Fulton civic group founder sues town, mayor over records on $3 million water grant

FULTON, Ark. — The founder of a south Arkansas civic group sued the town of Fulton, its mayor and its recorder-treasurer Tuesday, saying they gave her only a partial response to public records requests about a $3.05 million federal grant to replace the town’s leaking water lines and never answered the rest.

Sylvia C. Brown, who leads VOTE SoAR, filed the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act appeal in Hempstead County Circuit Court against the town, Mayor Henry Hale III and Recorder-Treasurer Frances Hendrix, both in their official capacities. The case is 29CV-26-423.

Brown is asking for a hearing within seven days, which the state records law allows, and for an order requiring the town to answer each of her requests in writing, search its files and turn over digital copies. She also wants a judge to review anything the town claims is exempt and to award her attorney’s fees.

The town had not filed a response as of Tuesday afternoon.

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Ten requests, one 89-page PDF

According to the complaint, Brown mailed three letters May 15 containing 10 requests. Two went to Hale as custodian of records for the town and for Fulton Waterworks, and one went to Hendrix.

She asked for the mayor’s correspondence with Spears Engineering Company, the Texarkana firm handling the project, and with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the grant. She asked for every document tied to the earmark, including reports, work plans and application forms, and for the engineering firm’s own project records.

From Hendrix she sought ordinances, resolutions, minutes and membership lists for a nonresident advisory board to the water system. A 2021 state law requires a municipal water provider to create a nonvoting advisory committee, with two seats reserved for customers outside town, when at least 20 percent of its customers live outside the municipal boundaries. The complaint describes the board as one the town was required to form.

Hale responded by text message on May 20, telling Brown she could review the records and make copies at the Fulton Water Department on May 25, according to the complaint and the text exchange attached to it. When Brown wrote back that she wanted electronic copies, Hale first texted that the water department did have the equipment to reproduce the records digitally, then corrected himself.

“Sorry for the errors we don’t have the equipment to reproduce the material electronically or digitally, you may come by and review the existing materials,” he wrote.

Brown met Hale on May 26 at Honeycutt Printing in Hope, where she paid the print shop to copy an 89-page PDF from him onto a thumb drive she had bought for the purpose, the complaint says.

At that meeting she asked for a map showing the exact area the project would cover. Hale refused, citing “security issues,” according to the complaint, and offered no other explanation for why the town could not produce the rest of what she had requested.

Brown says she ran into Hendrix on June 3 at Cadence Bank in Hope and asked about her request. Hendrix told her she could not comply because the records “were with the auditor,” the complaint says. Brown says she heard nothing further from either official.

The complaint argues that an auditor holding the records does not make the auditor the custodian, that council minutes and ordinances should exist in other copies, and that neither official ever gave the written response the law requires when records do not exist, are exempt or belong to someone else.

What the town turned over

The 89 pages, filed as an exhibit, consist largely of the town’s grant work plan, Spears Engineering’s preliminary engineering report, an environmental checklist, consultation letters to state agencies and six tribes, the signed federal application form and about a dozen pages of EPA emails from January to April of this year.

Brown’s lawyers say the production can be read as a partial answer to three of her 10 requests. It contained no correspondence between the mayor and the engineering firm or the EPA, nothing about the advisory board, and nothing responsive to the request sent to Hendrix.

The complaint also lists records it says the PDF itself shows must exist but were not produced: the grant award, the town’s cost-share waiver application and approval, the engineering contract and the request for qualifications that preceded it, a map file the EPA sent to the Osage Nation, and the engineering firm’s replies to EPA questions.

Brown filed the state case after pursuing a separate federal records request to the EPA, the complaint says. She is represented by Badria Mryyan and Connor Thompson of Mryyan Thompson PLLC of Little Rock.

The water project

The records the town produced describe a system built in 1973 that serves 134 customers from two wells and a 50,000-gallon elevated tank. Its 6-inch mains are asbestos-cement pipe that has corroded over its lifetime, and the town says the lines have had numerous breaks and leaks.

Congress set aside the $3.05 million as community project funding in the 2023 appropriations act. The money covers 100 percent of the cost after the town obtained a waiver of the usual local match, according to the work plan. About $2.83 million is budgeted to replace water lines, valves and hydrants, and $219,000 to rebuild the sewage pump station at the city park. The grant period runs from Jan. 26, 2026, to June 26, 2027.

The EPA emails in the exhibit show the project has drawn attention beyond Fulton. In January, the Osage Nation’s historic preservation office asked the EPA for a cultural resources survey before construction, citing “a specific area of concern to the Nation” within the project area. By April 22, the EPA’s project officer told the engineers that archaeologists expected to spend 10 days in the field and would likely recommend monitoring during construction in places they could not dig.

The same emails show the EPA was already hearing from Brown’s group months before she mailed her requests. On Jan. 6, the project officer asked Spears Engineering to set up a call with the mayor to go over next steps and, “most importantly, discuss the communications we’ve been receiving from VOTE SoAR representatives.” The agency’s congressional liaison asked to join the call.

Brown’s group, whose name stands for Visibility Outreach Touch Engage South Arkansas, describes itself as a community-led organization working across the region on civic engagement and water issues. Brown was a candidate for the Hope School Board in 2025.