CARROLL COUNTY : Former fire chief, farmer in contest for District 91 slot
Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008
EUREKA SPRINGS — From the Bible Belt ethics of Carroll County farmers to the liberal leanings of some Eureka Springs residents, candidates for state representative in District 91 have a diverse constituency to court.
“Certainly, I didn’t carry Eureka Springs,” said Rep. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, a poultry and cattle farmer who is serving his first term in the state House. “But I have picked up a lot of support over there.
“ You work on the issues that you can work on. You disagree with people, but you have to put those disagreements aside.”
King, 40, is being challenged by David A. Stoppel, a Democrat, paramedic and former fire chief in Eureka Springs.
Stoppel, who moved to Berryville in June, grew up in Eureka Springs. He began busing tables at the Ozark Village Restaurant in Eureka Springs at the age of 12 and worked there 19 years. He was assistant manager when the restaurant closed in 1989. Stoppel, 51, had started working as a volunteer firefighter four years before the restaurant closed. He went to work for the Fire Department full-time in 1992 and became chief in 2000. He retired in 2007 and has since been working as a paramedic at Central EMS in Fayetteville. He also owned J&J Wrecker Service from 2000-05.
King is a partner with his father and brother in Triple K Farms. They have eight chicken houses, 144, 000 broilers and about 80 head of cattle.
King said “the experience factor” should help him win this election. Besides serving two years in the House, King was selected as minority leader for the forthcoming session of the Legislature, if he wins the Nov. 4 election.
“I don’t think there’s anything that can prepare you for it,” he said of the General Assembly. “It’s very much fast and furious.”
Stoppel said he can fairly represent all the residents of District 91.
“I think you have to be openminded, wherever you are,” he said. “I don’t think you can exclude any one group because you don’t agree with what they have to say.
“ I like to represent everybody and not just a certain group.”
King said he is pro-life, has conservative family values and “strongly supports” the Second Amendment, which protects a citizen’s right to own guns.
King said Arkansans need tax relief in this weak economy and believes in “cutting down the size of government.”
“We have to make cuts,” he said. “That’s just the hard fact.”
King said more funding is needed for highways and transportation, and health care will also be an issue in the next legislative session.
Stoppel said he will support legislation to remove the remaining 3 percent state sales tax on groceries and will pursue legislation to do away with the age limit for foster parents wanting to adopt a child.
Stoppel said he will also support the trauma systems bill, which will designate levels of care at various hospitals around the state. In severe injury cases, patients would be airlifted directly to a trauma center instead of going by ambulance to a local hospital and being transferred later.
King said he would urge Congress to work on ending foodbased biofuels mandates. Such mandates have been criticized for causing global food shortages and higher prices for food. Biofuels are cleaner, plant-based fuels that can sometimes be substituted for oil and gas.
King also is a major supporter of election reform. Like Indiana, Arkansas needs to implement voter identification with more oversight of elections, he said.
“The integrity of our elections must be protected,” said King.
Carroll County, like a handful of others in Arkansas, has dual county seats and two courthouses: Berryville and Eureka Springs.
Stoppel said he’s against closing the western Carroll County Courthouse. On his Web site DavidAStoppel. com, Stoppel said that King plans to file a bill to close the courthouse in Eureka Springs, which “would have a negative economic impact on all of Carroll County” because of the brisk business that the courthouse does in marriage licenses.
King said he doesn’t plan to file a bill to close the Eureka Springs courthouse, but he does support consolidating county offices, as well as Circuit Court offices, in the 60-year-old Berryville courthouse. Eureka Springs could lease the entire 100-year-old courthouse for city office space. Eureka Springs leases part of the western county courthouse.
King said that would save the county money when metal detectors are eventually installed in the buildings where court is held. Currently, Carroll County has two District Courts and two Circuit Courts. There would be only one of each under King’s proposal. And marriage licenses could be issued by a county employee in Eureka Springs, he said.
King said he would favor the courthouse consolidation as long as it could be done without increasing taxes and a cap could be set on the total amount spent on the consolidation.
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