In LR schools’ millage vote, early sites at 5

Election panel adds 2 urged by tax foe, 2 by district chief

There will be five earlyvoting locations for the Little Rock School District’s May 9 special election on a proposal to extend the levy of 12.4 debt- service mills as a way to raise money for school construction and updates.

The Pulaski County Election Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved four early- voting locations — two that came at the request of the No Taxation Without Representation campaign against the tax extension and two more at the request of Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore.

The four new locations will be in addition to the main early- voting site — the Pulaski County Regional Building, 501 W. Markham St., in downtown Little Rock.

Early voting for the special election begins at all sites on May 2. For the four locations added Tuesday, the hours for voting will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through May 5.

The four newly added sites are:

Sue Cowan Williams Library, 1800 S. Chester St., near Dunbar Middle School.

Southwest Community Center, 6401 Baseline Road.

Second Presbyterian Church’s Youth Center, 600 Pleasant Valley Drive.

West Central Community Center ( formerly the Rosedale Optimist Club), 4521 John Barrow Road.

Early voting at the Regional Building will be 8. a.m. to 5 p.m. May 2-5 and May 8.

Poore encouraged the commission to approve the additional sites, as did Neil Sealy, who is a leader in the campaign against the school district’s proposal for extending the tax.

“I do think it makes sense for our community,” Poore said. “We will have three

strong polling spots along the interstate corridor in the central part of the city. We also have a spot on Interstate 30, off of Baseline, and the spot in the northwest. That all makes sense to me.” Sealy concurred. “This is a good plan,” he said. “It does provide access to early voting in all sectors of our city and district.”

As a result of the Election Commission’s votes Tuesday, a fourth version of the Notice of Election for the special election will be published.

The first notice back in January was for a special election to be held March 14. The School District withdrew its request for that election date. Another notice was prepared for the May 9 special election. It included the Regional Building and the Sidney S. McMath Library, 2100 John Barrow Road, which was then omitted in a subsequent Notice of Election distributed April 10.

That omission led to questions and accusations of voter suppression in an area of the city that has a high percentage of black residents. The campaign against the tax extension last week asked the Pulaski County Election Commission to reinstate the McMath location but was told that the library space was no longer available.

The commission gave the campaign members until noon Monday to propose suitable alternative sites for early voting. That effort produced the West Central Community Center and Williams Library sites.

Before the Election Commission’s meeting Tuesday, Poore asked for additional sites elsewhere in the city — resulting in the selection of the Southwest Community Center

and Second Presbyterian Church’s Youth Center.

Poore explained to the commission that he initially asked for early voting sites in the four corners of the Little Rock district but then decided it was “safest” to stick with what people are used to in school elections, which was having just the one early- voting site at the Pulaski County Regional Building.

“I am absolutely for extending voting opportunities for the public,” Poore said and cited his record as superintendent in the Bentonville School District from 2011 to 2016, where the numbers of earlyvoting locations increased in school- related elections.

“I believe in giving access, but I think it is important that we go back to the initial concept of ‘ Hey, let’s make sure that throughout the city folks can get to the polls and cast their votes in an important election,’” he said.

“I appreciate the efforts of really both parties that have come forward with trying to make improvements to the process for the early- voting spots,” Poore added.

The Little Rock district is seeking a 14- year extension of the 12.4 debt- service mills as a way to finance a bond issue of $ 202,645,000, the money from which will be used to pay off existing bond debt and finance $ 160 million in new debt.

District leaders have said the new money will be used for the construction of a new southwest Little Rock high school to serve the current McClellan and J. A. Fair high school attendance zones, a new classroom building on the existing McClellan High campus for possible use as a middle school or kindergarten-through- eighth- grade school, and updates to most other schools in the district.

Extending the 12.4 mills

from 2033 — when the mills are now due to expire — to 2047 would not increase the amount of school taxes that are paid annually but would result in paying those taxes for more years.

The 12.4 mills generate more than $ 40 million a year, not all of which is required for debt payments. The surplus — the money not used for debt and which is currently about $ 26 million a year — is used to help meet the district’s day- today operating costs.

The election on the tax extension comes at a time when the district is in its third year of operating under state control without an elected school board and when it will be closing three schools in 2017- 18 and re- purposing a fourth school as a way to cut expenses by $ 3.5 million. The school closures are part of $ 11 million in budget cuts planned for the coming year and what will be a total of $ 41 million in cuts over four years beginning with the 201415 school year, Poore has said.

The No Taxation Without Representation and Save Our Schools community organizations are working against the tax extension, arguing in part that the district has no locally elected school board to hold accountable for spending the debt service money in the way that it has been described.

The Little Rock branch of the NAACP is hosting a panel presentation on the millage extension from 5: 30 p. m. to 7: 30 p. m. Thursday at the Willie Hinton Resource Center Auditorium, 3805 W. 12 St.

The presenters are former Little Rock School District Superintendent Morris Holmes, Pulaski County Justice of the Peace Donna Massey, former Little Rock School Board member Jim Ross, and Leroy Brownlee, who is a former chairman of the Arkansas Board of Parole.