Governor Womack?

It looks as if the Benton County Republicans are sending up a trial balloon for their next gubernatorial candidate. If Lobbyist Asa Hutchinson couldn't cut the mustard in 2006, then maybe they will gift Governor Mike Beebe with opposition from Rogers Mayor Steve Womack in 2010.

Last week, Governor Beebe said the Arkansas State Police would participate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency only to the extend of training in identifying fraudulent immigration documents. The state police won’t have any more authority, take on any additional duties, or add any additional personnel as a result of the agreement. “We are not going to do the federal government’s job or raise taxes on Arkansans for duties they are already paying taxes to the federal government to accomplish,” Beebe said rather emphatically.

Today's Benton County Daily Record has the first shot over the bow, a letter from immigration policy expert K. B. Swanson of Bella Vista under the head "Mayor Womack Should Run for Governor." Swanson first dismisses the incident in which Adriana Torres-Flores was locked in a holding cell and forgotten for four days, saying "mistakes happen" and "If she wasn’t an alleged lawbreaker, she wouldn’t have been in that situation." Swanson regrets that "the Great American Sucker" might compensate her for the violation of human rights and personal dignity.

"Thank God for Mayor Steve Womack," Swanson says prayerfully. "He has the political guts and courage to speak his mind. He is so right on — our federal government is once again useless. If more Americans do not start speaking out on this issue, our grandchildren will no longer have a country called America. Mayor Womack, thank you so much for your leadership. Please run for governor of this great state."

Good suggestion, especially if Womack first resigns the office of mayor.

Skimming, Spinning and Self-Beatification

Walt Eilers, one of the candidates for Mayor, is almost a saint. On his campaign website, he wrote, "As a part of my process deciding to run for Mayor, I spent considerable time scrutinizing my life and actions to ensure that there was nothing competitors might spin to question my ethics and integrity that are integral to public trust." Self-reflection is always good, and even better when you find your entire life almost spotless. "The only negative" Eilers could find, he said "is the highly politicized circumstances surrounding my departure, 23 years ago, from my position as Arkansas Education Association Executive Secretary."

"On this one occasion," as Mr. Eilers tells it, "I submitted an expense from a previous trip for which I had lost the receipt. I recall the expense being less than $200. I admitted then and now that I submitted an incorrect statement for my airline ticket. ...The reimbursement never presented any chance for personal benefit. Nevertheless, I felt uncomfortable about the inconsistency, so I corrected and resubmitted the voucher."

All of this became an issue because on March 21, Matthew Petty posted a comment on this blog, in which he said, "Anyway, so Walt lied on a receipt (corrected it immediately on his own). Koenig won't listen to a citizen survey, and Steve Clark is a convicted embezzler." Another comment from Mr. Dooley in reply to Petty said, "Before you start making wild charges, some of which might imply criminal acts, please provide some evidence to back it up. Steve Clark's crime is a matter of record, but your allegations appear unfounded."

On his website regarding the controversy about the false expense statement, Mr. Eilers claims, "The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette covered the matter in 1985." That is unlikely, since the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette didn't come into existence until 1991.

On the same thread where Mr. Petty first made the charge against Mr. Eilers, Fact Checker on March 22 wrote, "I don’t know the factual basis for Matthew Petty’s allegations about Jeff Koenig or Lioneld Jordan, but Mr. Petty’s charge against Walt Eilers can be verified from news accounts by John Brummet, James Scudder, and the Associated Press in 1985 that discuss the situation, summed up thusly:

On May 19, 1985, Walt Eilers was suspended with pay, after less than a year on the job, by the Executive Committee of the Arkansas Education Association as a result of an unsatisfactory job performance evaluation, questions about the effective date of a pay raise, and questions about an expense voucher Eilers submitted for airfare on a trip to Washington for National Education Association business.

Peggy Nabors, the AEA president, declined to discuss Eilers' suspension except to confirm that he was not on the job and that his future with the Association would be considered at the board meeting. Eilers told the Associated Press that his only direct communication from the AEA had been a letter from Nabors informing him that a suspended employee shouldn't come to the AEA offices without making prior arrangements.

Eilers admitted later that he had padded the expense voucher for reimbursement at a higher price than he had paid. He said it was "a dumb thing” for him to submit the false voucher, and he had asked the National Education Association to send it back so he could submit an accurate one. "It was a mistake in judgment. and I've corrected it,” he said.

