Mountain Pine marshal addresses housing allegations
MOUNTAIN PINE — Mountain Pine’s part-time marshal, Bill House Jr., said Wednesday that he’s converted the former City Hall building into a barracks and not a living quarters.
The clarification was provided in response to an anonymous complaint The Sentinel-Record obtained through an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request submitted last week to the Garland County prosecutor’s office, which received the written complaint last month.
Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Lawrence forwarded the allegations to Mountain Pine City Attorney Terry Diggs, telling him in an Oct. 18 letter that she didn’t know who submitted them. The conversion of the former City Hall building into a living quarters for House and his family is one of the allegations in the complaint.
The written response House provided last week at Diggs’ request acknowledges the city paid to furnish the building with two futon sofas and three lamps after Mayor Rick Petty Sr. appointed him part-time marshal in July. House said Wednesday that the building serves as a barracks, explaining that he stays there when he works evening shifts.
He said the five additional part-time marshals the city plans on hiring will use the building when they’re not on patrol. He said he expects two of them to start work later this week.
“At other agencies, officers normally work eight- to 12-hour shifts,” he said. “Monetarily and wear-and-tear wise on the vehicles, it’s not wise to have an officer sitting in a patrol car that’s idling for 12 hours or driving around the whole time.
“I plan to have the part-time officers work one or two 12-hour shifts,” he said. “I’m going to require at least six of those hours be on patrol. The other six hours they can be in the barracks. It will give them a place to sleep or study for their classes.” The idea is to “always have somebody in the city, so they can respond to calls quickly.”
House said in his written response that he and the deputy marshals should be allowed to have their families in the barracks. He said the building will include a secure room for evidence and weapons and an office for Constable Bill Carpenter.
“We will be paying these officers minimum wage to be here for 12 hours and able to respond and actively enforce traffic and ordinances for five of those hours, so yes, in exchange, I believe their families should be allowed to be here with them in their down time.”
House’s part-time II classification under the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards allows him to work up to 20 hours a week. He said the deputy marshals will have the same status. According to House’s written response, he has a full-time job as vice president/ operations manager at Harp Security Consultants Inc.
House said part-time officers will give Mountain Pine the most police coverage for the least cost. He was appointed after the city and Garland County couldn’t come to terms on an agreement to assign a sheriff’s deputy to Mountain Pine full-time.
The city council disbanded the one-man police force in January after former Police Chief Chad King was shot in the line of duty and unable to return to work.
House said Wednesday that he wrote the ordinance that authorized his appointment. Cities with more than 500 people and fewer than 2,500 can elect or appoint a marshal, which, according to state statute, is vested with authority similar to that of a constable or sheriff’s deputy.
An appointed marshal serves at the mayor’s pleasure but can be removed from office by a twothirds majority vote of the city council.
House said in his written response that he suggested appointing an interim mayor when Petty’s health problems required him to take a leave of absence. The anonymous complaint alleges House engineered a consensus for the appointment of Morgan Wiles, meeting with alderman outside of announced council meetings in violation of the Freedom of Information Act’s open public meetings statute.
“On my own I asked three (aldermen) their opinion,” House said. “I then relayed what I learned from these (aldermen). I believe that the Municipal League Handbook for 2017 will agree with me that a department head, such as a police chief, can discuss even legislation with an individual alderman or the mayor, as police chief is not a member of the governing body.”
The council approved Wiles’ appointment in September. A week earlier he had announced the relocation of the window manufacturing-arm of his company, Morfe Properties, to the 389-acre Mountain Pine site the company purchased from Weyerhaeuser in May.
House said in his written response that appointing an interim mayor saved the city the expense of holding a special election to replace Petty.
The anonymous complaint said the city’s executive and legislative bodies have made policy outside the confines of open public meetings, and that the council has held meetings at City Hall that were unannounced and closed to the public.
Diggs said Wednesday that he plans on reviewing the Freedom of Information Act with the council when it convenes for a regularly scheduled business meeting Monday night.
He said he couldn’t discuss allegations concerning personnel matters, which include arbitrarily granting raises to city employees, paying for a parttime animal control officer to attend a conference but refusing to pay for a female employee and an unqualified driver operating a city sanitation truck.