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Vol. 158, No. 66©2012 The Daily Citizen

“ ”Endure the present, and watch for

better things.

VIRGILAncient Roman poet

Contact us: 3000 E. Race, Searcy, AR 72143, (Phone) 501-268-8621, (Fax) 501-268-6277

SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

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STUDENTS MAKE ST. PATRICK’S DAY CRAFTS

SPORTS COMPLEX THEFTS PROMPT ACTIONParents can expect to see an increase in police presence at the Searcy Sports Complex this weekend. — PAGE 1B

HU GROUPS FIGHT HUMAN TRAFFICKINGTwo campus organizations at Harding University are teaming up to fight human trafficking. — PAGE 3A

White County Judge Michael Lincoln and his challenger, Bill Haynie, will debate next month at Riverview High School.

The debate will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 9. Win-ston Collier, White County Elec-tion Commission chairman, will moderate the 90-minute forum, which is being sponsored by The Daily Citizen.

Admission to the event is free and open to the public.

Lincoln, Haynie to debate

The Daily Citizen

Debate will be held April 9 at Riverview

HaynieLincoln

County judge debate

When: 7 p.m. on Mon-day, April 9

Where: Riverview High School

Admission: Free and open to the public

When it comes to the distribu-tion of the Act 833 funds for the fi re departments, the growth or decline of a fi re district’s popula-tion will not factor into the funds each fi re district receives in White County.

The intergovernmental council of White County has voted against using the 2010 Census results as the scale for how each fi re district is given its portion of the funds. The funds are collected from in-surance coverage on real and

No change to fire

department funding

BY MOLLY M. [email protected]

County-wide meeting

■ Discussed Act 833 fund-ing

■ Decided to keep distribu-tion with 2000 numbers

■ Source of year 2000 numbers is unknown

Beebe mayor disgruntled

with meeting procedure

Molly M. Fleming/[email protected]

Second grade students at Westside Elementary read “Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato” and then rewrote the story in their own words on a potato man Friday to get into the St. Patrick’s Day spirit. Michelle Bruxvoort’s student Emily Horton cuts out parts of her potato man, while Landon Wyatt and Alexis Schroyer work on their assignments as well.

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Democratic Party said Friday it will move forward with a lawsuit claiming former lawmaker Fred Smith is ineligible to run for his

old seat because of a felony theft conviction, despite a judge’s or-der effectively clearing the ex-Harlem Globetrotter’s criminal record.

Party spokeswoman Candace Martin said that the party won’t

drop its lawsuit seeking to block Smith from the Democratic pri-mary ballot for an east Arkansas House seat. Martin said the party still believes Smith was ineligible when he fi led on March 1.

“What we’ve maintained from

the beginning of this was at the time Mr. Smith fi led, he was in-eligible to run because he was convicted and we believe that is still the relevant fact in this

Democrats continue effort to strike Smith from ballotBY ANDREW DEMILLO

Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK — The fourth of fi ve Arkansas law enforcement of-fi cers accused of accepting bribes and looking the other way while traffi ckers shipped drugs through-out the region pleaded guilty Fri-day to a drug-related charge.

Federal prosecutors in Little Rock agreed to drop two other charges against former Phillips County Sheriff’s Deputy Winston Dean Jackson in exchange for his guilty plea to one count of con-

spiracy to possess with the intent to distribute cocaine.

Prosecutors estimate that Jackson’s sentence will range from nearly six to more than sev-en years in prison. A sentencing date hasn’t been set.

Before U.S. District Judge James Moody accepted Jack-son’s plea on Friday, he pointed out that Jackson was in a posi-tion of public trust as a sheriff’s deputy.

“You won’t be able to work in

law enforcement ever again,” Moody said.

Jackson is one of fi ve law en-forcement offi cers — out of 71 people — indicted in an investi-gation dubbed “Operation Delta Blues.” The probe, announced in October, focused on corruption and drug traffi cking in the Mis-sissippi Delta town of Helena-West Helena.

Jackson’s plea comes after for-mer Helena-West Helena police offi cers Robert “Bam Bam” Rog-

ers and Herman Eaton and for-mer Marvell police offi cer Robert Wahls entered guilty pleas ear-lier this year. Prosecutors recom-mended a 16-month prison sen-tence for Rogers and Eaton and a 2-year sentence for Wahls.

Another law enforcement of-fi cer who was indicted in the in-vestigation has a trial scheduled next month.

Prosecutor Julie Peters laid

Law enforcement officer pleads guilty to drug-related chargeAssociated Press

LITTLE ROCK — Republican Congressman Rick Crawford said Friday that voting for his proposal to raise taxes on millionaires would violate an anti-tax pledge he signed, but that his party must be willing to support hikes in exchange for long-term defi cit reductions.

Facing criticism from fellow conservatives over his tax in-crease proposal that’s tied to a balanced budget amendment, the freshman lawmaker from Arkan-sas defended the plan and said that other members of his party need be more willing to compro-mise on tax issues.

“I know it’s a fundamental te-net of Republicans not to raise taxes, but in the world we’re liv-ing right now with the budget situation being what it is, I think

Crawford: Surtax vote would break

pledgeBY ANDREW DEMILLO

Associated Press

Please see OFFICER | 2A Please see CRAWFORD | 2A

Please see SMITH | 2A

Please see FUNDING | 2A

Please see DEBATE | 2A

A • Saturday, March 17, 2012 The Daily Citizen

FROM PAGE ONE

The Daily Citizen corrects factual errors promptly and courteously. If you have a correction or clarifica-tion, please call Editor Jacob Brower at (501) 268-8621 or e-mail him at [email protected].

Corrections

out the basics of the case that the government would have made against Jackson had they gone to trial. She said he gave alleged drug dealers a heads up when a state trooper was coming to town with an arrest warrant last year and then took cash for the warning while he was in his sheriff’s car. She said he also made sure that a warrant against one of the alleged drug dealers disap-peared before prosecution could begin.

Jackson said he didn’t disagree with her account.

OFFICER: Other charges dropped

CONTINUED FROM 1A

Republicans have to take their head out of the sand and say ‘you know what? We’re on course to have to increase revenue,’” Craw-ford told The Associated Press. “And if we do that, it better be worth something, and we better make sure we’re getting a permanent reform out of it.”

Crawford acknowledged that he’d violate a pledge

he made to not raise taxes if he voted for the legislation, after initially claiming Fri-day the legislation wouldn’t break that promise. Craw-ford said later that day that he hasn’t broken the pledge because he hasn’t voted for the tax hike yet.

“I don’t ever want to vote for a tax increase but if we have to break that pledge, don’t you think it ought to be for something meaningful?” Crawford said. “Right now,

I haven’t broken that pledge and I hope I don’t have to, but I almost don’t really see any scenario where we’re not going to be put in that position to make that choice. That’s wishful thinking.”

Crawford’s proposal, which he unveiled Thurs-day, would levy a 5 per-cent surtax on individual incomes over $1 million in exchange for congressio-nal passage of a balanced budget amendment. If the

amendment is ratifi ed by the states, it would last 10 years. Otherwise, it would only last fi ve years.

Grover Norquist, presi-

dent of Americans for Tax Reform, said Thursday that he didn’t view Crawford’s proposal as a serious effort and didn’t believe it would

ever come up for a vote. Norquist said voting for the surtax would violate the pledge Crawford signed for the group.

CRAWFORD: Proposal would levy a 5 percent surtax on individual incomes exceeding $1 millionCONTINUED FROM 1A

case,” Martin said.Chicot County Judge

Sam Pope on Wednesday dismissed the felony theft case against Smith. The judge ruled that Smith complied with the condi-tions of his sentence when he was found guilty last year of theft of property de-livered by mistake.

Smith was charged af-ter an audit found that a school district issued a du-plicate payment of $29,250 to a nonprofi t group run by Smith and that both pay-ments were cashed. He re-signed from his House seat the day he was found guilty.

Prosecutors have argued that Smith wasn’t eligible to have his conviction ex-punged because he pleaded not guilty in the case, but Pope wrote that state law gives him the authority to dismiss the case. Thomas Deen, the prosecutor, said he was still reviewing the order and was considering whether to appeal Pope’s decision to the state Su-

preme Court.Deen said Pope relied on

a prison sentencing reform law that was approved last year, after Smith was found guilty in the case.

“There is some question as to whether it applies to (Smith) since at the time of his trial this statute was not in effect,” Deen said.

State Sen. David Bur-nett, an attorney who is representing Smith, said the judge’s order this week shows that the ex-lawmak-er is eligible to run and serve again. Burnett main-tains that Smith wasn’t a felon because the judge didn’t enter an order of conviction.

“(Smith) complied with the terms of the diversion and the suspended sen-tence,” Burnett said.

The Democratic Party fi led the lawsuit against Smith, Secretary of State Mark Martin, and the Crit-tenden and Cross county election commissions after the secretary of state’s of-fi ce rejected its request to block Smith’s candidacy.

personal property through the state department of fi -nance and administration.

The fi nal vote of the council was seven votes against using 2010 data with fi ve votes in favor. Four mayors on the coun-cil were absent.

Letona Mayor Sherrill Bennett was one of the seven mayors in favor of continuing to use the 2000 data.

“I think it should be left the same,” Bennett said. “The 2010 Census is not accurate anyway.”

Bald Knob Mayor Doyle Wallace also wanted to keep the 2000 census data.

“It was going to cost us a little bit of money,” Wal-lace said. “It was to our advantage to stay like we were.”

The mayors were given a breakdown of the change between the 2000 and 2010 census data, which showed how each district had changed in the 10 years.

According to the data, 19 of the fi re districts de-creased in size, while nine of the districts grew and two districts stayed the same.

Distribution of the funds

is based on the population of the fi re districts, not the individual cities.

While some of the cities did grow in population, their fi re districts may not refl ect similar results.

In addition, the fi gure that was believed to be the 2000 fi re district popula-tion may not be as accurate at the 2010 Census data.

“According to the min-utes of the 2000 intergov-ernmental council meet-ing, it appeared to us that the fi gures that were given were from the fi re chiefs as to how many people were in their districts,” said County Judge Mi-chael Lincoln. “Inaccurate data in 2000 made the 2010 data look like some districts had really grown, while some had not grown as much.”

The 2010 data distrib-uted during the meeting was created by Tony Davis with the state’s geographic information system (GIS) offi ce. He created the county’s Quorum Court districts, and other maps needed by the county.

During the discussion of funding, Lincoln continu-ously asked mayors if they had an accurate fi gure for the number of people in their district.

Beebe Mayor Mike Rob-ertson was in favor of us-ing the 2010 Census data because he said according to the fi re protection code handbook, which outlines the Act 833 distribution of funds, the funds should be distributed by the most recent survey information.

“I think there was an incorrect interpretation of the code,” Robertson said. “I think we need to follow the code.

“I don’t think a vote was even appropriate. I didn’t think there should be a vote at all. The motion it-self was to distribute funds and then it failed. There should have been a second motion. I think the matter is still on the table.”

Robertson said he wrote a letter to Lincoln address-ing these issues on Friday.

Lincoln said he dis-agrees with Robertson’s stance that the issue is still on the table.

“The option was to leave it like it was or to change it,” Lincoln said. “The mo-tion was to change it. If it didn’t pass to change it, then we need to leave it alone. The only reason we needed a vote then was if the vote was to change it, then the Quorum Court has to pass a resolution in

order to make it offi cial.”Lincoln said he can un-

derstand why some peoplewanted the distributionto continue based on the2000 census, while otherswanted it to change to the2010 census.

“I really believe that itwould have been probablyfairer if we had gone withthe new census numbers,”he said. “Obviously wewant the money to comeback to the districts fromwhich it was produced,so if those districts havehad a population growth,they should receive theirshare.”

Lincoln said he thinkswhat really affected thevote on Thursday nightwas the lack of a fi nancialbreakdown the populationdifference would cost eachdistrict.

“There wasn’t a reallyclear understanding ofhow much of the moneythe population change meant,” Lincoln said. “Ifone town was going to onlylose $100, but anothertown would gain $1,000,sure the mayor of the othertown would agree that the2010 census data is better.

