Alderman White wrote this when the city of Benton Arkansas was scheduled to vote on annexing about 4,000 acres of the Salem Community in Saline County. It is his opinion along with many others that increased revenue from the annexation would not pay for the infrastructure that would have to be built and the additional services that the city would have to provide. This means that current residents of Benton would have to pay more taxes and/or higher utility bills, or the quality of infrastructure maintenance and city services would decline for everyone. If Benton could not afford the cost of annexing 4,000 acres, how could Bryant believe that they could absorb the cost of annexing over 11,000 acres?

"As a representative, elected to represent the people of my ward, and the people of the city of Benton as a whole, I find this situation embarrassing. A lot of my fellow aldermen would say that I do not have the best interest of our city at heart; however, you are correct in stating that we have no plan to handle this annexation. We have had no urban growth planning for years. All this administration has done is bow to the desires of the developers in extending services to new developments that offer pre-annexation agreements that are voluntary annexations without considering the infrastructure costs to service the potential new citizens between the developments and the current city limits. Hurricane Lake and Quail Valley are prime examples. The citizens currently involved in the annexation vote are the victims.

The other night (July 7th) the meeting proved that this administration has not had a plan. I was the only alderman that could answer the question as to how much revenue that your property taxes generate. Dr. Guffey, nor the mayor, could answer how the extreme increase of services would impact our current budget. Some real numbers exist, such as additional revenue that will be immediately captured by the City of Benton, or even Bryant in the form of franchise fees on your gas, electric, telephone, and cable TV. In Benton, those revenues are 5% + 1.5% city sales tax. (Bryant sales tax is 3%) These funds would generate approximately $185,000 a year to the Benton General Fund.  If you consider the payrolls of an additional 9 firemen and an additional 6 policemen @ current staffing requirements, these two items alone will cost the city of Benton $500,000 per year. Leaving the city a short fall of $165,000 a year without any capital investment or other operational cost considerations. The failure of running cash flow analysis and cost analysis has left the city Council looking ill-prepared in even seeking a vote. I admit that I am guilty of not having enough information in making a decision on the night that we voted for the special election. On the other hand, this administration under Mayor Holland has made many reactive decisions that will cost us more than we should have spent, if we would have had proper planning.

The city is continuously in court because of such complicated issues being mishandled by simple minded folks! Or it could be that this city is being misled by certain developers. For instance, Aaron Jones requested a de-annexation on a piece of property that is in this current annexation vote. We, as Council approved the request, because at that time it best served the interest of that developer. Since that was less than 1 year ago, this tells me that Dr. Guffey, Planning & Zoning, nor the Mayor had any plan to consider annexation of this area any time soon; or else, they would have never proposed accepting Mr. Jones de-annexation.

The meeting also convinced me that very few current residences of Benton are concerned about annexing new area into Benton. This may not be so in Hurricane Lake or Quail Valley, but the push for annexation seems to be awful silent.

I may suffer for my stance at the polls in November, but I have always tried to speak up for the majority of people which I represent. I wish that we had something to offer you as far as extra services (such as Curb-side Recycling, Sewage infrastructure, or even a lesser tax base), but I am afraid that I cannot see any major advantage for this annexation. The only real advantage is for the increase in physical size of the city of Benton for future development. Without seeing a financial plan that would benefit both the citizens in the annexation and the current citizens of Benton, this annexation is not a move that I can support at this time.

You have my permission to use this statement in public. Hopefully, after better city planning and the assistance of some Urban Planners, we can come back to this community with the proper plan that makes sense for all current citizens and future citizens.

Thanks to Sherry Bowers for sending us this response.

Until then, I wish you the best of luck in your community's growth and development.

Sincerely,
Alderman Greg White"

An article in the July 20 Arkansas Democrat Gazette contains more comments from Alderman White:

Benton Alderman Greg White said he believed the original council action to place the Salem area on the ballot was a knee-jerk reaction to Bryant's proposed annexation of the 1,200 acres.

"There was no planning or thought as to how the city was going to afford this. It was going to cost roughly between $12 million and $13 million to annex," White said. "The cart was put way before the horse."