Legislation removes voting hurdle to incorporate

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Sen. Bob Ballinger and Rep. Harlan Breaux, who represent the Eureka Springs and Holiday Island areas, traveled to Little Rock Monday to attend a bill signing with Gov. Asa Hutchinson for Senate Bill (SB) 548, which allows Holiday Island residents to vote on whether or not to incorporate as a city.

Ballinger said SB 548 was necessary to remove barriers to Holiday Island incorporation. A 2018 incorporation effort failed because of a state law that didn’t allow an area to incorporate if it was within three miles of an already incorporated city. Parts of Holiday Island are within three miles of the town of Beaver.

“With Beaver too close, we wanted to create an exemption for that for an area of 1,500 population or more,” Ballinger said. “Everyone agreed we should create the flexibly to give Holiday Island the ability to vote for incorporation if they wanted to vote to become a city. We just wanted to help the people at Holiday Island.”

Ballinger said he wasn’t aware of anyone who objected to SB 548, except when it was being run with SB 510.

A couple weeks ago, SB 510 was moved to interim study. SB 510 made changes to the ways Suburban Improvement Districts can operate, including the Holiday Island Suburban Improvement District (HISID).

“So, SB 510 will not be passed this year,” Ballinger said. “I think we could have gotten there, but some people were not predisposed to being agreeable. We plan on putting a working group together to address the concerns. Over the next two years, we will get it nailed down. If there are things we can do better, we will get them fixed.”

The Arkansas Legislature meets every two years.

Breaux also supports SB 548. “It doesn’t mean incorporation would pass, but residents could vote in the next general election about what they want,” he said. “This should be non-controversial. It just gives them the right to vote. I want to make sure it is done correctly. I live there as well.”

In late March about 75 people attended a meeting in Holiday Island about the two bills with many expressing concerns that they had only recently learned about legislation that could have far-ranging effects for the future of Holiday Island. As the Eureka Springs Independent reported at the time, “While the discussion was at times heated and emotional, outcome of the meeting was an agreement that people on both sides of the issues would work together to come up with amendments to address concerns before the legislation proceeds.”

Holiday Island resident David Bischoff disputed that SB 548 was not controversial. Bischoff said SB 548 passed the legislature with inaccurate information about local opposition to the bill. He said that people who attended the meeting in March were especially very concerned about two issues concerning SB 548:

1) The majority were opposed to being governed by two separate forms of government without some kind of transition timetable and/or sunset date for the SID to “go-away.”

2) That the election to vote on whether to actually incorporate needed to be held simultaneously/concurrent with either a primary or a general election to be sure it would be a thoroughly widely/generally publicized election … with both proper public knowledge, and official oversight.

“Ballinger agreed to amend SB 548 to ensure it would meet that election criteria,” Bischoff said. “Ballinger did not make any amendments in the Senate, and when Breaux was questioned on the floor of the Arkansas House as to the numerous concerns that had been raised about SB 548, he stated that the only opposition to the bill was solely from timeshare and other non-resident owners.”

Another concern raised by Bischoff was that about 42 percent of lots that are paying HISID assessments and county taxes are owned by non-residents. He said in addition to the 42 percent of lot owners who are non-residents, about 1,400 timeshare owners would have no say in whether Holiday Island becomes a city or not, and yet all would be subject to dual governments if voters approved incorporation. Only registered voters, owners and non-owners, who live within the district would be allowed to vote on incorporation.

Ballinger said after the March meeting, he sat down for six hours talking to people to try to come up with ways to address concerns raised about SB 510. He said there just wasn’t time to amend SB 510 to gain consensus.

“There were a lot of misconceptions about the bill,” Ballinger said. “They are attributing things to the bill that aren’t right. But now we have two years to clean it up. Some things may need to be written more clearly.”