Phillips County JP: Radio Removal Could Delay Emergency Response Times

Phillips County Justice of the Peace Martin Rawls raised a public alarm after County Judge Clark Hall pulled emergency radios from two Phillips County municipalities and from some sheriff's deputies, a move Rawls warned could delay emergency response times and break down the interagency communication that law enforcement, fire, and EMS depend on during a crisis.

The radio removal is the latest flashpoint in a widening governance dispute between Hall and members of the Quorum Court, the nine-member legislative body that oversees county appropriations and policy. Rawls, a sitting member of that court, described the loss of radio access as potentially disastrous, arguing that any gap in coordinated communications during a fire, a medical emergency, or a violent incident could cost lives in a county where response distances are already measured in rural miles.

Elaine, a small Delta community in the county's southern stretch, sits at the center of the dispute. Mayor Lisa Hicks-Gilbert had already been sounding the alarm over Phillips County's decision to cut her city's police department off from the county 911 dispatch center, a severance that happened over a weekend without warning. The county subsequently sent Elaine a proposed interlocal services agreement that would require the city to pay $6,000 annually in exchange for restored 911 dispatch access covering law enforcement, fire, and EMS calls. Hicks-Gilbert called the fee a financial hardship for a small municipality and pushed back on terms she described as neither fair nor equitable.

JP Lita Moore-Johnson told Hicks-Gilbert the proposed agreement had not come before the Quorum Court for approval, raising a procedural question about the judge's authority to negotiate and impose the arrangement unilaterally.

Hall's office did not respond to requests for comment. The Office of Emergency Management director was also listed as unavailable when contacted.

The radio dispute fits into what Hicks-Gilbert characterized as a broader pattern. Elaine's local polling site was removed under the judge's authority, she said, and the community's public library, which had operated for 77 years, was also shuttered. The cumulative effect, she argued, has left Elaine increasingly isolated from county services that its residents depend on.

Rawls has previously put Hall's conduct before the full Quorum Court, including after a separate incident in which the court passed a censure resolution and called for Hall's resignation. Hall did not step down following that action. The emergency radio removal now gives the court a fresh accountability question: whether the judge holds the unilateral authority to strip public-safety communications infrastructure from towns and officers without legislative approval, and what legal or fiscal mechanism exists to restore it.