CONWAY -- The Christmas tree that "was a lemon from the start" is back in Conway, but no one is celebrating its return.
The Northwest Arkansas company that sold the city the 54-foot-tall, $130,000 cone-shaped tree quietly went out of business and never repaired the tree that malfunctioned throughout last year's holidays.
After what Mayor Tab Townsell called "some almost cryptic communications" with the business owners, city representatives finally found the damaged tree tossed inside an unlocked trailer.
When city employees loaded the tree for its return for repairs at Get Lit LLC in Springdale in January, Townsell recalled in an interview Thursday, "It was loaded with more tender loving care. ... It was not unloaded with tender loving care there."
Rather, branches were piled on top of each other in the trailer.
The tree is "more bedraggled looking for sure," he said.
Many of the tree's small ornaments are missing.
"I don't know what happened to them," Townsell said.
Townsell broke the news to aldermen and others in an email earlier this week.
"I wish I had better news," he wrote. "It seems we can't find a break with this tree. It was a lemon from the start."
Problems with the tree, which had been billed as the tallest artificial one in Arkansas, began during the mid-November lighting ceremony. A circuit broke, and a 3-foot ring of lights went out near the top. More electrical problems followed, causing other rings of lights to go out at various times.
In January, Get Lit agreed to examine and repair the tree at its Springdale location.
With fall approaching, Townsell said city officials checked recently for a status update on the repairs. That's when they discovered Get Lit had gone out of business.
"Their phone was disconnected. Their office [was] locked. And we didn't have our tree," he said in the letter.
City officials and other residents joined in pursuit of the missing tree and the mysterious trailer that Get Lit proprietors mentioned in texts but didn't say where it was.
Finally, mayoral aide Jack Bell and Steve Ibbotson, director of the Conway Parks and Recreation Department, drove to Springdale "on a hope and a prayer," Townsell said. They spotted the trailer parked on a vacant lot across from what used to be Get Lit.
"No telling how long it had been sitting there," the mayor said.
Now, the mayor's letter said, "The tree is in the city's possession. Its shortcomings, failures, [deficiencies], and problems were apparently left completely unaddressed by Get Lit. It is seemingly even a little worse for wear from its pointless sojourn back to northwest Arkansas.
"Contrary to every hope of this business transaction, Get Lit neither delivered a tree that worked as promised or delivered on its promise to fix the tree. I feel this ... failure is a full breach of the promises made in the purchase of the tree and thereafter."
Townsell has asked the city attorney's office to look into any potential legal remedies. But he said, "The chances of us getting a monetary reimbursement are slim" because the company went out of business.
A number given online for Get Lit in Springdale is no longer in service, a phone company recording confirmed Thursday. Directory assistance said it has no phone number for the company.
Many residents complained last year that the city bought the tree without taking bids.
"It could be said this could have been avoided by bidding the tree," he wrote. "No, a lower price might have resulted. However, it would not have guaranteed performance. Construction lawsuits wouldn't exist if bidding guaranteed performance."
Even so, Townsell said Thursday that he now wishes "we would have gone out to bid. ... We could have probably found a better price."
"You can be perfect looking back," he said. "You can't be perfect looking forward."
Townsell hopes the tree can be repaired and on display in downtown Conway in time for the holidays.
Any decisions on spending money to repair the tree will go to the City Council, he said.
One critic of the no-bid purchase was Janet Crow, co-founder of the Faulkner County Tea Party. She wore a headband decorated with a small Christmas tree during a Tea Party lunch Thursday.
Any company can go out of business, she said, and bidding may not have solved the problem.
"But the bottom line is they should have bid it" out, she said.
Townsell acknowledged that the tree "had its detractors." But it also had admirers.
"A lot of joy came into people's lives because of that tree. If we can fix its problems, it has a good purpose," he said.
State Desk on 08/22/2014