“Without those fi nancialfi gures, it was just a guessof what the districts wouldlose.”

Lincoln said he is looking forward to the opportunity to talk about his time as judge and his plans going forward.

“I look forward to re-minding the voters of what we have accomplished in my three terms,” he said. “I don’t make promises, but I hope to outline a plan for continuing to meet the needs of the citizens on White County.”

Haynie said he also wel-comes the opportunity to debate Lincoln.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I look forward to letting the people know

where I stand and what I want to do.”

Jacob Brower, editor of The Daily Citizen, said he is pleased that the newspaper is sponsoring the debate.

“These are two very plain-spoken candidates who have different visions for how to move our county forward,” he said. “We are always looking for ways to inform citizens about is-sues that matter to them, and we welcome this as another opportunity to do so.”

Lincoln and Haynie will face off in the May 22 Re-publican primary. The vic-tor will not face a general election opponent.

DEBATE: Candidates welcome the chance to share plans, ideas

CONTINUED FROM 1A

SMITH: Prosecutors argue former legislator’s eligibility to scrap record

CONTINUED FROM 1A

“What we’ve maintained from the beginning of this was at the time Mr. Smith filed, he was ineligible to run because he was convicted

and we believe that is still the relevant fact in this case.”

Candace MartinSpokeswoman, Arkansas Democratic Party

FUNDING: Distribution of funds based on district population, not citiesCONTINUED FROM 1A

Inmate commits suicide in Washington County jail

FAYETTEVILLE — The Washing-ton County Sheriff’s Office says a 39-year-old inmate accused of rape has died by hanging himself in his cell.

The agency said Friday that Wil-liam Scott Spurgeon died Thursday night after he fashioned a noose out of his clothing and hanged him-self from a bed rail.

Spurgeon, who was in a cell by himself, was being held on charges of rape and second-degree sexual assault. He’d also been served di-vorce papers earlier Thursday.

An internal investigation is under way and Spurgeon’s body was sent to the Arkansas Crime Lab for autopsy.

Teen dies after 100-foot fall

WINSLOW — Authorities say a 15-year-old boy has died after fall-ing 100 feet from a railroad trestle.

Fayetteville television station KHOG reports that authorities be-

lieve the boy was trespassing with five other juveniles when he slipped and fell around 1 a.m. Friday

The trestle reaches heights be-tween 100 and 125 feet and spans a valley east of Interstate 540 near Winslow. Washington County emer-gency officials say first responders had a tough time reaching the re-mote location and several agencies helped in the rescue effort. The boy later died from the injuries.

Arkansas-Missouri Railroad police Chief Ron Sparks says an investigation is ongoing. The Wash-ington County coroner says the boy’s body is in Little Rock awaiting an autopsy.

Administration outlines birth control coverage options

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration signaled Friday it’s willing to help insurance companies offset the cost of providing free birth control to women working at church-affiliated institutions like

hospitals and colleges.By finding a way to make the

middlemen whole, the administra-tion may be able to extricate itself from an unexpected political furor over birth control that has mobi-lized partisans across the political spectrum a half-century after the advent of the pill.

A 32-page regulatory proposal un-veiled Friday offered options for pro-viding free birth control to women whose employers object to contra-ception on religious grounds. The government now classifies birth control as preventive care, and President Barack Obama’s health care law requires health plans to cover prevention at no cost to the consumer.

Churches, synagogues, mosques and other institutions whose pri-mary purpose is to propagate faith are exempt from the mandate. But when the administration sought to impose the requirement on reli-gious nonprofits serving the public, it triggered a backlash.

Associated Press

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CITY OF SEARCY GENERAL FUNDFINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2011

BALANCE GENERAL FUND, 1‐1‐2011 $530,045.92GENERAL FUND REVENUES:TAXES $8,345,106.94FINES AND FORFEITURES $498,125.03RECREATION USER FEES $98,741.19SERVICE & USER FEES $3,045,253.23PERMITS & FEES $282,586.48INTEREST EARNED $17,411.74SALES PROCEEDS $1,187,291.41REIMBURSEMENT REVENUES $256,749.96MISCELLANEOUS REVENUES $71,666.09DONATIONS $11,425.63STATE GRANTS $918,974.29FEDERAL GRANTS $635,371.57TOTAL REVENUES $15,368,703.56

GENERAL FUND EXPENDITURES, ALL DEPARTMENTS EXCEPT STREET:PERSONNEL 10,588,473.77BUILDING & GROUNDS $940,194.65VEHICLES $809,479.93SUPPLIES $175,278.89GRANT EXPENDITURES $499,803.45CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS $0.00CAPITAL EXPENDITURES $0.00MISCELLANEOUS $2,195,092.90PLANNING $36,000.00TOTAL EXPENDITURES $15,244,323.59LIABILITIES $0.00BALANCE GENERAL FUND, 12‐31‐2011 $654,425.89

CITY OF SEARCY STREET FUNDFINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2011

BALANCE STREET FUND, 1‐1‐2011 $328,087.33STREET FUND REVENUES:TAXES & HIGHWAY TURNBACK $1,249,013.03PERMITS/FEES $75.00INTEREST EARNED $4,877.16MISCELLANEOUS $425.00DONATIONS $7,450.67TOTAL REVENUES $1,261,840.86STREET FUND EXPENDITURES:PERSONNEL $428,360.04BUILDING & GROUNDS $27,131.26VEHICLE $93,062.78SUPPLIES $389.08MISCELLANEOUS $541,176.10CONSTRUCTION $30,879.69TOTAL EXPENDITURES $1,120,998.95LIABILITIES $0.00

BALANCE STREET FUND, 12‐31‐2011 $468,929.24

INDEBTEDNESS:Type of Debt Amount Date Last Payment DueLease Purchase Agreement (Police cars) $71,350.79 7/3/2012Short‐term Promissory Note (Fire truck) $501,663.27 9/1/2016

All fi nancial records for the City of Searcy are public records and are open for public inspection during regular business hours of 8AM to 4:30PM Monday through Friday, at City Hall in Searcy, Arkansas.

If a record is in active use or in storage and, therefore, not available at the time a citizen asks to examine it, the custodian shall certify this fact in writing to the applicant and set a date and hour within three (3) days at which time the recordwill be available for inspection and copying.

Margaret Meads, City Clerk/Treasurer

The Daily Citizen Friday, March 23, 2012 • A

FROM PAGE ONE


Saturday morning will be an exciting time for Jack and Cassie Carpenter.

This weekend, they will get to see the walls raised on their new home. The home is being built at 409 W. Woodruff in Searcy. This is the seventh home for Habitat for Humanity of White County.

Volunteers are still needed to make the home a reality.

Habitat director Leigh Anne Hawthorne said any-one 16 or older is welcome to help with the build. She encouraged any interest-

ed person to email her at [email protected] to get on a mailing list to fi nd out more informa-tion about the work of the organization.

Volunteers will have to fi ll out two permission forms at the job site before

they can begin work.Since work will begin at

the site on Saturday, there will be plenty of hungry volunteers who will need to be fed at the upcoming builds.

That’s where Haw-thorne is hoping the com-munity will get involved by providing lunch for the 20 to 30 workers at the site.

Any organization inter-ested in providing lunch can email Hawthorne at the address previously list-ed or call her at her offi ce, 501-268-5589. She said the answering machine is checked regularly and

messages are returned.Hawthorne encouraged

anyone interested in being a Habitat home recipient to apply. She said the next home will be built in Bee-be; but after that home, the following home could be built in Searcy or an-other town in the county. She said it will depend on where the land is located. People who apply for the Beebe home do not have to be Beebe residents, but they would have to be will-ing to move to Beebe.

For more information about being a Habitat family, people may call or email Hawthorne.

Volunteers still needed for HabitatBY MOLLY M. [email protected]

BY TIA GOLDENBERGAssociated Press

JERUSALEM — A deal to allow Jewish settlers to remain in their unauthor-ized West Bank outpost for another three years is a stalling tactic that could lead to them stay-ing there, a lawyer told Israel’s Supreme Court Thursday.

The court has ordered the Migron outpost taken down by the end of the month. Next week, the court is expected to de-cide whether to approve

the agreement between the government and the settlers, which would al-low the settlers to remain until 2015.

At that time, they would be moved to homes to be built nearby, in what the government describes as a new neigh-borhood of an existing settlement.

Israel’s Supreme Court previously ruled that Mi-gron was built on private Palestinian land, setting March 31 as the deadline for its dismantling.

Lawyer says outpost deal a stalling tactic

BY MATTHEW LEEAssociated Press

WASHINGTON — Drought, fl oods and a lack of fresh water may cause signifi cant global instability and confl ict in the coming decades, as developing countries scramble to meet de-mand from exploding populations while deal-ing with the effects of cli-mate change, U.S. intel-ligence agencies said in a report released Thurs-day.

An assessment refl ect-ing the joint judgment of federal intelligence agencies says the risk of water issues causing wars in the next 10 years is minimal even as they create tensions within and between states and threaten to disrupt na-tional and global food markets.

But beyond 2022, it says the use of water as a weapon of war or a tool of terrorism will become more likely, particu-larly in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

The report is based on a classifi ed National In-telligence Estimate on water security, which

was requested by Sec-retary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and completed last fall.

It says fl oods, scarce and poor quality water, combined with poverty, social tension, poor lead-ership and weak govern-ments will contribute to instability that could lead the failure of nu-merous states.

Those elements “will likely increase the risk of instability and state fail-ure, exacerbate regional tensions, and distract countries from working with the United States on important policy ob-jectives,” said the report, which was released at a State Department event commemorating World Water Day.

Clinton, who unveiled a new U.S. Water Part-nership that aims to share American water management exper-tise with the rest of the world, called the fi nd-ings “sobering.”

“These threats are real and they do raise serious security concerns,” she said.

The report noted that countries have in the past tried to resolve wa-

ter issues through ne-gotiation but said that could change as water shortages become more severe.

“We judge that as wa-ter shortages become more acute beyond the next 10 years, water in shared basins will in-creasingly be used as le-verage; the use of water as a weapon or to fur-ther terrorist objectives, also will become more likely beyond 10 years,” it said.

The report predicts that upstream nations — more powerful than their downstream neigh-bors due to geography — will limit access to water for political reasons and that countries will regu-late internal supplies to suppress separatist movements and dissi-dent populations.

At the same time, ter-rorists and rogue states may target or threaten to target water-related infrastructure like dams and reservoirs more fre-

quently. Even if attacks do not

occur or are only partial-ly successful, the report said “the fear of massive fl oods or loss of water re-sources would alarm the public and cause gov-ernments to take costly measures to protect the water infrastructure.”

The unclassifi ed sum-mary of the intelligence estimate does not iden-tify the specifi c countries most at risk.

But it notes that the study focused on several specifi c rivers and water basins.

Those included the Nile in Egypt, Sudan and nations further south, the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq and the greater Middle East, the Mekong in China and Southeast Asia, the Jordan that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories, the Indus and the Brah-maputra in India and South Asia as well as the Amu Darya in Central Asia.

Water could become cause warfare

Habitat BuildWhen: Saturday at 8

a.m.Where: 409 W. Wood-

ruffHow to help: E-mail

[email protected] or call 501-268-5589

Judge candidates agree to debate termsFrom left, White County Judge Michael Lincoln, attorney and moderator Winston Collier, judge candidate Bill Haynie and The Daily Citizen’s Editor Jacob Brower on Thursday morning negotiate terms for an upcoming county judge debate. The debate will be held on Monday, April 9 at 7 p.m. at the Riverview High School gym-nasium. The event is open to the public, and admission is free. The debate is sponsored by The Daily Citizen.

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TheDailyCitizen.com

JUDGE CANDIDATES DEBATE ISSUES

County Judge Michael Lincoln and candidate Bill Haynie displayed their knowledge of the offi ce and county government during a debate on Monday evening, sponsored by The Daily Citi-zen.

The more than hour-long event was held at Riverview High School at 7 p.m. with more than 300 people in at-tendance.

