You Can't Make This Stuff Up~

Okay, let me get this straight; we (Fayetteville) spent just shy of a million dollars for the city to implement a paid parking lot to increase revenues. Back in June of 2010 the city council agreed, 7-1, to a budget adjustment, adding 2.5 new full-time paid positions and allotting $289,000 each year to the Walton Arts Center.

Fayetteville residents now have well over a million dollar initial investment and hundreds of thousands of dollars annually committed for this one project; all the while citizens, mostly business owners on Dickson, screaming no.  

It goes downhill from there. Over the course of the last several months this parking tale has been a point of contention for merchants and patrons alike. To my knowledge this has been an ongoing issue addressed at every council meeting since. So on December 7th, the city council made changes to the times of paid parking, the maximum amounts of fines and freeing up Charles Ave.  and a few other changes that are spelled out in the Fayetteville Flyer story

Move to December 29, 2010 the City of Fayetteville puts this out:

Starting December 31, the new Dickson Street shuttle will begin.  This shuttle will be running on Friday and Saturday nights from 5:30 pm to 11:30 pm.  It will be on a ten-minute frequency schedule, making a trip every 10 minutes from Dickson Street to the Fayetteville Historic Downtown Square. 

 Free parking is provided in the City of Fayetteville parking lots that are located one-half block west of the Downtown Square--behind the Bank of Fayetteville and on both sides of Center Street.  These city parking lots are free during those dates and times.  Moreover, there is no fare being charged to use this shuttle, courtesy of Ozark Regional Transit.  Donations will be accepted on the bus to help out local charities.  Please see the attached map for the routing.

The purpose of this route is to help out the public and the Dickson Street merchants/Walton Arts Center by providing even more access to free parking in the Entertainment District.

So (I need a Red Bull) we are now using a government funded transit system to help people avoid paying the parking fees of a government funded project implemented to increase revenue~ again at the expense of the taxpayers?

Now how do we pay for the parking lot? How are we paying for the gas for the FREE shuttle, the transit worker for the extra hours?  How are we paying the 2.5 full-time employees, the $289K to the Walton Arts Center not to mention the maintenance of the parking system now not being used?? 

HELP ME~Is it just me; or our “leaders” on every level constantly implementing plans that cost us HUGE amounts of money only to come back, sometimes just moments later, to cost us MORE money to fix what they broke?

I encourage you strongly, if you are the least bit concerned about the direction of our city, state and nation, the debt  being heaped upon the backs of unborn taxpayers  compounded daily by government entities on every level and the consistent usurpation of the will of the people; please get involved. Please help in any capacity you can. 

Morning Roll Call~ News You Need to Know

News is beginning to gear up here in the Natural State, I hope that this news reel is helpful.

I would like to ask for your help in making it as Arkansas specific as possible by informing me of any stories that have to do with government transparency, fiscal issues, or over reaching. Hopefully we will build over the next several months a network of citizens across this state that are contributing to let others know what is happening to Arkansans everywhere.

If you know additional sources that regularly post on Arkansas issues please let me know.

Be sure and check out the twitter feeds at the bottom and I strongly encourage you to jump on board the social media train... don't be afraid, if they want to find you they already have everything they need to know, lol.


Fayetteville getting “Greener”

Let me clear, I truly believe we need to be good stewards of our environment. I believe littering and polluting is wrong. I am a proponent of recycling, composting and making efforts to live in harmony with our environment. I am strictly against gads of government intervention and programs that do more harm than good, spending enormous amounts of money, and shackling Americans with tremendous regulation.

Fayetteville is on the forefront of continually circumventing the circle of life.  Leaders here constantly orchestrate and employ, at the cost of the tax payer, programs to lead their subjects in the direction they wish us to go.

They are currently in the process of employing a streamside protection ordinance. If you do not know what that is I encourage you to read this fact sheet put out by the University of Arkansas Public Policy Center (this is a wonderful source for information)

This proposed regulation will affect citizen property rights, restrict property owners of activities on their own land, eminent domain seizures, increased tax burden and other financial liabilities.

There is a meeting tomorrow, Thursday, January 6^th at 1pm at the Washington County Farm Bureau office, located at 1165 N. Meadowland Drive (just off Wedington, just west of 540), I hope to see you there~

Fish, Birds,…now Hogs…?

