Maumelle voters will decide in the general election whether to keep a two-term incumbent as their mayor or promote an alderman with two years of City Council experience to the position.
Mayor Mike Watson, 57, said in a recent interview that he is using his campaign to highlight the city's accomplishments during his eight years as mayor.
Alderman Preston Lewis, 33, midway through his first four-year term as a Ward 3 representative on the City Council, contends that the city's progress needs new momentum.
Early voting starts Oct. 20 for the Nov. 4 general election.
Among a list of accomplishments cited by Watson are new headquarters for the city's police and fire departments; beginning single-stream recycling at no extra cost to residents; park improvements at the city's Lake Willastein and Lake Valencia; a bicycle/pedestrian pathway beside Maumelle Boulevard; and the opening of a Dillard's distribution center in Maumelle's Industrial Park in 2012, replacing a Target distribution center that shut down in early 2009.
Watson was also involved in site selection for the 1,500-student Maumelle High School, which opened in August 2011 as the first new high school in any of Pulaski County's three school districts in 30 years.
"Let's continue this progress we've seen in the last 71/2 years," Watson said he asks of voters.
Lewis, a contract speech therapist, countered in a recent interview that the city hasn't progressed fast enough in the past two years, failing to begin construction on an extension of Counts Massie Road to connect to a proposed interchange at Interstate 40. City voters approved a bond issue two years ago that included $9.8 million for that project, intended to help alleviate traffic congestion on Maumelle Boulevard (Arkansas 100).
"I feel like the people in this community have not been galvanized in the effort to get this project done," Lewis said. "We have not been focused on the one thing, I think, that is most important to our community."
Watson has said the city's progress is a matter of "to do it real fast or to do it right," and design on the new road is "95 percent complete." Delays have included, Watson said, having to redesign a 400-foot bridge over White Oak Bayou and needing to have 1,300 feet of the new road go through neighboring North Little Rock. In August, the North Little Rock City Council approved including that section in an improvement district to move along property development.
"It's not as far along as I'd like it to be," Watson said of the road project. "We're working to acquire right of way. Like any project, you run into unexpected delays.
"There's no way of knowing when it will be done," Watson said of a timetable for the road's completion. "We want to break ground next year, once the weather allows it. That would be springtime or early summer."
Lewis considers the lack of construction to be a "missed opportunity" to have the new interchange built in conjunction with the widening of I-40 to Conway.
"I never thought there was a legitimate reason to delay," Lewis said. "It was always just, well, we're waiting on the design."
Watson didn't have an opponent in the 2010 election. Lewis won a vacant alderman's position in 2012 by 161 votes and has two years remaining on the City Council if he loses the mayor's race.
During a recent candidates forum where Lewis was on the offensive much of the time, Watson referred to Lewis' decision to challenge him as "climbing the ladder" politically to higher positions.
"This is the job I want," Watson said about being mayor.
Lewis said in an interview that this race isn't a political stepping stone.
"For me, the timing is not about any personal ambition," Lewis said. "It's about the community and where we need to be in this modern era. If this was about political level jumping, I think I would have picked a race where I wasn't running against an incumbent of eight years."
The Maumelle mayor's job pays $78,500 annually, but an ordinance before the City Council would increase that amount to $81,600 based on a recommendation from a task force that studied the pay of all elected city officials. The new salary, if approved, would begin Jan. 1 with the elected mayor's term.
The City Council is on schedule to vote on the compensation change at its next meeting Oct. 20. As mayor, Watson doesn't have a vote. Lewis has abstained from its discussion.
Metro on 10/12/2014