Searcy Election Commis-sion Chairman Winston Col-lier was the moderator for the event. The rules of the debate were agreed upon by each candidate prior to the debate.

Collier touched on a vari-ety of topics concerning the offi ce, including the question of government transparency and how it can be improved in the county. Haynie had the fi rst opportunity to respond to the question.

“The residents of White County are not getting an-swers about the way their tax dollars are being spent,” Haynie said. “There is no on-line system to show people the agenda of the Quorum

Court, the expenditures of the county, or the ordinances coming up for discussion... It’s really simple. Transpar-ency is transparency. It’s see-ing what is out there. We need

to be open about everything. You shouldn’t charge one per-son for something and then charge another person for something else.”

During Lincoln’s response,

he reiterated that the county government is already trans-parent as the information Haynie, such as the ordi-

More than 300 attend the eventBY MOLLY M. [email protected]

Douglas Niedt, American guitarist, will perform at Harding University Thursday as part of the University’s Classical Lyceum Series.

The performance will be held in the Ad-ministration Auditorium on at 7 p.m. Niedt will hold a workshop for music students and anyone interested in the Reynolds Re-cital Hall at 3 p.m. prior to the performance.

A native of St. Louis, Niedt began his study of the guitar at the age of seven with his father, an amateur guitarist. He later polished his playing through studies at the Juilliard School and the Segovia Mas-

ter Classes in Spain, and with Christopher Parkening, Narciso Yepes and Jorge Morel. He is currently the head of the guitar pro-gram of the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

Niedt is best known for the wide variety of music he plays in his concerts and re-cordings. Along with traditional classical repertoire, Niedt often plays arrangements of music by Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Se-cret Garden and Tommy Emmanuel.

Tickets for the performance will be $3. For more information, call the music de-partment at (501) 279-4343.

Workshop for students to be held before concert

FundraiserWho: White County Chil-

dren’s Safety CenterWhat: Raised $7,000 at

its fourth annual Art to Heart fundraiser

When: ThursdayWhere: Robbins-Sanford

Grand Hall

The White County Children’s Safety Center (WCCSS) raised $7,000 at its recent Art to Heart fundraiser.

Held in the Robbins-Sanford Grand Hall, the event featured hors d’oevres, a silent auction and booths with information about the safety center and about the prevalence of child abuse in White County.

Local artists donated a variety of work to be sold at the Thurs-day event, including paintings, drawings, photos and pottery pieces.

Some of the artists who do-nated pieces were Micah Hold-en, Terri Milligan, Susan Neville and Kelly VanHook.

Holden, who is a member of Second Saturday Studio, do-nated a children’s chair she did with mixed media, saying she decided to participate because she believes in the safety cen-

Event raises $7,000

for center

BY MARISA [email protected]

Money will aid abused children in White County

Please see HEART | 2A

BY ALLEN REEDAssociated Press

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkan-sas State Board of Education took two steps forward and three steps back Monday when it increased the number of school districts in fi scal distress.

The Brinkley, Hartford and Western Yell County districts were added to the list of dis-tricts that face consolidation or annexation if they do not cor-rect fi scal problems within two years. Eleven schools hold the fi nancially troubled designation and up to three more could be added next month. The Alpena, Bismarck and Drew Central dis-tricts were sent identifi cation letters earlier this year, but un-like the districts added Monday, are still deciding whether to ap-peal the designation.

“A number of the community just want to be left alone to run our schools, but as a new super-intendent I look at it as a way for us to get some help and better the school district,” said Hart-ford Superintendent Teresa Ragsdale.

Hartford, located along Ar-kansas’ western border, has

Earle, Forrest City lose label

of fiscal-distress

Please see DISTRESS | 2A

ConcertWho: Douglas

Niedt, American guitarist

What: Will per-form in the Harding University Adminis-tration Auditorium

When: Thursday at 7 p.m.

Tickets: $3Niedt

UNIVERSITY NO LONGER ‘SLIGHTLY ASKEW’Traffic in Searcy has resumed its normal pace after an influx of nearly 10,000 visitors at Spring Sing. — PAGE 3A

LIONS FACE JACKSONVILLE WEDNESDAYSearcy is looking to sweep the Red Devils on the road in a conference doubleheader. — PAGE 1B

Marisa Lytle/[email protected]

White County Judge Michael Lincoln (left) listens as Bill Haynie makes his opening statement during the White County Judge Debate sponsored by The Daily Citizen and hosted by Riverview HIgh School on Monday evening. Lincoln and Haynie will face each other in the Republican primary on May 22. The winner will not face a general election opponent.


White County Judge Michael Lincoln (left) and his opponent for the Republican primary on May 22, Bill Haynie, shake hands at the beginning of a debate held Monday night at River-view High School.


A • Tuesday, April 10, 2012 The Daily Citizen

FROM PAGE ONE

ter’s cause.According to Robin

Connell, executive direc-tor of the safety center, approximately 125 peo-ple attended the event.

One hundred and eighty balloons fi lled the room to symbolize the number of children WCCSC helped last year, Connell said. So far this year, the center has as-sisted 62 children.

Although the number of people in attendance was comparable to that of past years, Connell said, the amount of money raised was sub-stantially less.

“We normally raise $10,000 to $15,000,” she said. “I try to attri-bute [the lower amount] to people having so many different charities to give to. People are spread kind of thin.”

Connell said the non-profi t organization re-ceives most of its fund-ing through donations, which go toward staff salaries, overhead costs and other operating costs.

The White County Children’s Safety Cen-ter is a non-profi t advo-cacy organization that provides support for children who have been allegedly physically or sexually abused.

The primary opera-

tion of the center is to conduct forensic inter-views in which children tell their stories to a spe-cialized interviewer in a child-friendly environ-ment instead of having to be interviewed in a police station.

The center also has a medical examination program for allegedly abused children.

In addition to di-rectly assisting par-ents and families, the WCCSC partners with community agencies to promote education, awareness and preven-tion programs through school-based programs, community events and fundraisers.

The center is open 24 hours a day and serves children ages 3 to 17. Services, including med-ical exams, are free of charge. Referrals to the center can be made only by local law enforce-ment, DHS or Arkan-sas State Police Crimes Against Children Divi-sion.

For more information, people may call (501) 388-1636, visit www.whitecountycsc.com or send email to [email protected]. Those who wish to make a donation to the White County Children’s Safety Center may send mail to P.O. Box 2142, Searcy, AR 72145.


Corrections

HEART

CONTINUED FROM 1A

News in Brief

Associated Press

Police office burns after break-in, theft

RISON — Authorities are looking for a thief and an arsonist who broke into the Rison Police Department and set it on fire after taking several items.

Cleveland County sheriff’s Dept. Capt. Gary Young says the fire was reported by a newspaper carrier at about 3 a.m. Monday.

Young says the police department side of Rison City Hall sustained severe structural damage and that the city administration side suffered smoke damage.

Young says police records were destroyed but that shouldn’t interfere with any prosecutions. He says prosecutors have their own copies of the re-cords.

Detectives say security cameras at nearby busi-nesses are being checked but that the investiga-tion is just getting under way.

Rison is about 25 miles south of Pine Bluff and has about 1,300 residents.

Prosecutor clears detective in shooting

FAYETTEVILLE — The Washington County prose-cutor says a detective was justified when he fatally shot a man in Farmington last month.

Prosecutor John Threet says Detective L. Scott McAfee was justified in the shooting of 38-year-old Joshua Thomas.

Fayetteville television station KHBS reports that Threet says McAfee did not break any laws in the shooting.

Sheriff Tim Helder says detectives were following up on an investigation involving a reported sexual assault on a minor.

The sheriff says Thomas opened the door and swung a crowbar at McAfee.

The sheriff says McAfee fired once, fatally wounding Thomas.

BY ANDREW DEMILLOAssociated Press

LITTLE ROCK — For-mer legislator and Har-lem Globetrotter Fred Smith isn’t eligible to run in the May Democratic primary for his old Arkan-sas House seat because of a felony theft conviction that was later cleared from his record, a judge ruled Monday.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mary McGowan ordered election offi cials to not count or certify any votes for Smith in the May 22 primary for his old east Arkansas seat, noting that ballots have already been printed. The state Democratic Party had sued to keep Smith off the ballot because of the conviction.

Smith resigned his seat last year after he was found guilty of theft of property delivered by mistake. Smith fi led to run for his seat on March 1, two weeks before a

Chicot County judge dis-missed the theft case and said the ex-lawmaker complied with the condi-tions of his sentence.

Although the ruling ef-fectively cleared Smith’s record in the theft case, it didn’t change Smith’s eligibility because it was issued after he had fi led to run for offi ce, McGowan said.

Smith was charged af-ter an audit found that a school district issued a duplicate payment of $29,250 to a nonprofi t group run by Smith. Both payments were cashed.

Smith’s attorney argued in a hearing Thursday that Smith was never techni-cally convicted since he was given a “deferred” sentence in the case.

The judge agreed that Smith no longer had a felony conviction on his record, but found that Smith did have a record when he fi led to run for

offi ce. McGowan noted that the state Supreme Court has defi ned a con-viction as “the fi nding of a person guilty of an of-fense.”

The Democratic Party of Arkansas sued to block Smith’s candidacy after Secretary of State Mark Martin’s offi ce refused to remove him from the bal-lot. Martin’s offi ce argued that it would take a court order to remove Smith from the ballot.

“From the onset, our No. 1 goal has been to ensure that Arkansas law has been maintained and we appreciate the ruling in today’s decision,” said Democratic Party spokes-woman Candace Martin, adding that she expected Smith to appeal the rul-ing.

Sen. David Burnet, who represented Smith, did not immediately return a message Monday af-ternoon. Smith told The Associated Press said he

wanted to talk with Bur-nett about whether to ap-peal the court’s order, but said he still believes he’s eligible to run.

The local prosecutor asked the attorney gen-eral’s offi ce to appeal the Chicot County judge’s rul-ing that cleared Smith’s record, arguing that the judge had relied on a law that wasn’t in effect when Smith was found guilty. But the attorney general’s offi ce decided not to pur-sue the appeal.

“After reviewing the re-cord, we determined that the court’s error would not support an appeal,” attorney general spokes-man Aaron Sadler said, adding that the prosecu-tor agreed with the deci-sion.

Smith fi led to run for the party’s nomination against Rep. Hudson Hal-lum, who won the seat in a special election after Smith resigned. No Re-publicans are running.

Ex-lawmaker not eligible to run

struggled with declin-ing enrolment followed by diminishing funding, Ragsdale said. According to the state, the district’s net legal balance declined from $532,544 in the 2009-2010 fi scal year to $346,745 in 2010-2011. Brinkley and Western Yell County face similar problems of diminishing dollars.

The fi scal-distress des-ignation did not come as a surprise, Ragsdale said. To right the district’s fi -nances, Ragsdale said she’ll examine instituting fees for free day care and after-school programs that were created to bol-

ster enrollment.Hazel Burnett with the

Arkansas Department of Education recommended the removals and addi-tions.

Superintendents from the Earle and Forrest City school districts celebrated coming off of the list.

Forrest City Super-intendent Jerry Woods raised his hands into the air after the board’s unan-imous vote. The head of the eastern-Arkansas dis-trict, which at three years had been the longest-clas-sifi ed distressed district, called the removal a fi scal breath of fresh air.

“It’s like a fi nancial harbinger that hangs over your head. ... It kind

of makes people say, ‘I might not be as happy going to that district,’” Woods said.

Forrest City reduced costs by not fi lling open positions and reducing employee travel costs, among other measures. The Earle district said it closed a middle school and reconfi gured the dis-trict so it had two campus-es: kindergarten through sixth grade and seventh through 12th grade. Earle Superintendent Rickey Nicks said approximately one-third of the district’s staff was removed to fi x fi nances.

The board also re-viewed an update re-garding the Helena-West

Helena school district that with the removal of Forrest City now holds the distinction of being on the fi scal-distress list the longest. State offi cials announced the closure of three of the districts fi ve campuses and the elimi-nation of 30 positions for an estimated $1.4 million savings for its 2012-2013 budget.

