The meeting in its entirety can be seen on video just below this article, the proposed annexation map and the annexation ordinance.

The vote came after Council Member Grant Cox told those gathered at the meeting that he had spoken to each of the households in the area proposed to be annexed and found no support for the idea of taking their properties into the city of Emmet.  

“I have yet to find anybody that is okay and wants it, not a single person. And I spoke to everybody that lives in that area, okay, and so, like I said on our previous meeting, that's why I am not, cannot, will not vote for anything to further this down the road,” Cox said.

He also spoke of two particular property owners who elaborated on why they did not support being annexed into the Emmet.  “He said, ‘I grew up with rules and regulations. I work and I have rules and regulations.’ He said, ‘I don't want anything else that can put rules and regulations on me.’ And then one of them, said ‘I'm not for it. I don't want it. I like living out here, outside of city limits. I have a rifle range in my backyard.’  That was the second individual told me they had a rifle range.”

Cox said he had also spoken to six people living inside Emmet’s current city limits and had not heard any enthusiasm to pursue the annexation. He said one Emmet resident questioned why $5,000 was being spent by the city on the annexation effort.

He then made a motion to cease efforts toward annexation of that area.  

At this, Clark said, “We've already made a motion to annex, haven't we? All of a sudden, now we're going to change everything. We put something over it, and you want to just end it just like that?” Clark then asked Mayor Dale Booker, presiding over the meeting whether he had commented to someone that the annexation would never happen.

“Not that I know of,” Booker said.  

“I’m tired of damn lies in this place.  You told Deanna that this was not going to happen. … You wouldn’t give up the money for it,” Clark said.

“Well . . . “ Mayor Booker said.

“You told me that last week when I called you,” Allen said.  “That this was not going to happen. Because I asked you had the council—”

“I guess Tim Griffin’s going to have to get involved in this,” Clark said, referring to the current Arkansas Attorney General. 

“—and you said they haven’t because there was no need because this was not going to happen,” resumed Allen.

“Well, I was basing that on what I’d been told after Bradley went out and surveyed the people,” Booker responded.

Allen asked for a chance to speak.  She said she misunderstood that when Mayor Booker told her she needed to ask the council for funds to be appropriated that he knew where the money was going to come from in the budget. “But I was wrong. My lack of understanding of the message that Mayor Booker was trying to convey to me then caused me to create a problem for the council without a suggestion of a solution, and for that, I apologize to the council.” 

Allen then provided a definition for appropriation for the council members as “the city council's official legal permission to allow the mayor to spend up to a specific amount of money from a city fund.”  She explained that the $5,000 request was based on quotes of costs for legal and mapping services as well as the costs of elections in the two counties in which the proposed annexation area falls.

Concerning the timing in which Emmet will receive bills and her advice to the council and mayor on how to find the funds, Allen said, “it will probably be first of April of 2026, before the invoice is received by the city of Emmet. Most invoices have a 15- or a 30-day term to pay, which would be the end of April or the first of May 2026. The solution I would like to propose to the council is to create a line item for the $5,000 budgeted amount for the annexation on the 2026 general budget for the city of Emmet.”

There was a contentious back and forth between City Council members Maurice Grant and Rob Clark over several questions, including whether Emmet Vision Association representative and resident of the area to be annexed Deanna Allen had told the council the annexation efforts would be done without city funds.  

Grant contended Allen had said in an unspecified earlier meeting the annexation would not cost “one red nickel,” while Clark said she had made no such statement.  Allen, who was present, said she did not remember telling the council the annexation effort would be free, and observed that since meetings are recorded this could be discovered. Grant then accused Allen of being involved in what he called a “conflict of interest.”  

Clark asked that the minutes of past meetings be consulted.  At this Mayor Dale Booker and City Recorder/Treasurer Rosalind McBride can be seen on the video looking at each other.  McBride had a laptop but, like Mayor Booker, said nothing about consulting the minutes.  During the exchange between Grant and Clark, Grant called Clark a liar.  Clark said he was glad the meeting was being recorded.

Allen said that if the question of whether the city was to pay for the annexation was causing a delay, she knew of a donor who had pledged to donate the $5,000 projected cost, which she requested of the council in both the July and August meetings. 

Allen had told the council in previous meetings she was promoting annexation for multiple reasons, which she repeated in response to Maurice Grant’s statements Thursday night, first referring to what the ordinance of annexation actually does. “There are over 400 residents here inside city limits of image, and the approximate 15 families that live in the affected area by placing this annexation on there, it will give all of those voters, the 400 and the 15, the opportunity to cast their vote, either for annexation or against annexation.”

