Leadership Properties shares your frustration with the confusing and surprising land swap proposal. In everyone’s effort to understand what the Cities of Rogers and Cave Springs are doing, many misconceptions have begun to circulate. Some of the misunderstandings include speculation that Leadership Properties’ had a role in initiating the deal - we did not.
It took some time to do the research, and we’re finally able to share some information about where this idea came from and how long it’s been in the works. Leadership Properties wants to set the record straight, so we have collected communication between public officials that we obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and created this to help make sense of them.
Leadership Properties is not behind the City of Rogers' plan to de-annex Scissortail or any other properties west of Hwy 112. We did not prompt it.
Leadership Properties has never used our lawsuit against Rogers or the Rogers Water Utility in an effort to coerce or promote any annexation. We are only pursuing our legal right to access utility infrastructure that we helped to construct in partnership with Rogers Water Utility.
For more than a decade, Leadership Properties has invested in the infrastructure and development of Scissortail and the surrounding area. Through various affiliated companies, we have partnered with the Rogers Water Utility several times over the years to ensure water and sewer capacity for existing and future homes. Unfortunately, the City of Rogers’ change in annexation strategy has denied sewer access to our next planned development phase (80 acres North of Scissortail - planned Phase 4 of Scissortail) despite, ironically, the pipes running across the property. Three Flags Investments (a related Leadership Properties entity) did file a lawsuit on September 19, 2023 to enforce prior agreements, but we had no knowledge at the time that the City of Rogers had already been working for months by then to detach properties west of Highway 112 including Scissortail.
Our inquiry revealed that as far back as April 2023, Rogers officials initiated talks with the City of Bentonville to detach their western properties in an effort to trim their territories and control infrastructure costs. Neither Leadership Properties nor the Scissortail POA were involved in those discussions. Inquiries to the cities indicated the infrastructure costs for Bentonville to provide utility services were prohibitive to proceeding.
Throughout the summer of 2023, Attorney Bill Watkins' law firm - who we have worked with in the past - represented several other property owners in various unrelated annexation attempts into both Bentonville and Rogers. Documents received in our inquiry suggest that it was his representation of a Cave Springs property owner east of Hwy 112 that prompted Rogers officials to propose a land swap with Cave Springs.
In 2020, Leadership Properties (through related entities) entered into agreements with the City of Rogers and the Rogers Water Utility to provide land to expand capacity at the Scissortail lift station in exchange for guarantees that future development in the area would have water and sewer service. Also in March, 2020, the previous owner of the 80 acres north of Scissortail provided easements for sewer lines in exchange for access to utility services. In September, 2022, Leadership Properties (through Three Flags Investment) acquired that 80 acres as part of a planned future phase of Scissortail. With Bill Watkins as our attorney, we applied for utility services as well as annexation for the next planned development phase in January, 2023 and were denied.
On September 19, 2023, Three Flags Investments filed a lawsuit with attorney Stephen Lee Wood to enforce those prior agreements, months after the City of Rogers had already proposed transferring properties, including Scissortail, into Bentonville, and before their talks with Cave Springs began. Neither Leadership Properties nor Three Flags Investments were aware of any annexation negotiations at the time the lawsuit was filed.
In February/March 2024, rumors surfaced about the land swap discussions between City of Rogers and the City of Cave Springs. Because of our lawsuit, we asked our attorney to contact the City of Rogers and the Rogers Water Commission to determine the integrity of the information we were hearing. On March 15, 2024, we received confirmation that the discussions were real, and as a business necessity, we inquired about what effect the swap might have on our ability to obtain water and sewer services. Our attorney advised this would likely be a lengthy process.
We didn't have a lot of details and assumed the cities would allow a reasonable amount of public input and discussion before major decisions moved forward. From our perspective, the process has been surprisingly fast and we understand the Scissortail residents' frustration. We remain committed to ensuring the continuity of services to the Scissortail community as well as continuing our effort to secure water and sewer access to the adjacent land.
We appreciate the trust and mutual support many of you have shown by reaching out to us during this confusing process.