A sign along Arkansas 300 in the rural northwest corner of Pulaski County between the Perry County border and Lake Maumelle showcases the Italian flag -- vertical stripes of green, then white, then red -- and a movement, reading "It will take 'The Village' to make Little Italy a Township."

It'll actually take 200 petition signatures from registered voters in the area, resolutions from two nearby towns in Perry County that are within 5 miles of Little Italy and approval from the county judge in Pulaski County to form the 7-square-mile town of about 400 people.

Little Italy, a community settled 99 years ago by Italian immigrants, would then become Arkansas' 501st municipality, the state's first since Bella Vista incorporated in 2006 and the first new municipality in Pulaski County since Maumelle incorporated in 1985.

A petition drive for incorporation has gathered 97 signatures since May 5. And the town councils of Fourche and Bigelow have given their OK for the incorporation.

Chris Dorer, 32, and Kristy Eanes, 43, who are leading the petition drive, have set a March 1 goal for getting the rest of the signatures, which must come from people who live in the area proposed for incorporation. Dorer said he looked at county clerk voter registration records and identified about 300 eligible voters in the area.

Dorer, a lifelong resident of the Little Italy area, and Eanes held a town hall meeting July 18 that Arkansas Municipal League Director Don Zimmerman attended to explain to community members the pros and cons of incorporating and what is involved in forming a municipal government.

"They were very divided, some very for it, some very against it," Zimmerman said, noting that he recalled two residents opposed to incorporation.

One man said he did not want the Wye Mountain area within the proposed municipal boundary to become part of Little Italy, Zimmerman said.

Another said the community would have a lot to lose in terms of services the county offered already but would no longer offer if the community incorporated, Zimmerman said.

Dorer and Eanes said the feedback they've received in the community has been positive and that many people are undecided about forming a town government. No organized opposition to incorporation has emerged.

Incorporation is a large undertaking, Zimmerman said. The advantages, he said, are greater local control and receiving tax revenue turnback funds from the state. The drawbacks are loss of road maintenance and police protection, unless the community creates its own police force or contracts with an outside agency to provide that protection.

The community would not lose fire protection because it is already served by a volunteer fire department.

Incorporation proponents say they aren't put off by the drawbacks or the amount of work anticipated to run a town, noting the need to protect the community from the approaching growth of west Little Rock.

"I want my daughter and her children to continue to enjoy this environment," said Dorer. "It's worth it to me."

Dorer and Eanes, a fourth-generation Little Italy native who now lives in Little Rock, identified the three biggest reasons for incorporating: Preserving the area's heritage, improving services, and encouraging small-business and recreation activities.

Most of the proposed municipal area is within the Lake Maumelle Watershed, but Eanes and Dorer said recent zoning regulations in the watershed passed by the county were not a motivating factor for incorporation. Dorer and Eanes were both members of the Lake Maumelle Watershed Task Force, which reviewed the zoning code through the lens of protecting water quality and property rights.

Eanes said they are not attorneys and could not comment on whether a town would be able to avoid county watershed regulations that put some restriction on private land use.

Municipal League chief legal counsel Mark Hayes said he believed a town could be exempt from county zoning.

Dorer, who published a narrative history of the Little Italy community in 2002, said his interest in incorporating the area goes back further than do watershed protection efforts.

As he sat Tuesday night in St. Francis of Assisi Church on top of Wye Mountain, where signs warn motorists to drive only 10 mph on the winding roads that are flanked by thick stands of tall trees, Dorer said he feels a great disconnect between the community he's lived in his whole life and the rest of Pulaski County. If he didn't work as a teacher in the Little Rock School District, he said, he would send his daughter to East End schools in Perry County.

Residents of the Little Italy community would have more of a voice in a town where the mayor and five council members would be neighbors, he said. Right now, the community is represented by one justice of the peace who also represents most of western Pulaski County.

"It would be a real advantage to people to have their own local government," Eanes said.

Dorer said a municipal government could make it easier to provide better road plowing after snowstorms, a coordinated disaster response system and protected bike lanes where Arkansas 300 also serves as the Arkansas River Trail.

He also sees incorporation as an opportunity to put Little Italy on the map as a destination with a history. He said he's tried before to get grant funds for a museum but was turned down because the community isn't a town.

Incorporation proponents anticipate a budget similar to Bigelow, a Perry County town of 315.

A proposed business plan for an incorporated Little Italy includes income estimates of county tax collection, county road tax collection and state municipal aid of $36,642.85. After expenditures for utilities, repairs, labor, supplies and insurance, the end-of-year balance would be $14,742.85, if town personnel were volunteers and not paid employees.

Dorer and Eanes said contracting with a police department for coverage if the town did not provide its own could be cheap as well, noting that Fourche and Bigelow pay nothing for contracting with the Perry County sheriff's office for protection.

Part of Little Italy is in Perry County, but Dorer and Eanes have not included that area in their incorporation proposal because state law prohibits making simultaneous efforts to incorporate the same community in more than one county, they said.

Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines said he's not concerned about the prospect of Little Italy leaving the county's unincorporated area and noted that the community has every right to seek incorporation.

"It all boils down to the watershed ordinance," he said. "Roads are good, bridges are good. We respond to emergencies.

"They're going to find they're not going to have the resources, quite frankly, but that's their choice."

Zimmerman said he gets calls "every now and then" from people interested in incorporating their communities, but many realize that when they need 200 signatures from registered voters their communities are too small.

Since 2000, only a few have successfully incorporated. They are Magnet Cove in Hot Spring County, Midway in Baxter County, Bella Vista in Benton County and Clarkedale in Crittenden County. Magnet Cove incorporated in 2000 but voted to suspend incorporation in 2006.

A town of 400 residents would be the 310th-largest municipality in Arkansas, based on 2010 U.S. Census data.

Zimmerman cautioned that attempting to form a town with such a low population density -- about 60 people per square mile -- will be difficult.

Road maintenance and other infrastructure costs in a 7-square-mile area will be high, he said, and a low-density area doesn't have the tax base to pay for them.

"Financially, they're going to have a hard time in that large of an area," he said.

Metro on 08/08/2014