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In This IssueFALL 2015 AAC board


dedicates Greer Memorial Library.


24


Features Judges, sheriffs discuss crisis intervention units with legislators .......................26


Small Van Buren County Courthouse serves large purpose ................................36


Inside Look AAC board profile: Angela Hill ...................................................................................39


Big River Steel project already spurring growth in Mississippi County.


28


AAC board profile: Brandon Ellison ...........................................................................39 Assessors’ fall meeting features array of speakers ..............................................40 County Treasurers hold meeting at Lake DeGray ..................................................41 Circuit Clerks tour state Justice Building .................................................................42 Judges elect officers, discuss highway funding ......................................................44 County Clerks gather at Mount Magazine ...............................................................46 AAC staff profile: Melissa Hollowell ..........................................................................48


Departments From the Director’s Desk ..............................................................................................7


Artist Richard DeSpain draws state landmarks in pen and ink.


32


President’s Perspective ................................................................................................9 From the Governor .......................................................................................................11 Attorney General Opinions .........................................................................................12 Legislative Lines ...........................................................................................................13 Research Corner ..........................................................................................................14 Governmental Affairs ..................................................................................................16 Legal Corner ..................................................................................................................17 County Law Update ......................................................................................................18 Savings Times 2 ...........................................................................................................19 Seems to Me .................................................................................................................20


Cover Notes: Gearing up for growth


mill in the country. And community leaders have high hopes that it will bring economic growth to the region, which has seen several manufacturing facilities shutter their doors in recent years. Construc- tion on the facility already has created jobs, spurred growth in the real estate market and given rise to companion industries.


T Read more about the mill’s effects on Mississippi County on page 28. COUNTY LINES, FALL 2015 5


he $1.3 billion steel mill and recycling facility being built in a former soybean field in Osceola (Mississippi County) is the state’s first super project. Big River Steel, slated to open next year, will be the first flat-rolled flex


Attracting [Big River Steel] has been a positive morale boost, in that being able to attract a super project of this magnitude makes us realize that we can attract any





major industrial project. — Randy Carney


Mississippi County Judge ”


(Photo courtesy of Big River Steel)


COVER


AAC F A M I L Y & F R I E N D S


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AAC board dedicates Greer Memorial Library Law library named after former association Legal Counsel Jonathan Greer.


Board members and AAC staff members gathered with Jona-


than’s family and close friends, where they shared stories about Jonathan and voiced how much Jonathan meant to them. Jonathan’s 4-year-old son, Charlie Gage, helped AAC Execu-


O


tive Director Chris Villines unveil the plaque bearing Jonathan’s image that now hangs near the entrance to the Greer Memorial Law Library. Charlie Gage also donated a book, entitled “Guess How Much I Love You,” to the libary. Artist Kyle Braxton Dooley, the 14-year-old grandson of AAC Consultant Eddie Jones and his wife, Phyllis, created an Arkan- sas flag oil painting to hang inside the library. Te painting is based on an Arkansas flag painting that hangs in the state Capi- tol and that Jonathan admired. It contains four additional ele- ments, one painted in each of the corners, that personalize the piece for Jonathan: the AAC logo, the initials JG, a law book and gavel, and a racehorse. Te AAC plans to produce 500 prints of the Arknasas flag painting. Tey will be sold, with all proceeds benefiting the Charlie Gage Greer Scholarship Fund.


n Oct. 14, the AAC board of directors dedicated the association’s law library in the memory of former AAC Legal Counsel Jonathan Greer, who passed away in April.


Top: A plaque bearing Jonathan’s image marks the entrance to the Greer Memorial Law Library at AAC headquarters. Bottom left: Artist Kyle Dooley and his grandparents Phyllis and Eddie Jones pose near the oil painting that Kyle created for the library. Bottom right: AAC Executive Director Chris Villines holds Charlie Gage Greer as he unveils the library plaque. Jonathan’s family and friends look on during the unveiling.


www.arcounties.org 24 COUNTY LINES, FALL 2015


STORY


Super project spurring growth Mississippi County sees benefits of Big River Steel presence.


Story by Michael Dougherty For County Lines


Photos courtesy of Big River Steel


Big River Steel, a massive steel complex that when finished next year will stand as the single largest private investment in the state’s history.


A B


Te $1.3 billion steel mill and recycling facility also is expected to bring an economic boon to Mississippi County, which has a rich agricultural history. “We’ve been told to expect that the number of permanent jobs should rise from 525 to 1,100 after Phase II [of the steel mill] is completed,” said Mississippi County Judge Randy L. Carney. “So that has to have an enormous positive effect in our county. Our tax base will raise by 17 percent after the permanent jobs are filled.” Tose projections provide hope to area leaders and residents who have in recent years seen the closure of a U.S. Air Force Base and several manufacturing facilities.


ig River Steel’s flat-rolled flex mill — the first in the nation — was the dream of John Correnti, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer before he died suddenly Aug. 18 on a business trip


dozen or so high-lift cranes hoist steel beams and concrete blocks into place in what used to be a soybean field near Osceola in northeast Arkansas. All of these pieces are coming together to create


to Chicago. Ground was broken on the 1,300-acre site in September 2014. Completion is expected some time in 2016. Company officials, now led by new CEO Dave Stickler, say the state-of- the-art flex mill combines the best aspects of old and new, “a merging of the wide product mix and superior grade capabili- ties of an integrated mill with the nimbleness and technologi- cal advancements of a mini-mill.” It also will be the cleanest, most efficiently produced steel in the world, they said. One example of the efficiency is the hydraulic power roof system in the electric arc furnace, which the officials say will cut down on the amount of heat that escapes, thus reducing energy consumption. “Steel-making equipment, like all technology, evolves,” said BRS Chief Commercial Officer Mark Bula. “What was cutting-edge 20 years ago, today is naturally not as advanced as the newest steel mills being built around the world. “Big River is the newest in the world. It is the widest of any compact strip production [CPS] facility in the world. It can produce the thickest hot bands of any mini-mill in North America. And probably most significant is our ability to make the cleanest and most demanding grades of steel because Big River Steel is the only EAF [electric arc furnace] and com- pact strip production mill in North America to install an RH [Ruhrstahl Heraeus] degasser. He explained the degasser as a way to clean up the product made from the scrap steel that goes in on the front end. “Tink of this as the process that mixes the steel to remove


Line King THE Artist Richard DeSpain recreates state’s landmarks in pen and ink drawings.


Photo by Kitty Chism


Story by KITTY CHISM For County Lines


all were done by the same homegrown artist, renowned for the beauty of his hundred pen strokes per inch to illustrate familiar landmarks around the state. Te artist is Richard DeSpain, 68, a longtime architectural draftsman for the state turned preeminent fine-line artist, famous for his deft drawings of some of the most notable places


S 32


tep inside the Association of Arkansas Counties head- quarters in Little Rock, and you can hardly miss the 19 pen and ink drawings in the lobbies and on the office walls. Take a closer look and you will discover that


in Arkansas. His genius amounts to a keen eye, a steady hand and the sort of attention to minutia that allows him to depict with micro- scopic precision all manner of subjects, duplicating exactly their texture, light and scale. He’s never done an official count of his originals. But based on the hand-written, leather-bound ledger he started a few years back, he puts the number close to 2,000. Large and small, they are all elaborate compositions that focus a high magnification lens on famous buildings and bridges, military aircraft and working crop dusters, as well as outdoor landscapes and elegant interiors with all of their fractal planes — or, when his subjects


COUNTY LINES, FALL 2015


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