Those darned deadlines

Slip-up thwarts plans for Tontitown election

It’s hard not to have some sympathy — and perhaps a little bit of a chuckle — for the unfortunate situation in which the city of Tontitown finds itself.

After all, a lot of us regular folks have been there, done that in one way or another.

Call it getting mired in bureaucratic complications. It’s like stepping up to the window at the Revenue Office an hour after yanking the little numbered tag from the red dispenser in the middle of the crowded room, then discovering you’re missing one little piece of paper necessary to complete your business. Good grief!

Tontitown’s feeling the frustration a little like Charlie Brown, too.

The City Council there passed an ordinance calling for a special election on March 5, the same day as Republican and Democratic party primaries. A new law went into effect Jan. 1 that limits special elections, except in emergency situations, to a general election in the fall or a primary election in the spring.

A lot of municipal ordinances are filed with each county’s circuit clerk. A Tontitown employee dutifully filed the ordinance calling for the special election on Nov. 22 at the Washington County Circuit Clerk’s office. Here’s the rub: Traditionally and statutorily as part of that new law, election-related ordinances are to be filed with the county clerk, not the circuit clerk.

At the Washington County Courthouse, the circuit clerk is in Suite 302. The county clerk is in Suite 300. Their doors are separated by maybe 20 feet.

That 20 feet has, for now, cost Tontitown its special election.

Because the ordinance didn’t make it to the county clerk’s office, the Washington County Election Commission recently declared the city had missed its deadline to file the formal notice of the election.

“My personal assistant made phone calls and sent emails about the ordinance on the day it was filed,” Tontitown Mayor Angie Russell said. “We were never told it was not filed in the right place.”

Anyone who’s ever dealt with the maze known as government — city, county, state, federal — can feel Tontitown’s pain. And they can sense the irony of one level of government being bamboozled by the offices, forms and rules of another level of government.

Still, there’s a real impact. The election concerns projects including a new police station, a community center, parks and recreation and a new water tower in Tontitown. The sales tax election involves a bond issue that would provide about $8 million for the police, about $7 million for the water system projects and $2 million for the parks and recreation, including the community center.

Tontitown isn’t alone in its misery. Last year, Crawford County officials missed a deadline for filing paperwork for a 1% countywide sales tax. The slip-up meant the county couldn’t collect the tax from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. That was estimated to be mistake valued at $3 million to the county. But if you’re looking for a silver lining, it meant the people spending their money in Crawford County got a three-month tax break.

In Benton County back in 2020, the city of Gentry missed a deadline to call an election on Sunday alcohol sales, forcing a postponement for a couple of months.

Tontitown has another option under the new law: Its City Council, with a two-thirds vote, can call for an emergency election by declaring a delay would cause hardship. Of course, if anyone stood opposed to the measure, they could challenge it with a legal argument that the situation doesn’t fit the definition of hardship.

Ultimately, Tontitown is simply asking the voters to decide whether they want to tax themselves (and visitors) to build facilities for the public benefit. What’s so wrong with letting voters decide, whether the election is on one date or another?

In this litigious society, the emergency declaration might be risky, but it sure seems it would be hard to argue against letting the voice of the people be heard.