Circuit Judge Chip Welch had awarded $18 million in attorney fees to the lawyers who successfully challenged the
Arkansas Department of Transportation’s illegal spending of state sales tax money on the Interstate 30 and 630 widening projects in Little Rock.
The highway department says it will appeal and seems likely to argue it doesn’t have to pay attorney fees at all, certainly not from the Amendment 91 sales tax money.
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That’s outrageous. But more outrageous, and ratified by the judge yesterday in a much bigger decision, is that the department might get away with its shell game for “repaying” the $121 million illegally spent on the freeway projects. it sill simply “repay” the money by designating money already legally spent on OTHER projects as actually having been spent on the freeways.
This story has been updated with a response from the Arkansas Department of Transportation.
New photographic evidence suggests the fracture to a critical support beam in the Hernando de Soto bridge began earlier than previously thought in August 2016.
Memphis resident Barry Moore took photos of the Hernando de Soto bridge during a kayaking trip. The Commercial Appeal verified the date and the location of the photos through the metadata embedded in the digital images.
Moore said he sent the photos along to both the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Arkansas Department of Transportation earlier in the week. ARDOT, he said, responded to him and thanked him for sending the photos.
May 21, 2021 By Shelley Byrne
The Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) has fired a bridge inspector whom the agency said did not report a steel beam’s crack that worsened, leading to the Mississippi River closing for three days earlier this month.
The Hernando de Soto Bridge was closed to both river and highway traffic May 11 after a contractor for the Arkansas Department of Transportation found what transportation officials called a fracture in a major structural support beam crucial to the bridge’s integrity. The contractor called 911, asking that all traffic immediately be diverted.
River traffic reopened between Mile 736 and Mile 737 on May 14, but traffic over the bridge, which carries Interstate 40 between Memphis, Tenn., and West Memphis, Ark., has been diverted to the only other Memphis area crossing, on I-55.
Fired inspector said safety concern stopped him from seeing I-40 bridge crack, document says Daniel Connolly and Misty Castile, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Drone video tour: What to know about the I-40 bridge closure
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Newly released public records identify the Arkansas bridge inspector who was fired after state officials said he missed a critical crack on the Hernando De Soto bridge, and a document says he failed to get close enough to assess a key spot in the structure.
Monty Frazier was team leader on Arkansas Department of Transportation reviews of the bridge in September 2019 and September 2020, newly released records say.
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Newly released public records identify the Arkansas bridge inspector who was fired after state officials said he missed a critical crack on the Hernando De Soto bridge, and a document says he failed to get close enough to assess a key spot in the structure.
Monty Frazier was team leader on Arkansas Department of Transportation reviews of the bridge in September 2019 and September 2020, newly released records say.
On May 11, another inspection team led by outside consultants found a badly cracked girder on the bridge. Since that day, the bridge has been shut down to vehicle traffic and a massive repair effort is underway. The situation raises the question of why the crack was not found during earlier inspections conducted by ARDOT.