Watershed easement stirs ethics endeavor

Utility paid county official for rights

Pulaski County officials are discussing ways to prevent the appearance of conflicts of interest among appointees to county boards after contention over a Planning Board member’s acceptance of payment for conservation rights to his land from a regional water utility.

Ray Vogelpohl, who was chairman of the Pulaski County Planning Board until the end of January, and his wife, Theresa, are selling conservation rights on 295.25 acres in the Lake Maumelle watershed to Central Arkansas Water for $738,125 to be paid over the next three years.

Lake Maumelle is owned by Central Arkansas Water and is the drinking-water source for about 400,000 people in central Arkansas. For more than a decade, the utility has been moving to protect the water from potential development and subsequent pollution and has worked with the Planning Board.

Watershed residents and, this year, county officials have expressed frustration with the arrangement, noting that the Planning Board has had numerous dealings with Central Arkansas Water. The biggest of the dealings is a zoning ordinance pushed by the utility for the

watershed and sent by the Planning Board to the Quorum Court for final approval.

“It doesn’t smell right,” District 13 Justice of the Peace Phil Stowers, R-Maumelle, told Central Arkansas Water spokesman John Tynan at Tuesday night’s Quorum Court meeting.

Stowers added that he would ask County Attorney Amanda Mitchell to look into what the county can do to pass an ordinance preventing or punishing favoritism.

Vogelpohl was asked to attend the meeting but did not. He said it was a rehashing of an old debate and that his side of the story wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind at this point.

Tynan said the utility and Vogelpohl have been discussing the voluntary conservation easement since 2008.

In February 2007, Central Arkansas Water and its advisory councils — of which Vogelpohl was a member, along with other stakeholders — adopted the watershed-management plan that allowed for the voluntary conservation easements and sought to curb development in the watershed.

Anyone with land in the watershed can seek a conservation easement with Central Arkansas Water, Tynan said, but the cost per acre proposed by property owners isn’t always attractive to the utility.

Vogelpohl has recused himself from Planning Board votes related to watershed-specific regulations, except for the most recent issue of approving the stakeholder amendment to the watershed zoning code, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette review of meeting minutes since 2007. Vogelpohl did not recuse himself from discussion of the matter; however, he did not vote, as he was the chairman of the board and votes only when there is a tie.

Before he became chairman in 2010, Vogelpohl did not recuse himself from several items of discussion that Central Arkansas Water had a stake in, including the proposed developments of Canterbury Park and Waterview Estates. Early on, Central Arkansas Water opposed both of the developments but has since reached settlements with the developers.

Vogelpohl, appointed by former County Judge Buddy Villines, was on the Planning Board from October 2006 until Saturday, when his second term expired.

He and Central Arkansas Water approved of the deal with his land Jan. 8.

Tynan said the Vogelpohls’ land is “strategic” and “one of the top 10 pieces of land” in the watershed. He said the utility didn’t want to wait until the end of Vogelpohl’s tenure on the board to pursue the easement because officials wanted to have the deal set up to be included in their budget before the year changed.

Little The Vogelpohls’ land lies west of Lake Maumelle Rock and borders to the west some property already purchased by the utility that belonged the developers it had been in disputes with.

The conservation easement allows the property to remain in the Vogelpohls’ possession but prevents future residential, commercial or industrial development on the property and limits timber removal, construction of additional buildings and certain farming activities, according to the agreement. It also prohibits mining and establishes prohibitions and limitations on other activities “that may be detrimental to water quality.”

Vogelpohl, who has faced criticism for years over his pursuit of the conservation easement, has stood by it, noting to critics that anyone who lives in the watershed can pursue an easement with Central Arkansas Water.

“They don’t agree with it, they haven’t agreed with it, and they’re not going to agree with it,” he said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, County Judge Barry Hyde told Tynan that the utility “didn’t get it” when it defended the deal as being conservation-driven.

“This was a question of ethics,” Hyde said.

Later last week, Hyde said he and other county officials were developing a form for future appointees to county boards to fill out disclosing their financial interests and the financial interests of close family members and any companies they do business with.

Vogelpohl filed a Statement of Financial Interest with the Pulaski County clerk’s office nearly every year he was on the Planning Board, indicating that he receives money from Entergy, which he retired from, and Elder Care Decisions in Perryville, which his wife works for. His statements also indicate that he’s an investor in Diamond TR Ranch in Perryville, of which he is now the president.

Hyde is also looking at guidelines for board members to avoid acting on conflicts of interest. But, he added, he wants to make the process for getting on a board “as simple as possible.”

“We don’t want to discourage anyone from volunteering on these boards,” he said.

The county has five boards in addition to the Planning Board: the Pulaski County Public Facilities Board, the Multi-Purpose Civic Center Facilities Board (Verizon Arena), the Board of Equalization, the Pulaski County Bridge Facilities Board (Junction Bridge) and the Pulaski County Health Facilities Board, resurrected last year.

Hyde said possible repercussions for violating the guidelines could involve asking board members to remove themselves from a particular issue or from the board entirely. He added that he intended for the guidelines to allow for a board member to be removed.

Stowers said one of the problems is that the county has not been able to do anything about Vogelpohl’s simultaneous involvement on the Planning Board and with the conservation easement.

“From my research, the county has no recourse at this point,” he said.

Stowers noted that he doesn’t know that Vogelpohl did anything wrong but that there’s an interest in future disclosure of ways in which a person may profit personally from their work with the county.

“It just looks bad,” he said. “It looks bad.”