The Craighead County Quorum Court is requesting an opinion from the Arkansas Attorney General concerning operations of both the eastern and western districts of the county. This issue started off as a budget question, but has snowballed into a debate about how the Circuit Clerk’s office is able to do its business at courthouses in Jonesboro and Lake City. Craighead County Circuit Clerk Candace Edwards has asked for the budgets of Lake City and Jonesboro to be combined due to budgetary and potential state legal issues. Supporters of keeping the budgets separate say it allows the courthouse in Lake City to serve area residents more efficiently. Edwards says currently the people working in the courthouse have been performing multiple duties, such as acting as the circuit clerk, the county assessor, and the county tax collector. Her concerns are that some of the people may not be allowed to do those multiple duties. State Representative Dan Sullivan requested an opinion from Legislative Attorney Kerrie Carlock, which states that such a person could be acting “in conflict with the law” as the situation “violates the common law prohibition on dual-office holding”. Edwards suggested placing an employees at the Lake City courthouse that are sworn in to do those specific duties. Two workers at the Lake City courthouse are concerned that means people would have to wait in line, or the courthouse would have to be shut down during lunch hours to accommodate the workers. After debate, the Quorum Court unanimously voted to request an opinion on the matter from the Attorney General’s office. A committee will be formed to draft appropriate questions that would be sent to the Attorney General’s office. The committee could meet as early as next week.
Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.