Arnold residents continue to seek answers about an abandoned road project and want assurances that it will never be revived.
About 100 people attended the Sept. 5 Arnold City Council in City Hall, many of them still upset about how a proposed 2-mile, two-lane road, which would have been called the Arnold Parkway, was announced to the public.
“I want to thank you for stopping the road project,” Rick Jones told the council. “You listened to the people and you stopped it. I do appreciate that. However, you still have a trust issue. That really stems from how the project came about.”
Arnold officials announced the project Aug. 8 in the Arnold-Imperial Leader. The plan, which included acquiring 38 homes, multiple businesses and a portion of the Water Tower Place Shopping Center, sparked outrage.
The shopping center owners filed a lawsuit to stop the project. In addition, residents began collecting signatures seeking recall elections for all the city’s elected officials, and as of Monday, 5,007 people had signed a change.org petition to stop the project.
Arnold officials announced that they had dropped the road project on Aug. 26, about 10 days after about 200 people who opposed the project showed up at the Aug. 15 City Council meeting.
“I rejoiced to know that you guys said you have heard us and have ceased that project,” said Laura Huskey, who started the change.org online petition to stop the road project. “There are a lot of concerns that this is a project that has not been halted, but just put on the back burner. I do think the lack of transparency has led to this.”
Mayor Ron Counts, who didn’t say much at the Aug. 15, spoke frequently during the Sept. 5 meeting, saying nine times that the city has abandoned the Arnold Parkway project.
He also told the audience he will arrange a meeting with a group of residents so Arnold officials can explain how the proposed project was developed and why plans were not publicly announced sooner.
City officials have said the project was developed over the past three years.
“We have a divided community right now, which is just not good for our city at all,” Counts said. “Hopefully, (the Sept. 5 council meeting) is the beginning of a healing process for our community. I think as we move forward with maybe several meetings, whatever it takes to answer questions that people have and make sure we are being transparent, hopefully, we can build that trust back like it should be.”
Counts said on Sept. 6, no meeting date had been set, and it was not known how many people would be included in the meeting.
Concerns
Sarah Lurkins, who helped form the Citizens Against the Construction of Arnold Parkway group that is seeking the recall elections, said she does not believe the road project is completely abandoned.
She said she plans to attend the meeting Counts is arranging.
“They have lost a lot of trust of people in the city,” Lurkins said. “I look forward to having a meeting where we can discuss how to move forward, which would be a step in the right direction.”
Lurkins also said the group will not stop collecting signatures to force recall elections for County, City Treasurer Dan Kroupa and all eight councilmen. The group’s efforts started on Aug. 16, and it needs to have the required signatures by Oct. 15.
According to state statute, an elected official must have held office for at least six months before a recall election may be held. To force a recall election for the mayor and treasurer, 25 percent of registered voters in the city need to sign the petition, and for council members, 25 percent of registered voters from the ward the councilman represents must sign the petition.
The City Council has two representatives from each of its four wards.
Lurkins said the group needs about 3,785 signatures to get recall elections for the mayor and treasurer, and as of Sept. 6, the group had just more than 25 percent of the signatures needed for the mayor recall election and just less than 25 percent of the signatures needed for the treasurer recall election for the treasurer.
The group needs between 900 and just more than 1,100 signatures for each of the recall elections for the eight council members, and the group had collected between 13 and 31 percent of the required signatures for those, she said.
“The recall petitions are continuing because we do not believe (the road project) is over,” Lurkins said. “That has been our biggest hurdle. It is not over until there is something in writing that this (road project) is over or something legally has changed.”
Throughout the Sept. 5 meeting, residents sought assurance from Counts that the project would never be proposed again. At one point, there was a demand for Counts to put his promise of not building the road in writing.
“I will sign it,” Counts said during the meeting.
Counts said he may propose a resolution to guarantee the road project will not be brought up for current council members to vote on, and he may form a committee to provide input to city officials about future development projects.
“There are a couple of things I think might help us to be more transparent,” he said. “That has always been an important issue for me, and I tried very hard to do it. I definitely could have done a better job with (the road project).”
Purchased homes
Ashley Samuels said she is concerned about the properties that have been purchased in the Key West Estates subdivision, which is made up of Harrys Lane, Christy Drive, Big Bill Road, Ridge Drive and Lone Star Drive. She lives on Christy Drive.
“We want to know what is going to happen with the homes you have purchased,” she told the council.
Arnold officials said four homes and a business already had been purchased before the road project was announced. Those homes are at 2144 Christy Drive, 2136 Christy Drive and 2157 Lone Star Drive, which were purchased for $170,000 each, and at 1230 Harrys Lanem purchased for $236,000. The business is on Lone Star was purchased for $295,000.
Later homes at 2160 Christy Drive, 2178 Christy Drive and 2126 Christy Drive were purchased for $225,000 each, City Administrator Bryan Richison said on Sept. 6.
The properties were bought by the Arnold Acquisition Co., which was formed by the Arnold Retail Corridor Transportation Development District (ARC TDD) to buy property.
The TDD was established in 2008 to fund infrastructure related to the development of the Arnold Commons retail complex and the redevelopment of the Arnold Crossroad complex. The TDD collects a 1 percent sales tax from businesses in those two retail developments, as well as some of the businesses in the Water Tower Place Shopping Center retail complex.
Richison said five more homes are under contract to be purchased, and 13 additional homeowners and one business owner were interested in selling their properties.
After paying off the bond debt tied to the Arnold Commons development and the Arnold Crossroads redevelopment, there was enough revenue from the TDD sales tax to purchase the homes currently under contract but not enough to pay all properties owners who have expressed interest in selling at this time.
“The ARC does have revenue coming in,” Richison said. “But there would be people who would have to wait a pretty long time (to be paid). I am hoping to find a way to get money up front to get contracts with as many people as we could.”
Richison said no decisions have been made about what to do with the purchased properties.
“My thought is that we would at some point demolish whatever the TDD ends up owning,” he said. “We are not set up to do property management. My thought is the best thing would be to eventually tear them down, and basically, landbank the properties. We will see what happens in the future.
“The road is not coming back. We will not try to revive the road. We do believe that area needs to be redeveloped. We will purchase what we can and then see what happens over the coming decades.”
Dissolve the TDD
Lurkins said the Citizens Against the Construction of Arnold Parkway wants to see the TDD dissolved since the $20 million bond to develop the area was paid off last year, 15 years before it was set to expire.
The Water Tower owners lawsuit also calls for the TDD to be dissolved.
“That is one of our future goals,” Lurkins said.
Counts said dissolving the TDD is being considered.
“I think we have to listen to the folks,” he said. “That is what we are looking at.”
However, Richison said the TDD cannot be dissolved while the lawsuit is active, and the Water Tower representatives have said no decision has been made about whether the owners will drop the suit, which was still active on Monday.
Richison and Counts also said a portion of the sales tax generated by the TDD is used to help pay off bonds issued by the Arnold Crossroads and Arnold Commons tax increment finance (TIF) districts.
A $23,050,000 bond was publicly sold, and a $4,624,500.76 bond is held by THF Realty. Those bonds are expected to be paid by September 2028, Richison said.
He said without the tax revenue from the TDD, those bonds may not be paid.
“There are questions if the TDD taxes would go away, can the TIF bonds be paid off,” Richison said. “I don’t know the answer. That is something that would be talked about in the future, but basically with the lawsuit, everything is on hold.”
Read previous coverage on the Arnold Parkway project and response:
