New Blogger on the Block

Don't miss checking out and adding a bookmark for Street Jazz, an exciting new blog that promises to enrich the dialog about public affairs in Northwest Arkansas. Richard Drake is a familiar voice in Fayetteville -- author, local historian, former editor of the Ozark Gazette, champion of community access television, and currently Chair of the Fayetteville Telecommunication Board -- and he brings both the insight of his experience and the talent of his craft to the blogosphere.

Street Jazz is the newest of the community blogs associated with the Arkansas Blog, the foremost blog about Arkansas politics and culture hosted by the Arkansas Times under the direction of Max Brantley, the Big Dog of Arkansas Bloggers and the master salon leader of a stimulating, engaging, online political conversation.

Please give a big welcome to Street Jazz. May it meet our high expectations!

Quote of the Day

"Here’s the real puzzle: Why did Fayetteville’s City Council override the planning commission in the first place? . . . It wasn’t one of the City Council’s finer moments. But the abandonment of the Divinity project isn’t a sign that Fayetteville rejects growth. The opposition to the project was nothing more than a healthy sign that Fayetteville wants to preserve the qualities that make it a special place."

--Editorial, "Goodbye, Divinity," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (NW Ed.)

Brooks-Hummel Nature Preserve

The Fayetteville City Council last night approved the purchase of a new nature area of about 14 acres near Lake Lucile. The Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association, the group that led the earlier move to acquire and preserve the Mount Sequoyah Woods natural area, calls the Brooks-Hummel tract a “hidden treasure, this beautiful, unspoiled woodland and meadow nestles in a valley between two ridges right in the middle of Fayetteville! This 13.75 acre tract lying North of Lake Lucille is teeeming with wildlife, the property includes a pond fed by Sublett Creek that runs through the valley. A wide variety of trees and other plant life, both aquatic and terrestial, abound on this beautiful tract.”

The Brooks-Hummel Nature Preserve will be purchased with a combination of private donations from local residents through the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association, purchase of part of the property by the First Presbyterian Church, and five years of payments of about $70,000 per year from the city. To appreciate the urgency of this action, one only has to look at the visual and environmental damage and loss of tree canopy caused by the action of Central United Methodist Church on Lafayette Street or that rape of the landscape on the hillside east of College Avenue and south of Township Road. Thanks to those citizens who worked to identify and secure the purchase, preserving this natural oasis in the center of Fayetteville.

Alderman Bobby Ferrell of Ward Three was the only vote against the city purchasing and protecting the property as a nature preserve. His constituents should let him know whether they believe he represented their views or was acting on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and the developers.

An Educational Experience -- of Sorts

I thought the public meeting about the future of Fayetteville High School would be enlightening, and it was, but not in ways I had imagined. I had hoped to hear what citizens thought about appropriate class and school size, about how we can do best by our children and advance their educational endeavors, about how to connect high school students with the resources of the UA and Walton Arts Center, about how to have our school facilities enhance our sense of caring and community. Silly me.

I was truly amazed when Bill Ramsey showed up and said the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce wanted the district to build a brand new school out west of the bypass to promote economic development. Steve Rust said he and the Fayetteville Economic Development Council did too, because constructing a new school several miles from the present one would encourage more development in the sprawl ring. Ramsey even tried to tell everyone that the present school wasn’t built in the downtown area in 1951, as if moving the location six blocks south from the old one on School Street was the same as moving one to a pasture four miles away. It wasn’t about education; it was all about how their members could make more money on the deal. It was about greed.

These two jokers were leaders in the fight against road impact fees to pay for new development, and now they are pushing even more sprawl. Neither suggested raising taxes on their members to pay for the new school or its associated development costs. I was embarrassed for them, although I am certain that they were not.

The school board members denied that it was already decided to build a new school out at Deane Solomon and West Howard Nickell roads, the scheme being pushed by the Chamber, the real estate speculators, and the developers. Maybe some in the audience believed them.

Second Verse: Rogers Debates Impact Fees

The City of Rogers has had $125 million in water and sewer improvement costs over the last 10 years and is facing at least $105 million in need over the next decade. The Public Works Committee of the City Council seems to think impact fees are a fair method of financing this construction, but the Northwest Arkansas Homebuilders Association disagrees.

Rogers has had impact fees for years, and there has certainly been no negative impact on residential or commercial construction. In the recent legislative session, Republican State Senator David Bisbee, a Rogers contractor, pushed through a law requiring City Council approval and requiring refunds of previously collected fees. Bisbee, you will recall, evicted 54 Hispanic families from his Monte Ne Mobile Home Park in 2004 rather than making improvements to the water and sewer system there, so he is an expert on water and sewer improvement costs.

Bill Burckart, who assisted Bisbee in drafting the legislation, spoke on behalf of the Northwest Arkansas Homebuilders Association and dismissed the City’s proposed fee study. “I don’t think equitable is what we’ve seen in this study,” he said. Instead, he suggested a Developers’ Free Lunch Plan, using the city sales tax revenues allocated for road improvements caused by growth for a special capital improvement fund that also would subsidize the water and sewer costs added by developers. The impact fees would cost homeowners $18 a month, and he said that would make housing unaffordable. The average price of a home in Benton County last year was $191,759.

