Installation of a new gym floor and related work at Chester Hynes Community Center here may be finished as early as Monday, Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Department Director Angela Parker said Friday.
Parker said workers were busy at the site on Thursday and Friday, and only “finish-up” chores and ramp details are yet to be done.
Parker said four employees of the Sports Floors Inc. firm of Memphis did not return to Pine Bluff after leaving Aug. 15 following an incident with Pine Bluff police. Officers determined Aug. 14 that the four were illegal aliens. Parker said the quartet’s leader said they would be returning within two weeks, but Sports Floors management, which refused to respond to questioning from The Commercial, instead dispatched another crew here.
According to a report by Deputy Police Chief Danna S. Powell, she was driving on Harding Avenue early Aug. 14 and about to turn onto State Street when a white Dodge pickup truck that was being driving westbound ran a yield sign and almost struck her vehicle, forcing her to come to a complete stop to avoid an accident.
She halted the truck and spoke with the driver, Pedro Salazar Gallegos, 43, who gave her a work order that listed Hynes. Gallegos was given a warning ticket for failure to yield.
Powell said Gallegos admitted to her that he was in the country illegally, as were his co-workers – Salomon Flores-Hernandez, Benjamin Rodriquez-Yanez and Nelson Espinoza.
Local authorities were advised by the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service that if the four had no prior history of criminal activity or prior illegal entry into the U.S., the agency could do nothing.