 

The Hogs were just 18 yards from winning after an AMAZING blocked punt with less than a minute to go in last night Sugar Bowl. But two plays later, an incomplete pass and the epic interception that is to scar Ryan Mallett’s record for ever, sealed the fate of our beloved Razorbacks. The game ended with The Ohio State winning 31-26… arggggg.

As far as the fish and the birds dying all over the state, seems that Arkansas is not the only one. I ran across a story from KAIT reporting that in Labarre, La some 500 birds peppered over a quarter-mile in their community.

Mike, my husband, was telling me that there were several stories around the nation of dead fish and birds in the past few weeks, has this happened before? Or is this something new?

Tons of speculation is swirling in our close knit state from fireworks, to sonic booms, H1N1, upper atmosphere hail to chemical warfare (?) Governor Beebe made an astute and comforting comment on Tuesday proclaiming “I never seen anything like it. It's weird," …

Well this may well turn out like that funky smell that hit New York City many months ago, we will just never know.

To Seat or Not to Seat?

That is the question that will be before our Arkansas House of Representatives on Thursday. Progressive Arkansas, a state blog, informed us that “it is possible that the House will also deal with whether to seat Rep.-elect Leslee Milam Post (D-Ozark).”

You may recall that on December 30^th on Morning Roll Call there was a question of residency requirements and Mr. Smith had been charged with theft of property of nearly $30,000.00 of taxpayer money.

Here’s what else Progressive Arkansas says they learned from an undisclosed source:

The House will meet in the House chamber at 1:30 pm on Thursday "to consider what action the Members deem appropriate on the matter of Fred Smith and any other matters relating to the seating of a member based on 'qualifications, returns and elections,'" according to a House e-mail.

A House source tells us that "any other matters relating to the seating of a member" may refer to Post. She has been implicated, though not proven guilty, in the illegal obtaining of private documents relating to her former opponent, Tom Fite (R-Alma), who was disqualified for election due to a conviction for Medicare fraud.

This story is developing. We will post updates as new stories on the website, not as edits of this article.

This should be an interesting Arkansas saga to follow…


UPDATE~

http://www.progressivearkansas.com/content/breaking-arkansas-house-will-meet-thursday-determine-smiths-fate

LAST ONE FOR TODAY~

Arkansas Inmates Get/Make a Break

There’s a new blog in town, IndependentArkansas.com, and they have an interesting story concerning our prison system. Evidently “the state’s prison population has doubled in the past 20 years, and costs are rising even faster – from $45 million then to $349 million today. That will only get bigger as the state adds more than 100 people to the prison system each month.”

There has been a “Working Group” established to take a look at the problem and offer recommendations which then our legislators will take a look at and determine which route to take.

In their post, IndependentArkansas.com has an interview on YouTube of Governor Beebe’s statement, it goes like this:

“This is (pause) … People want honesty? People want transparency? People want their government not to lie to them? … This is the honest, laydown truth. You can like it or you can not like it, but it’s the truth. If you don’t like these solutions, you’d better have different ones because if you don’t, someone’s going to have one for you. I’m not taking any money away from education to pay for this prison stuff. I’m not kicking anybody out of a nursing home with my vote to pay for this stuff. All this rhetoric, well we’ve got fraud and abuse and we can save money. You bet. If you show it to me, we’ll save it. You find me some fraud, let’s arrest them. You want to save $100 million with abuse, show it to me where it is, let’s take it and put it wherever it needs to be. But let’s be honest and be specific.”

You know what?... I TOTALLY AGREE WITH THE GOVERNOR!! This government~ Of, By and For the People, can be really painstaking effort, and WE need to take it. And Gov. Beebe is right on the mark when he says “You can like it or you can not like it, but it’s the truth. If you don’t like these solutions, you’d better have different ones because if you don’t, someone’s going to have one for you.”

Isn’t this what WE THE PEOPLE say we want, for our legislators and leaders to listen to us? Well then we need to start talking.

That also requires us to know what the heck is going on, which would require us to take the time to pick a subject, a legislative body, a level of government from the state down and become involved.

Friends we can rally in the streets all day long, protest till our faces turn blue and we pass out, but the ONLY thing that is going to change what is going on in our government is it’s people, and that is YOU and I.

Please consider to resolve this year to help by becoming more informed, engaged and empowered. If you need ideas on how to do that please contact me and I will help by giving you several options.