The AEA’s Executive Board announced after a meeting Friday night, May 30, that Eilers would be fired at the end of the day Monday, June 2, unless he submitted his resignation before then. Asked to comment on the board's decision, Eilers refused to do so, saying, "I don't think there is any value in it.”

Eilers finally signed an agreement that permitted him to leave the job without either officially resigning or being fired. He said the agreement was "something in-between” a firing and a resignation and was the result of negotiations between him and Nabors and their attorneys, Richard Mays for Eilers and Richard Roachell for the AEA.

"My plans are to get a resume out and find a job in the private sector that would suit the talents I have,” he said after the agreement was signed. "I've found a place I like here in Little Rock, and I plan to stay.”

Mr. Eilers moved to Louisiana, and to Mississippi, and then to Fayetteville a few years ago. Now he says, "The newspaper coverage alludes to an unnamed source reporting both the expense account and an unsatisfactory evaluation. I stated at the time that I did not receive any evaluation, nor to this day does my personal file contain one." The AEA says the separation agreement does not allow them to comment on the matter, although it does not appear to have restrained Eilers in offering his version.

Of the only mistake in his life, Eilers says, "The experience taught me to be even more careful when dealing with my receipts, particularly when other people's money is involved. Since 1985 I have held responsible positions … handling budgets, financial matters and expenses with high marks for ethics, integrity and accuracy."

A&P Gives Self-Service a Whole New Meaning

These folks don't share well. The Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission is sitting on more than $2 million in taxpayer money, but they say they don't have any funds to share with the Walton Arts Center, the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, TheatreSquared, the Arkansas Music Pavillion, or any of the 12 local groups and events that requested spring funding.

"Unless we redo the budget, there’s no money there," said Marilyn Heifner, the paid Executive Director of the A&P Commission. They had over $1.1 million to buy a building for their own Convention and Visitors Bureau staff offices last year, but they don't have any money to support events that would increase tourism this spring.

They don't have any money to promote community groups and events, but last week they announced that they had money to promote or hire four staff members on their own payroll. The new Town Center facilities manager is a visitor from Elkins. The new Town Center events manager recently moved here from Oklahoma. The new Visitors Bureau visitor services manager just moved here from Mississippi. So, in a sense, they are helping visitors.

Mayor Dan Coody and Alderman Robert Rhodes both serve on the Advertising and Promotion Commission and supported all of the funding decisions. Yesterday, they also voted to ignore the rules and reappoint the expired commission member from the Cosmopolitan Hotel who missed the application deadline, a move that Bob Davis told them would "give the appearance of a good-old-boy system." They failed.

Benton County Green Machines

Robert Smith's column today provides a big surprise, and it is not only that state and county records are somewhat inaccurate. According to his research, there are 3, 417 hybrid vehicles in Arkansas, and either 510 or 420 of them are registered in Benton County. Even the lower figure, he claims, places that province first in per capita hybrid vehicles. Washington County, with 405, is ranked second in the state.

Of course, even the best hybrid SUV still pumps out 5.4 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually. That will have to do until the Regional Mobility Authority realizes that light rail is a more sensible transportation alternative than building more bypasses and beltways.

It should be noted, too, that the Rogers Parks and Recreation Department conducted a survey last year to determine just what people wanted and residents said their top priority is more walking and biking trails (and nature trails ranked ahead of sports fields). That is quite a contrast with the manipulated fake "survey" that the Fayetteville parks staff foisted on us claiming to support their ardent desire to build multiple soccer fields out west of I-540 on John Nock's proposed SouthPass development.

Tree-Hugging Republicans up north in Wally World? Handmaidens of the developers in formerly Funky Fayettteville? Who would have thunk it?

City Consulting Cost Exceeds Budget

Last year, the administration proposed and the City Council approved a request for proposals from consultants to study expansion of Fayetteville's recycling program to businesses and apartment complexes, and $100,000 was appropriated for the study. Alderman Brenda Thiel and a committees of city administrators rejected a proposal from Springline Consulting Group of Fayetteville and chose R. W. Beck, Inc. of Austin, Texas. Thiel's committee negotiated a deal with R. W. Beck, Inc., and now they want more money.