DISTRESS

CONTINUED FROM 1A

BY MIKE SCHNEIDERAssociated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. — A grand jury will not look into the Trayvon Martin case, a special prosecutor said Monday, leaving the deci-sion of whether to charge the teen’s shooter in her

hands alone and eliminat-ing the possibility of a fi rst-degree murder charge. That prosecutor, Angela Corey, said her decision had no bearing on whether she would fi le charges against George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch vol-

unteer who has said he shot the unarmed black teen in self-defense. Corey could still decide to charge him with a serious felony such as manslaughter, which can carry a lengthy prison sen-tence if he is convicted.

A grand jury had been set

to meet Tuesday in Sanford, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.

Corey has long had a rep-utation for not using grand juries if it wasn’t necessary. In Florida, only fi rst-degree murder cases require the use of grand juries.

Martin death won’t go to Fla. grand jury

nances, county budget and Quorum Court agenda are available at the county clerk’s offi ce.

“We have line items for every expenditure in the county,” Lincoln said. “Not one penny can be spent unless its properly ap-propriated by the Justices of the Peace. No elected offi cial in the county can spend any money unless properly appropriated by the Quorum Court. Any time any citizen wants any information, they can just go to the county clerk’s of-fi ce and ask to see a copy of a transaction.”

Collier also asked about the surplus in the county budget, concerning how the money should be spent. Lincoln was able to respond fi rst to the ques-tion.

Lincoln said the surplus money cannot be spent

unless appropriated by the Quorum Court.

“The Justices of the Peace are the legislative body of government. They are in charge of fi nances,” Lincoln said.

Lincoln explained that the county road budget does not have a surplus; rather it is in county gen-eral. He said the Quorum Court has already desig-nated $1 million for the bypass, and $2 million for special projects.

“The county judge does not have control of the money,” he said. “Once it’s appropriated, then it can be used in county roads, law enforcement, or what-ever project the justices deem necessary.”

Haynie said he would like the surplus to be transferred to the county road budget because that is where there is a need in the county.

“Those out in the county are suffering the worst,” Haynie said. “The closer you get into Searcy, the better roads are. The county’s biggest issue is roads — roads and bridg-es. They need to be ad-dressed now.”

Also during the debate:■ Haynie restated that

he will dismiss Offi ce of Emergency Management Coordinator Tamara Jen-kins based on the fi ndings of a state police investiga-tion. Haynie said he will

keep all other county per-sonnel. Lincoln said he does not plan to dismiss any county employee if re-elected.

■ Lincoln discussed the number of one-lane wood-en bridges the county has made into two-lane paved bridges, along with the number of roads the coun-ty has improved with chip-sealing or paving since Lincoln has taken offi ce.

Each candidate was given a fi ve minute open-ing statement, and then allowed a 7-1/2-minute closing statement.

Collier asked 10 ques-tions during the night and alternated which candi-date had the fi rst opportu-nity to answer a question.

Once the question was asked, the candidates each had two minutes to re-spond. The candidate who was fi rst given the ques-tion also received a 30 sec-ond rebuttal.

DEBATE

CONTINUED FROM 1A DebateCounty judge Michael

Lincoln and candidate Bill Haynie participated in a debate on Mon-day evening, hosted by The Daily Citizen at Riverview High School. Topics of the debate included government transparency and the county budget surplus, among other topics.

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A • Thursday, April 12, 2012 The Daily Citizen

FROM PAGE ONE

assistant to Police Chief Kyle Osborne — fi ll ac-counts payable position temporarily, though the move could become per-manent.

The payroll clerk posi-tion will be fi lled by Kim Gordon, who was hired by the city in January to serve as a receptionist, but given she has previous payroll experience, Meads said she would be a good fi t to fi ll the position.

With Gordon moving to another area, the city now must fi nd a new re-ceptionist. Meads said the offi ce will “borrow” staff from other departments to work as a receptionist in the morning. In the af-ternoon, Beverly Simpson will work the receptionist desk while also doing the receipting function for the clerk’s staff. Simpson has been with the clerk’s staff for almost three years and has previous experience as the receptionist and as the accounts receivable clerk.

Meads said the two women leaving, Jordan and Rhodes, were not eli-gible to fi ll her position as city clerk/treasurer when she leaves in August be-cause neither of them live within the city limits of Searcy. Meads’ offi ce is an elected position; there-fore, whoever serves in it must live within Searcy city limits.

Following Meads’ dis-cussion of the changes in her offi ce on Tuesday night, Alderman Don Raney said he is con-

cerned that the two wom-en left because they or any of the other city employ-ees had not received bo-nuses in some time.

“I don’t know if there is any connection between them leaving because of the lack of bonuses, but I think we need to look at the cash fl ow again and see when we can afford bonuses. I think we owe it to the employees,” Raney said.

Alderman Dale Brewer echoed Raney’s senti-ments, and said he always thought the two women should have earned a higher salary because of all of the work they do for the city. Each of the wom-en earn $32,013.02.

Meads said she did not know much about why the women are leaving or if it had to do with their sal-ary. She said they are go-ing to the same business to work.

Morris said he was dis-appointed that the women were leaving because they both had done a “wonder-ful job” in the city.

“But we couldn’t hold them back,” he said.

Shock said he would reevaluate the city’s cash fl ow to see about a bonus. He said he would like the council to remember that while these two women are important and will be missed, they are only two of the 240 employees in the city.

In other business of the council, Searcy Fire Chief Bill Baldridge announced that he will have an op-portunity to save the city a lot of money on radio

equipment because of a matching grant for which he can apply through the Department of Home-land Security. If the city receives the grant, the fi re department would get 10 handheld radios, 15 pagers, one repeater and $7,500 to reprogram the old radio equipment to meet new standards, which are required to be done by the Federal Com-munication Commission by 2013. The city would only have to pay $5,000 for the equipment.

Baldridge’s grant wasn’t the only grant discussed. The council approved resolutions allowing the mayor to apply for three different grants. Two of the grants would be from the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics, which would be used for the new terminal and another for site improvements. The terminal grant could not exceed $450,000 and the improvements grant could not exceed $150,000.

The third grant is from the Federal Aviation Ad-ministration for the Taxi-way E project and it will not exceed $200,000.

The council approved the lowest bid for the air-port terminal project. The bid came from James H. Cone Construction and

the bid was at $787,000.The council also ap-

proved the removal of a home in city at 507 W. Woodruff Street. The home has been found to have “unsightly and dan-gerous conditions that are harmful to the public’s health, safety, and wel-fare,” said Buck Gibson, city attorney.

The code enforcement department has $5,000 in its budget for urban re-moval; therefore, remov-ing the home will not cost the city any additional costs. All costs acquired during the removal pro-cess will be put on the lien on the home, which will inhibit the property own-er from selling the prop-erty until the lien is paid to the city.

The council gave Shock the go-ahead to proceed with auctioning off 18 old vehicles, two 40-yard trailers, nearly a dozen pieces of lawn mainte-nance equipment, as-sorted bicycles and a handful of other items from various city depart-ments. He said there will be advertisements in The Daily Citizen with details about the auction, which will be held on May 2. The location and time of the auction is still unknown, Shock said, but he plans to fi nalize those details

soon.He said some of the

items will be sold individ-ually, while other items will be sold in lots.

The council approved a number of other items which included:

■ A 5 percent increase from the Waste Corp of Arkansas, which is effec-tive May 1. The city will now have to pay $32.65 a ton to take waste to the transfer station on East-line Road.

■ A resolution authoriz-ing the White River Plan-ning and Development District to provide admin-istrative services regard-ing the ball fi eld lighting project.

■ A resolution autho-rizing the placement of a historical marker at Oak Grove Cemetery honor-ing Brig. Gen. Dandridge McRae, upon request of the White County Histori-cal Society.

■ A resolution to ac-cept drainage easement regarding Lot 65, Stage 3, James Addition.

■ Revised Ordinance 2012-14 to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency requirements.

■ Approved a rezoning ordinance for Lot 9, Block 5, South Heights Addi-tion from residential to planned development.

■ Approved a budget-adjusting ordinance. The budget adjustment or-

dinance included a pay-ment of $10,000 to Main Street Searcy, a payment of $18,585.94 to SCM for architectural services regarding the airportterminal; a payment of $20,000 to the Searcy Re-gional Economic Devel-opment Corporation and a payment of $34,978.56 to Stephenson Oil Co., for fuel. The ordinance also included a transfer of $6,342.10 from IT ser-vice agreement software expenditure account to the network equipment software expenditure ac-count, as well as a appro-priation of $3,675 from unappropriated reserves to new Code Enforcement expenditure account re-garding the Sowell Street condemnation. The amount includes $3,000 for an appraisal fee and $675 for a limited title search fee. Gibson said during the agenda meet-ing that the appraisal fee amount is in the ballpark range for this type of ap-praisal.


Corrections

RESIGNING

CONTINUED FROM 1A

about issues affecting the people of White County.

Blackstone said she was glad that TV16 could be a part of the political pro-cess.

“It’s a good community service,” she said. “As far as I know, we are the only local television station for the entire county. We want to serve our commu-

nity and broadcasting the debate was a great oppor-tunity to do so.

“I think it’s important to get people involved with the political process. When the media shows something like the debate is important, then the viewer will think it’s im-portant as well. I think it’s important for everyone to get involved with elec-tions.”

BROADCAST

CONTINUED FROM 1A

about underage drinking and someone from Hard-ing University will talk to the students about over-the-counter medications.

Students at Pangburn High School want to help out the city by raising money for a community center and possibly hav-ing a health fair.

Students from Sandy Rowe’s art class told the city council Tuesday that they have already been researching funds and possible property to build

a community center. All of the clubs from the high school have said that they are willing to donate money and help with the center.

Rowe said that at fi rst she thought that the stu-dents were just going to talk about building a com-munity center and that it would just end there, but that the students are seri-ous about helping.

The late Tom Sooter and Jack Bridger were added to the honor plaque at city hall for their servic-es and dedication to the

city of Pangburn.Sooter spent most of

his 93 years in Pangburn and worked for the school and also worked as a bus driver for the district.

“He could take any-thing and make some-thing out of it,” said Shir-ley Ramsey, city clerk. “ He was really gifted.”

Bridger was mayor at one point, but Ramsey said she wasn’t sure how for how long he served. He also helped build the baseball fi elds after see-ing that the kids didn’t have somewhere to play.

In other business, the council is accepting bids to repave Moss, Pine, and Skillern streets and the intersections of Church and Main. City offi cials are also going to replace the culverts at Maple and Torrence and County 10 road.

The next regular monthly meeting of the council will be 7:30 p.m. on April 17. The council meets at 7:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday at the Butch Pearce Pangburn Municipal Building, 508 W. Main St.

PANGBURN

CONTINUED FROM 1A

rector Ernie Passailaigue in 2009 without oversight from the commission or the legislative commit-tee that focuses on lottery matters.

Hyde said Passailai-gue’s change possibly invalidated the contract, and has cost the state more than $7 million. The auditor added that the amendment could cost Arkansas up to $21 mil-lion throughout the life of the contract, which is set to expire in 2016. Repre-sentatives from the ven-dor previously asked the commission to honor its commitment to the con-tract and offered the state a $2.2 million gesture of goodwill.

Commissioners George Hammons and Bruce Engstrom opposed reaf-fi rming the contract. Eng-strom pointed to com-ments from Gov. Mike Beebe, who said his chief legal counsel, Tim Gauger, was personally investigat-ing the lottery contract.

Beebe also said theconfl ict might require anopinion from the Arkan-sas attorney general’s of-fi ce. However, attorneygeneral spokesman AaronSadler said Wednesday af-ternoon that no requestsregarding the lottery havebeen made.

“I think I’ve done ev-erything I can do,” Eng-strom said after the vote.“I’m going to try and relyon the governor and peo-ple much smarter with awhole lot more horsepow-er than I’ve got to see whatcan happen.”

Lottery Director BishopWoosley maintains Hyde’sassessment of the contractis inaccurate. Woosley willcontinue to negotiate theconditions of the contractwith Scientifi c Games, un-der the commission’s di-rection. He said he hopeshe can gain additional fi s-cal concessions from thecompany.

