Some current Pope County Quorum Court justices claim that a vote on the casino issue was taken away from Pope County voters in August 2019. The same is claimed by an anti-casino group that is trying to take Pope County out of Amendment 100 of the Arkansas Constitution.
They are wrong.
While the issues are from 2019, they persist in the ballot initiative drive of Fair Play for Arkansas—2022 and may affect the 2022 county elections. This blog post is provided for background purposes.
In 2019, the Quorum Court, County Judge, County Attorney, and others tried to find a way to meet the requirements of a county ordinance, 2018-O-42, that required a vote but were unable to. In June, the author of the ordinance, Travis Story, spoke to a special called meeting of the quorum court. A transcription of what Mr. Story said is provided below:
Travis Story
Good afternoon, your honor. My name is Travis Story. I actually drafted the local option and, I wanted to come tonight just to, hopefully, answer some questions, and, and at least, state what the goal and the purpose was.
The goal, the purpose wasn’t to cost extra money, to require $30,000 to be spent on a special election.
I’ve had my hand in a fair number of things that honestly, people shouldn’t have to pay for that general election. You’re already spending the money. You’ve already got to have a general election.
I think that’s one of those, one of those things that the citizens of Pope County, when looking at this issue and ultimately signing their name to a ballot… to a petition… that says, “we want to have control.”
What they were saying was not, “Hey, we want to have a second do over vote,” which is, I think kind of where the court may have… may be drifting. I think what they’re saying is, “we want to know what you’re doing” and what they’re asking is not in my opinion, in conflict with the constitution, but it is one in which we can come and say, “we would like for you to make the decision if you want a casino here.”
If the Quorum Court or you yourself are going to issue a letter or desire to issue a letter, tell us who you’re going to issue the letter to. You’ve got a number of applicants. Put one on the table. Theoretically, you could issue one, your honor, and the Quorum Court could issue one. I know that’s not how it’s going, but you could have multiple letters out there.
At that point, submit it to the people and say, “I would desire to issue a letter for” name your favorite casino, whichever one you think is better.
At that point, it allows the people to come in and have that final say. And not have the state shove Amendment 100 down on them to get whoever… whoever’s going to be the popular choice. It allows them to have some say so.
I think this is a clear, a clear reason why people in Pope County overwhelmingly decided they needed this. They want to have this in place, the ordinance. And I’ve heard lots of stories. Everybody says there shall be issued four licenses. Well, there shall only if they’re qualified.
I agree with you. In the constitutional amendment, (it) says you or the Quorum Court, one of you, had, there is local control as well.
There’s two stages in Pope County, and we want that. We don’t want the Racing Commission to say, “we’ve got to issue one,” cause there’s no time difference for shall. There is no “shall be issued in so many days” or “so many months” and, 50 years from now, if somebody decides to put a casino in Pope County, Amendment 100 is fulfilled.
There’s no time emergency.
I think it’s a simple, a simple choice for the, for the quorum court and for yourself. How do we go, working with the people, to say, “Here’s what, here’s what we desire. We have done our due diligence. We have figured out what we think is the best.” and put that before the citizens of Pope County.
And at that point—hopefully in the general election, which doesn’t cost anybody extra money—they can come out and say, “Here’s what we wish to do.”
That informs everybody. That informs the state, it informs this body, and ultimately it gives a great way for some of this divisiveness, which has occurred, to ultimately be brought back to unity.
And so as, as one who was involved in, in what was the goal, which sometimes gets lost in all the articles and paper and whatnot, the goal was for the people who, as I have, as I have come to respect, the people of Pope County are independent people. They have a voice and they want it to be heard. And so instead of calling this a “do over” election, I think what they’re asking for is for this body and your honor to decide what you want to do and then to submit it out to them, to refer it out to them—which is within your power—to give them the option to figure out what to do with that. At that point, then, hopefully, we’ve got a decision that everybody will, will have sorted out in a, in a very, very rational and calm-headed fashion.
