Benton County Justices of the peace to choose assessor

BENTONVILLE -- Former Benton County assessor Shirley Sandlin was tasked Thursday with using her 20 of years experience in that office to help fill to soon-to-be vacant post,

Sandlin, justice of the peace for District 8, was unanimously chosen by the Quorum Court to head up the process of replacing Glenn "Bear" Chaney, who announced earlier in the day he accepted an appointment from Gov. Asa Hutchinson to serve as director of the state's Assessment Coordination Department.

Pay Raise

Benton County’s justices of the peace on Thursday voted to increase their pay by $25 per meeting. Voting for the increase were Sue Shadlow, Kevin Harrison, Pat Adams, Joel Jones, Shirley Sandlin, Michelle Chiocco, Steve Curry, Tom Leadabrand, Kurt Moore and Brent Meyers. Voting against were Jay Harrison, Tom Allen, Susan Anglin and Barry Moehring. Ron Easley was absent. The Quorum Court members will be paid $125 for each committee meeting they attend, if they are members. Non-members who attend will be paid mileage only. All will be paid $200 for attending meetings of the Committee of the Whole and the full Quorum Court.

Source: Staff Report

Chaney told the justices of the peace he will remain in office until March 10 and offed to work with Sandlin to find someone to serve the remainder of his two-year term in office. Chaney was re-elected in November and his term ends Dec. 31, 2016.

The Quorum Court will declare a vacancy in the office and then appoint someone to serve, according to George Spence, county attorney. Sandlin said she already had three or four likely candidates for the job and would meet with Chaney as soon as possible to discuss those and anyone else interested in the position.

Chaney said the office staff can continue to fulfill their duties for some time, but the public expects and deserves to have someone officially in charge.

"As I've said for a long time, we have excellent employees at the county and in the assessor's office," Chaney said. "Having said that, I would think you would want to appoint someone soon. I think the taxpayers deserve that. A lot of what I do is to talk to taxpayers. They usually want to talk to the person in charge."

Kurt Moore of District 13 said he thinks the process can be similar to appointing someone to serve on the Planning Board or other offices and could be completed within a few weeks. Sandlin and Spence indicated they will try to have a recommendation for the Quorum Court by the March 10 meeting of the Committee of the Whole.

Spence said the only restrictions are none of the sitting justices of the peace, their spouses or close relatives are eligible for the appointment and the person appointed cannot run for the office in the next election.

He said the Quorum Court can ask Sandlin for a recommendation or interview a list of candidates she gathers.

"It's up to the court," he said.

The justices of the peace spent nearly an hour discussing Senate Bill 333, which Spence said could open the county to litigation. Calling it "The Lawyers Full Employment Act," Spence the bill was introduced in the 2013 session of the Legislature and, if approved, might give property owners a cause of action against the county if the Planning Board denied their planned use of a piece of property or some other action of the county in some way "damaged" the value of their property.

Several justices of the peace expressed their frustration with the legislators for not consulting with county and city officials on legislation that may affect them.

"I think this really is aimed at county government and city governments," Tom Allen of District 4 said. "They always want us to come to them. I resent the fact they're trying to talk about this on the floor of the statehouse without talking to us first."

The justices of the peace agreed to have Spence draft a series of questions or talking points they can use to contact area legislators to persuade them to defer action on the bill. Susan Anglin of District 9 said the bill was scheduled to be voted on by the Senate this week, but the inclement weather in Little Rock may have delayed it.

Spence said his suggestion would be that the Legislature consider putting the bill though a more deliberate committee process to allow time for discussion.

NW News on 02/27/2015

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