“Frankly, I don’t knowthat they owe us any-thing,” Woosley said.“Hopefully, we can nego-tiate more.”

LOTTERY

CONTINUED FROM 1ABY ANDREW DEMILLOAssociated Press

LITTLE ROCK — The chairmen of Arkansas’ Democratic and Republi-can parties said Wednes-day they don’t expect President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, the all-but-certain GOP nomi-nee, to campaign in the state before the Novem-ber election.

But the party heads dis-agreed over how much the presidential race will affect the fi ght over con-trol of the state Legisla-ture and other matchups this fall.

State Democratic Party Chairman Will Bond told reporters that he’s been told by the Obama cam-paign to not expect the president to campaign in Arkansas, a state that he lost by 20 percent-age points in the election four years ago. Polls have shown that Obama re-

mains very unpopular in the state.

Meanwhile, state GOP Chairman Doyle Webb said it’s unlikely that Romney, the former Mas-sachusetts governor, will stump in Arkansas.

“We’re not a targeted state because of that mar-gin, so at this point I don’t expect him to come into this state,” Webb told re-porters.

Bond and Webb had an informal debate be-fore the Political Animals Club, which holds regu-lar forums with political fi gures in the state. They squared off Wednesday over which party has the edge as Democrats and Republicans prepare for an election that will de-termine who controls the Legislature, which is currently majority-Dem-ocrat. All 135 House and Senate seats are up in No-vember because of redis-

tricting, and Republicans have made gains in recent years in the historically Democratic state.

“You won’t be able to choose purple in this elec-tion,” Webb said. “I think we’re in a historic time of realignment of the politi-cal parties in this state.”

Bond accused Republi-cans in the state of drift-ing further to the right, and said Democrats have proven their ability to lead the state during the economic downturn.

“The facts support con-tinuing the responsible leadership of Arkansas Democrats,” he said.

Obama has not visited the state since 2006, but his campaign opened an offi ce in North Little Rock last month. Bond said he didn’t view the presi-dent’s low approval as a liability in state races.

“Obviously, if he had 75 percent approval in

Arkansas, then we would be in better shape, but we don’t think it’s going to affect our state elections signifi cantly because of the record of Arkansas Democrats,” said Bond, who noted that Demo-cratic Gov. Mike Beebe won every one of the state’s 75 counties in the 2010 election.

Webb, however, said he believes Obama’s lack of popularity in the state will hurt Democrats in legis-lative races. He criticized Beebe and Attorney Gen-eral Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, for not join-ing lawsuits challenging Obama’s health care law.

“I don’t know that Re-publicans nationalized this state election as much as the Democrats did by failing to repre-sent the overwhelming feeling of the majority of the state of Arkansas,” Webb said.

Chairmen: Romney, Obama to skip state

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I N D E X

TAKING AN AFTERNOON CAT NAP

LAFFOON RESIGNS FROM RIVERVIEW


Raiders basketball coach Jon Laffoon will be the new principal of Pea Ridge High School. — PAGE 1B

ARREST MADE IN HIGGINSON MAYOR ATTACKThe man accused of attacking Randall Homsley made bond Thursday after being arrested. — PAGE 3A

TheDailyCitizen.com

The future of the 36/67 Con-nector Route is in question be-cause of the state’s fi nancial ob-ligation to pay $12 million over the next four years because of a trucker tax exemption.

Highway Commissioner John Burkhalter said he could not say with 100 percent certainty if the bypass project would still be completed.

“The reason you can’t say that

Bypass project in question


Burkhalter

Commissioner not 100 percent sure bypass will be completed as planned

36/67 Connector Route

Because of a trucker tax exemption, the Arkansas Highway Department budget will be tight, which has caused local officials to worry about the future of the 36/67 Connector Route. State Commissioner John Burkhalter said he cannot say with 100 percent certainty that the project will be completed.

White County Sheriff’s depu-ties are investigating a recent shooting that took place near Searcy.

D e p u t i e s on Thursday were called to the White County Medi-cal Center re-garding a man who suffered a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Deputies were advised that the victim, Coty R. Cook, 29, was involved in an altercation with a man outside of Searcy. After Cook began to drive away, the suspect fi red at the rear of the vehicle, hitting Cook in the back of the head.

Cook was transported to the White County Medical Center via personal vehicle. He was later transported to University of Arkansas for Medical Sci-ences in Little Rock, and was expected to be released Friday.

Deputies did not release the suspect’s name, citing an ongo-ing investigation.

Deputies investigate shooting

Local man suffers gunshot wound to head

Shooting near Searcy

Victim: Coty R. Cook, 29What happened: Cook was

alleged involved with an alter-cation with a man outside of Searcy. As he drove off, the suspect fired at the rear of the vehicle, hitting Cook in the head.

Cook


Owen and Missile wake up from a nap at the Searcy Humane Society Animal Shelter on Friday. The shelter, located at 112 Johnston Road, is open every day from 1-5 p.m.

Video of Monday night’s White County Judge debate between incumbent Mi-chael Lincoln and challenger Bill Haynie can now be viewed on The Daily Citizen’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/seadailycitizen.

Between now and April 30, the debate can also be viewed by White County Ca-ble subscribers on Harding TV16 at 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. each day.

The video was produced by Harding TV

staff and RushWorks.tv.The debate, moderated by White

County Election Commission Chairman Winston Collier, featured Lincoln and Haynie answering a series of 10 questions about issues affecting the people of White

County.Topics include: Government transpar-

ency, the county’s budget surplus, roads and infrastructure, the failed county by-pass tax, personnel issues, the oil and gasindustry, confl icts of interest, veterans’ affairs and health of the candidates.

White County Judge debate video online

BY JACOB [email protected]

Debate can be viewed at YouTube,

Harding TV

Debate video

Video of Monday’s White County Judge debate between incumbent Michael Lincoln and challenger Bill Haynie can be viewed at www.youtube.com/seadailycitizen. White County Cable subscribers can also view the debate on Harding TV16 at 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. between now and April 30.

Bids will open Tuesday for a new fi eld house and additional class-rooms at Riverview High School.

Superintendent Howard Morris told the school board at a recent meeting that the district is moving

items from an old bus shop into a newly constructed bus shop, leav-ing the old shop area free to be-come the site of a new fi eld house.

Riverview will begin accepting bids Tuesday at the administration building.

The board on Thursday also

gave Morris permission to spend up to $9,000 to purchase Astro-turf for the indoor practice facility. Morris said installation of the turf would probably cost around $1 per square foot.

Bids open Tuesday for field house, classroomsBY MARISA LYTLE

[email protected]

Lincoln Haynie

Riverview School Board honors FBLA students

OKLAHOMA CITY — In an un-usually early and strong warning, national weather forecasters cau-tioned Friday that conditions are ripe for violent tornadoes to rip through the nation from Texas to Minnesota this weekend.

As states across the middle of the country prepared for the worst, storms were already kick-ing off in Norman, Okla., where a twister whizzed by the nation’s tornado forecasting headquarters but caused little damage.

It was only the second time in U.S. history that the Storm Pre-diction Center issued a high-risk warning more than 24 hours in advance, said Russ Schneider, di-rector of the center, which is part

Forecasters say Saturday storms ‘life threatening’

BY SEAN MURPHYAssociated Press

Please see BYPASS | 2A

Please see RIVERVIEW | 3APlease see STORMS | 2A

CitizenDailyThe

W E A T H E RToday: Partly sunny. Rain likely. Highs in the lower 80s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph. Tonight: Mostly cloudy. Rain likely. Lows around 60. North-east winds 5 to 10 mph.


“ ”If you only have a hammer, you tend

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ABRAHAM MASLOW20th American psychologist


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012 75¢


I N D E X

DIXIE SWING KINGS DRAW CROWD AT FAIR

SEARCY’S Rx EXPRESS PHARMACY TO CLOSESearcy will lose a pharmacy as a result of Walgreens’ acquisition of Arkansas-based USA Drug. — PAGE 3A


WEEK 3 (HOPEFULLY) KICKS OFF TONIGHTIf the lightning stays away, all six White County football teams will see action tonight. — PAGE 1B

WWWWEf too

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWIIIIf fo

TheDailyCitizen.com

Candidates vying to repre-sent District 46 in the Arkan-

sas House of Representatives have agreed to a debate to be held next month at Harding University.

Incumbent State Rep. Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, and chal-lenger Kyle Osborne, D-Searcy, will debate 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 8, at the American Heri-tage Auditorium. Dr. Jim Mill-er, assistant professor of com-munication at Harding, will moderate the 90-minute fo-

Biviano, Osborne to debate


Biviano Osborne

Forum to be held Oct. 8 at Harding

University

The proposed city of Searcy advertising and promotion(A&P) tax will be put before the vote of the people in No-vember, and that’s the only way future in-creases of the tax rate can be approved.

The pro-posal calls for 1 percent to be collected on gross receipts from prepared foods and 3 percent on hotel fees. The state A&P statute

Voters must

approve A&P hike


Searcy A&P tax

What: 1 percent tax on the gross receipts on prepared foods, 3 percent on the gross receipts from hotels and motels

Next step: Searcy resi-dents will vote on Nov. 6

Tax in place: July 1, 2013

Gibson

City attorney: A&P tax rate

cannot be raised by council

Kyle Troutman/[email protected]

Kendall Stovall, left, and Adrain Brown present the colors and say the Pledge of Allegiance before a per-formance by the Dixie Swing Kings at the White County Fair Thursday morning. Brown served in the Army from 1952-1954 and served in Germany and Korea. At left, Carl Rogers, left, and his wife, Georgia, are all smiles as they dance to a song by the Dixie Sing Kings at the White County Fair Thursday morning.

An updated version of the Harding University student media network The Link will be launched today.

The website, thelink.harding.edu, is the department of mass

communication’s student me-dia network.

“The site was created to in-form students, engage them in dialogue, share their stories, and connect them with the Har-ding family across the world,” said Dr. Jim Miller, assistant professor of communication.

The site displays work from student publications and pro-ductions including The Bison newspaper, Petit Jean year-book, TV16 news program, and

KVHU 95.3 and AM 1660 radio stations.

“The main goal in revamping the site was to provide an out-let with which students could publish their work in a profes-sional manner while providing students, faculty, alumni and community members with easy access to the most recent news

Harding to launch updated media site todayWebsite connects students, faculty,

alumni

Updated site

The Harding University department of mass com-munication will launch an updated version of The Link, the department’s on-line student media network.

BY ANDREW DEMILLOAssociated Press

LITTLE ROCK — The motherof slain Little Rock TV anchor Anne Pressly should be allowedto proceed with a lawsuit against a hospital and three workers who illegally looked at her dead daughter’s medical fi les despite a judge’s ruling that privacy claimscan’t be pursued after someone’s death, an attorney told the Ar-kansas Supreme Court Thurs-day.

Justices on Thursday heard oral arguments in Patricia Can-nady’s lawsuit against St. Vin-cent Infi rmary Medical Center over claims that her daughter’s privacy was violated when the medical fi les were accessed. Cannady is appealing a PulaskiCounty judge’s ruling that the law doesn’t allow privacy claims to proceed after the affected per-son’s death.

Gerry Schulze, Cannady’s at-torney, said justices should show the public that invasion of priva-

Slain anchor’s

mother’s suit defended


Please see A&P | 2A

Please see WEBSITE | 3A Please see LAWSUIT | 2A

The Daily Citizen Friday, September 14, 2012 • Page 3A

FROM PAGE ONE

As Walgreen Co. con-tinues to work through its acquisition of Arkansas-based USA Drug, Searcy will lose one of its drug stores, but it’s not the store many people would expect to close in the transaction.

Of the 27 stores in Ar-kansas to close, Rx Ex-press Pharmacy on Race Avenue is on the list. The store is located in front of Fred’s, and sits at the cor-ner of Race and Marion streets.

Walgreen Co. corpo-rate spokesperson Jim Graham explained that the store is an affi liate of the USA drug chain.

“USA Drug is a chain owned by LaFrance hold-ings, which is the com-pany we’re acquiring,” he said. “They operate under many different brand names, one of which is Rx Express.”

