Different decisions

Berryville Mayor Tim McKinney, an Entergy retiree, has had his eye on the former Entergy building in Berryville for a while now. McKinney believed the building could provide extra space for the Berryville city government, and the asking price of $429,500 for a 5,832-square-foot commercial building sitting on 2.137 acres is a bargain for any buyer.

Still, McKinney knew that the building also offered a prime opportunity for the county government, as well, and he didn’t move to interfere. For the county, the building had a variety of potential uses but likely would have been most effectively used to store election equipment and conduct early voting as well as potentially housing the county’s emergency management and veterans services offices.

Like McKinney, Carroll County Clerk Connie Doss has been keeping tabs on the building for a long time and the opportunity to purchase it for a song, with funds already in hand, seemed like a no-brainer.

But then the county’s quorum court got involved, and frankly dropped the ball. With three of the 11 justices of the peace absent from an Oct. 3 special meeting, a vote to appropriate $10,000 in earnest money that would have allowed County Judge Ronda Griffin to have the building inspected received only five of the necessary six votes. Two days later, Griffin formally declined the county’s option to buy the building. And McKinney wasted no time jumping in. Unlike the quorum court, the Berryville City Council moved quickly to appropriate the earnest money and odds are good that the building will belong to the city of Berryville by the end of the year.

The most vocal opposition to the county’s potential purchase of the building came from District 4 JP Duane Coatney, who said he preferred to see the county “build something new,” and described the potential purchase as “kicking the can down the road.” Coatney also scoffed at the potential purchase price of around $73 per square foot for the building (and that doesn’t even consider the two-plus acres it sits on), and said he’d been told by a local company that the slab and interior for a new building could be constructed for $33 a square foot.

Also voting against appropriating the earnest money were District 7 JP Kellie Matt and District 8 JP Don McNeely, with McNeely later saying that he should probably have abstained because he won’t return to the quorum court next year.

So, the county will continue to pay for storage space for its election equipment. The clerk’s office will continue having to pay for space to hold early voting. County officials will remain cramped in space that’s too small to fit their needs.

And the city of Berryville will have new space, most likely for its police department.

One local government entity made a smart, logical decision. Another, unfortunately, did not.

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Scott Loftis is managing editor for Carroll County Newspapers. His email address is SLoftis@cherryroad.com.