Michael Tilley's Riff Raff

On Tuesday (Aug. 24) the Fort Smith board of directors met to consider when they might bring to voters the convention center funding option or options.

Tuesday’s meeting was a spectacular disaster — the Hindenburg of city governance. The public explosion and crumpled destruction of the flimsy skeleton of citizen trust was fueled by years of bottled up malfeasance and sparked by the friction produced when spineless timidity rubs against the dry and dusty surface of reckless delay.

After more than three years of focus on how to resolve a convention center funding issue brewing for more than 10 years, the directors on Tuesday relapsed into a pre-2007 state of thinking. Unfortunately, it is the only thing they have accomplished together on this issue.

The above and what follows goes against my broader belief that folks in elected positions at county and municipal levels deserve our gratitude and polite patience for what is often a thankless job. However, we’ve reached a point with the Fort Smith board to which an unfortunate but avoidable variety of intended and unintended factors has resulted in a collapse of leadership. If this were a Parliamentarian form of government, it would be time to call for a no-confidence vote and seek a new ruling coalition.

Considering all the unnecessary drama, the convention center funding issue is simple. A state turnback program ended in June 2010 from which the city has received about $1.8 million a year. In 2010 the city will receive only $888,723. The operational gap is estimated in 2011 to be $950,000 — or up to $1.1 million if including a maintenance and capital improvements reserve/budget.

If you are a member of the board, please know that many of us citizens are embarrassed for the whole lot of you. You guys have been hashing this out for 3 years, and you came back to square one on Tuesday as if you had completely forgotten the discussions from the previous board meetings, study sessions and special sessions. What's more, you let City Director Bill Maddox once again speciously filibuster the board down to a sophomoric level from which you never recovered.

As if that is not enough, the board members appeared genuinely surprised when City Clerk Cindy Remler had to remind them it was too late to put the issue on the November general ballot. They had only known about this schedule for months. The only logical conclusions are that such failure is a perfect reflection of the board’s inability to work together, or the board never intended to place the convention center issue on the November ballot. Either conclusion is disturbing.

The fear board members possess of the vocal minority, and their individual devotion to protect their precious political capital are disgusting. Their fear of decision-making and/or inability to work together resulted in their Tuesday request to push up to four convention center funding options to the voters. Faced with several reasonable options to resolve the issue, this board delays, delays, delays and then punts.

In January 2010, after more than 18 months of studying the issue, the board voted 5-2 to go with a prepared food tax. But board members with little to no political and fiscal discipline tremble and recant when the angry and active few bluster and demagogue.

And when board members tremble and recant, they look for cover. The board then appointed an ad hoc committee to dig further into the convention center funding options. The committee recently came to the simple and sound conclusion: The convention center is a tremendous economic engine for the region that in 2009 brought more than 43,000 people to Fort Smith and created an overall economic impact of $12.017 million (And if you cut the impact in half to account for any puffery, the impact is still more than enough to justify continued support.). The ad hoc group recommended a 1% prepared food tax with some of the proceeds supporting the U.S. Marshals Museum, the Bass Reeves statue project and area music festivals and arts groups.

Facts, economic history and the positive voting history of Fort Smith citizens who are often able to see through the fog of misinformation-driven hyperbole were on the side of the January 5-2 vote and the ad hoc recommendation. A consistent, honest and direct voter-education campaign would have carried the day on any of the good options to secure convention center operations.

But the spineless blink. And here we returned Tuesday, with the discussion between directors shockingly absent of any knowledge gained from the previous three years of dissection. It was an ugly snapshot of political recidivism.

It is tempting to request of voters that they throw out the incumbents as soon as possible. But that rarely proves productive. Not only is such a broad political position typically reserved for the mentally lazy who seek easy instead of responsible answers, but we know little of the farm team. Or, more to the point, there is little confidence the board candidates who may be on the board in a few months have any better political or fiscal discipline than the embarrassing Tuesday crowd.