She further explained that she was proposing annexation because the residents in the proposed annexation area are paying bills for and receiving city water, trash collection, fire protection and wastewater services but not paying the 5 mill Emmet city tax which helps maintain these services. Another reason is that the addition of the population in the area may make it more likely the town will be eligible for grants for communities with 21 percent of their population being in the low to moderate income category.  She has also said annexation will allow those in the annexed area, already noted to be paying city utility bills, to be represented in city council decisions and have a vote on who represents them.

Grant called for the vote on Grant Cox’s motion to cease the annexation, seconding this motion.  When the vote was held, Grant and Cox raised their hands. Clark is not shown in the video.  Council member Shannon Peck was absent.  But with three of the four members present making a quorum, a vote of 2-1 does count.

In the August 21st meeting, the council voted 3-1 to hear the first reading of an ordinance that would have placed the decision to annex on the 2026 party primary ballot.  The first reading was performed by City Recorder/Treasurer Rosalind McBride.

In that meeting, Cox had, as he did in the September meeting, expressed opposition to the annexation effort.  He said his decision was based on his having spoken to residents in the proposed annexation area.  Allen had said in the July meeting that she spoke to many of the residents, not all, and found that about half opposed and half supported the idea.  She said those she informed about the advantages of annexation tended to favor it.

Mention by Allen of the $5,000 donation to cover the cost of annexation did not sway Cox, who maintained Thursday he still could not vote to place annexation on the ballot.  Grant seconded his motion to stop the annexation and then in his vote to end the annexation, switched from voting for the placement of the annexation on the 2026 ballot as he had done in August to stopping the effort to place it on the ballot altogether.

After the meeting, Allen was asked for her comment on what had taken place.  She said, “I am being falsely accused, and the truth will prevail.”

In other business in Thursday’s meeting, Mayor Booker announced that Emmet’s Waterworks Superintendent Juan Aparicio had announced his resignation effective as of the end of this month.  “He is a certified water sewer operator, a certified water, sewer inspector, and somebody has to certify certain things. So in replacing him, we'll have to know what we looking for. Y'all got any suggestions?” Booker asked.

Cox asked whether Aparicio had been attending training sessions that week.  Booker said it had been the week before. Cox asked if Aparicio had resigned prior to attending the school the city paid for.  Receiving no answer, he said, “I think we need to look into trying to contract that out.” 

Clark responded to the mayor’s request for suggestions by saying such decisions were what he was being paid to make.  “Every city in the state has this done, every city in the state has this. It can't be no worse for any other city than it is for the city of Emmet.  The city of Emmet can't be that much worse getting somebody in here.”

Booker said it had been difficult to find someone qualified.  

Council member Cox, who is also Emmet Fire Department’s chief, brought up an incident in which a pilot of a medical helicopter opted not to land in the zone designated for such by the city and instead landed in a nearby baseball field. Cox said he would find out from the company involved what the issue was and look into how to get the trees removed without risking city liability.  The council voted in favor of a motion to allow Cox to take these tasks on.

A citizen asked about the status of Rob Clark’s request, made in the August 21st meeting, to take down a fence separating the black and white sections of a cemetery in Emmet.  

Mayor Booker responded that a part of the fence surrounding the cemetery was down and a lady had called offering to help pay for this to be repaired.  About the fence between the black and white sections, Booker said, “I don't see it's a problem. I understand that some of the black community had discussed it and they want it taken down. I don't have a problem with it, but – “ and here he trailed off.

The citizen said a meeting of the committee in charge of the black section had voted to take the fence down.

Council member Grant said he had not yet heard from the president of the committee in charge of the black section of the cemetery.  In the August meeting he had insisted the city could not make any policy requiring the fence to be removed without the approval of the two committees in charge of the cemetery’s two sections.

Asked what would be done about the fence if the committee in charge of the black section wanted the fence taken down, Booker said he would not object.

Another citizen present said if the city owns the cemetery and the committee requested the fence to be down, it needed to be taken down.  Clark and Grant stated to the citizen that until the president of the committee spoke to Mayor Booker no action could be taken.  

Allen's Emmet Vision Association report updated the council on the administering of a grant from Energy Transit place a border around a playground at the former Arkla Park playground.  A cleanup day there is scheduled for October 7th.  Allen also asked for assistance in removal of a dead tree that poses a snake and insect hazard for children.  Trunk or Treat is scheduled for October 31st at 6 p.m, a Friday at Fireman's Park.

The meeting adjourned after 58 minutes.