BENTONVILLE — County Judge Dave Bisbee said Monday that he was reasonably pleased with the progress the county government had made in 2009, although he recognized that many challenges remain ahead in the second half of his term.
"I'm satisfied where we are in the county, in relation to time," Bisbee said. "There's still lots of things I want to do, but I think we had a very good first year -- probably better than I expected, to be honest."
Over the past year, Bisbee's administration has had to face several major issues, beginning with an unusually harsh ice storm in January that required a monthlong cleanup effort; ongoing fallout over Bisbee's decision to cancel an emergency notification system for which his predecessor, County Judge Gary Black, had contracted; and a quixotic effort to shuffle the location of several county offices, including the Health Department, Road Department and Juvenile Detention Center.
Most of the issues are now approaching fruition. The Federal Emergency Management Agency ultimately approved reimbursement for most of the county's cleanup expenses, although the county is still embroiled in a lawsuit with at least one contractor involved in the cleanup. County administrators are now collecting multiple bids for an emergency notification system that Bisbee said he expects to have up and running by February. And the Quorum Court recently approved a 15-year lease on space in the Center for Nonprofits, securing a new location for the Health Department, the first step in relocating other county offices.
Bisbee, who said he plans to officially announce his re-election campaign in a few weeks, said that two of his top priorities for 2010 are improving road conditions and addressing animal control issues throughout the county.
"We've got some gravel roads that have just got to be rebuilt," Bisbee said. "They're dirt trails, and they've got to be raised up."
Bisbee said that it was his intent to bolster the structure of deteriorating gravel roads, so that those roads will then be ready for asphalt in the future. Bisbee said that much of this effort would be concentrated on the east and west ends of the county, outside the central metropolitan area.
Justice of the Peace Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, said he hoped that road development would be joined with an effort to reopen several bridges throughout the rural portions of Benton County.
"I've been pushing hard to have them reopened," Douglas said. "It doesn't do any good to have a road if you can't cross the creek when you get to it."
Bisbee said that animal control has become an increasingly urgent problem, and he hoped to address it in 2010, but was unsure he could garner support from the Quorum Court.
"Animal control is still a huge problem," Bisbee said. "But it's on a back burner, and it may stay on a back burner forever, I don't know. That's just such a difficult problem, and everybody's got such a passionate opinion about it."
According to the County Comptroller's office, the Benton County Sheriff's Office has spent $62,780 on animal control between January and October 2009.