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Highfill Files Suit to Stop XNA’s Detachment

2 min read

More: Read about how XNA is preparing to de-annex.

Highfill filed a lawsuit against the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Authority on Thursday to prevent the airport from detaching from the small city in Benton County.

The lawsuit was filed by Jess Askew III of Kutak Rock LLP in Little Rock in Benton County Circuit Court. The city asks for a declaratory judgment, claiming the proposed detachment wanted by Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) violates the Arkansas Constitution.

The 14-person authority voted to detach XNA on Sept. 19, taking advantage of a recently passed state law that went into effect Aug. 1. The state’s General Assembly passed and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed Act 769 into law, allowing the airport to detach.

Highfill claims in its lawsuit that losing XNA’s tax revenue threatens the city’s “solvency,” and ability to pay its bills “would be measured in days not weeks.” The city generates approximately $1 million annual from its 2% sales tax and another $1.2 million from water and sewer revenue, the suit claimed.

XNA’s detachment would remove a large tax base from Highfill. XNA-generated tax revenue is pledged to pay off Highfill’s bond debt and fund its operations.

The authority has said that XNA was never intended to be a part of an individual municipality, but land occupied by the airport was annexed into Highfill before its opening in 1998. The authority is made up of two representatives from each of the five most populous cities in northwest Arkansas — Bentonville, Fayetteville, Siloam Springs, Springdale and Rogers — and two each from Benton and Washington counties.

“The Act passed both houses of the General Assembly with strong bipartisan support earlier this year, was signed into law by the governor, and is presumed to be constitutional,” the authority said in a statement through spokesperson Olivia Moore. “The authority believes Highfill’s lawsuit is without merit and looks forward to defending the Act and the vision of those regional leaders who conceived XNA to benefit the entire region, not just one small town with an official population of 1,587.”

Highfill’s population was 583 in 2010 but has since grown as the region and area surrounding the airport has developed. The lawsuit said the city’s population is approximately 3,500.

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