Of the people, By the people, For the people
Home of subscriber
Memory Passmore
TUESDAY, August 4, 2020 / Vol. 6 Issue 31 / 75 cents
Sexual grooming charge On July 14, 2020 The Van Buren County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigation Division started an investigation on a report of a possible sexual grooming of a juvenile, according to a news release. On July 24, 2020 investigators were able to secure a search warrant along with an arrest war-
rant for Roger Bonds. While executing the search warrant Bonds was taken into custody without incident. Bonds was booked into the Van Buren County Jail and charged with: • Serial Grooming of a Juvenile • Sexual Assault 2nd Degree • Producing, directing, or promoting
a sexual performance by a child. • Engaging children in sexually explicit conduct for use in visual or print medium. • Possession of firearms by certain person. No further details were available and no affidavit for arrest was available to the public.
Roger Bonds
Barnes to join Guy staff Clinton School Board and City Council member Timothy Barnes has accepted a job as high school principal in the Guy-Perkins School District. He recently retired from a 14-year career with the Arkansas Department of Education. Barnes was elementary principal for the Shirley School District from September 1999 to June 2006.
The Guy-Perkins superintendent is Dr. Joe Fisher, who recently spent a year as Clinton’s superintendent. Barnes has been on the Clinton City Council since 2015. Asked by the Voice if he planned to resign his board positions and move to Guy, Barnes responded that he was “excited about the opportunity” to join Guy-Perkins’ staff.
Panel proposes changes
City attorney Chad Brown tries to explain the newest version of Clinton’s clean-up ordinance at a workshop July 28. (Photos by Warren Johnson)
A City Council workshop held July 28 cleared up some questions about Clinton’s clean-up or nuisance ordinance. The main question still focused on vehicles parked on private property. Several separate items were removed from the ordinance, and in short, the vehicle must be operable, said city attorney Chad Brown and zoning official Tim Clark. “If you want to keep your inoperable vehicle, you need to put it in an enclosed structure,” Clark said. “We all know what kind of vehicle we’re
talking about,” he said. Council member Gayla Bradley said some areas coming into the city are “embarrassing,” and stressed that it is “important to beautify” the city. Resident Adam Kuipers who has been negotiating over the ordinance with the committee, deemed the latest version a “significant improvement.” The ordinance will be presented for a first reading to the City Council at its meeting next week. The meeting, at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 13 at the Clinton Municipal Airport, is open to the public.
Coronavirus
Absentee voting
By the numbers
Van Buren County - Aug. 2 • Active positive 7 • Total positive 50 • Recovered 41 • Deaths 2 • Negatives 1486
Arkansas
Aug. 1
• 662 new cases • 43,173 total positive cases • 36,034 recoveries • 460 deaths
Aug. 2
• 637 new cases • 43,810 total positive cases • 36,576 recoveries • 464 deaths
Cases in county climb Less than a week after Gov. Asa Hutchinson acknowledged Van Buren County for its low Covid-19 rate, cases in the county climbed to nine. Two have since recovered and the number now stands at seven. Even as the state records hundreds of new cases of Covid-19 daily, schools still are ordered to reopen on Aug. 24. South Side-Bee Branch has scheduled open houses for Thursday, Aug. 9. Contact the school for times and more information. At Clinton, updated football practice schedules for August have been posted. Athletes must bring their own water bottle and wear masks into the locker room and out of locker room after practice. Football practice for the Clinton Yellow Jackets was scheduled to begin Monday, Aug. 3. The se-
nior team will practice from 7:30 a.m.-10:15 a.m. Monday through Friday through Aug. 14. The junior team will follow from 10:30 a.m.-noon. The times will change beginning the week of Aug. 17. In the Shirley School District, students are scheduled to be on campus August 24. Buses will run at normal time and lunches will be served. Parents are asked to not send children to school if they have a sore throat, a temperature of more than 100.4, or known exposure to Covid-19. The new attendance policy will allow students to not be counted absent if they log in to a computer and complete the assigned work. Students will be asked to complete work at home on a computer at times throughout the year. Teaching students at home via internet classes is also an option. Contact your school for more information.
Zoning official Tim Clark says some decisions must be judgement calls.
Butterfly feeding - Vaiva Pack captured this image of a butterfly in her gardens in Clinton.
Registered voters can apply for an Absentee Ballot Application by calling the Voter Registration Of ce at 501-7458683 or the County Clerk's Office at 501745-6995. They will need to provide their name, date of birth, their physical and mailing address if they are different and their phone number. The deadline for mailing out the Absentee Ballot Application is September 4, 2020. Then when the office receives the Ab-
sentee Ballots from the Election Commissioners or the Election Coordinator they will be mailed to the voter. The voters can also go online at the Secretary of State webpage and print a blank Absentee Ballot Application off and and send it to Van Buren County, Voter Registration Office, 1414 Hwy 65 South, Suite 131, Clinton Arkansas 72031, ATTN: Vicki Jones. The voter also needs to put a phone number on their application.
Researchers dive into Covid-19 effects on fishing Arkansas Wildlife Magazine
Americans seem to have fallen back in love with the outdoors during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. With organized sports, spectator-fueled events and formal schools being shuffled to the side to slow the spread of the virus, time in the outdoors seems to have become a rediscovered gem to many people looking to escape cabin fever during self-imposed quarantines. Rods, reels, canoes, kayaks, mountain bikes and all other sorts of outdoors equipment has flown off shelves so quickly that manufacturers have been unable to keep up with
demand. But how many of these people are newcomers to the outdoors? Has the pandemic increased awareness of hunting and angling or is it just a matter of people suddenly finding time to do what they remember enjoying years ago? Is Covid-19 actually responsible for the uptick in sales or is something else at play? These are questions researchers at Louisiana State University and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission are looking to answer. Recently, the AGFC helped distribute surveys to 25,000 randomly selected fishing license holders to
gauge their motivations for fishing this year and to see if the disease has actually played a part in their decision-making process. “We were looking at doing a study on our own, when we were contacted by Dr. Steve Midway at LSU,” said Jessica Feltz, human dimensions specialist for the AGFC. “He was already working on a study and had a handful of states already working with him.” AGFC’s Fisheries Division then supplied Midway with contact information for 25,000 randomly selected license holders to be part of the survey. “I want to strongly encourage anyone
who was chosen to receive the survey to take the time to answer it and be as honest as they can about their answers,” Feltz said. “We’ve received a handful of questions asking if it was a legitimate survey, so we wanted to let people know it is going on.” Feltz says survey participants will have a few weeks to supply their answers. “It may help us understand ways to educate and motivate new anglers, and I think that’s exciting,” Feltz said. “And because many states are participating in the same survey, it will be interesting to see where Arkansas falls in regard to some of the answers.”