A friend who has watched the board for a few decades said the Tuesday debacle is “easily among the top three” most pitiful collective performances.

As painful as it may be, it might be wise for citizens to encourage the existing board to abandon all municipal governance until the new board is in place. Considering that they’ve been unable to make a decision in three years on a vitally important facility like the convention center, such a request may be redundant.

This board has proven true one rule of local politics: When you try to please everyone, you please none.

Oh, the inanity!

What you are supposed to know, Kind Reader, is that your local banker would trod down on the downtrodden minorities if given half a chance. But first, a little history behind why your banker is such a meanie.

Decades ago there were clear and compelling reasons for state and federal officials to end non-financial discrimination in lending, especially as they related to home lending. But what began as enlightened relief soon morphed into social engineering, and now we find ourselves with myriad federal programs — a righteous plethora of federal fire trucks chasing whispers of smoke arising from the flammable foundations on which fair housing is built.

Justifying the need to maintain and enlarge such federal programs requires the public to be convinced that the whispers of smoke are instead raging wildfires that would burn through our society without the wise and vigilant oversight of Uncle Sam. That black or Hispanic or woman in your Sunday school class would be living in a van down by the river (with apologies to Chris Farley) if not for the feds looking over the shoulder of them greedy bankers, mortgage lenders and other capitalist gatekeepers genetically disposed to oppress based on race, gender and country club status.

Part of that convincing recently arrived in Fort Smith.

Consultant and researcher Robert Gaudin was in our fair city Aug. 16 with just the type of report one might need to support continued funding of programs to battle against the ruthless banking community. Gaudin, the research and planning guru for Portland, Ore.-based Western Economic Services, said his research points to three basic conclusions:
• The Fort Smith area has “disproportionately high denial rates “for racial and ethnic minorities;
• Fort Smith area denial rates are “disproportionately high” in lower- income areas; and,
• The region continues to see “discriminatory terms and conditions” for racial and ethnic minorities in rentals.

A more complete report from Gaudin detailing the overt racism of our evil local financial community is expected no later than Sept. 15.

Matt Jennings, the city of Fort Smith employee responsible to ensure we correctly use our about $1.4 million a year in federal fair housing-related funding, said the feds require a consultant to do this research because local folks “may not be able to look at it  (housing lending) from an unbiased standpoint.” In other words, you can’t trust Whitey-the-Banker and his friends at city hall to do the right thing (with apologies to Spike Lee).

It is at this point in the essay we recommend you not reflect upon the mess our Congress created several years ago when it demanded through broad and potentially onerous rules that banks and mortgage companies do more to encourage home ownership. To cover their bets and those of the lenders, Congress and federal regulators expanded the ability of Government Service Enterprises — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — to buy the loans regardless of the risk. It is also at this point you should suppress any rational belief that financial risk-reward decisions will become irrational in an environment where the federal government equally rewards good and bad lending decisions.

To be sure, several large national banking and financial services companies greatly abused what was essentially a blank check given to them by Congress. We may also note here that such abuse came courtesy of a Congress ruled by Republicans and Democrats.

But the role of the federal government in the housing bubble and the subsequent great recession is irrelevant. Any mention of such will paint you as an insensitive free-market supporting apologist for the aforementioned bankers eager to trod down.

What is relevant, however, is a mystery as it relates to market dynamics and our local condition. The “disproportionately high” denial rates and the “discriminatory terms and conditions” alleged by Gaudin came without market analysis. There is no information — at least none provided in materials received by The City Wire — as to the market reasons for loan denials among minorities.

With national political and federal officials blaming tight credit conditions for economic woes and many of the same officials blaming the recession on reckless lending by bankers, bankers are damned if they loan and damned if they don’t. What’s more, local bankers often make lending decisions using parameters largely dictated by the feds. Again, damned if they loan and damned if they don’t.

