2 show interest in board vacancy
Two people have picked up applications for the District 5 position the Hot Springs Board of Directors declared vacant last week, the city said Monday.
Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Lance Spicer said former District 5 Director Karen Garcia and George Pritchett have both obtained application packets since the application period opened Wednesday. Applicants have until May 30 to file for the vacancy left by Rick Ramick’s resignation earlier this month.
The board plans on convening a special-called meeting June 13 to interview the applicants and appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of Ramick’s
term, which runs through next year. The appointee will be eligible to run for the board position’s 2019-2022 term in November.
Per state law, directors in a city-manager form of government must be registered voters who are 21 or older and who have resided in the city for at least 30 days. The city code mandates directors be registered to vote in the district they are seeking to represent. District 5 represents south central Hot Springs.
Applicants will be required to file a statement of financial interest, a petition for nomination that includes the signatures of 50 registered voters residing in District 5. The board is the city’s supreme legislative and executive body, and its members receive no compensation.
Garcia defeated Glenn Gallas and Ramick for the District 5 seat in 2010. She opted not to seek another term and instead ran for state treasurer in 2014, losing to Republican nominee Dennis Milligan.
Pritchett filed two lawsuits against the city’s January 2016 annexation of Enclave Study Area B. Both were appealed to the state Supreme Court after being dismissed in Garland County Circuit Court. The high court in March unanimously affirmed the lower court ruling in the lawsuit Pritchett filed in March 2016 to compel the city to certify a referendum petition on the annexation ordinance.
The court held Amendment 7 of the state Constitution empowers municipalities to set filing deadlines for municipal referendum petitions from 30 to 90 days after local legislation is passed. Pritchett submitted his petition 35 days after the board adopted the annexation ordinance, five days past the 30-day deadline a 1996 city ordinance established.
The dismissal of Pritchett’s other lawsuit was affirmed by the Supreme Court in March. It issued a majority opinion affirming a lower-court ruling that decreed Area B residents weren’t constitutionally entitled to vote on the annexation. The area is considered an enclave under the annexation statute the Legislature amended in 2015, allowing the city board to annex it.
A stay on the annexation was granted earlier this month in a lawsuit a separate group of plaintiffs filed against the annexation ordinance. Division 1 Circuit Judge John Homer Wright dismissed the lawsuit but imposed a stay pending the outcome of the appeal the plaintiffs filed notice of last month.
Area B was scheduled to come under city control in April 2016.