Tom Gould, the City’s fee consultant, defended the fees as a reasonable way to finance growth. Without impact fees, capital construction costs created by new development would be financed exclusively through rate increases, which would put the burden of growth on all residents, not just those who have created it, he said. “Most people look at impact fees as a way of growth paying for growth.”

Developers in Rogers should establish a Benton County branch of the Free Lunch Club created by Fayetteville developers and realtors to dump their development costs on existing residents in older homes.

Once More Ignoring a Citizen Committee

The Fayetteville City Council meets this evening, and the only item on the Unfinished Business Agenda is whether to approve a 25-year lease with Callahan Tower Joint Venture. The company wants to erect a 150-foot cell phone tower in South Fayetteville's Walker Park on a 3,600 square foot portion of the park, an area equivalent to a Little League baseball diamond. They say they will disguise the cell phone tower to look like a giant 15-story fake Christmas tree so no one will know it is a cell tower, and they will give the city some money.

In March, the Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Advisory Board voted against allowing the structure to be erected in Walker Park. Regardless of what the citizen committee recommended, money talks, and Mayor Coody wants the money and supports the erection. My bet is that Developer Dan will get his way. Watch tonight at 6:00 pm on the Fayetteville Government Channel 16.

Quote of the Day

"I’m originally from Arkansas and I came back from Georgia Tech because I wanted to be here. But frankly, I’m embarrassed for our state."

--UA Chancellor John White to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Future of Fayetteville High School

An important public meeting will be held on Tuesday evening, June 5, at 6:30 pm, in the Fayetteville High School auditorium. The alleged purpose of the meeting is to help the school board decide whether the one huge high school that they have decided on should be a renovation of the present school in the middle of town or should be an entirely new school out in the far northwest suburbs beyond I-540. Several options will be considered. Hopefully, they will pay more attention to the concerns expressed by citizens than they did when they closed Jefferson School and built Owl Creek out beyond the by-pass, but individuals will each be allowed only three minutes to voice their opinions.

It seems that the deck is stacked from the get-go. The Board has already decided to add 9th grade to the high school and only to consider a single high school for 3,000 students, and they make much of the fact that the District already owns a 100-acre site far removed from the center of town. If they push through this idea, it would ignore City Plan 2025 by adding to uncontrolled sprawl and would make it even more difficult to persuade voters to increase school millage rates. They should remember what happened the last time they tried to raise property taxes -- a rare defeat for public education by residents who have always supported our schools.

Anyway, it would be a good idea to show up and voice your opinion. If you can't make it, at least watch the meeting on Fayetteville Cable Channel 14 then contact your school board members to let them know what you think. I am still of the opinion that Fayetteville should reconsider the good sense displayed by Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville in building two smaller high schools instead of one mega-school for athletic reasons. If they're set on that, then I support Alderman Nancy Allen's suggestion to relocate the District administration to the former Jefferson School and to construct additional classroom space on the present campus.

Quote of the Day

"In terms you could translate from the Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, John Lewis was born with the ways and means selfishly to abuse power like Mr. Potter, but chose to be George Bailey, uplifting others to the profit of all. As Northwest Arkansas gets wealthier — and greedier — we will miss this rare rich man who put enriching his community above flaunting his riches."

--Nate Allen, Hog Calls, Northwest Arkansas Times

Bikes, Bills, and Bureaucrats

Robin Mero has two interesting articles in the Morning News that indicate overdue attention to the safety concerns of the bicycle crowd and those who might soon be more likely to take a hike. The regional bikeway and trails system being planned or constructed by cities in Northwest Arkansas since 2003 positions them for additional funding by the state and federal governments.

All four Congressmen from Arkansas are co-sponsors of H.R.1266, the "Butterfield Overland Trail Study Act," a bill providing a resource study for protection and preservation of the route, which is part of the local Heritage Trail project that also includes the Trail of Tears. According to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, any highway improvements to these routes include consideration for bike lanes and pedestrian trails.

This is important, because otherwise the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department would give no thought to trails for bicycles or pedestrians. "As far as incorporating bicycle lanes into a roadway design, we work with local entities. We don't do it here as automatic," said Randy Ort, bureaucratic spokesman for the AHTD. The car dealers and highway contractors still have much more political influence than do citizens who prefer walking trails, bike lanes, or mass transit.

State legislators do seem more responsive. Act 369 of 2005, sponsored by Rep. Lindsley Smith, secured a $50,000 appropriation for Scull Creek Trail in Fayetteville. Act 681 of 2007, sponsored by Rep. David Wyatt, requires motorists to allow at least three feet of distance when passing a bicyclist. Passing any closer can now get drivers a $100 fine, and if a serious accident occurs it is a fine of up to $1,000. This legislation was supported by all Northwest Arkansas legislators except Rep. Horace Hardwick (R-Bentonville) and Rep. Donna Hutchinson (R-Bella Vista)