JP Coger's Washington County Newsletter 8/24/25
- Beth Coger
- Aug 24
- 5 min read
THINGS TO KNOW:
Troubling Actions at Thursday’s Quorum Court Meeting
As you know from previous newsletters, Act 519 of 2025 which went into effect 8/5/25 amended Arkansas Code 14-17-203 to require that “A majority of the voting members of the county planning board shall reside in unincorporated areas of the county.”
At 10:39 a.m. on August 21, County Judge Patrick Deakins sent this email to Justices of the Peace stating:
“My plan is to re-nominate all (emphasis added) the current planning board members, with a new nomination of a resident living in the unincorporated areas.”
However, that did not happen. Despite stating he would re-nominate all current members, Judge Deakins, when making the nominations, excluded one Planning Board member: Joe Maynard.
Judge Deakins did not do what he told the Quorum Court he would do. He used his power as chair to push his nominations through. (Despite trying to do this with an ordinance at the County Services meeting on 6/30/25 which failed to get enough votes to pass)
I think it is very possible his nominations last Thursday would not have had the votes to pass if everyone on the court had realized that one member had been intentionally omitted (maybe they were just relying on what he said in his email?) It happened quickly and someone could have easily missed that he did not include Mr. Maynard.
There’s also the question of whether it even legally passed. He got eight votes, but a two-thirds vote is required to deprive an individual of membership or office—per Robert’s Rules of Order 12th Ed, Section 44:4 (there are other legal questions about due process and removal which I cover in this report)
I don’t know what happened between Judge Deakins and Mr. Maynard, but I do know this: since at least last October, Judge Deakins has actively advocated for Maynard’s removal. Here is the email he sent to the JPs.
This should alarm every Washington County resident. If a disagreement with the county judge can lead to public humiliation and removal from a board or committee, what does that say about fairness, transparency, and accountability in our local government? If community members who volunteer their time—often for little or no compensation—are subjected to this type of treatment, we weaken our county. We discourage qualified individuals from serving, and we risk decisions becoming less fact-based and more politically motivated.
Is Washington County better for this? Absolutely not. If this goes unchallenged, it will happen again. The only question is: who will be next?
Here's my full report with all the receipts which contains more background and more documents.
Even after all this, do we have a legally established Planning Board?
➽ The next Washington County Quorum Court County Services Committee happens Tuesday, September 2, 2025, 6:00 PM, Washington County Courthouse, 280 N. College, Fayetteville, Arkansas. This is an in person meeting only. The meeting will be live streamed here on the county’s YouTube channel.
*At this time all I know about the agenda is that Madalyn Farquhar of RES Group will give a presentation on “the wind project.”
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⇒ MEETINGS FROM LAST WEEK:
The Washington County Quorum Court held its regular monthly meeting Thursday 8/21/25. You should watch that meeting here.
The ordinance to allow Eaglecrest Recovery to operate without a conditional use permit did not pass. A lot of discussion centered around the Agreed Order for Preliminary Injunction entered in the federal court case. That order was agreed to by the attorneys for the parties. There was no evidentiary hearing, no testimony, no findings of fact by the judge (it is, indeed, an injunction and prohibits certain actions by the county).
The Eaglecrest discussion starts at 43:22 in the video. The speakers who spoke against this (and the one person who spoke in favor) did a very good job of putting forth their facts. Here is the statement that I read to explain why I was a “No” vote for repealing the original ordinance.
I think we need to strengthen the definition of single family residential in our zoning ordinance in order to have more control over situations like this with Eaglecrest.
The ordinance creating new planning and zoning law passed. This discussion starts at 1:28:42 in the video. I voted against this. Here’s a summary of my reasons The majority of my colleagues felt otherwise. The theme seemed to be that because the judge already had these powers (see my summary), then we should just pass this along anyway. I disagree with that. We could have done such a much better job if the county had not gone rogue on its own and cut out the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission. There’s talk now of cooperating with Benton County and NWA Regional Planning, so maybe we can take what we have and make it better.
There was also a lot of talk about consolidating all the ordinances into one but I think the Washington County Code as it’s codified now did a good job of that. At 1:56:49 in the video I mention that the county code has to be codified every five years and Judge Deakins had some problem with that, but I’m not sure what. I was referring to A.C.A. 14-14-903 and I don’t know what he was talking about.
JPs voting FOR the zoning ordinance: Dennis, Highers, Rios-Stafford, Ricker, Bruns, Wilson, Lopez, Lyons, Ecke and Washington.
JPs voting AGAINST zoning ordinance: Coger, Leming, Pond, Massingale and Dean.
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WASHINGTON COUNTY DETENTION CENTER:
As of 8/20/25, there were 721 individuals detained at the Washington County Detention Center. Here are some statistics:
Total Inmate Days in Jail: 112,368
Average Days in Jail: 155
Total Inmates That Have Been in Jail Prior: 533
Total Inmates Between Ages 41 and 50: 165
Total Inmates Between 51 and 60: 81
Sex Offenders: 15
Foreign Born: 101
Not Sentenced: 676
On Medications: 11
Pretrial: 402
Restricted Bookings: 10
State Prisoners: 9
84 individuals reported their address as either “homeless” or 1832 S. School Street (Seven Hills Homeless Shelter).
40 detainees are classified as 309 Trustees.
180 individuals are being held on Failure to Appear charges.
199 individuals are being held for other jurisdictions (Hold for Other Departments).
Here’s the link to the Detailed Charge Report:
You can check the “Calls for Service” board here.
Here’s a list in alphabetical order to search for people.
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County Bid Postings (as of 8/24/25)
Bid: 2025-10 due 9/8/25 at 4:00 PM: opening date 9/9/25. This is a bid for a “fuel island system” for the road department.
Bid: 2025-11 due 9/2/25 at 4:00 PM: opening date 9/3/25. This is a bid for work order and data management software, also for the road department.
View all RFQs and bids [here].
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County Job Openings (as of 8/24/25).
Full Time | Open Until Filled | $21.91 / HR | |
Temporary | Open Until Filled | 14/Hr | |
Full Time | Open Until Filled | $21.25 - $23.42/hr | |
Full Time | Open Until Filled | $21.91 - $24.14 | |
Part Time | Open Until Filled | $16 | |
Not Specified | Open Until Filled | $16 | |
Full Time | Open Until Filled | $18 Hr |
Below is the link for all posted job openings in Washington County. The road department and sheriff’s offices are almost always hiring. The road department is 479-444-1610. The sheriff’s office is 479-444-5700.
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