LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Lottery Commission on Tuesday elected former congressman Ray Thornton of Little Rock as its interim chairman during its first meeting and Thornton later said he hopes the state's lottery begins selling lottery tickets by the end of the year.
During a meeting that lasted more than an hour, the ninemember commission also decided to hold its next meeting on May 12 at the same place, the University of Arkansas System office in Little Rock.
"We are responsible as a board for conducting ourselves under the highest ethical standards," Thornton told the commission after it approved a motion by Commissioner Mike Malone of Fayetteville to elect Thornton as interim chairman.
"I want this board to be open, full of integrity and transparency," said Thornton, a former congressman, attorney general and state Supreme Court justice. "It seems to me that the people of Arkansas need to have absolute confidence that we're not meeting in private or trying to do anything without setting it on the table for everyone to observe."
Among other things, the commission is responsible for hiring an executive director and internal auditor, and should seek requests for pro-posals from lottery vendors, Thornton said.
He said the commissioners should discourage "ex-parte" communication from lottery vendors to any particular commissioner because "that is something that can harm the commission if we welcome [it]."
Thornton said he doesn't know how South Carolina started selling lottery tickets four months after the formation of its lottery commission.
"I want to move as expeditiously as possible," he told reporters. "I think it is very important to bear in mind the loss to students of scholarship funds with every day that passes. I want to get it done right and to get it done as soon as possible."
He said he doesn't have a preference for a name for the state lottery.
David Ferguson, director of the state Bureau of Legislative Research, said in a memo to the commission that lawmakers had asked the bureau to reserve a few Web site domain names for the lottery.
He said the names of lotteryarkansas.net, naturalstatelottery.com, arstatelottery.net, arkansasscholarshiplottery.net, arkstatelottery.com and myarkansaslottery.com are now listed in the name of the bureau's chief information officer, Jim Schratz.
Ferguson said in an interview that the names were purchased from an authorized reseller of Internet names for about $59. "The commission doesn't have to use them if they don't want to," he said.
Thornton said the commission has to decide who its disbursing officer will be to sign its checks, whether they should be reimbursed for their expenses and whether to hire a law firm on a temporary basis for advice.
Commissioner Joe White of Conway said he wants the commission to consider hiring an interim coordinator "to help us with the nuts and bolts of moving this forward."
The commission elected Commissioner Diane Lambreth of Batesville as its vice chairman. She said the commission could form committees for personnel, vendor selection, retailers policy and relations, and finance/audit in the future.
The commission decided to invite the director of the South Carolina lottery, who advised state lawmakers about legislation to create state lotteries for college scholarships, to a future meeting of the commission.
At the outset of the meeting, Gov. Mike Beebe, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter and House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, thanked the commissioners for agreeing to serve on the commission.
"You are all smart, competent people," Beebe said. "When you want help, you'll ask for it.... I stand here ready to help you in any way you want me to, but in the meantime I am out of here."
Wills told the commissioners "welcome to the team."
Halter, who championed Amendment 87 that authorized the General Assembly to enact legislation to create state lotteries for college scholarships, said his office "stands ready to help you in any possible way, including staying completely out of the way."
He said the independent lottery commission, made up of three appointees apiece from Senate President Pro Tempore Bob Johnson, DBigelow, Wills and Beebe, "should never be anybody's political playtoy."
Speaking from the back of the meeting room, Johnson told the commission simply that he's going to be delighted to see the commission conduct its business.
Halter said he encourages the commission "to move with a sense of urgency and speed" because the state loses $250,000 in scholarships for each day that the lottery tickets are not being sold based on his estimates.
