County judge: Time to reassess after tax defeat

BENTONVILLE — Benton County’s court system will continue to chug along, including the likely addition of another circuit judge, despite voters’ sound rejection of a plan to build a courthouse, County Judge Barry Moehring said Wednesday.

Voters on Tuesday rejected a temporary sales tax proposal to pay for the building. The final but unofficial results were 6,055 votes against (62 percent) to 3,714 votes for (38 percent). Results will be certified March 22.

The county will need to reassess after the setback, Moehring said.

“The morning after, we are not eliminating any options,” Moehring said Wednesday. “We are looking at all options.”

The judge said before the election there was no alternative plan.

The one-eighth percent sales tax increase would have paid for a $30 million courthouse. The tax would have lasted 54 months, Moehring said. The courthouse was planned to be built on Northeast Second Street.

The county proposed spending another $5 million to update the downtown courthouse, including the courtroom on the third floor. The courthouse was built in 1928.

“I have not met with the other judges, but I would say we are disappointed in the outcome,” said Circuit Judge Doug Schrantz, who’s also the administrative judge for the judicial district. “Despite that, we will still have a need.”

Current legislation would add a circuit judge in the 19th Judicial District West, which is Benton County, Moehring said. The earliest a new judge would start would be Jan. 1, 2021, he said.

The judge would have needed a temporary courtroom for a few months if the tax had passed, and the county could have worked through that, Moehring said.

“Assuming we are in a status quo situation, we will do what the county has always done,” he said. “We will find a place to shoehorn a judge in.”

Circuit court is held in various buildings in the city,

including the annex building across the street from the courthouse and a building on Main Street. Benton County has six circuit judges.

Case filings have increased in the county from 9,238 in 2014 to 11,785 in 2017, according to county information. Dockets for civil and criminal cases will continue to grow, Schrantz said.

“We have to do something, but that something remains to be seen,” Schrantz said. “This still has to be addressed.”

A new tax is what the voters were mainly against, Moehring said. The location of the building was a secondary issue, he said. Some skeptics of the downtown plan preferred a site near the county jail on Southwest 14th Street. Both locations would have put all the circuit judges, except for the juvenile judge, under one roof.

The county pushed hard for voter approval. Moehring held a series of town hall meetings and spoke to civic groups across the county. The committee Better Courthouse, Better Benton County backed the proposal. The committee reported more than $68,000 in contributions as of March 5, according to its latest filing with the Arkansas Ethics Commission.

Older voters turned out for the special election, according to the Election Commission. Sixty-nine percent of residents who voted were 55 and older, said Kim Dennison, election coordinator.

The proposal only passed among voters at the County Clerk’s office in Bentonville during early voting and at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Bella Vista, Bland Chapel in Rogers and First Christian Church of Siloam Springs on election day, according to Dennison. The county had 33 vote centers open election day.

“It was a much larger spread than I thought it would be, but keep in mind we thought we would win,” Moehring said of the outcome.

Only 6 percent of the 161,802 registered voters showed up at the polls. Dennison called the turnout of less than 10,000 voters for a county election disappointing. The election cost the county about $30,000.

Any new court plan will need to be looked at as far as size, scope, scale, location and how to pay for it, Moehring said. How third-party support would play in a new plan remains to be seen, he said.

The Walton Family Foundation had committed to donate the land for the building and $2 million, and the Off-Street Parking District No. 3 was going to build a parking deck, Moehring said. Third-party contributions were valued close to $10 million, but those incentives were tied to a downtown location, he said. The offers will terminate Dec. 31, according to county documents.

Moehring said he hadn’t talked with anyone associated with the third-party funding since the election, but he said the contributions on the table were very generous.

His most pressing concern Wednesday was to let residents know the county court system is unchanged.

“We’re going to continue to hold court like we always have,” he said.