FORT SMITH — Sebastian County Quorum Court members rejected a plan to put more money into a proposed aquatics center that would have restored some features removed from the design because of cost.
The Quorum Court voted 8-5 Tuesday night against the ordinance that would have added $820,000 to the $8 million project, raising Sebastian County’s share to $4.82 million.
The rest of the project cost is being funded by Fort Smith from a portion of a reallocated 1 percent sales tax city voters approved last year.
Voting against the ordinance were Johnny Hobbs, Phil Hicks, Shawn Looper, Tony Crockett, John Spradlin, Rhonda Royal, Linda Murry and Bob Schwartz. Voting in favor were Don Carter, Danny Aldridge, Ray Stewart, Jim Medley and Dickie Robertson.
“How can they do this to these kids?” a tearful Michele Walker said after the vote. “I just don’t get it.”
Walker, an English teacher at Fort Smith’s Ramsey Junior High School, attended Tuesday’s meeting along with some of her students who had pleaded with officials to restore some of the features in original drawings of the center, such as a diving pool and a longer lazy river.
“I’m disappointed,” ninth-grader Shelby Barton said. “I felt they voted yes on what we wanted then they threw our dreams away.”
Walker and the students had complained that the redesign of the center to save money removed features teens wanted and geared the facility more toward younger children.
While rejecting additional money for the project, the Quorum Court passed the second reading of a separate ordinance to appropriate the county’s half of the construction cost of the proposed $8 million center.
Quorum Court members passed the first reading of that ordinance in January by the same 7-6 vote as Tuesday. It will take a successful third reading before the ordinance goes into effect.
The successive readings were required because the ordinance did not receive the nine votes in favor the ordinance would require to pass in one reading.
County Judge David Hudson proposed in a Feb. 13 joint city-county meeting that was attended by about 100 residents to add more county money to the project to restore features the residents said they wanted.
Because of cost increases between the time the first preliminary plans were drawn up in 2009 and the present, the $7.4 million project cost grew to $9.2 million. Officials took out the diving pool and shortened the lazy river, among other things, to keep the cost at $8 million.
After residents balked at the changes, saying officials deceived them and were giving them an inferior product, the officials, led by Hudson, proposed a way to restore them.
The ordinance presented to Quorum Court members Tuesday to pay for the restored features proposed adding $420,000 more from the county’s sales-tax-fueled capital account and dedicate another $400,000 that was anticipated to be raised by the tax in the first half of next year.
City and county officials also agreed to do some of the work on the project themselves to save another approximately $1 million, such as building the parking lot and making the water and sewer connections using county and city resources.
But Quorum Court members, many of whom said they didn’t think the county could afford the project in the first place, fretted over whether the additional infusion of money would be enough to meet the cost of building the aquatics center.
Hobbs said the cost of the project changed from 2009 to the present and it could change again before the project is put out for bids.
Spradlin expressed doubt that Fort Smith would ultimately pay for its share of the project’s additional cost, leaving the county to pay for all the added features.
In the Feb. 13 meeting, Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack said the city was limited to contributing $4 million to the project because that was the amount city voters approved in last year’s election. Once the center was finished and the city had spent the $4 million, Fort Smith could contribute more money from other sources, such as city parks, to expand the center later.
If the ordinance adding the $820,000 to the project had passed, Hudson had proposed that Quorum Court members amend the agreement between the city and county to include a promise by Fort Smith to pay back the county for half of the $820,000 in added aquatics-center construction money.
That would be accomplished by having Fort Smith pay all the operating losses of the center until it had paid $410,000. After that, the county and city would split the operating losses as originally set down in the agreement.
According to information generated in a feasibility study in January 2010, operating losses in the first years of the aquatics center were estimated to be about $100,000.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/21/2013