Springtown petitions to nullify ordinance
Town seeks way to reopen narrowed street, close road
SPRINGTOWN — According to a petition filed by the town of Springtown on Friday, the town is seeking to have an ordinance which was passed on October 10, 2014, declared invalid and void. The ordinance in question narrowed a short north-south section of Bredehoeft Road (formerly called Main Street) in Springtown by 50 feet and assigned a 25-foot strip of land on each side to adjacent landowners Michael Evans, Bobbie Ogden and Edwin Bagby, Elnora Kay Taylor, and Paul Lemke, who are named as defendants in the petition.
The street in question is the section the council is seeking to reopen to traffic at the northeast corner of the Don Earley Memorial Bridge so that a section of Aubrey Long Road passing near property owned by Preston and Karee Barrett, where the Big Spring is located, can be closed to through traffic.
According to the petition, the proposed 2014 ordinance was adopted with less than a 2/3 majority of the council voting in favor of suspending the rules and reading by title only and then passing the ordinance on three readings with a single vote. The motion to suspend the rules and read by title only, as well as the vote to pass the
ordinance on three readings with a single vote, according to the petition filed in Benton County Circuit Court, was with three council members in favor and two abstaining, or 3/5 of the council and not with the required 2/3 of the council.
The petition also alleges that then-mayor Paul Lemke, who introduced the ordinance, and Elnora Kay Taylor, who voted to combine the three readings into a single reading, benefited from the passing of the ordinance and should not have participated in the introduction or adoption of the ordinance. It also alleges that Linda Taylor, daughter of Elnora Kay Taylor, seconded a motion to read the proposed ordinance by title only and should not have participated in the council actions since her mother stood to benefit from the passage of the ordinance.
The petition alleges that the 3-year-old ordinance should be declared void and the 25feet on each side of the former Bredehoeft Road restored to the city because the passing of the ordinance was not done according to Arkansas Code which requires the reading of an ordinance on three different days and requires a 2/3 majority to suspend the rules, read by heading only and pass on three readings with a single vote. It also alleges that interested parties presided over and participated in the discussion of and voting on the proposed ordinance.
Should the court declare the 2014 ordinance null and void, it would make it possible for the town to further pursue closing a portion of Aubrey Long Road and redirecting traffic north on Bredehoeft Road.
No court dates have yet been set for the petition.