CAVE SPRINGS, Ark. — Tuesday's Cave Springs City Council meeting was a packed house.
The City of Rogers and the City of Cave Springs are aiming to trade some land. If approved, Cave Springs would get some land west of Highway 112, which is where Scissortail sits.
A majority of people at the meeting on April 23 were from the Scissortail neighborhood, which is a neighborhood with a Bentonville address and zoned for Bentonville schools, but they live in Rogers and pay Rogers utilities and taxes.
As there was nothing related to Scissortail on the Cave Springs City Council agenda, they allowed an hour of public comment. Residents took the full hour each expressing their concerns on the proposed land swap.
"It's been a disappointing experience for sure," said Jennifer Wattman, a Scissortail resident. "We love the neighborhood first and foremost, and the locality of the emergency services. That was a big advantage for us to live in Scissortail."
Lots of residents questioned the emergency services and first responder aspect.
Angie Zumwalt and her family moved to Scissortail just 6 months ago.
"One of the things that really drew us in was that it was very close to a fire station and first responders," Zumwalt said.
A Rogers fire station is right down the road from the neighborhood, along with Evening Star Elementary.
"My son, he's 10 years old, he happens to have Down syndrome and he has a lot of medical risks that are associated with that," Zumwalt said. "The biggest thing is that he has an extremely high risk for elopement, which is running away. When you have a child who runs away, time is absolutely critical. You know, we have a neighborhood swimming pool, we have a highway right across the street."
Zumwalt said she feared that the land swap could increase response times from emergency services to both the neighborhood and the elementary school.
"You never know when you're going to need a paramedic or EMT or somebody to be super close," Zumwalt explained.
Mayor Randall Noblett for the City of Cave Springs said he believes that won't be the case. He said if a call came within Cave Springs city limits, the Rogers Fire Department is one of four cities who would also receive the call.
"They're all in mutual aid agreements that when there's a fire in an area, that one city is not the only one that responds," Noblett said. "So it shouldn't affect the response time or who's responding at all."
As for police, Noblett said there would be a designated Cave Springs school resource officer for Evening Star Elementary. This officer would only be there part of the day. Right now, Evening Star's SRO is from the Bentonville Police Department and is shared between three elementary schools.
"They would probably be there in the morning to assist with the traffic flow and all of that," Noblett said. "He [Cave Springs Police Chief] plans to utilize that school resource officer when they're not at the school, as a code enforcement and maybe animal control. It's going to be something that they could drop at a moment's notice, go straight to the school, and do what they're needed for there."
Noblett said that both cities have agreed to accept the pieces of land from each other. However, both Rogers and Cave Springs have public hearings set for May for public comment. Then, the councils will both vote to release their pieces of land, which would result in the swap.
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