Carr planning to move, leave Quorum Court

Bentonville board will have two openings in first quarter

BENTONVILLE — There will be a second opening on the Benton County Quorum Court in the first quarter of this year because Justice of the Peace Adriane Carr is moving to Kansas. Carr represents District 12, which includes parts of Siloam Springs, Gentry and some of western Benton County. Carr, a Republican, has lived in Northwest Arkansas for 20 years. Her husband, Patrick, took a job with the McPherson Police Department. He started work Dec. 31, she said. Carr said she will continue to serve on the court until she moves. She didn’t have an exact date, but said it would be in the first quarter of the year. “It was unexpected,” Carr said of the move. “We love Siloam, and we love this community. I love being a JP, and I love my work with the county.” Carr won a second term on the court in November when she defeated Libertarian Jacob Faught. She secured 79 percent of the vote. Carr is a member of the Quorum Court’s Public Safety, Transportation and Personnel committees. New committee assignments will be handed out Thursday. New justices of the peace include Debra Hobbs in District 3, Carrie Perrien Smith in District 5 and Dustin Todd in District 11. The three Republicans all won election in November. Fifteen Republicans make up the Quorum Court.

said Scott Bennett, director of the Arkansas Department of Transportation. “Once this is all completed you’ll have a really good connection for north-south traffic on the east side of the region that should take about 6,000 or 8,000 vehicles a day off Highway 71B and Interstate 49. This will be good for mobility, good for safety and good for economic development,” Bennett said. The section opened Friday goes four miles from Highway 264 to the intersection of South First Street and Pleasant Grove Road. It features a 70-foot-high, 700-foot-long bridge in the Cross Hollows area. Crews are putting finishing touches on the project at the intersection with Pleasant Grove Road. The project cost about $15 million and took three years to do. The work was done by Crossland Heavy Construction A traffic corridor on the east side to ease congestion on U.S. 71B and provide another north-south route east of the metropolitan area has been on wish lists since at least 1973. “The first Highway 265 corridor project was actually let to contract in 1978, so this has been a long, long time coming. At the end, we will have spent just over $105 million making this corridor what it is today, from Highway 16 in Fayetteville up to Pleasant Grove Road in Rogers,” Bennett said. “We’ve worked closely with all the cities involved. It does go through several cities and, in particular, I want to mention that Fayetteville and Springdale, combined, have contributed about $15 million in partnering for this corridor. We’re appreciative of the strong partnership that we have with the local governments in Northwest Arkansas,” Bennett said. The projects are tying into an existing three-lane South First Street in Rogers. First Street is going to become Arkansas 265 up to its junction with Arkansas 94 upon completion. The distance from Arkansas 16 in Fayetteville to Arkansas 94 in Rogers is 18.24 miles. Dick Trammel, who is wrapping up his 10-year term on the state Highway Commission, recalled looking at maps at the Rogers Chamber of Commerce years before he was appointed to the commission and charting a route for extending Arkansas 265. “We looked at this and said wouldn’t it be nice if you could drive three to five lanes from downtown Rogers to Highway 16 in Fayetteville,” Trammel said. “Well, that’s happening thanks to you and I just want you to know we appreciate the taxpayers who voted for the half-cent sales tax to make projects we’ve seen happen in the last couple of years possible,” he said. Friday’s ribbon cutting was moved indoors, to the Jones Center for Children and Families, because of wet ground after overnight rainfall. Ron Wood can be reached by email at rwood@nwadg.com or on Twitter @NWARDW.

Carr