The Pine Bluff City Council on Tuesday voted 5-3, with the mayor weighing in with a vote, to restore the city’s code enforcement functions to police department supervision.
The measure was the result of a compromise in which the animal control department will remain an independent city department, the mayor said.
The council also heard first readings of a resolution to pass a 5/8-cent sales tax proposed by the Go Forward Pine Bluff Task Force, and a resolution to hold a special election for Pine Bluff residents to vote on the tax. The proposed tax drew both support and criticism from citizens during public comment.
The council also passed a resolution to address concerns by some council members that the council may not have enough input over how the tax money is spent should the tax pass.
Roughly two months after it voted 7-1 in favor of an ordinance to detach the city’s code enforcement officers from police department oversight, the council voted 4-3 with no discussion to repeal that ordinance. With Alderman Lloyd Holcomb Jr. absent, Mayor Shirley Washington cast a vote in favor of the repeal, joining Aldermen Bill Brumett, Win Trafford, Donald Hatchett and Glen Brown, Jr. Those voting against were Aldermen Steven Mays, Thelma Walker and Bruce Lockett.
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The council agreed to table a separate ordinance that would have repealed its December vote that removed animal control from the police department and made it its own department.
The two departments were moved to police department control toward the beginning of former Mayor Debe Hollingsworth’s tenure. Hollingsworth argued having police accompany code enforcement and animal control officers resulted in more enforcement and greater safety for the officers. Led by former Alderman George Stepps, who left office at the end of 2016, the council voted this past Dec. 19 to restore the previous arrangement. Stepps and others argued that police officers could be better utilized on patrol.
Three new aldermen joined the council in January, each replacing members who voted to detach the divisions. Two of the new aldermen, Trafford and Hatchett, voted to repeal the council’s December vote. Alderman Glenn Brown Jr., who had voted in December to detach code enforcement, voted Tuesday to repeal the ordinance.
Hollingsworth issued a veto after the council’s December vote, but it came too late to take effect, City Attorney Althea Hadden-Scott said in a written opinion at the time.
Washington said after the meeting that over several weeks of phone conversations with various council members, a compromise emerged to restore code enforcement, known as the Quality of Life Division, to the police department and keep animal control separate.
The council voted in favor of a resolution by Lockett, who was one of a couple of council members to register concern about how tax dollars would be distributed if the tax proposed by Go Forward Pine Bluff is passed.
The tax is projected to draw $32.5 million over seven years, after which it would expire. The council is scheduled to take a vote on the tax resolutions at its March 20 meeting.
Under the plan proposed by the Go Forward Pine Bluff Task Force, a Go Forward Pine Bluff 501(c)(3) not-for-profit company would implement the goals outlined by the task force. A board of directors for the non-profit would be appointed, and it would hire experts to carry out the plan’s objectives. The non-profit would request funds for specific projects from the city, which could approve or deny the request.
However, the City Council would have no influence over the appointment of the Go Forward Pine Bluff non-profit board members, who have the hiring and firing power. That lack of influence created a sticking point when the tax was first presented to the council less than two weeks ago.
Lockett’s resolution directs that any final plan submitted by Go Forward Pine Bluff “is inclusive in scope and does not supplant the elected authority of the Mayor or the City Council of Pine Bluff in whole or in part.” It also compels the mayor to request written reports from each city department about how the Go Forward Pine Bluff plan would affect implementation of that department’s current or future projects. Finally it directs the mayor and city council to hold at least three community meetings to gather input on the plan and the proposed tax increase.
A resolution to allocate money for a lawsuit by the city against the county to remove responsibility for any property taxes on Harbor Oaks golf course was pulled from the agenda after the county agreed not to seek the taxes. The issue dates back to property taxes assessed on the property in the late 1990s. The city argued, successfully, that a 2001 court decision exempted the property from taxation.
The resolution would have allocated $45,974.51 to file the lawsuit.
“That’s $45,000 a year,” city finance director Steve Miller said. “That’s an annual victory.”