Also, Gaudin’s research shows Fort Smith recorded only 51 formal fair housing complaints in the past 10 years. Many of those, according to Jennings, were based on landlord complaints of which lenders have no control. To put that into perspective, more than 1,300 homes on average are bought and sold a year in Sebastian County, and the fair housing complaint box had but 5.1 messages a year. How is that “disproportionately high” or overly discriminatory?

You won’t hear criticism of the local banking community from Jennings.

“This area has always been, and rightfully so, very conservative about lending and that’s why we’ve seen that slow steady growth compared to California and other areas that got us into this mess,” Jennings said.

And nevermind that black and American Indian denial rates in Conway, Fayetteville, Jacksonville, North Little Rock and West Memphis are higher than those in Fort Smith.

And nevermind that we’re going through this process because we received 2009 federal fair housing funding of $1.4 million in a county that saw more than $167.26 million in home sales in 2009. That’s 0.83% of total sales for those keeping score at home.

“Disproportionately high” is the number of folks who attempt to convince us with their special pleading for special interest groups that we can broadly supplant market forces for political agendas in the housing sector — or any economic sector —with little to no short- or long-term harm.

Let’s hope when Gaudin and company return with their “Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice” report that they bring along a box of financial and procedural perspective and context. We’re good people. If apolitical financial data clearly shows we have some bad actors and are not being nice to our neighbors, we’ll fix it.

But if this is more about the continued political justification of a social agenda, maybe we let the feds keep their money and let our local bankers operate without the “fair” oversight of a federal government that is more than $12 trillion in the hole.

Dear Fort Smith city board members:

Would like to ask you gentlemen three favors. The favors aren’t necessarily for me — they are the synthesis of citizen wishes collected during the past several years.

• FAVOR #1: Communication
Ed Vampola lives in Fort Smith. In early 2008, Ed shared his story and it was posted in a two-part piece I wrote when employed at the Times Record. He retired here after a 35-year career building important communication gadgets for the aerospace industry. Ed and his team struggled to build the small communications device for the space shuttles (which are still used today). What started off as a simple, lightweight container had to be pressurized, reconfigured to withstand the pressurization and yet stay within almost unreasonable weight limits.

The rules changed. Budgets changed. Expectations changed. His story provides the analogy that communication is important and, when useful, difficult. Rules change. People change. Situations change.

Unfortunately, changes to our rules and people and situations are, at best, garbled. How better connected and informed would Fort Smithians be with city issues and city government if for the past several decades the city had a 2-3 person team responsible for internal and external communications? We’re not talking about a propaganda machine, but instead a group of trained communication professionals able to create a practical and productive communication loop — message, feedback, message review, feedback, and so on and so forth.

Sure, this would be a $150,000 to $250,000 budget expense (less than 0.625% of the city’s general fund budget). But how much does ignorance cost? What price is reasonable for a process that produces a more informed and engaged citizenry?

And, sure, a professional PR/ombudsman team won’t reach all. You won’t reach the folks who are most assured of piles and piles and piles of fraud waste and abuse at the city. Evidence? They don’t need no stinkin’ specific evidence because pretty much all government is wasteful and the $115 million or $280 million or $45 million or whatever million-dollar city budget is just ripe with abuse because someone once said or did something or didn’t do or didn’t say something that proves the city could cut millions of dollars out of its budget. We could post a story on The City Wire about the virtues of motherhood, and comments from the vocal minority of rabid aginners would quickly note that motherhood would be easier if the city didn’t waste so much money.

You are not going to reach those folks with a consistent and professional PR approach, but you may limit the effect of the enjoyable angry by creating a more enlightened citizen pool. On the other side of that coin, enlightened citizens would boost the odds of preventing a well-intended board of directors from making policy or spending mistakes.

As Ed discovered, communication has to withstand political pressure, almost unreasonable weights of perception and the implacable emotion resulting from near-impenetrable misinformation.

• FAVOR #2: Stay focused on the big picture.
To do that, you first have to develop a big picture.