The company expects to close the store by No-vember, Graham said. Rx Express has been in Searcy since 2002 and employs six people.

Customer Ellen Self of Searcy just moved from Mississippi and was pick-ing up her fi rst prescrip-tion from the pharmacy on Thursday afternoon.

“I can’t believe it’s clos-ing,” Self said. “I think it’s terrible.”

Graham said custom-ers who are concerned about their prescriptions will be able to have it fi lled at one of two loca-tions in Searcy.

“When a store is closed, all its prescription drug customers will be noti-fi ed of the location of a nearby Walgreens or

USA Drug-affi liated store where their prescrip-tion information will be transferred,” he said. “No other action is needed by pharmacy customers to have their existing pre-scriptions fi lled at any Walgreens store.”

Longtime customer Jim Crawford of Judso-nia said he is unhappy about the news.

“I hate for it to close,” Crawford said. “You can usually get right in and get your medicine.”

The USA Drug Store at the corner of Race and Moss streets will remain open, despite 27 other USA drugs around the state closing. Graham said that the store will stay open to continue to meet the need in the area.

“We did an analysis of the markets to assess the size of the markets and to see the demand for services in the area,” Graham said. “We looked at the proximity of other USA Drug and affi liate stores and based our de-cision of the analysis of that market.”

Based on proximity alone, one would think that USA Drug’s proxim-ity of one mile away from Walgreens would put it on the list to be closed.

Graham said that it not the case.

“It’s not unusual to have more than one drug store within a two mile ra-dius of another,” he said.

Area Rx Express pharmacy 1 of 27 set to close


Company spokesman: Searcy’s USA Drug to remain open

USA Drug

Stores closing: 27Number in White County: 1

Closing time: By November

rum, which is sponsored by The Daily Citizen.

Biviano and Osborne said they are excited about the debate.

“I look forward to dis-cussing the issues that are critical to the state of Arkansas,” Biviano said. “I welcome the opportu-nity to explain my posi-tions for plans on how we’re going to address the economic, education-al and social issues here in the state.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Osborne said. “I’m hoping people will see what I actually stand for on the issues that are im-portant to the voters of this district.”

The auditorium is lo-cated on the fi rst fl oor of the American Heritage Building, 915 E. Market in Searcy.

Biviano and Osborne will face off on the Nov. 6 general election ballot. District 46 encompasses the cities of Searcy and Kensett.

DEBATE

CONTINUED FROM 1A


and activities on campus,” said Michelle Pugh, editor in chief of the Petit Jean

and graduate assistant of the mass communication department.

The site also provides links to each category’s

Vimeo, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Us-ers can read issues of The Bison, watch streaming footage from TV16, listen

to KVHU radio and view issues of the Petit Jean and alumni blog posts. Students can also submit story ideas for publication.

Singin’ and dancin’ at the county fairJackie Stewart plays violin for the Dixie Swing Kings during a performance at the White County Fair Thursday morning. The group is com-posed of multiple bands and only gets to play about once a year. At right, Victoria Tay-lor sings the National Anthem before a per formance by the Dixie Swing Kings at the White County Fair Thursday morning.

WEBSITE

CONTINUED FROM 1A

BY ANDREW DEMILLOAssociated press

LITTLE ROCK — The state erred by rejecting a proposed ballot measure that if passed, would grant a woman exclusive rights to operate casinos in sev-eral Arkansas counties, and voters should decide the issue in November, her attorney told the state Supreme Court on Thurs-day.

Peter Kumpe, an attor-ney for professional poker player Nancy Todd, told justices the state unfairly rejected her bid late in the process due to its concerns that her proposed amend-ment would implicitly prohibit race tracks from offering electronic gam-bling games such as video poker and blackjack.

Todd's proposal would give her the right to oper-ate casinos in four Arkan-

sas counties. Last week, the court heard argu-ments in a similar lawsuit by a Texas businessman seeking to get a compet-ing bid on the ballot that would give him exclusive casino operating rights in seven counties.

"The sponsors have ex-perienced this process more like an obstacle course," Kumpe told the justices Thursday.

The secretary of state's offi ce ruled that Todd's proposed measure couldn't legally appear on the ballot because it didn't inform voters it would repeal a law allowing a Hot Springs horse track and a West Memphis dog track to operate electronic "games of skill."

Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson, an attor-ney representing the sec-retary of state's offi ce, said

Todd's revised amend-ment language that says it "may" repeal the games would confuse voters even more.

"The plaintiffs have in-serted a clause into the ballot title that so mud-dies the waters that voters cannot cast an informed vote," Hutchinson said.

Kumpe told the justices that the state is engaging in pure speculation by saying the amendment would implicitly repeal the electronic gambling at other locations. He said state offi cials are operat-ing on the assumption that wholesale casino gambling is being offered at the tracks.

"The whole idea was to draw a line between games of chance and games of skill," Kumpe said.

But an attorney for the chairman of the Stop

Casinos Now commit-tee formed to campaign against the amendment said Todd's amendment is so broad that there's no other way to view its impact on the tracks. The committee is funded pri-marily by the company that owns Southland, the West Memphis track.

"The casino gaming they're allowed to do is all games," Steve Lancaster said. "There is no dis-tinction between games of skill and games of chance."

The state and oppo-nents have also argued that the petitions Todd submitted for the propos-al shouldn't be accepted since she revised the lan-guage after submitting signatures in response to concerns raised by the secretary of state and at-torney general's offi ce.

High court considers second casino suit

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W E A T H E RToday: Sunny. Highs in the lower 80s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Tonight: Partly cloudy. Lows in the upper 50s. South winds 5 mph.


“ ”To improve is to change; to be perfect

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012 75¢


I N D E X

SEARCIANS ENJOY COOL WEATHER

The Searcy City Council ear-lier this week corrected an er-

ror to the Searcy advertising and promotion (A&P) tax or-dinance that will appear on the general election ballot.

In August, the council passed

an A&P tax resolution that in-cluded a title for the issue that would be used on the Nov. 6 general election ballot.

But somehow between the time the resolution was passed and when it was taken to the county clerk’s offi ce, an original rough draft of the resolution was signed by Mayor David Morris and taken to the clerk’s offi ce — not the fi nal version

approved by the council. Thiscopy contained a different ver-sion of the ballot title than whatwas included in the resolutionapproved by the council.

City Attorney Buck Gibsonexplained that the during thecourse of drafting the resolu-tion that was approved by thecouncil, a number of versions

Council corrects A&P flaw


Attorney: Tax ordinance itself will not change

House District 46 candidates Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, and Kyle Osborne, D - S e a r c y , agreed to terms of a de-bate to be held next month.

The debate will be held at 7 p.m. Mon-day, Oct. 8, at the Ameri-can Heritage Audi tor ium at Harding U n i v e r s i t y . The debate is sponsored by The Daily Cit-izen and will be moderated by Jim Miller, Harding as-sistant profes-sor of com-munication.

Both candidates will be given fi ve minutes each for opening

Debate terms settled

The Daily Citizen

Biviano

Osborne

State Rep Debate

When: 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8

Where: American Heritage Auditorium at Harding Uni-versity

Biviano, Osborne to debate Oct. 8

at Harding



Triston Grimes, 3, of Searcy heads down the slide at Ber-r yhill Park on Wednesday afternoon. Grimes was visit-ing the park with his mom, Ginger Grimes. At left, Cal-ey Perry of Searcy throws a football with her brother Cory (not pictured) at Berryhill Park Wednesday afternoon. The park was filled with people enjoying the seasonal weath-er. Autumn officially begins Saturday.

As October approaches, one county department will be wrap-ping up work with its part-time employees, while two other de-partments will continue to use

Court approves part-time

work


Quorum CourtThree county departments

were approved to hire part-time employees to help with temporary increased work. The road department, the tax collector’s office, and the county clerk’s office were all approved pay their part-time employees.

3 county offices approved to pay

part-time employees KENSETT — Police vehicle lights in Kensett will soon be shining brighter.

Because of a $4,200 Jag grant — a mini grant from the Department of Finance and Ad-ministration — Kensett’s police cars will be getting new light bars and spotlights.

The cost of the upgrades is about $4,300, with the extra

money for lights coming from the activity fund.

“Our lights bars now are 2006 models, and they were used when we bought them, so they’re pretty old,” said Jim

Dwyer, Kensett police chief.Kensett police will also be

taking bids for two old police cars not in use anymore.

“We have two police cars that are in bad shape,” Dwyer said. “We want to take some bids and get rid of them.”

The city will also take bids on a 1990s model Ford Ranger used by the water department. Water Superintendent Steve Brown said the Ranger has bro-ken down and isn’t worth much money, but said the city got good use from a car they spent little on.

“We only payed $1,800 for it,

so we got our worth out of it,” he said.

Other business Tuesday, the council took the following ac-tion:

■ Agreed to use the city dump truck to haul gravel to be put down in between Northeast Second and Northeast Third streets. The council agreed to allow Buddy Sullivan to spread the gravel as long as the cost is reasonable

■ Agreed to replace four to fi ve pipes and fi ller caps on the city park’s fence, which was dam-

Kensett Police Department to upgrade lights

BY KYLE [email protected]

City to sell 2 old police vehicles, 1 water

department vehicleCity of Kensett

Kensett police will make upgrades to police vehicle light bars and new spot-lights, thanks to a Jag Grant. The city will also be taking bids for two old police cars and one water department vehicle.

Please see A&P | 2A

Please see COURT | 2A Please see KENSETT | 3A

LOCAL GRIDIRON RIVALRY BEGINS FRIDAY


Riverview and Bald Knob will meet on the football field for the first time ever Friday night. — PAGE 1B

OUR VIEW: AAA PUNTING ON LOCAL GAMESThe Arkansas Activities Association’s lack of leadership on weather-shortened games is an embarrassment. — PAGE 4A

TheDailyCitizen.com

The Daily Citizen Thursday, September 20, 2012 • Page 3A

FROM PAGE ONE

aged by a tree knocked over by strong winds

■ The fi re department is building a new rescue truck using money from the fi re department fund and county fund, not using

any city money.■ McDonald informed

the council the city has placed an advertisement in The Daily Citizen call-ing for bids to clean the asbestos-contaminated buildings. The fi nal day to submit a bid is Sept. 27.

KENSETT

CONTINUED FROM 1A

statements and fi ve minutes each for clos-ing statements. There will be a total of 10 questions and each candidate will be asked fi ve questions. Candidates will be allowed two-minute responses, the opposing can-didate will be allowed two-minute rebuttals and the original candidate will be allowed 30-second rebuttals.

The order of statements and questions was determined by a coin toss Wednes-day morning. Biviano, the incumbent, will make the fi nal opening statement, the fi rst closing statement and will be asked even-numbered questions. Osborne, the chal-lenger, will make the fi rst opening state-ment, the fi nal closing statement and will be asked odd-numbered questions.

Questions will be written by Miller based on news reports, the candidates’ platforms and input from readers of The Daily Citi-zen. Readers may submit questions for con-sideration by emailing them to Editor Jacob Brower at [email protected].

Biviano and Osborne will face off on the Nov. 6 general election ballot. District 46 encompasses the cities of Searcy and Kensett.

DEBATE

CONTINUED FROM 1A


From left: State Rep. Mark Biviano, R-Searcy (left), and challenger Kyle Os-borne, D-Searcy (second from right), dis-cuss debate terms with The Daily Citizen’sEditor Jacob Brower (second from left) and moderator Jim Miller (right) Wednes-day morning at Harding University. The debate will be held Monday, Oct. 8, at the university. At left, Biviano and Osborne visit following the meeting.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s inter-nal watchdog on Wednes-day faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and manage-ment failures during a bun-gled gun-traffi cking probe in Arizona that disregarded public safety and resulted in hundreds of weapons turn-ing up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico.

A former head of the de-partment’s Bureau of Alco-hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and a deputy as-sistant attorney general in Justice’s criminal division in Washington left the de-partment upon the report’s release — the fi rst by retire-ment, the second by resig-nation.

