With a one-cent sales tax set to expire at the end of September of 2025, members of the court, County Judge Mike Otwell and County Treasurer Ricky Reyenga said the continuation of the 3/4 cent is needed to finance essential county functions, like paying jail staff and funding the landfill. 

The meeting is available in its entirety by video below this story.

Two justices of the peace did vote no on both the endorsement ordinance and the ballot ordinance. JP Willie Wilson, who represents part of Prescott, said he had heard concerns from his constituents that the money collected is not limited to a particular kind of spending and therefore is not likely to attract their votes. Brenda Stockton also voted against both measures. 

JP Herbert Coleman said the problem with restricting funds collected through the tax to maintenance of the jail and its staffing was that the county would not be able to fund infrastructure repairs after natural disasters, of which there have been many recently in the county. 

In other business, the court voted in favor of amending the county’s 2024 budget to add $818,890.43 in funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for an ice storm that occurred in 2023 and appropriating it toward the repair of roads and bridges. 

Prescott-Nevada County Economic Development Office Director Mary Godwin provided a report that the state’s billion dollar initiative to extend broadband to rural areas will end its rebuttal phase, in which the state Broadband Office collected complaints of inaccuracy in its maps of where broadband is available. Next, there will be a 30-day period in which the office investigates to see whether these complaints will be upheld as requiring changing on the map. 

Godwin told the court, “We had done some north of I-30, and then down around the Oak Road area that we submitted. We anticipate that there will not be any issues with those challenges. We should know within 21 days.” A conference of the state broadband office is to occur in Hot Springs June 25th. Godwin said she anticipates a lot of information will be provided there. 

Godwin said she was notified by Holcim of the re-hiring of 30 workers who had been laid off.  After they are added to Holcim’s labor force, the Prescott location will have recovered 75 percent of the labor force it had reduced last year. 

Godwin also commented on her office’s work recruiting new industries.  “This month, we also had two new prospects that were looking in the area. One was looking at the industrial park, and then one was looking at some private land here, just outside the city limits [of Prescott].” 

JP Chris Fore, acting as president of the meeting in the absence of Judge Otwell, who arrived at the meeting a few minutes late, notified the rest of the court that the county’s part of the 90-10 grant awarded by Arkansas Department of Transportation would be $32,980.93. Godwin said this was the last of the county’s allotted grant funds for this year, but also added that a future grant for intermodal expenses, that is expenses that benefit both the county and a city within the county, could cover $15,000 of that cost. “I’d have to clarify that with them,” she said, referring to the state intermodal authority who would need to approve that use of the funds. 

Ricky Reyenga spoke to set the record straight on a statement he made in a previous quorum court meeting. He said he did not mean to say the Sheriff’s Office did no work regarding tax collections. “He makes all the decisions for the Collector’s Office and it's not that he does not want to be there. He does his job and he fields it as an elected offical. I just merely help, and then if we have big decisions, we do call him, but I want to apologize to him and his staff for anything that might cause him grief,” Reyenga said. 

He also said that an effort to separate the collector function from the office of Sheriff and Collector and then merge it with the office of Treasurer would result in a ballot item to appear on a ballot in 2028 if approved by the Quorum Court. It could not appear on this year’s ballot because the court did not approve the item in time to meet a state requirement that it be done prior to 2024’s primary election. 

JP Wilson asked what Martin’s position was on the combining of the Treasurer and Tax Collector offices. Reyenga said, “He was for it, but I got an email after this came out in the paper, yes, and I'm sure it had something to do with that, because that would have ticked me off, too. I haven’t sat down and talked with him about that. So I'm not real sure.” 

JP Eric Jackson said he heard Martin was not in agreement with combining the offices. He said he would want to hear from a representative of Sheriff Danny Martin at a future quorum court meeting prior to any vote to place the item on the 2028 ballot.  JP Kenneth Bailey said he would rather hear from the sheriff himself. 

Reyenga said he probably had an email of the sheriff’s report in his inbox which might have the sheriff’s view of the question but had not been able to access it because the account was hacked, for which he apologized. 

The meeting adjourned at about 5:50 p.m.