You guys do these retreats and set big goals and the next time you review the big goals is at the next retreat or the annual budget meetings. Odd. When you guys sat down to review the 2009 priorities, there was little to no mention of the 2008 priorities. Odd.

In between these retreats, you fellas seem to get lost in the minutia. And when you aren’t lost in that, the ideas you put forth are all over the map. My job is to closely watch what you guys do and say, and even I continue to be amazed and confused at some of the board meanderings. It’s difficult to imagine how frustrated the average citizen becomes when trying to mentally digest your actions and comments.

Part of staying focused on the big picture requires ...

• FAVOR #3: Speak with one voice on the big picture stuff. (aka, don’t micromanage)
Anyone who attended boot camp has seen the poor recruit who screws up and finds himself targeted by several drill instructors yelling different commands. With every move, the recruit meets one request but fails on the others, which exacerbates the recruit’s dilemma. At boot camp the goal is to create soldiers and sailors able to function under pressure. In our city government, however, varied and numerous commands from city board members to city staff results in pressure creating an inability to function.

The recent example of this was on budget cutting. You directors publicly asked city staff to come up with budget-cutting ideas. Then a few of you called the city administrator privately and said city employees should suffer because the private sector has suffered. Unfortunately, the city administrator caved to this pressure and we ended up with an unnecessary drama that hurt morale and wasted the time of hundreds of city employees. When all was said and done, the budget-cutting process had nothing to do with employee cuts. The city administrator took the full blame for this, but you fellas know the real story. Shame on you.

As you know, we have a lot of good citizens in our fair city. While many citizens have pet projects and pet peeves, it’s a good bet most would simply prefer the city board be professional, focused, selfless, fiscally disciplined, politically disciplined and consistent big picture macro-managers.

To summarize: Communicate better. Stay focused. Don’t micromanage.

That should not be too much for which to ask, but it probably is.

The local media recently brought us numerous and breathless reports of how great it was for the Fort Smith region to be THE lowest cost of of living region in the nation.

Our regional cost of living index is 85.2, meaning what costs a $1 for the average American in the average city costs us 85.2 cents. This is according to the smart folks at Kiplinger.

“Arkansas is a low-cost, low-tax state, and its second largest city, Fort Smith, is no exception,” Kiplinger noted in its report. “Housing, grocery and transportation costs here are well below the national average. And compared with the most-expensive city on our list, New York, everything in Fort Smith is a bargain.”

Such news was hailed as a great revelation to be used to recruit more businesses and jobs and folks to this great place where everything from bubble gum, bibles, bungalows and sex toys are cheaper than anywhere else from sea to shining sea. It was as if we were all an ecstatic Sally Fields amazed that Kiplinger really, really liked us.

When it comes housing, utilities, transportation, grocery items, health care and miscellaneous goods and services, you get more bang for the buck in the Fort Smith region.

Let me be the first cynical ass to suggest this cheap-living moniker is not necessarily a badge of honor. Or, in other words, let’s note that you get what you pay for.

When you book a hotel room in an unfamiliar city, do you search for the cheapest place to stay? Nope. Cheap doesn’t equate to safe, or good or convenient or efficient. When going out to eat in an unfamiliar city, do you always look for the cheapest steak house? Probably not. Most folks shoot for the middle on hotels and restaurants, hoping to maximize their dollars and experience.

Is it nice to get more home for the dollar than almost anywhere else in the nation? Sure. And as a small business owner, there is a clear appreciation for the low labor and other operating costs found in the Fort Smith region.

But the thing is, we can’t cheap our way to a better economy.

If our collective goal is to improve our regional economy by adding more jobs, creating a greater diversity of jobs and adding a larger mix of higher-paying jobs, we can’t do that and be a cheap place to live.

