Our Aldermen Should Stand for What's Right

On October 14, a Federal judge ruled that a "lawsuit brought by 20 states challenging the health-care overhaul law" can move forward, and those states can "contest whether the law's 'individual mandate' requiring virtually all Americans to buy health insurance exceeds Congress's constitutional authority." As we read about the debate on the constitutionality of Federal health insurance legislation, Searcy voters may remember our own city government exceeding their constitutional authority in June 2009.

In the June 2009 Searcy City Council meeting, Alderman Steve Sterling, Alderman Jim Dixon, and three other City Council members (English, Chalenburg, and Arnett) voted to appoint the initial seven A&P Commission members recommended by Mayor Belinda LaForce. Some of those appointees were not qualified electors (they did not live in the city limits), which violated Ark. Const. art. 19, Sec. 3. In the meeting, the Council discussed Attorney General's opinion #2007-055. In this opinion, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel explained that the Arkansas Constitution requires Commission members to be qualified electors. In appointing the A&P Commission members, the Mayor and those five aldermen ignored the Arkansas Constitution (the other three voted against the appointments).

Despite City Attorney Buck Gibson's and Mayor Belinda LaForce's assertions that the appointments were not unconstitutional, Aldermen Mary Ann Arnett and Mike Chalenburg requested a legal opinion on the issue from the Lightle Law Firm, and they received the law firm's response June 15, 2009. The City Attorney and the Mayor were copied on the response and received the legal opinion. In the opinion attached to that email, the Lightle Firm advised the city to obey the Arkansas Constitution and Attorney General's opinion.

In his response to the Lightle Law Firm, Alderman Chalenburg said, "It may be a disappointment to some, but we do need to abide by the law. We simply believe that if there is a good chance that the appointment process of the A&P Commission is suspect it would be better to deal with it now and not later...I also agree we need to abide by the law." However, Mayor Belinda LaForce, City Attorney Buck Gibson, Alderman Mary Ann Arnett, and Alderman Mike Chalenburg did not take action to correct this violation of the state constitution.

In a March 4, 2010, article in the Daily Citizen, Warren Watkins reported that the City Attorney and the Mayor said the following:

• "Three commissioners may have to resign if the city council follows their attorney’s advice. At a joint meeting of the Searcy Advertising and Tourism Promotions (A&P) Commission and the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board held Wednesday afternoon at city hall, Searcy City Attorney Buck Gibson advised those gathered that an amendment would need to be made to the council’s ordinance for the A&P tax and commission requiring A&P commissioners to be Searcy residents."
• "Mayor Belinda LaForce said she was concerned with the residency issue and noted it had surfaced some months ago and needed to be resolved. A&P commissioners Oliver Montano, Bob White and Amanda Foust do not live in the city, LaForce said."

The Arkansas Constitution and Attorney General's opinions on the qualifications for Commission members did not change from June 2009 to March 2010. What did change to make City Attorney Gibson and Mayor LaForce speak out against their own actions?

Alderman Sterling and Alderman Dixon chose to go along with Mayor LaForce. Our Searcy Aldermen should all have the courage to stand up to a Mayor that chooses to ignore the Arkansas Constitution.

Ward 2 Aldermen and Deficit Spending

During her two terms as Mayor, Belinda LaForce has relied on deficit spending to run Searcy's city government with the support of aldermen like Jim Dixon and Steve Sterling.

Deficit Spending: Jim Dixon vs Dan Hodges
Deficit budgets over the past five years have grown the city's spending as one year's deficit spending becomes the next year's "budgeted" spending.

In the December 2005 and January 2006 debate over the 2006 city budget, the City Council and Mayor LaForce disagreed over the 2006 budget because it proposed deficit spending. In a December 21, 2005, article in the Daily Citizen, Mariea Grayson reported that "LaForce's budget remains $268,482.08 in the red." The article quotes Mayor LaForce's view of the 2006 budget,

"'I want to appropriate money from the reserves to take care of the deficit.' LaForce told council members."

"'In the first of 2005, they appropriated $190,000 or more out of the reserves,' LaForce said, 'All I'm asking is they do the same thing in 2006.'"

"LaForce said there are only two options left to the city. 'We either pull it out of the reserves or raise revenues,' she said."

Mayor LaForce proposed this deficit budget December 13, December 20, January 10, and January 11 and insisted on using the reserves rather than cut spending. The budget passed January 11, 2006, with Mayor LaForce casting the tie-breaking vote. Mariea Grayson reported in a January 12, 2006, Daily Citizen article,

"Searcy will have to make up $268,482 with reserve funds or other unknown income."

"LaForce said she doesn't understand the problem the council is having appropriating money from unappropriated funds to cover the budget."

Mayor LaForce proposed deficit budgets for both 2005 and 2006 using reserve funds (the city's saved up, unallocated money from more "revenues" coming in than anticipated) to make up the difference.

The City Council shares the blame for this past deficit spending because they voted for it. Alderman Jim Dixon voted for both these budgets (December 14, 2004; January 11, 2006). Had he not voted for the 2006 deficit spending, Mayor LaForce would not have been able cast the tie-breaking vote for it. In contrast, Dan Hodges, who served Ward 2 as an alderman in 2005-2006, voted against Mayor LaForce's 2006 deficit spending.

More Deficit Spending: Dixon and Sterling
One alderman for Ward 2 has changed, but the deficit spending continues. From January 2009 to September 2010, the city's reserves have declined from $2.267 million to $1.201 million according to the city's financial statements. In fact, according to the September 2010 financial statement, the city has built up a deficit for this year of over $475,000. The city has only collected 64.9% of their projected revenue in nine months (75% of the year), and the Mayor and City Council have spent 68% of their budgeted revenue for the first three quarters of 2010.

