2026-09-09 · Arkansas · Courts · Pending — not yet law

A class action over how the Cherokee Village Suburban Improvement District levied its annual assessments has produced a proposed settlement: $470,000, assessment interest for four tax years cut from 6 percent to 3, and a district that stays in business. The district published the class notice on August 3, 2026 under court order, and a settlement statement on August 12.¹

The survival point matters, because an earlier proposal reported in January 2026 would have dissolved the district entirely by September 1, 2026. That date has now passed. The district is still operating.

The case

The action is Mark and Cynthia Kronkosky, et al. v. Cherokee Village Suburban Improvement District No. 1, et al., filed in November 2025 and pending in two circuit courts at once — Fulton County Circuit Court, No. 25CV-25-122, and Sharp County Circuit Court, No. 68CV-25-262. Cherokee Village straddles the county line, and the district's assessments are collected through both counties' tax machinery.

The district's own description of the dispute is that it concerns “annual assessment procedures.” The Kronkoskys are not new to this: the same couple brought an earlier action against the district that settled in August 2021, voiding a 2018 reassessment of benefits, resetting assessments at a proportion of county assessed land value, and expanding the district's board from three elected commissioners to five.

What a suburban improvement district is, and why this matters beyond Cherokee Village

A suburban improvement district is not a homeowners association, and the difference is the whole story here. An Arkansas SID is a creature of statute organised under Title 14 of the Arkansas Code. It levies assessments of benefits on the land, and those assessments are placed on the county tax rolls and collected by the county collector alongside property taxes. Non-payment runs through the tax system rather than through a private lien and a civil suit.

That is a far more powerful collection mechanism than any Arkansas HOA has — and it is bought at the price of a statutory validity requirement that an HOA never faces. An association's right to assess comes from its recorded declaration. A district's comes from a validly levied assessment of benefits, and if the levy is defective, the collection built on top of it is defective too.

Cherokee Village is one of several Arkansas communities run this way, alongside Holiday Island and Horseshoe Bend. For owners in them, the questions that decide a dispute are statutory, not contractual.

1. Cherokee Village Suburban Improvement District, Settlement Statement (Aug. 12, 2026) — the district's own account of the proposed terms ↩
2. Cherokee Village SID, Class Action Legal Notice (published Aug. 3, 2026 pursuant to court order) — Kronkosky v. Cherokee Village Suburban Improvement District No. 1, Fulton County Cir. No. 25CV-25-122 and Sharp County Cir. No. 68CV-25-262 ↩
3. Cherokee Village Suburban Improvement District — district website, showing continued operations (accessed September 2026) ↩
4. Hallmark Times, reporting the August 2021 settlement of the earlier Kronkosky action against the district ↩