Economics 101 demands that a more robust economy create inflation. A more robust economy that creates more work opportunities for the increasing number of graduates from the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and the Ozark campus of Arkansas Tech University will require a higher level of pay. A higher level of pay will result in more opportunities to spend that higher level of pay. More opportunities to spend higher pay will result in more options for arts and entertainment, more dining options, more housing options, more shopping options and more folks reading The City Wire. All of those options — except for reading The City Wire — will result in a higher cost of living.

This is not to lobby for a cost of living that approximates that of New York City, where the average home costs $1.15 million (compared to $223,885 for the Fort Smith region).

It is to lobby that we aggressively pursue an economic development strategy that puts us in Kiplinger’s “10 Best Cities for the Next Decade” list. On that list you’ll find low-cost mid-American cities like Topeka, Kan. (cost of living index: 89.1) and Des Moines, Iowa, (cost of living index 92.1) where Kiplinger suggests a combination of affordable housing, growth in emerging economy jobs and increase in arts and entertainment options (quality of place) make the cities a good bet for businesses and individuals.

Of the Best Cities, Kiplinger notes: “Creativity in music, arts and culture, plus neighborhoods and recreational facilities that rank high for ‘coolness,’ attract like-minded professionals who go on to cultivate a region's business scene. All of which make our 2010 Best Cities not just great places to live but also great places to start a business or find a job.”

In other words, our goal should be to prove wrong a recent Georgetown University report that predicts Arkansas in 2018 will be 47th in the nation in terms of jobs that require a bachelor’s degree, and 9th in terms of jobs for high school dropouts.

“By 2018, 52% of jobs in Arkansas will require postsecondary education. This is 11 percentage points below the national average of 63%,” notes the report from the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown.

Do we really want to be on the low-end of the job totem pole AGAIN near the end of the next decade?

Let me be the first cynical ass to again suggest this cheap-living moniker is not a badge of honor. Or, in other words, let’s note that you get what you pay for.

Life is worth living in Fort Smith only as long as the jobs are worth having. And if the jobs are worth having it’s safe to say life will be a little more expensive in Fort Smith. And if it costs a little more to better ensure that my children and your children can find more economic opportunity and cultural enrichment in this region, then please, send me a bill.

Sincere kudos go to Joe Hardin, dean of the College of Languages and Communication at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, and other university officials in gaining approval from the Little Rock higher education bureaucrats for a new bachelor’s degree in media communication.

The degree is intended as part of rebirth of the UAFS journalism effort, which was dismantled many years ago when school officials felt no love for the fourth estate. But please know that producing journalists is not the only reason for the new program. UAFS officials see the need to improve communication skills — visual (possibly excluding hand gestures), written, verbal, etc. — for a wide range of societal needs.

Fort Smith-based Baldor Electric Co. effectively doubled the size of its operation less than three years ago. The company will need effective internal and external communications to reach its growth potential. Fort Smith-based Arkansas Best Corp. and Van Buren-based USA Truck are companies with a national footprint and rely on internal and external communications to connect with employees, vendors and consumers. Fort Smith-based Golden Living operates in a sector — long-term care, hospice, rehab therapies, etc. — that will see blazing growth as the baby boomer generation ages. People with communication skills will be vital to the efficient growth of Golden Living.

Other emerging groups — our new intermodal authority, Chaffee Crossing, regional economic alliance group — now need or will soon need people with solid communication skills.

But as the new degree relates to producing future journalists, The City Wire offers the following thoughts. We preface the thoughts by noting our significant deficiency of not employing anyone with a graduate degree or having university faculty experience. All we have are a few folks with a little more than five combined decades of real-world business, communications and journalism experience.

THE THOUGHTS
• Please produce journalists willing to challenge other journalists.
We are in the midst of this great oil drama in the Gulf of Mexico. To hear the leading journalists and media organizations tell it, we were mere hours from seeing oil-soaked coasts in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The breathlessness of the reporting quickly transformed into hyperbole that has yet to be debunked. The event was tragic, especially with the loss of life, and environmental harm is certain, but this great Oil Disaster proved yet again that the media is more interested in drama than perspective.