In the past two years, Aldermen Jim Dixon and Steve Sterling have not only voted for all of the policy items Mayor LaForce placed on the City Council meeting agendas, they have also voted for over $1,000,000 of deficit spending despite our uncertain economic times.

Improving the Searcy Code of Ordinances

The Growing Regulatory Burden
Every year, individuals and businesses contend with a growing number of laws, regulations, and ordinances created at all levels of government. At the national level, organizations such as Freedom Works, The Heritage Foundation, and OverCriminalized.com seek to inform citizens about the growing restrictions to our freedom and to motivate them to take action in support of common sense, simplified Federal laws and regulations. The Arkansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity is working for similar goals with citizens at the state level.

At the Federal level, the growing costs of regulations and laws impacts all of us.

• According to an article on the Freedom Works Web site, "excessive regulation, such as excessive taxation of any business or industry, can weaken or even kill it"
• In the Freedom Works Issues section, they say, "Complying with the thousands of regulations federal bureaucrats are scheduled to approve this year could cost American individuals and businesses over $700 billion. This figure doesn't even take into account the indirect costs imposed by these regulations including loss of productivity and limits on innovation and growth."
• According to the Heritage Foundation, "the size and scope of the regulatory state grew significantly" during President George W. Bush's tenure, and it "is currently rising at more than twice" that rate under President Obama

New Searcy Ordinances
People are becoming more aware of the impact the growth of laws and regulations have on their lives. Even on the city level here in Searcy, the regulatory burden on individuals and businesses has increased over the past two years. Several ordinances were passed creating new regulations for us to follow. They include:

• Ordinance 2009-23 "to provide for the regulation of certain adult oriented businesses," which had previously been banned (passed July 14, 2009)
• Ordinance 2009-24 "establishing regulations concerning the conduct of yard sales, garage sales, and other similar activities" (passed July 14, 2009)
• Ordinance 2010-04  "setting a thirty-day period for filing referendum petitions" (passed February 23, 2010)
• Ordinance 2010-07 "to adopt procedural rules of governance for meetings of the Searcy City Council" (passed March 9, 2010)
• Ordinance 2010-15 "to prohibit the sale, use or possession, or offering for sale, certain synthetic cannabanoid substances known as 'K-2'" (passed June 8, 2010)
• Ordinance 2010-22 "to amend the Code of Ordinances to create a Searcy Tree Board" (passed August 10, 2010)

Overlapping Ordinances: An Example
While some of these ordinances were necessary, others may not have been. For example, Ordinance 2009-24 established the following new regulations for garage sales in the city limits:

• "Garage sale" defined as "the sale of any personal property, which is conducted on or about the premises of a private residence, by any resident or residents of a neighborhood, one of whom must be the occupant of the residence and which sale is open to the public"
• Maximum of 8 garage sales per person per year
• Maximum of 2 garage sales per person per quarter
• A garage sale may "not exceed a total of three (3) "total days in length which shall be held on any of five (5) days"
• Garage sale merchandise is "limited to used property and not property purchased for resale"
• Signs advertising for the garage sale "must be removed withing four (4) hours after the end of the Garage Sale"
• Use of a public address system is not allowed
• "Goods for sale and items used in conjunction with the Garage Sale must be removed within (24) twenty-four hours of the conclusion of the Garage Sale."
• The ordinance does "not apply to churches, schools or not-for-profit organizations"

However, in June 2009, Section 9 and Section 17 of the Searcy Code of Ordinances were sufficient to achieve compliance with city code in an incident in which Alderman Mary Ann Arnett asked Mayor Belinda LaForce to have garage sale items removed from a yard in River Oaks.

• Alderman Arnett requested help from Mayor LaForce regarding what Alderman Arnett called a "Hispanic Garage Sale"
• Mayor LaForce asked for intervention from Code Enforcement
• Code Enforcement reported on their successful enforcement actions
• Alderman Arnett thanked Mayor LaForce for her help

The new garage sale regulations were added to our Code of Ordinances, which already had Sections 9 and 17 restricting us from using our homes as retail outlets and displaying goods for sale in our yards for extended amounts of time. Furthermore, the existing code specifies penalties in Section 1 for any violations.

Outdated Ordinances
More troublesome are other sections of the Code of Ordinances that are no longer enforced or that may be unequally enforced throughout the city. Some examples include:

• Sec. 14 - Requires us to place our garbage in metal cans with handles no larger than 20 gallons no earlier than "6:00 p.m. on the day prior to scheduled collection" and, if not followed, specifies fines ranging from $15 to $100 that are simply added to your water bill
• Sec. 24-1 - Seems to be outlawing a significant portion of the vending that occurs at events like Get Down Downtown:

"It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to park or place any vehicle, trailer, conveyance or other object upon the streets, alleys and other public ways of the City within a radius of three (3) blocks from the courthouse square, for the purpose of offering any produce, goods or other merchandise for sale."

Our Aldermen Should Review the Impact of All Ordinances
Since huge numbers of Searcy residents would be fined for violating Section 14 and since nearly all the Get Down Downtown vendors would be fined based on Section 24, it is likely they should be removed from the Code of Ordinances or modified to make more sense.

As we vote for our aldermen for 2011-2012, we should research whether the candidates will revise outdated portions of the city ordinances, will refrain from stacking new ordinances on old ones causing over-regulation, and will lighten the regulatory burdens on individuals and businesses. We need better ordinances, not necessarily more of them.