On the City Council's agenda tomorrow is a resolution to jack up the cost for Beck's consulting to $110,700. It will probably pass, because anyone who dares vote against it will be tarred by Mayor Dan Coody and his chorus as being against recycling and sustainability in general. That's too bad, because sustainability applies to revenues and budgets as much as to recycling bottles, and it considers the advantages of using local people and resources. Hiring out-of-state people takes money out of the local economy and increases the carbon footprint when they hop a plane or make the 1,060 mile gas-guzzling round trip drive from Austin.

Aubrey Shepherd also points out on one of his fine blogs that Dr. Stephan Pollard and Dr. Jennie Popp at the University of Arkansas have been studying commercial and multi-family recycling programs since 2004 and have published a comprehensive three-part study on optimizing multi-family recycling systems. City staff could have read that for free. They also could have taken some free hints from the University's award-winning recycling efforts.

Here's some free consulting advice. Point one, we have outstanding local consultants and a powerhouse of resources at the University of Arkansas, so consider a closer partnership with local institutions. Point two, sustainability applies to fiscal resources as well as to physical ones, so consider hiring local professionals who spend locally and don't be so quick to send taxpayer dollars to out-of-state consultants. You can stick that on the shelf with all the other consulting studies for which our city has paid good money.

Quote of the Day

"Developers and others who wish to blight the landscape with business schemes that do not benefit the city are hardly in the corner of an elected official who refuses to discuss projects over a cozy, booze-soaked lunch or during an all-expense-paid fact-finding trip. [Greenland Mayor John] Gray’s policy of bluntly instructing these special interests to detail their business at open meetings of the council tends to be discomfiting to those familiar with the more common “old boy” method of doing business with local cities. And his habit of first considering what is in the best interests of his constituents is downright annoying to those whose first interest is in making a quick buck."

--Sandra Trent, Letter to the Editor, Northwest Arkansas Times

Let Them Eat Real Estate

Anticipating the looming national calamity of George Bush's recession, Governor Mike Beebe implemented a conservative budgeting philosophy and this week cut the state's projected budget by $106.7 million for the fiscal year starting July 1. The largest hit will be taken by the Department of Human Services ($30 million), but the agency spokesperson said they have "the flexibility through the resource and reallocation process to redirect funds where they are the most needed.”

The University of Arkansas could face a reduction of approximately $4.7 million in state funding, but under Amendment 33 to the Arkansas Constitution, the University has far more flexibility in the allocation of funds than do most state agencies. John White can and has shifted funds at will among colleges and from teaching staff to administration. Yet, the UA is claiming that the reduction could eliminate the university's ability to provide any wage increases to faculty and staff in the coming year. That is certainly a choice they could make, just as they could decide to reduce the number of administrators making far greater salaries.

What must now be abundantly clear to everyone is that it would be unconscionable for the University to spend state funds or tuition money to buy real estate when other more pressing needs are unmet. To throw away $60 million to purchase the Fayetteville High School campus, while insisting that the UA was already underfunded by $40 million annually and threatening to deny cost-of-living raises to faculty and staff, would be as foolish as it would be dishonest. That case cannot be made.

If Steve Percival and Susan Heil are dead set on selling off the current centrally located campus to satisfy the Cowbirds, they had better find a new mark. Even John White is not irresponsible enough to gut the University's essential educational mission to pursue such a venture with no legitimate purpose. Is he?

Local Bookstore Celebrates 2nd Anniversary

Not every local business is moving to Pinnacle or going belly up. In the era of Big Box Barnes and Noble out by the mall and the online phenomenon of Amazon.com, there are those of us who still cherish the local independent bookseller. We cheered for Kathleen Kelley and The Shop Around the Corner against the certain annihilation by Fox Books. We spend hours among the used books at Dickson Street Bookshop, and we buy our new books and engage authors at Nightbird Books in the Mill District.

This weekend, Nightbird Books at 557 S. School is celebrating its Second Anniversary. It has been a welcome addition to south Fayetteville and an important part of our community. It is the heir and successor to the House of Books and Hays & Sanders as keeper of the literary flame. It has survived commercial competition as well as the Fayetteville Public Library's ill-advised scheme to sell books online. We are damn glad.