Speaking of perspective ...

• Please produce journalists willing to think ahead of the story.
There are numerous examples where the big media doesn’t fully report on an issue until it’s too late. Did you notice how the media began reporting all the goofy, potentially destructive and anti-business elements of the healthcare reform bill and financial reform bill AFTER they had been signed into law?

If the media is indeed supposed to be a watchdog, it doesn’t help to bark after the house has been robbed.

And remember how ethanol was going to save the planet? Whoops. There were no journalists willing to challenge the conventional wisdom or think ahead of that story. Challenging convention wisdom requires a journalist or media company to venture into what may be politically incorrect territory. Which brings us to ...

• Please produce journalists who use perspective instead of politics to develop a story.
We have enough political blogs, thank you very much. And before the political bloggers, we had too many newspapers with clear political slants. (Which results in much amusement when newspaper leaders — oxymoron? — complain about the lack of editorial discipline among the roving Mad Max tribes of journalism-destroying bloggers.)

• Please produce journalists who understand there is more to a community than crime news.
Traditional newsrooms go nuclear with excitement when the police scanner indicates a bank robbery is in process. When a robber walks out of a bank with a bag of cash — and, if we’re lucky, a hostage! — that’s big news. But when a small business owner walks out of a bank with loan proceeds resulting in new jobs or community investment, well, I mean, that’s pretty damn boring. In newsrooms where the politics are out of hand, the socially oppressed robber is treated with empathy and the greedy step-on-the-little-man business owner is vilified.

• Please encourage journalists to do something other than journalism, even if for a few months.
The best journalists I know are those who worked for several years in politics, business, non-profits and other important areas of society. They’ve seen other sides of the world. They have hard-earned perspective.

The worst thing you can do with newsroom is to pack it full of folks with impressive and extensive journalism credentials, but no other experience.

And that’s probably the worst thing a university could do to a new media communication degree program.

A comedic rant against the Roman occupation of Palestine (what is now Israel) was part of a movie scene in “Life of Brian” during which Judeans sought to displace the Romans. The classic Monty Python movie tells the story of Brian, who was born in Bethlehem in a stable next door to you-know-who. Brian’s life is a series of adventures revolving around the belief he is the Messiah.

The Judean leader embarked on the rant to begin a meeting of revolters. He angrily notes that the Romans have oppressed them and their fathers for centuries.

“And what have they ever given us in return?” the leader rhetorically quizzes in an effort to gin up anti-Roman sentiment among the group.

“The aqueduct?” is a quick and surprising answer.

“And the sanitation,” another supposed anti-Roman Judean volunteers with a clear mix of certainty and admiration.

And then the group originally fired up to lead a revolt against the Romans begins rattling off a long list of Roman benefits.

Frustrated, the group’s leader attempts to stifle what amounts to a celebration of Roman accomplishments: “Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

The perspective within this particular silly humor of the Monty Python troupe — humor being a great vehicle in which to transport perspective — has of late been a frequent guest during the observation and consideration of the many rants at Fort Smith board meetings and the comments posted on The City Wire.

We in Fort Smith are home to a small cadre of the enjoyable angry and their angry joiners. These folks find great pleasure in posing publicly to persuade us peasants that our city government is corrupt, inefficient, both, or worse. Their constant and ALL CAPS missives replete with any number of half-truths, innuendo and 2+2=5 logic is more than enough to gather the angry joiners who are so deliriously angry at the federal boys (and maybe rightfully so) that an unhealthy portion of that anger blankets city government.

What gets lost in this noise and unnecessary drama are areas in which the city has and continues to perform well. The following points of progress for which the city has performed above and beyond was created after just a few minutes of research. Please know the following list is not intended to persuade the enjoyable angry and the angry joiners. They refuse to let data and research steal their joy, and I have never found joy in squelching anyone’s joy, regardless of its source. This is not meant to provoke, either. There are two things the enjoyable angry do not require: facts and provocation.

