Jacksonville’s mayor and other city officials cited annexation as the clear way to draw new businesses and revitalize the city. The officials spoke to an audience mostly composed of Jacksonville residents at a town hall meeting Thursday at the Jacksonville Community Center.
Mayor Gary Fletcher said he and other city officials wanted to help the city to think of the larger picture and look to the future.
On Nov. 2, Jacksonville residents and the people living in two sections of Pulaski County will vote on whether the two chunks of county land will be annexed to the city. The properties are 3.83 square miles beside U.S. Highway 67/167 from Coffelt Road to the county line and a 0.36-square-mile piece along Arkansas Highway 161 at Valentine Road. The northern annexation, along 67/167, effects the most people and businesses in the county.
Paul Mushrush, the city’s director of finance, presented a breakdown of the city’s 2010 use of the 2 percent sales tax it collects from local businesses and how annexation could change the city’s budget.
Both the first and second cent go toward operations, maintenance and capital improvements.
Projects being paid for through the Capital Improvement Fund include the police and fire training facility off Marshall Road, the widening of Graham Road and several others.
Mushrush said annexation likely would increase the city’s revenue gain from sales tax by about $1.9 million and would thus cause the city to adjust its long-term plans.
At the meeting, the city’s economic development consultant, Ricky Hayes, addressed the importance of annexation to the city’s future.
Hayes is the principal in Retail Attractions of Owasso, Okla., a company that creates economic development strategies for cities.
Hayes said people will shop in Jacksonville if the goods and services they want are available there, but most retailers want to develop highway frontage that does not already have buildings on it. Annexation would provide that frontage, he said.
“Where I’m standing, there is no negative,” Hayes said of the annexation proposal. “You want to keep your young couples and your children. If your kids are leaving, one of the reasons [is that] the goods and services are not offered here. I’m preaching ‘the future is in your hands.’”
Retail must be strategically grown to enlarge a city, Hayes said, because it is the only thing that increases the amount of sales tax collected.
Fletcher said despite the $700 million economic impact Little Rock Air Force Base has in the city, somehow about $450 million is being spent elsewhere.
“I want that money to stay here and bounce around for awhile,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said Hayes also is looking to draw development that would utilize existing unused retail space in the city, but the city is aware that big chain retailers attract other businesses, including those that reuse old structures instead of building new.
“Well-planned retail brings the total economy up,” Hayes said. “National retail won’t hurt your local economy.”
Hayes said his economic development plan should take about three years to produce clear fruit in Jacksonville.
Jacksonville and county residents expressed concerns at the meeting that separate laws would govern the people in the annexed areas and in the city.
Fletcher said he was trying to dispel all false reports, and that he is not trying to give anyone special treatment. City ordinances would be revised to cover more rural needs, but would apply to the city as a whole.
He also said he is trying to increase the city’s tax base to avoid raising taxes and, despite some rumors, liquor stores will be able to continue selling alcohol.
“You’ve got to raise the tax base or raise taxes. I’m not taking your beer away from you. We need the revenue,” Fletcher said. “We’re not trying to jeopardize your quality of life.”
Bobby Marshall of 6705 Peters Road said during the meeting that he is concerned he will not be able to protect the exotic animals he raises if he cannot fire a gun on his property after annexation.
However, “I want the support and I want the change,” he said of the annexation.
After the meeting, Ski Gruver, who lives on Peters Road in the area that could be annexed in November, said she probably would not oppose the annexation if it would improve the quality of her life. However, most of the benefits of the annexation are for the city, not for the people who are currently content with their way of life in the county, Gruver said.
“We’re just not seeing an upside for us. We’re not getting any value,” she said. “It just sounds like we’ll fund Jacksonville, and all we’ll get is higher taxes.”