In the 471-page report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred more

than a dozen people for pos-sible department disciplin-ary action for their roles in Operation Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W. Bush administra-tion. A former acting deputy attorney general and the head of the criminal division were criticized for actions and omissions related to op-erations subsequent to and preceding Fast and Furious.

The report did not criti-cize Attorney General Eric Holder, but said lower-level offi cials should have briefed him about the investigation much earlier.

The report found no evi-dence that Holder was in-formed about the Fast and Furious operation before Jan. 31, 2011, or that the attorney general was told about the much-disputed gun-walking tactic em-

ployed by the ATF.Gun-walking was an ex-

perimental tactic, barred under long-standing depart-ment policy. ATF agents in Arizona allowed suspected “straw purchasers,” in these cases believed to be work-ing for Mexican drug gangs, to leave Phoenix-area gun stores with weapons in or-der to track them and bring charges against gun-smug-gling kingpins who long had eluded prosecution, but they lost track of most of the guns.

The experimental op-erations were a response to widespread criticisms of the agency’s anti-smuggling ef-forts. Because of thin ATF staffi ng and weak penalties, the traditional strategy of arresting suspected straw buyers as soon as possible had failed to stop the fl ow of tens of thousands of guns to Mexico — more than 68,000 in the past fi ve years.

BY PETE YOSTAssociated Press

ASSOCIATED PRESS/Eric Gay, File

Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson speaks during a news conference on Aug. 13, 2009, in San Antonio. The Justice Department’s internal watchdog on Wednesday faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judg-ment and management failures during a bungled gun-trafficking probe in Ari-zona that resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico.

Justice Department faulted in gun-trafficking case




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TheDailyCitizen.com

BIVIANO, OSBORNE SPAR ON ISSUESWoman rescued

Who: Othella Fleming, 61, of Searcy

What: Was removed from her residence after food left cooking filled the residence with smoke

When: Saturday, around 8:41 p.m.

PANGBURN RESIDENTS UNDER BOIL ORDERPangburn has issued a boil order for everything on Second Street south of Main Street, due to a main valve repair.

BADGERS LOOKING TO TURN CORNERBeebe is scrambling after dropping its sixth straight game, and is now in do-or-die mode. — PAGE 1B

The Democratic candidate for the District 46 state rep-resentative seat said he does not support his party’s major social platforms, as well as the initiative to allow certain pa-tients to use marijuana.

Searcy Police Chief Kyle Os-borne, D-Searcy, said he does not support abortion or same-sex marriage, or a petitioned initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot for medical marijuana.

“I’m opposed to abortion, same sex marriage and le-galizing marijuana,” he said on Monday night during a debate between him and his opponent State Rep. Mark Bi-viano, R-Searcy.

“I will vote no (on medi-cal marijuana on the Nov. 6 ballot),” Osborne said. “As a police offi cer, medical mari-juana is an illegal drug. It’s illegal.”

The debate was sponsored by The Daily Citizen at the American Heritage Audito-rium at Harding University.

Biviano said he thinks that Osborne will not be able to stand by those ideals if he is elected and is a voting mem-

ber of the state legislature.“I fi nd it interesting that

politicians make these state-ments in campaigns and then

go to Little Rock and fall in line with their political party,”

Candidates debate party platforms, tax pledge


Residents in the Bradford School District will get to vote today to decide the last mem-ber of their school district board of directors.

Candidate Russ Durham and Joshua Nelson are the last of an original three candidates vying for a seat on the board.

Voters can cast their ballot

at Bradford City Hall from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

On Election Day on Sept. 18, neither Durham, Nelson, or the

third candidate Amanda Cowell received a majority of the vote.

Durham received 58 votes (49.57 percent), Nelson received 32 votes (27.35 percent) and Cowell received 27 votes (23.08 percent.)

Durham was only two votes shy of winning the race without a runoff. The seat is being vacat-ed by longtime board member

Leland Wells, who chose not to seek re-election.

Bradford school board run-off election todayThe Daily Citizen

A Searcy woman was rescued from her apartment Saturday.

According to Brittany Eacret, public information offi cer for the Searcy Police Department, Othella Fleming, 61, of Searcy apparently fell asleep on her couch in her South Elm Ter-race Apartment while food was cooking. A neighbor called in to report alarms going off and the smell of cooking food.

Around 8:41 p.m., offi cer Mi-chael Mosher responded to the welfare alert.

Upon arrival he said he could see smoke coming from the top of the apartment. Fleming’s neighbor had opened the door

Woman rescued

from apartment

BY WENDY [email protected]

Food left cooking filled

residence with smoke

LITTLE ROCK — The family of an Arkansas man who was shot and killed by an off-duty Little Rock police offi cer in 2010 asked the Justice Department on Mon-day to investigate his death.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, lawyers for Eugene Ellison’s family also alleged a cover-up after his death by the same department that has em-ployed his two sons.

Ellison’s younger son, Sgt. Troy Ellison, joined the Little Rock police department in 1995. Ellison’s older son, Spencer Elli-son, is a former Little Rock police offi cer who now teaches criminal justice at the University of North Texas at Dallas.

Their attorneys’ letter to Hold-er comes nearly two years after Donna Lesher, shot Eugene El-lison, 67, twice at an apartment complex where she and another off-duty offi cer, Tabitha Mc-Crillis, were working as security guards.

Family seeks answers in police shootingBY JEANNIE NUSS

Associated Press

Please see RESCUED | 3A

Election

For: Bradford School BoardVoting location: Bradford

City HallCandidates: Russ Durham

and Joshua Nelson

Only residents in Bradford School District will vote


Incumbent Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, right, listens as Kyle Osborne, D-Searcy, states his case on an issue at the State House of Representatives District 46 debate, sponsored by The Daily Citizen and hosted by Harding University Monday night. Osborne and Biviano will square off in the general election Nov. 6.


State House of Representative challenger Kyle Osborne, D-Searcy, left, listens to State Rep. Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, during a debate at Harding University Monday night.


A • Tuesday, October 9, 2012 The Daily Citizen

FROM PAGE ONE

Funeral services set for KTHV’s Turner

ARKADELPHIA (AP) — Funeral services are set for Little Rock television station KTHV anchor Matt Turner, who was killed in a Saturday traffic crash.

A visitation is set for Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 3rd Street Baptist Church in Turner’s home-town of Arkadelphia.

KTHV reports that a funeral will be at 1 p.m. Wednesday, also at the church.

Ruggles-Wilcox Funeral Home in Arkadelphia is handling the arrange-ments.

Turner died in a single-vehicle accident in which his SUV went off west-bound I-30 in Benton and struck a concrete base for a highway sign.

Turner went on the air for KTHV in September after he left Fayetteville television station KNWA, where he worked for eight years.

Obama: ‘Today we celebrate Chavez’

KEENE, Calif. (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday designated the home of Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez as a national monument,

calling Chavez a hero who brought hope to millions of poor, disenfranchised farm workers who otherwise might have remained “invisible” to much of the nation.

“Today, we celebrate Cesar Chavez,” Obama said at a ceremony at La Paz, the Califor-nia farmhouse where Chavez lived and worked for more than two decades. “Our world is a better place because Cesar Chavez decided to change it.”

Chavez, who died in 1993 at age 66, is bur-ied on the site where the monument was dedicated. His widow, Helen, still lives there.

The 187-acre site, known as Nuestra Se-nora Reina de la Paz (Our Lady Queen of Peace), or simply La Paz, was the union’s planning and coordina-tion center starting in 1971. Chavez and many organizers lived, trained and strategized there. Obama’s ac-tion designates 105 acres at the site near Bakersfield, Calif., as a national monument, the fourth monument he has designated under the Antiquities Act.

News in brief

LITTLE ROCK — Ar-kansas Republicans said Monday they will no lon-ger fi nancially help three state House candidates whose racially charged writings have come under fi re, including one law-maker who called slavery a “blessing in disguise” and another who labeled Abraham Lincoln a “war criminal.”

State Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb said the party would not further contribute to the campaigns of House can-didate Charlie Fuqua, state Rep. Jon Hubbard or Rep. Loy Mauch. How-ever, the party stopped short of asking the three to withdraw their candi-dacies as the GOP faced a potential headache in its claim to win control of the Legislature for the fi rst time since Reconstruc-tion.

The move was the lat-est by GOP leaders to distance the party from the trio after renewed at-tention to their writing. Hubbard called slavery a “blessing in disguise” in a 2009 book and wrote that African-Americans were better off than they

would have been had they not been captured and shipped to the United States.

Fuqua advocated the deportation of all Muslims in a 2011 self-published book, and Mauch has crit-icized Lincoln in a series of letters to a newspaper dating back several years.

Webb said the decision to no longer contribute to Hubbard and Fuqua’s campaigns was infl uenced in part by their comments, which the party has called offensive. He would not say the reason for cut-ting off Mauch. The three candidates did not return calls or emails Monday.

“There’s just no plan to make any further fi nancial contributions,” Webb told The Associated Press.

A party spokeswoman later said the plan would include any in-kind con-tributions. The three each received $2,500 worth of services from Impact Management Group as a contribution from the party in May.

U.S. Rep. Tim Griffi n, a Republican who repre-sents central Arkansas, on Monday called on Mauch to give contributions Grif-fi n made to his campaign to charity over letters he’s written to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Grif-fi n has made a similar demand to Hubbard and Fuqua over the weekend.

Mauch called Abraham Lincoln a “war criminal” in a 2007 letter and wrote “Jesus Christ did condone slavery” in a 2009 letter.

“I read a sample of Rep. Mauch’s statements, and they range from outra-geous to historically inac-curate and anachronistic to downright odd,” Grif-fi n said in a statement released by a spokesman. “As we all know, both par-ties have folks that say ridiculous things, but I would not have fi nancially supported Mauch had I known about these state-ments.”

Webb would not call Mauch’s statements of-fensive and said they were

“made from a historicalperspective.”

“While I hold a contrast-ing view of those events, Irecognize Rep. Mauch’sright to a different per-spective of history,” hesaid.

Fuqua, who served inthe Arkansas House from1996 to 1998, wrote thereis “no solution to the Mus-lim problem short of ex-pelling all followers of thereligion from the UnitedStates,” in his 2011 book,titled “God’s Law.” Fuquais challenging two-termDemocratic Rep. JamesMcLean of Batesville.

A top House Republi-can announced Mondaymorning that he wouldback McLean in his re-election bid over Fuqua,but declined to say wheth-er his decision was infl u-enced by the former law-maker’s book.

“James has been some-body I’ve worked with forfour years and has earnedmy respect,” said Rep.Davy Carter, R-,Cabot,chairman of the HouseRevenue and TaxationCommittee. “I’d like to seehim re-elected.”

Fuqua said over theweekend that he believedhis views were “fairly well-accepted by most people.”

No money for hopefuls under fireBY ANDREW DEMILLO

Associated Press“There’s just no plan to make any further financial contributions.”

Doyle WebbState Republican Party Chairman

MONTEVIDEO, Uru-guay — The continued exchange of artillery fi re between Syria and Turkey raises additional concerns that the confl ict may esca-late and spread to neigh-boring countries, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Saturday.

Panetta said the U.S. is using its diplomatic chan-nels to relay worries about the fi ghting in the hopes that it will not broaden.

His comments came on the heels of warnings from Turkey’s prime minister that his country is not far from war with Syria.

Turkish and Syria trad-ed artillery fi re Saturday as rebels clashed with President Bashar Assad’s forces near the border, heightening the fears that the crisis could erupt into a regional confl ict. Turk-ish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday cautioned Damascus not to test Turkey’s “limits and determination” and said Ankara was not bluff-ing in saying it won’t toler-ate such acts.

In other comments dur-

ing a press conference with Peru’s Defense Min-ister, Pedro Cateriano, Panetta warned that the international community is ready to impose more sanctions against Iran if the country does not begin to address concerns about its nuclear program.

The economic sanctions are having a damaging ef-fect on Iran, as infl ation

and unemployment rise, and the value of the cur-rency drops, increasing prices. Iran, said Panetta, has to engage seriously with the international community to resolve is-sues with its nuclear pro-gram and if it doesn’t, “make no mistake, the international community will continue to impose additional sanctions.”