On to the list.

• We have possibly the best street infrastructure among cities the size of Fort Smith. And we did this, using our 1% street tax, on a pay-as-you-go basis. When folks say the city should be run more like a business, well, here you go.

• The Fort Smith region has access to a clean, long-term water supply. Again, the citizens — not the “evil” board of directors or Mayor Ray Baker — stepped up with a sales tax and higher water rates to give the region a water supply of which many metro areas in the nation can only dream.

• We are home to a modern and long-term landfill. Talk to any sanitation expert and they’ll tell you the Fort Smith area is sitting pretty with its trash. Also, the sanitation department uses a sinking fund instead of debt to pay for future expansions. When someone says the city should be run more like a business, well, here you go.

• And then there is our modern, accessible and professional library system. Its initial development was from citizens who voted for a temporary sales tax. Enough said.

• Thank goodness for quality police and fire departments. They have new public safety and public services communications system that are state-of-the-art, and feature interoperability among city departments and other agencies.

• Our city partnered with Sebastian County to construct a new courts building. It consolidates all court operations into one location, which is more efficient for employees and citizens, and reduces the maintenance and operations cost of scattered offices. When someone says the city should be run more like a business, well, here you go.

• Your city took a leading role in helping create the Regional Intermodal Transportation Authority. For folks who believe local governments should do more to work together to maximize resources, well, here you go.

• City officials played important roles in landing and/or retaining more than 1,200 jobs related to Gerber, Graphic Packaging, Mars PetCare, Mitsubishi and Umarex. Also, that city street tax we mentioned earlier helped create the infrastructure that made Chaffee Crossing appealing to several of these companies. When folks say the city should do more to be pro-business, well, here you go.

• The city’s long-term infrastructure planning and construction helped push residential growth at Riley Farm, subdivisions at Chaffee Crossing, Geren Road subdivisions, Rye Hill/Howard Hill area subdivisions, and the Texas Road area south of Cavanaugh. When folks say the city should do more to be pro-business, well, here you go.

Does the city have a few problems? Sure. Probably more than a few. Past and present city board members ought to be taken behind the woodshed for letting this convention center thing fester for 10 years. City staff involved in permitting and approving commercial and residential construction could and should be a lot more considerate of the entrepreneurial guys and gals who have their financial asses on the line.

Also, the city board should behave like a board of directors instead of a schizophrenic board of nitpickers — which is to say they should quit micromanaging top city staff and quit issuing new damn directives every time they fancy upon what they think is a good idea.

Then there was that nonsense where for more than two decades the city board ignored federal orders to fix the sewer system. And we can’t forget this nonsense with the city bailing out The Park at West End. So it has a Ferris Wheel. Big fricking deal. Did we really need to bail out a park that attracted 20,000 or so people a year? The City Wire electronically gathers up more than 20,000 people in WAY less than a month. Do we get a bailout from the city if things don’t work out? I didn’t think so.

And my growing rant begs the question: “Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the public order, the library system, roads, job creation, residential development, the fresh water system and public health, what has the city ever done for us?”

What follows is a waste of time — like telling a drunk to quit drinking or Congress to quit spending or Joe Biden to quit thinking he’s a big f*&%$#@ deal.

What follows is a big-picture idea probably not as picture-perfect as presented but would likely succeed despite a few as-of-yet unknown kinks. It’s an idea floated to a few folks in the know who say it’s not unreasonable.

Here’s the thing. We probably shouldn’t spend the remaining $378 billion in federal stimulus funds yet unspent. But if we do spend ourselves past the estimated $13 trillion debt, maybe we spend it less on the politically favored (unions, ACORN, protecting a mouse habitat in San Francisco, developing a colony of robot bees, etc.) and more on projects that will create short- AND long-term jobs all while increasing our use of domestic energy — which is very similar to reducing our dependence on foreign energy.

