POPE COUNTY, Ark. (KTHV) - This afternoon, a handful of people met at the Pope County courthouse to turn in petitions, with 5,696 signatures to ensure a measure to allow citizens to have a say on casinos, gets on this November’s ballot.
The Citizens for a Better Pope County worked with more than 150 volunteer canvassers to collect the signatures. Tony Moore with Citizens for a Better Pope County, tells us that’s exceeding the goal of 4,000.
"It would help with jobs and help with revenue and certainly those numbers could be factual, but they don’t tell you the other downside of that," Moore said. "We want the people to decide because there is good and bad."
The measure reads:
An amendment to prohibit the County Judge from submitting a letter in support or the Quorum Court from passing a resolution on behalf of a casino application applying to the Arkansas Racing Commission for a license to conduct casino gaming at a casino to be located within Pope County, Arkansas without first holding a local election at either a general election or special election to determine by popular vote the will of the people of Pope County whether to grant the authority to their elected officials to submit such a letter or resolution.
“This is allowing the people, the citizens, of Pope County to have a right to say ‘hey, we want that or we don’t want that,’” said Sara Jondahl, Director of Special Projects with Citizens for a Better Pope County.
Driving Arkansas Forward is the group working to collect the 84,859 signatures to get the casino measure on the ballot. Should that occur, Arkansas voters would vote on a proposal to allow Pope and Jefferson counties to approve new casinos, as well as expand gaming options at Oaklawn in Hot Springs and Southland Park in West Memphis.
As it stands, the building of a new casino would require a ‘letter of support’ from the County Judge and mayor in its proposed location.
In July, the Pope County Quorum Court unanimously approved a resolution that encourages the judge to withhold any letter if the people of Pope County vote against the amendment.
“This isn’t binding. There isn’t any authority,” Joe Pearson, a Quorum Court member said.
This measure being turned in Tuesday legally binds the proposal of holding an election first.
We reached out to the County Judge to find out if he supports a casino in the county, but he was not available.
THV11’s Erika Ferrando will be there when the signatures are turned in, and she’ll be live on THV11 at 5 and 6 p.m. with updates.