Fort Smith city attorney disagrees with FCRA opinion on ex-officio members

Jerry Canfield, attorney for the City of Fort Smith, disagrees with the interpretation of how an ex-officio member’s designee can be appointed to the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority board of trustees.

In a letter Canfield sent Fort Smith City Administrator Carl Geffken Wednesday (July 10) he said it was his opinion that all that was needed to be done for Fort Smith to have a different ex-officio member on the FCRA board of trustees was for Mayor George McGill to name one.

City Director George Catsavis requested that the Fort Smith Board of Directors name former Fort Smith Mayor Sandy Sanders as the ex-officio member of the trustees of FCRA during the directors forum of Tuesday’s (July 9) board meeting. Catsavis said Sanders would be a good addition to the FCRA board of trustees, even as an ex-officio member, because he previously was the FCRA executive director.

Though other board members verbally agreed with Catsavis, no motion was made or vote taken Tuesday night, and at that time, Canfield said he would need to investigate how to properly go about doing that.

“Article VII of the Indenture of Trust creating the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority provides that the mayor of Fort Smith shall serve as (an) ex-officio, non-voting member of the Board of Trustees of FCRA. Based on that reading, it is not necessary that the Board of Directors make the designation of Mr. Sanders as an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees; rather, the designation should be made by Mayor McGill who, in the absence of other designation, serves as an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees,” Canfield said in the letter to Geffken.

McGill said Thursday (July 11) he would remain the ex-officio member of the FCRA board of trustees and would not be designating Sanders as such.

The FCRA trust was formed in 1997 to oversee redevelopment of 6,000 acres of land released by the U.S. Army from Fort Chaffee as part of a Base Realignment and Closure downsizing. The trust has four beneficiaries – the cities of Barling, Fort Smith and Greenwood, and Sebastian County.

BARLING REJECTION
Barling Mayor Greg Murray and Sebastian County Judge Steve Hotz are ex-officio members of the board. Ex-officio members cannot vote on FCRA board items but can participate in board discussions.

The Barling Board of Directors’ appointed Steve Beam as the city’s ex-officio member on the FCRA Board of Trustees during a June 25 board meeting because they wanted someone who had sat in on some of the original meetings when the trust was founded.

Dalton Person, FCRA attorney, notified Murray July 10 that the appointment will not be recognized by the FCRA because it does not comply with the proper procedures for appointing a designee. In a letter to Murray, Person stated that the motion naming Beam as the ex-officio member was not in compliance with the Arkansas law and that even if it was it would not be recognized by the FCRA.

“Note, though, that the Indenture of Trust does not provide the ex-officio members with any explicit authority to unilaterally select a designee to their position,” Person said in the letter.

Person said Murray could request a designee be appointed to the position in writing, but consideration of such would be at the discretion of Trustees Board Chair Dean Gibson and would require a motion, second, and affirmative vote of the majority of those voting members present at a meeting in which a quorum exists.

The ex-officio issue is part of a larger conflict between the FCRA and its beneficiary governments involving dissolution of the FCRA. The FCRA is resisting calls to dissolve the organization no later than Dec. 31, 2025.