County to replace vandalized mobile home office at landfill

The Garland County Quorum Court Finance Committee transferred money within the solid waste fund budget to replace the mobile home office vandalized last month at Cedar Glades Landfill.

The committee approved an $81,000 transfer from the tipping fees line item to the buildings line during Monday’s special called meeting. The $11.4 million solid waste fund budget the quorum court adopted allocated $900,000 for tipping fees, the per ton payment the county makes to the Saline County Regional Solid Waste Facility in Bauxite.

The county has been sending Class 1 waste, or household garbage, its contract hauler collects from more than 20,000 residential carts to Saline County since 2019.

Former Cedar Glades Landfill employee Tyler John Shuffield, 35, was arrested last month in connection to the April 17 vandalism and theft at the landfill. He pleaded not guilty a week later to multiple felony charges, including arson, first-degree criminal mischief, commercial burglary and theft.

According to the affidavit in support of the arrest, Garland County sheriff’s deputies found Shuffield after responding

to a wreck in the 1100 block of Cedar Glades Road. The 2022 Ford F-250 deputies found him lying next to was stolen from the landfill.

Deputies noticed smoke coming from the landfill’s mobile home office at 1040 Cedar Glades Road and called fire personnel, who put out the fire. The county had fired Shuffield three months earlier.

County Judge Darryl Mahoney told the committee the county has yet to receive the proceeds from its insurance claim. The $81,000 transfer will pay for a new trailer until the claim is processed. Bids the county solicited were opened earlier this month.

Mahoney said the fire damaged one room of the trailer. The county plans to sell it at auction next month.

“We’ll take it to our June 11 auction and see if it will bring anything,” he said.

Library

The quorum court adopted an ordinance appropriating funds for the Garland County Library to make several purchases, including four remote delivery lockers.

Library Director Adam Webb told justices of the peace the lockers will be placed at the library, National Park College, Hot Springs Family YMCA and Sunshine Store & Cafe in Royal.

“We need the remote locker units so people who live in the far reaches of the county can get their library materials delivered out closer to where they live,” he said. “One of the bigger logistical problems we have at that library is we have only one site and 735 square miles we have to cover.”

The lockers will hold materials requested by library patrons.

“We’ll go out there once a week, put them in a locker for you, program it to your name,” Webb told JPs. “You can come by at your convenience, scan your card. A door opens, and there’s your stuff. It’s making the library more convenient.”

A $340,040 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act grant the library received will pay the $119,324 cost for the lockers.

The ordinance also appropriated $15,746 from the county library fund for a Cyclesafe bicycle storage facility with a repair station and pump.

“We have a ton of people riding their bikes to the library, and they don’t have any place to keep them out of the elements,” Webb told JPs. “We also wanted to put in a repair station. A lot of the folks who ride to the library, that’s their means of transportation. We’re trying to help them get around town. They can air up their tires or tighten something up if they need to.”

The appropriation included $4,318 for a Spartan RZ-C 54-inch mower and $6,564 for a prefabricated shed to store the mower. Webb told JPs the library assumed mowing duties after outsourcing them for many years. The naming contest the library held conferred Ronald Weedsley on the new zero-turn mower. The name pays homage to Harry Potter’s best friend, Ron Weasley.

The quorum court’s authority over appropriations and transfers in the library’s $3.54 million budget is mostly ministerial. The library’s board of directors, which is appointed by the quorum court, has direct oversight of the library and its budget.