Tonight, poet Beth Ann Fennelly will be there at 7:00 pm to read from her new collection, Unmentionables. On Saturday at 1:00 p.m., Haley Duke will lead a Nightbird craft project, then at 7:00 p.m., novelist John Brandon will read from his novel, Arkansas, recently published by McSweeney's. Sunday, they are throwing a big birthday party from 3 to 6:00 p.m. Come on down and join in for good music, good food, and great people. And if you want to preserve the uniqueness of our community, buy a book and keep this local institution in business.

The Invisible Hand Flips the Bird

Today's Fayetteville Free Weekly has an article by Wayne Bell on the short half-life of local restaurants. "Some of my favorite Fayetteville spots have closed: Sassafras, Chloe, La Maison, Blu, Stir and a variety of other popular places. Even some of the national chain stores on Target row have just tanked —O’Charley’s, Fuddruckers, Smokey Bones, what gives?"

Bell goes on to raise other questions about the city's economic environment, but admits he does not have the answers. "I am not an expert by any means. I don’t sit on city planning boards. Although I like the people at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, we don’t do lunch. ... I am simply the biggest fan of Fayetteville in the city. It hurts me to see Fayetteville slipping! I can’t even really suggest ways to fix this problem. My guess would be for everyone to simply support their favorite Fayetteville businesses before they say bye-bye. However, I’m sure there is a more technical solution."

Even the local economic development experts don't have the answers or a solution. Look at Ray Boudreaux's series of failures in keeping a restaurant in business down at the city's premiere business property under his direction, the economic Mecca that boasts a publicly funded corporate jetport and a taxpayer subsidized military museum claiming to draw thousands of visitors. Wilma Walker opened a restaurant in the airport terminal last April serving home-style meals such as catfish, pork chops and fried chicken. It is now closing, joining Wally's Smokeshack and Catering, The Runway Grill, and Plane Good Food as the fourth restaurant to give up on that location in only six years.

Economic Director Boudreaux and Jeff Koenig's Economic Development Council haven't been able to do anything or even offer an economic development plan for the city. Bill Ramsey and the Cowbirds will try to blame it on the sign ordinance, impact fees, the planning commission, or almost anything else except their own lack of ideas. Mayor Dan Coody and Phil Stafford, the UA Walton College guy on the FEDC, don't know either, but they think spending $150,000 on an outside consultant is the answer.

Should we care? Should we praise the market forces of capitalism that prune the inefficient? Should city government be responsible for making sure private businesses make money? Is this the true consequence of George Bush's grand economic plan of tax cuts for the rich? What are your thoughts?

Jim Holt: Kook or Kingmaker?

Former State Senator Jim Holt (R-Springdale), also a former Republican nominee for U. S. Senate and lieutenant governor, has been hired as a campaign consultant to talk about “conservative judicial philosophy” and to make sure that Rogers Republican Ron Williams gets elected to the Arkansas Court of Appeals from this district that covers seven counties in Northwest Arkansas. Tim Hutchinson, the son-in-law of Mr. Williams, recently created a front humorously called High Integrity Marketing LLC, through which they pay Jim Holt for advice and yard signs.

This scam allows Holt to send out letters on behalf of Williams, asking for money and saying whatever he wants about abortion, gays, guns, school prayer, dope, immigration, welfare cheats, creationism, or anything else that can whip up the Radical Religious Right that gave Holt such fervent support two years ago. Holt did not carry Washington County, but he had a landslide in politically-retarded Benton County, beating Bill Halter by almost 9,000 votes there. Those are the sheeple that Ron Williams hopes Jim Holt can lead to his flock while, at the same time, allowing Williams implausible deniability for Holt's political rantings that are beyond the pale of campaigning allowed by the Code of Judicial Ethics.

Holt's first mailing to the faithful appeared to bear a little false witness. He sent an email claiming that he was “giving my money and my time” to Ron Williams, although official campaign finance reports disclose that Williams is actually paying Holt and that Holt has not made any financial contributions to Williams. Holt claimed that he had pledged money to Williams and that’s what he really meant. Holt also said he didn’t reveal to supporters that Williams was paying him to spread the word, because, “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

Ignoring the fact that his daughter is now married to Tim Hutchinson, Williams said, "I am not a Hutchinson." He didn't say that he wasn't a shady right-wing political hack who hired Jim Holt to do his dirty work. The election is on May 20th, and then we'll know if he made a wise investment in buying Holt and his connections.