Panetta’s commentscame after meetings Sat-urday with Peruvian Pres-ident Ollanta Humala, and the country’s defenseministry — dubbed thePentagonito — to continuemeetings with Cateriano.After his meeting withHumala, Panetta said theU.S. is increasing efforts tobuild partnerships in theregion.

Syria clash with Turkey may escalateBY LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press

AP Photo/Martin Mejia

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta (right) walks with Peru’s Defense MinisterPedro Cateriano past an honor guard at army headquarters in Lima, Peru, Satur-day. Panetta was in Lima on an official visit for one day.

Biviano said.“My opponent likes to

speak for me in reference to same sex marriage, le-galizing drugs and abor-tions,” Osborne said. “He refers to going to Little Rock and falling in line with your party. I agree. I watched him do it. He did exactly what the Republi-can party told him to do.”

Biviano pointed out in the Arkansas Family Council survey fi lled out by Osborne that when asked about the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Osborne wrote, “Undecided.”

Osborne did not to re-ply. Another issue the candidates were asked about on Monday was

Biviano’s signature on the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, sponsored by Americans for Tax Re-form. He was specifi cally asked about his support of the 1-percent bypass tax in the city of Searcy, but then he signed the tax pledge a few months later, where he vowed to not support a net tax increase.

“Those were different times and different eco-nomic conditions,” he said. “Our tax climate is one of the highest in Ar-kansas. We just can’t keep putting the burden on the people.”

Osborne said Biviano only signed the pledge to support a “special inter-est group in Washington, D.C.” rather than being

concerned with the people of the district.

Biviano disagreed, add-ing that he went against his party in 2011 and sup-ported two tax initiatives, the diesel tax and the Main Street Fairness Act, which enacted a law to re-quire Internet retailers to collect a sales tax if they do business with in-state affi liate websites.

Biviano and Osborne will face off on the Nov.

6 general election ballot.District 46 encompassesthe cities of Searcy andKensett.

DEBATE

CONTINUED FROM 1A

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2012 75¢


I N D E X

MCRAE ELEMENTARY HOSTS COMMUNITY HELPERS

The city of Searcy is running short on money needed to complete the fi rst half of the airport terminal, which must be done before the city

is reimbursed with the grant money it has previously received.

“If we have one more bill for con-struction, it’s going to take away our

City short on terminal funds


Discussion on how to handle cash flow issue to continue in November

City councilThe city of Searcy is expected to

face a cash flow issue on the city’s airport terminal project. As of earlier this week, the city had less than $13,000 to use toward the project. The city must use $300,000 toward the project before it is reimbursed from the grants it has received.

Morris

Voters who did not watch Monday night’s debate between State Rep. Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, and Searcy Police Chief Kyle Osborne, D-Searcy, still have a chance to do so be-fore casting their ballots.

The Arkan-sas House District 46 debate can be viewed online and on Harding TV 16. The video was produced by TV 16 as a community service proj-

Debate video

online, on TV


Blackstone

Biviano, Osborne debate video produced by

Harding TV 16


Kindergartners Eli Tackett (left) and Jaden Dyson ex-plore a military helicopter Wednesday morning when a number of law enforcement and military officers visited students as part of Commu-nity Helpers Week. The heli-copter landed in the grassy field adjacent to the school. At left, kindergartner Carter Pike quickly crawls into the back of a White County Sher-iff’s Office vehicle at McRae Elementary Wednesday morn-ing.

PANGBURN — The Pangburn Police Department will use a combination of grant funds and donated money to make uni-form and equipment upgrades.

The department received a $2,000 donation from XTO Energy and a $1,000 donation from Southwest in addition to a $4,200 JAG grant.

“We are going to use the grant money to purchase two cameras and two chemical protection suits,” said Erik Reep, police chief.

Department offi cials will

Pangburn police

receive grant

BY M. A. WEBBSpecial to The Daily Citizen

A traffi c stop made after Searcy offi -cer Michael Bullock recognized a driv-er who had a warrant led to the seizure of suspected meth and marijuana.

The offi cer conducted the stop Tues-day on West Park Avenue of Tony Hall, 23, of Searcy and found 14 grams of suspected methamphetamine in the

form of Ice and eight grams of suspect-ed marijuana.

Upon making the stop, the offi cer detected the odor of marijuana emit-ting from the vehicle and observed a plastic bag between the driver’s seat

Task force seizes drugs during traffic stopDrug arrest

Who: Tony Hall, 23, of Searcy

What: Was arrested dur-ing a traffic stop Tuesday for two counts of pos-session of a controlled substance with purpose to deliver

Hall

Police grant

Who: The Pangburn Police Department

What: Received a JAG grant

How much: $4,200For what: The money will

be used to purchase video cameras

Money will be used to purchase

video cameras

Searcy man charged with possession of methamphetamine, marijuana

Please see FUNDS | 2A

Please see ARREST | 3A Please see GRANT | 2A


SHS DRAMA ‘ALADDIN’ OPENS FRIDAY NIGHTLocal residents can get ready for a magic carpet ride with the upcoming presentation of ‘Aladdin.’ — PAGE 2A


ART, NOT FOOTBALL, AN ESCAPE FOR BISONHarding cornerback Tramaine Wilkes uses his art as an escape from the pressures of life. — PAGE 1B

ARTHar

s a

AHas

TheDailyCitizen.com

The Daily Citizen Thursday, October 11, 2012 • Page 3A

FROM PAGE ONE

ect, according to Director Ginger Blackstone.

“We really want to be a service to the commu-nity,” she said. “We are a university station, but

we also want to better in-form and program for the community outside of the Harding campus.

“It’s also a good educa-tional tool for students to get them interested in lo-cal politics. It’s not all just

about Washington.”People can watch the

debate online by clicking the link on the top right of TheDailyCitizen.com home page. The debate will air on Harding TV 16 Monday through Friday

at 11 a.m., 6:05 p.m. and 11:15 p.m., through Elec-tion Day, Nov. 6.

The debate was spon-sored by The Daily Citizen and moderated by Jim Miller, assistant professor of communication at HU.

JUDSONIA — The former Masonic Lodge building in Judsonia is dilapidated, and the city has turned down an offer to buy it.

Adam Whitlow, owner of the building, asked Mayor Rickey Veach for the city to buy the build-ing for $6,000. Veach said he had considered making a counter-offer at $4,000, and Alder-man Ronnie Schlem sug-gested taking the offer as low as $3,000.

Alderwoman Kitty Conley expressed con-cern that the city already has one dilapidated building that needs to be torn down, suggesting the city not take on an-other one.

Offi cials went on to decline the offer entirely, saying the only reason to buy the building would be to tear it down, which

would be a projected cost of $4,000 they did not want to spend.

Other business offi -cials heard Tuesday in-cluded:

■ Judsonia renewed its yearly membership to the Municipal League at a cost of $5,026.93. Of-fi cials renewed the mem-bership because the city has insurance through the Municipal League.

■ Judsonia payed its building insurance at a cost of $8,007.25.

Aldermen decline offer of building

BY KYLE [email protected] Former

Masonic Lodge

Judsonia officials turned down a $6,000 offer to buy the former Masonic Lodge build-ing Tuesday, saying the only reason for buying it would be to tear it down, an ex-pense officials did not want to take.

and console of the vehicle. The offi cer retrieved the bag, which contained four smaller bags of suspected meth, about 14 grams, and also found two bags of suspected marijuana.

The Central Arkansas

Drug Task Force assisted with a further search of the vehicle. An additional nine bags of suspected marijuana were found for a total of approximately eight ounces valued at $800. The suspected meth is valued at $1,400.

Hall was also found

to be in possession of $1,610 in cash, which was seized.

Hall was arrested for two counts of possession

of a controlled substance with purpose to deliver. He is being held at the White County Detention Center on $26,000 bond.

ARREST

CONTINUED FROM 1A

DEBATE

CONTINUED FROM 1A


Searcy Police Chief Kyle Osborne, D-Searcy (left), takes notes as State Rep. Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, an-swers a question during the Arkansas House District 46 debate Monday night at Harding University. The de-bate can now be viewed online and on Harding TV 16.

Associated PressMITCHELL, S.D. —

Some law enforcement agencies involved in the search for a prisoner who walked away from a transport van in south-eastern South Dakota are billing the transport com-pany for their costs, while others say they were just doing their job.

Offi cers from the Sioux Falls Police Department, four counties, the state Division of Criminal In-vestigation, the state Highway Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Service were involved in the search this summer for Oscar Antonio Herrera-Menjivar, who is still at large. Authorities said

he escaped July 14 when the van's driver stopped at a convenience store in Spencer and the second-ary guard fell asleep.

Herrera-Menjivar, 31, was being transported from Florida to Nebraska to face an allegation that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl he met on Facebook. Law offi cers searched for him for more than a week, and now be-lieve he has fl ed the re-gion, The Daily Republic reported

McCook County Emer-gency Manager Brad Sti-efvater said the county sent a bill for its search-related costs to Arkansas-based Inmate Services Corp. Turner County

Sheriff Byron Nogelmeier said he plans to submit a bill.

"They're a private com-pany doing this kind of job for hire," Nogelmeier said. "I suppose they have some kind of insurance. They lost part of their load and it's costing some money to put him away or fi nd him. Why should the taxpayers of Turner County have to pay for their negligence, if there was negligence?"

Inmate Services Corp. based in West Memphis, Ark., states on its web-site that it is "fully in-sured." Company Presi-dent Randy Cagle Jr. told the newspaper he doesn't know if his fi rm will pay

any claims related to the search for Herrera-Men-jivar.

The Sioux Falls Po-lice Department and the Hutchinson County Sher-iff's Offi ce said they will not bill the inmate trans-fer fi rm.

"I've never heard of that before, charging some-body for doing our job," Hutchinson County Sher-iff Jim Zeeb said.

The state Highway Pa-trol and crime bureau are working together to sub-mit a bill. The U.S. Mar-shal's Service is not.

The total of all bills that have been submitted or will be submitted is about $50,000, the newspaper reported.

Agencies seek payments for search costs

BY JEANNIE NUSSAssociated Press

ROGERS — U.S. Rep. Steve Womack was ex-pected to win re-election to a congressional seat in heavily Republican north-western Arkansas even before a Democratic chal-lenger dropped out of the race this summer amid questions about his mili-tary record.

Womack, the GOP candidate and a former Rogers mayor, still faces Green Party candidate Rebekah Kennedy and Libertarian Party can-didate David Pangrac in the Nov. 6 election for

Arkansas' 3rd District seat. However, the race has largely fi zzled out since Democrat Ken Aden abandoned his bid for the congressional seat in July.

"I haven't seen any real visible signs of a cam-paign," said Womack, 55.

That marks a change from the 2010 election when Womack beat out David Whitaker, a for-mer assistant city attor-ney in Fayetteville, to win the seat that opened up when then-U.S. Rep. John Boozman launched a successful U.S. Senate bid. Boozman defeated Democratic Sen. Blanche

Lincoln.Aden left the race this

summer after the Arkan-sas Democrat-Gazette reported that military records and statements from offi cials contradict-ed Aden's claim that he was a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier.

Womack, a retired colonel with decades of service with the Army National Guard, initially called on Aden to apolo-gize to the Special Forces community, but has since written the incident off as water under the bridge.

"He was a decorated combat veteran and I ad-

mire him for his service to his country," Womack said. "There was no need to do anything to embel-lish that kind of a record. It stood on its own merits."

Aden, who now works as a security guard at the nuclear power plant in Russellville, told The As-sociated Press he should have just said he served in the military rather than wading into specifi cs.

He said Womack will probably hold onto the 3rd District seat in next month's election. Repub-licans have held a con-gressional seat from the area since the 1960s.

Womack lone major party candidate for seat




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All real, personal, and improvement taxes are due October 15th. All mail postmarked after October 15th will receive a penalty. You can pay your taxes with a credit card by calling toll-free 1-866-257-2055 or online at www.countyservice.net. Convenience fee will be added for credit card payments.

SUE LILESWHITE COUNTY TAX COLLECTOR

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Important Tax Notice

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