By Ray King
The Pine Bluff City Council, during a special called meeting Friday afternoon voted to repeal a resolution adopted Monday regarding hiring a firm to revise the city’s voting districts, and to retain a second company to do the job.
On Monday, the council voted to hire Data Scout, the same company that drew up Jefferson County’s Justice of the Peace Districts to do the same for the city’s four wards.
During the meeting Friday, Mayor Shirley Washington said when she contacted Data Scout after the resolution was adopted, they said they would not be able to do the work in the time allowed for law.
Washington said Data Scout was the lowest of three bidders for the job and when they pulled out, the city went to the second lowest bidder, Optimization Direct Inc., and Encore Data, which has agreed to do the job for the same rate, $4,000, that Data Scout had bid.
The company said they would start work on the project Monday and expected to be finished with it by Dec. 22.