And simply speaking as, as the drafter of this, that’s, that’s what this was intended to do. This wasn’t a pure proxy vote on have it or don’t have it. It was asking, it was asking you [Judge Cross] to come forward or the [Quorum] Court to come forward and give us what they wanted and say, “Here’s who we think is the best,” if there is even such a candidate and that’s, that’s again, your decision, it could be that, “We’re not, we don’t want to put anybody forward. We don’t feel that this is appropriate.”
There’s lots of options. But at that point we simply ask you to do that. Submit that to a vote. I don’t think we’re in a hurry around here. Um, there’s no, there’s no requirement for or standards for that. And to simply allow Pope County to be Pope County and decide what they want to do.
And, uh, that’s simply what we would ask this body to consider. And hopefully that… hope it clarifies some of what we’ve been talking about. And if there’s any questions or anything, I’m happy to answer them. But otherwise, thank you all so much. Thank you for your time.
Judge Cross
Mr. Story, first, let me thank you as the author of the ordinance. I think some justices may have some questions.
Caleb Moore
Mr. Story, thank you for coming. And to be quite honest, I’ve never heard that explanation before. And it was, I think, good for all of us to hear, because as long as we’ve been hearing on both sides of this issue, if that was the intent all along then, there has been some miscommunication on that, for sure, on exactly what the intent of that was and how that was supposed to be [inaudible]. Let me ask you a question here. You said that the people, the intent of it was to have a final say, correct? So, so in, in essence, you would want the court and the county judge to do a vetting process, choose the operator who, whoever that would be, and then put that back up in a general election, which I think if the judge, correct me, if I’m wrong, that does cost us some money to do that.
But that is the intent of what you have laid out tonight.
Travis Story
The intent was simply to inform the people of Pope County as to what would be, what would be finally voted on because when Amendment 100 was on the ballot, it doesn’t say who’s coming where, who’s was doing what. It does multiple things that I believe Pope County had a problem with.
And, in this, I’m not saying it has to be one operator. Like I said, the court… the court and the judge can both, could both put somebody forward. I think that would be allowable.
[A justice says something about it not being something “we’d do.”]
I don’t think, I don’t know that that’s what you’d do. I’m just saying, I think it’d be [inaudible due to someone in the audience coughing]
Something you have to remember, at the time when all this is happening, we’ve gone a long way, A lot of water under the bridge, since when, when all this was initially started, but the issue is, I believe Pope… Pope county can come in…, could make a final, uh, final choice on who they would want to come operate in their backyard.
Caleb Moore
So it’s not if it’s a casino. It’s which operator?
Travis Story
I think it could be, or no operators. I believe that’s a firm possibility.
Doug Sketon
Mr. Story, Could this special election that we’re talking about could take place in the preferential primary?
Travis Story
I don’t know that I, I can give you a, you’ve got an attorney to give you that advice. I believe the special elections, especially a called election. Um, I’m not sure that this act could actually be done at a, at a primary, and my only comment to the general election is you’re already going to have a general election. So we’re not talking about an additional amount of funds. Yes, it will cost… it’ll cost the county something every time we have a general election. So we’re not talking a large increase in costs about 25… I believe it’s $25,000 plus dollars to do that because you’re already going to have the general election versus calling this election…
Doug Slelton
But we’re already gonna have the preferential primary of March, 2020 and that, that is actually covered by the state of Arkansas. And that does not cost the taxpayers of Pope County anything.
Travis Story
I would leave that up, if that’s something,
Doug Skelton
You don’t know that?
Travis Story
I don’t know the answer to that.. The ordinance specifically asks for special election or the general election. If there’s, if there’s a statute that says a primary is also a special election, I don’t foresee that, but that’s beyond my pay grade at the moment.
Doug Skelton
That’s not what I said. I said, you can have a special election during a preferential primary.
Travis Story
If that’s the case, then, standing here today, I can’t answer that question for you. I apologize.
Thank you all so much. I appreciate the time .