Town wants say in bid to invalidate liquor vote

Barling’s attorney said Wednesday he plans to file a motion by the end of the week to intervene in a lawsuit filed in Sebastian County Circuit Court by county residents to invalidate the city’s November liquor-sales vote.

Matthew Ketcham said since Barling residents voted2-1 to approve liquor sales in their town, the city should have a say in the lawsuit to set aside the election.

“I hope Barling has the opportunity to have its voice heard,” he said.

Ketcham wrote a letter to Circuit Judge Stephen Tabor last week asking him to delay making a decision in the lawsuit until he has a chance to argue on Barling voters’behalf.

The Barling Board of Directors voted unanimously Tuesday night to authorize Ketcham to intervene in the lawsuit, interim city administrator Mike Tanner said Wednesday.

In response to Ketcham’s letter, Booneville attorney Erik Danielson wrote Tabor objecting to Barling’s intervention and asked Taborto reject the request as untimely. He asked that Tabor rule on the lawsuit without Barling’s intervention.

Tabor did not rule on the lawsuit as of Wednesday.

Danielson is representing 21 county residents who filed suit against Sebastian County election commissioners to void the election in which Barling residents voted 1,082 to 544 to allowliquor sales in their city.

Sebastian County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue, who is representing the commissioners, would not comment Wednesday on Ketcham’s request to intervene, saying he could not comment on pending litigation.

In the lawsuit, the county residents argued thatthe election should be invalidated because the entire southern district of Sebastian County, that part of the county outside Fort Smith, voted in 1944 to outlaw liquor sales. State law and court precedent provide that only the entire district can vote to allow liquor sales.

In a brief Danielson filed in the case Friday, he argued that placing the liquor question only on Barling ballots disenfranchised the other voters in the district who did not have the opportunity to vote on it.

He referred to the Arkansas Supreme Court case Denniston v. Riddle, 210 Ark. 1039, 1042, 199 S.W.2d, 308, 310 (1947) that stated, in part, “a city or town therein cannot hold a separate election to repeal the law as to itself,that is, the election to repeal the law cannot be called for a territory forming only a part of that for which the first election was held.”

Also, the brief stated that Sebastian County Clerk Sharon Brooks certifying petitions signed by 38 percent of Barling voters as “38 percent of qualified and registered electors of Sebastian County” constituted a fraud on voters.

The brief reminded Tabor that 14 southern district voters who did not live in Barling and who voted on Nov. 6 testified in a Dec. 31 hearing before Tabor that the liquor question was not on their ballots and that, if it was, they would have voted against the question.

One of the 14, Kenny Bailey of Lavaca, actually testified during the hearing. The names of the other 13 were entered in the hearing record that they would havetestified as Bailey had opposing the issue.

Shue, in his brief for the election commissioners, said the commissioners did nothing wrong in holding the election. Once Brooks certified the petitions as sufficient, he wrote, the law gave them no discretion in the matter but to hold the election.

And the wrongs of which Danielson accused the commissioners, holding the election and failing to certify the results within three days, were not serious enough reasons to invalidate the election, Shue argued.

“Clearly, defendants miss the point,” Danielson concluded. “They could have had the fairest election ever held in Barling and it would still be void and illegal for the simple reason that all of the people that were supposed to vote in this election were not allowed to vote.”