The Democrat-Gazette reported this morning on the latest fee request from the state over another case of illegal spending by the Arkansas Department of Transportation on the misbegotten concrete ditch through the heart of Little Rock known as the 30 Crossing project.
Richard Mays, the lawyer, in this case, figures his work is worth $500,000 to $1 million for winning a case that $350 million in a new sales tax couldn’t be spent on a project once estimated to cost $1.3 billion (likely much more by now). Different lawyers in another case are seeking $18 million in attorney fees for winning their case that an earlier temporary sales tax couldn’t be spent on the project either.
Whatever Judge Mackie Pierce rules on Mays’ fee request the state will appeal, as it has already done in the first case. It has conclusively lost the illegal spending first case, which prompted it to turn for the lost $350 million to the coming new sales tax. Pierce’s ruling blocked that. Perhaps the Arkansas Supreme Court will take a different view this go-round that identical language in the new sales tax amendment somehow is different from the language it cited in the first case that money could only be used to build new four-lane highways.
A small note of irony. The state is arguing that lawyers should not be paid for suing the state, even when illegal actions are found. Obviously, without legal fees, the state would almost NEVER be sued. As it is, given the breadth of “sovereign immunity” endorsed by this Supreme Court, it is already a difficult slog.
ARDOT is, of course, has unlimited money to spend defending its improvident and sometimes illegal actions. It has a legal department. The multi-million-dollar operation of the Arkansas attorney general is at its service. And, wait, there’s more. ARDOT also will pay private lawyers.
Neither the department lawyers nor attorney general was deemed sufficient to argue the appeal over attorney fees in the first illegal freeway spending case led by Joe Denton and Justin Zachary. For that, ARDOT turned to the Friday law firm of Little Rock. Perhaps it will pick up some more work in the case won by Mays.
I inquired about this. David Parker, the highway department spokesman, replied:
To date, the Arkansas Department of Transportation has paid $14,876.25 total fees and costs to Friday, Eldredge & Clark for its representation in the pending appeal of the Pulaski County Circuit Court award of $18,160,000.00 in attorneys’ fees in the Amendment 91 funding case. For their representation, K. Crass is paid an hourly rate of $395.00. M. McCarroll receives an hourly rate of $275.00 and M. Kasten is paid an hourly rate of $290.00.
Because Friday, Eldredge & Clark serves as AHC’s Bond Counsel, they have invaluable knowledge of Amendment 91 and Amendment 101 funding and the Connecting Arkansas Program. That knowledge, plus their experience in appeals before the Supreme Court, will bring additional resources to ARDOT’s in-house legal team to help us with this very important matter that involves taxpayer funds.
We are making every effort to ensure that tax dollars paid by the citizens of Arkansas are used for their intended purpose of highway and bridge improvements.
Too bad those constitutional amendments and the Connecting Arkansas program weren’t better written to avoid these lawsuits in the first place.
This widening project, which remains under challenge for environmental reasons in federal court, should never have been built, at least as designed. Its destructive of neighborhoods, destructive of the city traffic grid, bad for pollution, creates new demand on existing roadways and is counter-intuitive to better city planning. It encourages sprawl and suburban growth at the expense of better, cheaper alternatives.
The project was driven by a desire to replace the Arkansas River bridge, in part to improve river shipping lanes for barges. That didn’t require a 7-mile project in the name of traffic flow given that it is not a congested roadway by any measure, save a few minutes at morning and afternoon rush hours created by the highway department’s historic support for facilitating people to get out of Little Rock.