 

         FEED

@ArkansasOnline

Blytheville aircraft firm announces new jobs: A Blytheville-based aircraft repair and maintenance firm formally ... http://bit.ly/ewUTIh

Dozens of birds found dead in Sweden: Officials say about 50 birds have been found dead on a street in Sweden. http://bit.ly/g1MPF8

Multifaceted fowl: If you’re hoping to stretch your grocery dollars in the new year, look to foods that can pull... http://bit.ly/ft5nK6

@KATVNews

3 police officers charged in LR armored car caperhttp://bit.ly/fat46G

Mallett's INT ends otherwise spectacular seasonhttp://bit.ly/hh0VEj

@Region8News

AR editors to hear from governor, legislatorshttp://bit.ly/eEBM2R

Some looting of storm victims' homeshttp://bit.ly/gqC9Jt

@RobyBrock

Aviation Repair Technologies expanding in Blytheville. $10M, 300 new jobs.

Pryor says sacred cow programs (Medicare and Soc. Sec.) must be re-examined to control fed. budget.http://bit.ly/hTLpDu

Metro unemployment conditions worsening by and large in Ark. http://bit.ly/gDafSj

Who's Watching the Store?

While city officials in Fayetteville, Arkansas are constantly striving to
“Keep Fayetteville Funky”, I believe they are keeping it more flunky than funky.
In recent months our officials have revamped Block Street, the connector street between the historic square and the entertainment district along Dickson Street with back-in, angled parking spots (no, seriously), odd, jutting concrete islands and a maze of other fun and sundry driving obstacles only to discover mid-project that there might be a serious issue with the clearance of some emergency vehicles.

So now they go back to the drawing board to “re-revamp” the street project.
Even with remarkable Googling skills I have yet to locate a finite
number of what this has - and will - cost we the taxpayers.

Then we turn to the dreaded paid parking issue in the entertainment district. The powers that be decided in their wisdom to install parking kiosks downtown to increase city revenues. Or, in the words of Alderman Matthew Petty who
represents Ward 2, “We need to do this; it’s the only way to keep Dickson Street growing.” Oh really?? Take an already tax laden community and further tax the down time where folks go to relax.

However, many residents of the majestic town have said “Good bye Dickson Street” because they don’t feel it is worth the extra money and hassle to deal with these new parking restrictions, especially when there are so many other choices with free parking.

In an effort to raise revenues, the City Fathers have actually helped curb potential commerce for local business owners, in effect lowering tax revenues. They have spent taxpayer money implementing a plan to take more of that money from said taxpayers. Then, as a kicker, a few days ago we learn Fayettevillians will be hit yet again with an additional $15,000 in repair bills to the parking machines from vandalism in the initial weeks. Arggggg!


It is important to note before we proceed that Fayetteville is
running in a budget deficit situation of an estimated $1.2 million in the General Fund. In light of that Mayor Jordan and his crew developed a plan “to reduce target expenditures, freeze wages, forego the
replacement of certain open positions, and extend the replacement plan
for General Fund vehicles,” all of which I applaud. But to re-revamp a road that actually did not need revamping in the first place then further tax citizens with the hassle of parking fees so that potential customers may head elsewhere with free parking and easy access doesn’t seem like good city planning to me.

Now the Coup de grace; the $93 million high school I continue to shudder over. That’s NINTY THREE MILLION DOLLARS! The rapidly growing Springdale School District is seeking less than $70 million to build a new junior high and a middle school holding 2,000 students, new athletic fields and stadium for Har-ber High School and refurbish the existing Springdale High School stadium. The interesting fact of this matter is not only has Fayetteville school not grown, but according to a former school board member, the population at FHS continues to dwindle.

Now I understand the city management does not make decisions for the school district, which might even play more into one of my points, that the
right hand and the left hand of the public’s business never know what the other is doing.

Beware friends. Government on every level is spending and taxing to the point of non-recognition, in my opinion, to get all they can before
the heavy hand of the federal government comes down and lands a mighty and crippling final blow to families across the nation.

Has anyone else noticed how many unemployed there are in our corner of the state? How many foreclosures are published in the paper each day? How many empty storefronts have appeared?

So one little town (less than 70 thousand residents) in one little state is spending millions of dollars on superfluous stuff and we just keep going along living our clearly unsustainable “Life of Riley.”