Craighead Courthouse annex addition opens

JONESBORO — It was a five and a half year long goal to add courtroom space to the current facilities in Craighead County.

With an event last Friday, the goal is now a reality.

“Come on in,” Craighead County Judge Marvin Day told guests Friday as the Craighead County Courthouse Annex addition opened for the public.

The nearly $16 million project will include three new courtrooms, two of which have holding cells and a room for Quorum Court meetings, in downtown Jonesboro.

Day said he spoke with Sheriff Marty Boyd several years ago about the need for courtroom space in the county and both began working on the project.

Day noted a working group was then formed to get ideas, discuss the needs for the new space and its future. The county judge said he believes it will make a difference in the safety in the community with the additional space as well.

Right now, the county has three circuit judges who hear criminal cases and three circuit judges who hear civil cases, not to mention drug court, probate and divorce cases, with one large courtroom in Jonesboro to hear cases.

Now the county has three large courtrooms as well as several small courtrooms to handle the caseload.

Circuit Judge Melissa Richardson, who serves as the administrative judge for the Second Judicial District, thanked Day and the Craig-

See STATE, page A3

Photo by Michael Wilkey STATE

From page A2

head County Quorum Court for their work on the project.

Richardson also said Craighead County, which is the largest county in the judicial district that includes Clay, Greene, Crittenden, Poinsett and Mississippi counties, typically has the largest docket and requires jury trials as well.

With only one large courtroom, the logistics were often difficult, especially with jury cases. Richardson said having additional court space will help with the logistical issues and that officials have already begun using the courtrooms.

2nd Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Sonia Hagood also attended the event Friday. She said the new courtrooms rival what is seen in federal courts and that there has always been a rivalry in area courthouses, as to who has the best courtroom space.

Hagood said while most have agreed that the Greene County Courthouse in Paragould has had the lead for years, the recent work done in Craighead County has helped to narrow that lead.

“Your County Judge and Quorum Court have outdone themselves,” Hagood said of the project.

The prosecutor also said she was grateful for the judges, baliffs and the circuit clerk’s office in Craighead County for their work. She said the baliffs are also professional and have helped her, by walking her to her car. Day also thanked Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) for his support on the project, especially the work on the storm shelter.

Crawford said Friday that having new courtroom space helps to serve justice, adding the lack of courtroom space “cannot be an impediment to true justice.”

The congressman said he believes the building is a beautiful space that will serve the county well into the future.

Local historian Danny Honnoll said the new courtroom space not only helps with justice but also provides a history lesson.

“Everyone here today is a part of history,” Honnoll said, noting many may remember when the original annex was built in the 1990s. “You will be able to drive down the road here one day and say, ‘I remember when that building first opened.’” ***

Bill aims at helping troubled independent

Arkansas pharmacies

LITTLE ROCK — Rep. Jim Wooten, during this week’s Legislative update spoke on House Bill 1150, the PBM bill, saying that the about two or three pharmaceutical companies have spent maybe $2 million “if not more” on defeating that bill “because it’s the first of its kind in the nation and they’re fearful if we pass it that it’s going to affect states everywhere.” Wooten said this has to do with the small pharmacies going out of business.

If this bill does not pass, Wooten said there will be a shortage of the smaller pharmacies because the PBMs [Pharmacy Benefit Managers] are building a wall against drug stores all over the state and all over the nation. “They are telling people they are going to close.” He talked about the PBMs controlling the pricing and they are competing against the independent pharmacists. “And what we’re going to wind up with is several counties that don’t have pharmacies. Arkansas County for one.”

Wooten said “I have been inundated with emails and phone calls and texts, in fact it has gotten to the point that one gentleman called me last week and said ‘hey, they called me and told me to vote against it because even told you to vote against it, what’s

See STATE, page A8 STATE

From page A3

going on’ and I said ‘that’s exactly what they want, they want you to call me and they’re picking and choosing names. I don’t know where they’re getting them because some of them have the same address as somebody else who sent me another letter or another email so they are making a concerted effort because they know where I live but it’s going to affect the independent pharmacists, affect 50 percent of them in Beebe will probably close and that was leave us with one or two pharmacies in the city of Beebe.”

Wooten said he is going to vote for the bill. “This bill here though really pinpoints and identifies the troublemakers causing the problem for your local pharmacists.”

Wooten mentioned Stanley Pharmacy in Searcy and Burrows Pharmacy in Beebe, also Healthway Pharmacy in Beebe and Beebe Pharmacy.

(first one) Acknowledged all the work Dismang does for hospitals and how gracious he is to the Arkansas Hospital Association and for his work toward healthcare in Arkansas.

(second one) (on HB 1342) said there were a lot of concerns about hospitals and any self-insured business, She said that could be detremental. Dismang said there should be concerns about that. She said it wasn’t just hospitals but any self-insured business.

Dismang said if you have a self-insure plan right now, there are of attempts to change what you can and cannot do. Typically, he said this has been off hand in the legislature up until the last couple of sessions. He said typically it was a response from pharmacies wanting to change what you can and cannot do or what you have to do inside a self-insured plan. Dismang said there is a balance that had to be met.

“If you ask your local pharmacies right now, they are doing all the negotiation on the front end and doing none of the enforcement on the back end so if a PBM [Pharmacy Benefit Manager] is not paying enough, you go ask your PSAO [Pharmacy Services Administrative Organizations] to do something about it of you’re a pharmacy, essentially nothing is happening so I don’t understand why we’re paying them or the insurance companies are having to pay the middle man for the middle man who is not doing his job for the pharmacies.

One of the biggest problems, he said, is the PSAOs not doing what they said they were going to do. Dismang said they are literally riding the contracts and saying ‘Oh, there’s loopholes in this contract.’ We didn’t know they were there, this is the reimbursement rate.”

Dismang said that we don’t know who these PSAOs are or where they are based out of.