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Mobility authority ready, but not yet willing Thursday, Jun 19, 2008 By Doug Thompson The Morning News FAYETTEVILLE - Organizers of a proposed Regional Mobility Authority in Northwest Arkansas have passed all the requirements in state law to set up such a body, spokesmen said Wednesday. However, organizers want every city in Benton and Washington to decide for itself whether to join or not before calling for a board meeting, spokesmen for those organizers said Wednesday. "We have presentations on the mobility authority to city councils scheduled until the end of next month," said Scott Van Laningham, a vice president of the Northwest Arkansas Council. The council is a group of business and political leaders who advocate regional solutions to regional problems. "We want everybody to have a chance to be a member at that first meeting," Van Laningham said. Mobility authorities are allowed under a state law that requires them to have a board of at least five members. Those members must be city mayors or county judges, or their designees, who come from cities and counties within the proposed authority and have agreed to join the authority. Benton and Washington counties have approved the proposal. So have Rogers, Lowell, Bentonville and Prairie Grove, giving the authority the needed five members plus one more. Only the board can approve a project proposal in the authority's name. Voters of the county or counties involved must approve any taxes to support the authority's plan in an election. The quorum courts of the county's involved must approve the holding of any such election. "That first (authority) meeting needs to be an educational meeting, letting everyone know what can and can't be done," said Mike Malone, executive director of the council. Any project proposed by the authority must fit into the regional highway plan worked out by the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, said Van Laningham, Malone and planning commission executive director Jeff Hawkins. One of the biggest concerns expressed so far in discussions of the authority is the fear that raising local taxpayer money will mean that federal and state governments would spend less in the area. The opposite is more likely to be the case, Van Laningham and Hawkins said. "If the (state) Highway Department is going to make any headway on the road needs in the state, they're going to have to partner with regions who are willing to raise some of the money whenever they can," Van Laningham said. Giving less money to areas that raise their own will clearly stifle any effort to raise money locally, he said. The state's recently passed severance tax is expected to raise at least $100 million a year for roads according to state projections. "Even if we got all of that - and we won't, because that just won't happen - that would only be a fraction of the estimated $1.9 billion in highway needs identified in this region," Van Laningham said. Malone added that the expenses of highway construction are going up, that the $1.9 billion figure is years old and the real cost is very likely more than $2 billion by now. Malone added that 30 percent of that estimated $100 million is going to local entities anyway: 15 percent to city street departments, 15 percent to county road departments. Another concern is that voters in one county would object to a tax that would finance a project in another. The proposed Bella Vista bypass project, for instance, is wholly within Benton County. Other regional authorities in other states have found financing in-county projects with one-county taxes are not only allowed, but required by bond underwriters, organizers said. |
