EUREKA SPRINGS — A Carroll County Circuit Court judge shouldn’t have dismissed a lawsuit over the installation of 86 parking meters in Eureka Springs, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Circuit Judge Kent Crow dismissed the lawsuit Feb. 12 because he found the case “to be without merit.”
But the Supreme Court ruled that Crow had basically turned a routine hearing into a summary-judgment proceeding without notifying the lawyers beforehand. The defendants - the mayor, city clerk and four aldermen - had not filed a motion asking for the case to be dismissed or an answer to an amendedcomplaint.
The five plaintiffs argued that Crow’s decision resulted in an “ambush” and “improper dismissal of their entire case,” according to the ruling written by Justice Elana Cunningham Wills.
Given proper notice, the plaintiffs “might have been able to submit additional evidence that indicated that there remained a genuine issue of material fact,” Wills wrote.
The Supreme Court reversed and remanded Crow’s ruling.
Tim Parker, a Eureka Springs lawyer who filed the lawsuit and appeal, said the decision was a good thing, but the Supreme Court didn’t rule on the merits of the case.
“It’s nice procedural victory, but we’re basically back to where we should have been before he dismissed it,” Parker said.
The issue could be moot after the Nov. 2 election. The question of whether to prohibit “coin-operated parking meters” in the Eureka Springs Historic District will be on the ballot.
The 2-square-mile historic district follows the town’s borders as they had been in 1970.
“If the thing passes Tuesday, we’ve got a monkey off our backs, so to speak,” said Parker. “If the citizens vote to get rid of the parking meters in the Eureka Springs Historic District, there probably will not be a need for the court to take a lot of action in this lawsuit.If the voters do not vote to remove the parking meters, then we’re basically back to square one.”
If the majority of voters say no to the ban, Parker said he’ll continue to argue the case on two points - that the city’s Historic District Commission should have voted on the meters before the City Council, and that the city had put the parking meters on county property, in violation of Arkansas Code Annotated 14-57-501.
But first, Parker said, he’ll probably ask Crow to recuse himself from the case.
Crow was on vacation Thursday and unavailable for comment.
Mayor Dani Joy, one of the defendants in the case, said the ballot question, asworded, would ban pay stations in the historic district because they are also “coinoperated parking meters.” She said the ballot question may ban meters and pay stations in private lots as well.
Parker disagreed, saying a vote for the ballot initiative would do away with parking meters but allow pay stations, which would result in the city bringing in about the same amount of money from parking that it does now.
“That does not ban pay stations,” Parker said of the ballot question. “It bans coin-operated parking meters. It’s worded that way.They’re feeding that line to the people to try to get them not to vote for this thing. ... A pay station covers the whole parking lot. That is a scare tactic.”
Joy said the county agreed to let the city put parking meters in the lot by the courthouse. The lot has had parking meters of some type since the 1960s, she said.
“We’re still waiting to see what happens,” Joy said, referring to the election.
If the city is forced to remove the meters and loses that revenue, police and fire services may have to be cut, she said. The estimated annual revenue is $180,000.
Eureka Springs bought and installed 86 parking meters in July 2009, more than doubling the number of meters in the city. That was done after the city’s electronic pay stations had started to malfunction.
Parker filed suit on Nov. 12, 2009, requesting that a city ordinance authorizing the meters be declared invalid.
The suit asked for the issue to go before voters and for the Historic District Commission to consider the issue of meters.
The suit pitted local preservationists against the city’s elected officials.
Preservationists say the meters don’t fit the ambiance of the 19th-century resort town.
Joy and the City Council considered the meter purchase an administrative issue, so it didn’t go before residents for a vote.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/29/2010