Dirty laundry aired in council meeting

ROSSTON – It’s never a good idea to air one’s dirty laundry in public, but this is exactly what happened during the August meeting of the Rosston City Council Monday night.

It began with Mayor Dale Quarles appointing Irene Tidwell to go with him and City Treasurer Alicia Pearson to the Arkansas Municipal League’s winter meeting next year. Councilman Sally Muldrew said this was something the council was supposed to vote on.

Quarles said no one wanted to go when this was brought up at previous meetings. Muldrew responded saying she would be able to take off and attend. The argument got heated as other members of the council agreed with Muldrew, with LeAnne Gray saying she could also attend the meeting. Quarles said as many people could go as the city’s budget could afford.

He followed this by saying he wasn’t going through the council and was appointing Tidwell and Gray to go. He claimed the council was arguing about laws from 2015, not current laws, when addressing issues, adding people want to talk outside the council meetings about city business. He also admitted blocking texts from Gray.

The public was asked to comment, with Herbert Coleman, a justice of the peace from Oak Grove, saying Quarles is doing a good job and thanked him for allowing the community to use the fire department for a fundraiser for its community center recently. Coleman said the event raised the funds needed for the matching grant. The grant, he said, is for $75,000, but only $58,000 will be available for the center as $7,500 will be paid to the Southwest Arkansas Development Council for administering the grant, and engineering fees will be another $9,000.

Tidwell also lauded the accomplishments made since January, including the fun park and dollar store. She said if members of the council have problems with Quarles they should take them to him.

Muldrew pointed out Quarles doesn’t allow members of the council to speak at meetings, but only talks about what he’s doing and wants done.

Gray added she’d asked for a special meeting to be called and was not only ignored, but had her texts to the mayor blocked.

Quarles responded saying he has all the texts she sent and only got concerned when Gray’s husband texted her at which time he called the city attorney and was reportedly told to block her texts.

Muldrew said she wanted this to be five council members working together with the mayor and to know what’s going on.

Quarles called for a motion to adjourn the meeting, which he immediately got and ended the meeting.

Prior to this, Quarles updated the council and community as to the city’s finances saying the budget is looking good with $168,969.84 in six accounts in the Bank of Delight, along with a $40,000 certificate of deposit. He said the water department was the biggest concern but more people have been paying their bills as the city is sending out shut off notices and not just pulling meters for those who don’t pay.

He talked about inheriting debt from the previous administration with the water department and has done what he thought best in increasing water revenues.

The city also has an account with the Bank of Prescott, which houses funds for the general, baseball and fire department accounts, along with a $40,000 CD. However, he said, he doesn’t have the information needed for the baseball account because he can’t find a list of public contributions made to the project.

The fun park, he said, is complete with the contractor, Jeremy Stone, needing to sign off on it. There was enough money left over for a covered bench to be included in the projects.

Quarles talked about grants and how expensive it is to have someone else write a grant proposal. He said the city now has the capability of writing its own grants and will start doing so.

When members of the council attempted to talk about previous grants, Quarles cut them off saying they weren’t there and nobody on the council had prior knowledge of them. This isn’t true as Johnny Kelley and Sally Muldrew are holdovers from the previous administration. Quarles said he wasn’t there to keep doing what the previous mayor did, and if he was the previous mayor should still be in office.

Quarles said he has a lot of other issues coming to the table and people of Rosston are waiting on change. He added, he’s only worried about the grants he writes.

He pointed out he’s been tabbed to be on the advisory council for cities of the first and second class with the Arkansas Municipal League.

The council approved a resolution allowing Quarles and Pearson to sign off on a water project. Quarles called it a grant, but the representative presenting the resolution pointed out it’s an application for a loan for the water tower and meter project.