On Nov. 18, Conway held a special election in order to vote for six separate ballot propositions.

Of these six propositions, only two passed and four failed.

“Today, voters are voting on six questions,” said Conway Chamber of Commerce worker Jamie Gates, “all related to potential tax increases.”

Each of the propositions would have focused on different aspects and problems within the city and focused on different approaches to fixing or improving on them.

“The first question is for a public safety capital fund, so that’s to purchase equipment and to pay for facilities related to police, fire and emergency dispatch,” Gates said. “The second is creating a fund for street and drainage maintenance and street drainage and infrastructure.”

This would be implemented through a raise in sales tax at a rate of one-fourth of a cent or 0.25% for the public safety fund and a raise of one-eighth of a cent or 0.125% for the drainage system.

Both of these propositions passed with the Log Cabin Democrat reporting 3,340 for the public safety fund and 2,940 against it and 3,430 for the drainage system funding with 2,770 against it.

It should be noted that these numbers are not official as the official results have not come out yet.

Instead, the Faulkner County Election Commission still needs to release the official results.

The other four propositions would each rely on the same amount of taxation.

“Questions three, four, five and six are for quality of place amenities that would be built using a three-eighths cent tax to pay back bonds,” said Gates. “Those include a large outdoor music amphitheater that seats 12,000 people, comparable to the Amp in Northwest Arkansas, the restoration of a historic theater in downtown Conway called the Grand Theater, a potential Convention Center attached to a convention hotel and then a boardwalk and kind of urban natural area on the north shore of Lake Conway.”

Each of these bonds would have different caps with the music venue bond capping at $52,950,000, the convention center capping at $30,965,000 and both the boardwalk around Lake Conway and the restoration of the Great Theater capping individually at $11,060,000.

None of these bills passed.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported that only 2,243 voted for the music venue compared to the 4,035 against it, 2,143 for the restoration of the Great Theater against 4,182 and 2,147 for the boardwalks around Lake Conway vs 4,163 against it.

Early voting began on Nov. 12-17 at the Faulkner County Courthouse.

On the day of the election, voters could go to one of three locations.

These included the McGee Center, the Conway Community Center and the Faulkner County Library.

According to the Democrat Gazette, around 6,318 ballots were cast throughout the election.

On top of this, there are about 37,298 voters in the City of Conway

This means that roughly 16.94% of Conway residents voted in the special election.