The last few days my Morning Roll Call has turned into the Afternoon Roll Call because of all the activities in Little Rock. Yesterday the swearing in of the House and Senate, today all of our Constitutional Officers were sworn in along with Governor Beebe. The Governor also gave a state of the State Address which I will post thoughts on later today.
The 88th General Assembly of Arkansas is under way! I hope many of you will join in and become engaged.
But for now here are just a few items for you to chew on.
Do You Know Who Represents You?
It is imperative if we are going to “keep them accountable” we know who “they” are.
I have made a list of all those who govern over me and my family. I started with school board all the way up to my U.S Senators.
The state has resources to allow citizens to know what’s going on at the capitol. On the Arkansas Senate and the Arkansas House websites there are myriad tools at your finger tips. For instance this map allows you to find out who your Arkansas representatives are, your U.S Congressman and even your school district. You can follow the bills and the roll call votes of each legislator.
Most school boards, city councils and quorum courts have websites too. If your particular area doesn’t have one see if you can encourage them to do so.
You also might want to strongly consider signing up on Twitter. It looks and sounds a lot more intimidating than it is in reality.
The marvelous thing about twitter is you have a pulse on everything and everyone that is active in the state. Below will be a list of people and hashtags you should follow.
One last thing, Roby Bock with BusinessTalk.net posted this morning a top ten list of legislators to watch, and some others that will have influence over the session. Well worth your read.
Malfeasance in Office
Mike, my husband, in his column today, Big lawsuit in little Elkins pointed out a very interesting story and one great reason we should all do our due diligence.
A couple, Gary and Launa Lowery, hired Evans law firm of Fayetteville to sue the city of Elkins. The city officials evidently haven’t bothered to publicly post the business bylaws and ordinances as spelled out under Arkansas Code 14-55-206 since they became a town 1964.
Many ordinances have passed in that time frame, including those dealing with utility rates. Many generated revenues for the community without having news of their passage by the council published in the local newspaper.
The attorney for the Lowery’s says the revenues collected as a result of these ordinances were “illegally obtained and should be returned to the citizens.”
Talk about a mess, can you even imagine the nightmare involved in returning funds to citizens illegally obtained sing 1964? Not to mention the cost to the city, not just in returned money, but sorting and research and … good grief.
This is a prime example of why it is essential that we citizens are well aware of what is going on in our communities, our governments and our schools. This could bankrupt the city of Elkins, it will definitely tax their limited staff, cost the tax payers tons of money, along with various other side effects, I’m sure.
We are a representative government, and it is our duty to ensure our representatives are doing a good job. After all we are the represented.
FEED
Tweeters that keep you posted~
@AR_Majority
@lauriemasterson
@ttoelke
@aymond
@AFPArkansas
@lobbyup
@RobyBrock
@ProgressiveAR
@TolbertReport
@ArkansasOnline
@ArkansasBuzz
@ArkBusiness
Hashtags worth noting
#ARMAJ
#AFPAR
#ARLeg
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