Don't Spend Our Tax Dollars on a Private Lake!

It has not even been mentioned in the local newspapers, but the Fayetteville City Council is about to spend almost $70,000 of our tax dollars to dredge a private lake on private property for the benefit of private citizens. Ward One Aldermen Brenda Thiel and Adella Gray are pushing this boondoggle to satisfy the demands of residents of the Boardwalk subdivision off Crossover Road to make their private lake nicer.

The upscale Boardwalk subdivision has had drainage problems ever since it was built in 1991 on steep hillsides with inadequate drainage culverts. In 1999, the City spent over $600,000 of our money for an engineering study and a construction contract to improve the stormwater problems resulting from the Boardwalk developer's original design. But it never stops. Now the Boardwalk Property Owners Association is demanding that taxpayers pay to dredge their private lake. Enough already. Developers and the property owners who buy homes in hillside subdivisions must take some personal responsibility for their own choices.

Aldermen Thiel and Gray want the City Council to approve an ordinance with a no-bid contract and giving $69,674.00 in our tax dollars to dredge the private lake for their friends and neighbors of the Boardwalk POA. They want to do this for no public benefit by taking money from the city budget dedicated for stormwater improvements. The city has a poor stormwater management plan, but it has identified other crucial projects that have a greater priority and that have not been funded. Ward One already has two of the three public city lakes, totaling 1,554 acres, so citizens won't have much interest in funding this private project that they cannot use.

What next? Will you and I be asked to spend tax dollars on paving the private driveways and mowing the lawns of the residents of the Boardwalk subdivision? How about furnishing them with bait and tackle so they can fish in their private lake? Maybe new swimsuits each year? If Thiel and Gray push this scheme for Boardwalk, maybe they will send someone over to my office to wash my Mercedes and do some secretarial and light yard work? Or, they could just pass an ordinance giving me $69, 674 to have it done by no-bid contract.

Stop this nonsense. The Arkansas Constitution (Article 16, §13) prohibits illegal exactions; it allows individual ctizens to bring suit to protect the taxpayers and enjoin a misapplication of public funds for private benefit. The proposed ordinance to dredge a private lake for the benefit of private individuals serves no valid public purpose. Urge your aldermen on the City Council to defeat this raid on the treasury by the self-entitled Boardwalk property owners and their brazen co-conspirators Thiel and Gray.

Remind them that the $128 million city budget they adopted is already $200,000 in the hole due to lower sales tax revenues, and they don't need to be increasing the deficit even more by funding this private project. Suggest that they adopt a comprehensive stormwater management plan in compliance with phase two of the EPA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System and address high priority public needs before squandering our money on a private lake. Remind the City Attorney to also factor in the cost of an unsuccessful lawsuit to defend the giveaway of public funds for a private lake in an exclusive subdivision.