the building.

The city received a check for $155,883.77 for the facility. Gurdon had been getting lease payments of $2,000 a month since 1994, when the lease was first entered into.

With the sale, he said, the city no longer has the liability or threat of maintenance of the building and the new owners are working toward the establishment of a business which will benefit the area. Additionally, he said, this business will create new jobs in Gurdon.

Smith also announced his intentions to institute a COST program, with the acronym standing for Communication-Organization-Standardization-Totalization.

If implemented, he said, it will allow the city to provide better service to the citizens and help cut costs.

On the communications side, he said, all boards and commissions will be required to provide written reports to the city council. This will increase communications within city hall allowing better service to the people.

And, plans are in the works to develop a web site for Gurdon on the World Wide Web. This will allow those interested in learning about the city to find out about the demographics and other statistical information.

In addition, this web site could include the proposed agenda for the council as well as minutes of council meetings.

With a web site, he said, citizens could e-mail comments or questions to the city. The e- mail could then be passed to the appropriate department with them formulating a response, also by e-mail if so preferred.

For organization, the idea is to better organize all city departments.

This, Smith said, will be done with the implementation of a program to develop a procedures manual for each department. These manuals will have written procedures for specific circumstances covering a variety of situations.

These manuals will also give new employees a better idea of what they will be doing as well.

And, the manuals should help standardize procedures and policies within the city government.

However, he said, the COST program will require total participation if it is to succeed.

One of the major areas Smith would like to see improved is the radio system used by the Gurdon Fire Department.

He said this needs to be upgraded with the current phone system being abolished and the GFD being in constant contact with the Clark County Fire Net.

He recommended transferring the current GFD radio frequency to the Gurdon Street Department. This, Smith said, will cut radio traffic on the Gurdon Police frequency, while keeping the GFD in touch with all other fire departments in the county.

Another recommendation he made was to purchase a new vehicle for the GPD using some of the money from the sale of the hospital building.

At some time during 1999, he promised, Gurdon will establish a recycling program. This will partly be done with the help of a grant from the Arkansas Department of Pollution, Control and Ecology (PC&E).

Smith, in his capacity as a member of the Southwest Regional Solid Waste Management District, will monitor the feasibility of acquiring land for a landfill site in Clark County.

Getting more and affordable housing available in Gurdon is another of Smith's goals, especially housing for the city's elderly population.

Annexation proved to be a problem in 1996, but, Smith said, there are areas surrounding Gurdon where annexation is viable and beneficial. In fact, he said, several people have broached the subject of being annexed into the city limits.

Work on getting these areas annexed into the city needs to begin immediately, he said. This is because the census will be done in the year 2000, and the residents in the affected areas would be a financial boon for the city.

With the census count only done once every 10 years, he said, the annexation issue is of vital importance right now.

Once the census count has been made, he said, it would be "foolish" to annex these areas into the city limits. This is because Gurdon would be responsible for providing service and maintenance, while getting no state turn back money in return.

State turn back, he said, is based on population only.