Natural gas and nuclear energy are the most cost-effective and quickest ways to reduce our oil dependence, reduce dangerous emissions from coal-fired plants — and take your clean coal BS to another venue — and create permanent, high-paying jobs.

Here’s the thing. Of the remaining $378 billion in federal money the Chinese will buy for us, let’s spend a portion on the following.
• $1.5 billion — 5,000 CNG (compressed natural gas) pumps at convenience stores
• $1.5 billion — retrofit about 200,000 government and private fleet vehicles to CNG
• $10 billion — 2 million $5,000 vouchers to retrofit personal vehicles toCNG
• $75 billion — fast-track the approval and construction (begin construction within 18 months to 3 years) of 15 nuclear power plants (The U.S. has 104 active nuke plants.)
• $10 billion — begin converting older coal-fired plants to natural gas
• $200 million — marketing and administration of the effort

That’s roughly $98.2 billion of the $378 billion. Nancy and Harry and Barry can have the remainder to create their circle-jerk programs around the country.

Here’s the thing about jobs. Each nuke plant creates an average of 2,400 jobs during construction (36,000 people over the course of 3-5 years), and then employs 700 to operate (10,500 high-paying jobs for a 60-80 year lifespan). Once operational, a nuke plant on average generates $40 million in local labor income and more than $400 million in goods and services sales. The construction, maintenance and installation of CNG pumps and retrofit equipment will create thousands of temporary and permanent jobs — not including the jobs from continued natural gas exploration, production and distribution.

Not only have we created jobs, but we'll do more for the environment than any dicked-up climate bill from Waxman or Markey or Larry, Moe and Curly.

“The problem is your proposal is infused with too much common sense and is result oriented,” noted a expert with many years experience in the natural gas sector after reviewing my notes. “Until we as a country decide what we want, I predict continued spending of a vast number of taxpayer dollars with little or no visible result.”

Another expert was somewhat skeptical of the timeframe for nuke plant construction, but said my idea is similar to many posited during the past several decades. Gov. Mike Beebe believes biomass (wood chips) will have a better chance of gaining consumer approval than CNG (That’s a story to be posted this week elsewhere on The City Wire.).

However, I’m told all of the points in the plan are doable. AT&T just announced it converted its 2,000th vehicle in its 10-year plan to convert 8,000 fleet vehicles to CNG. UPS and other fleet-intensive companies are doing the same. The rolling average is that CNG is a little more than $1 per gallon less expensive than gasoline. Also, maintenance on CNG vehicles is considerably less than for diesel or gasoline engines.

The plan outlined above is not the complete fix. It’s a kick-start to a long-term approach. CNG usage outlined in the above plan would reduce by just 1% the 130-plus billion gallons of gasoline and diesel we Americans consume annually. The belief of many experts in the field is that subsidizing CNG infrastructure will provide such clear benefits that the market demand will push for more private-sector development and adoption.

Also, adding 15 nuke plants will boost by 5%-7% (from about 20% to up to 27%) the amount of electricity generated in the U.S. by nukes. Again, the first 15 plants will set the stage for more. We can do this. How do I know we can do this? The French get 80% of their electricity from nukes. If the spoiled children of Europe can do it, we can do it.

“Nuclear energy has progressed from its overly optimistic early years, through a turbulent adolescence, and is now a mature technology. It is a clean, secure and sustainable base-load source of electricity and an essential ingredient in meeting the world's increasing energy demand. Frankly, there is no solution without it,” energy guru Mike Lawrence noted in this opinion piece first posted in The Seattle Times.

Jim Williams, a Mitsubishi Power Systems exec responsible for the construction of the wind-turbine nacelle assembly plant at Fort Chaffee, said the same thing during a recent Fort Smith chamber meeting. He said there is a place for wind power, but nuclear power is the best solution to meet future electricity demand.

Ardent tree huggers, global warming disciples and loyal NPR listeners will spew on and on about wind power and biofuels and mass transit and other heavily-subsidized yet marginal ways to solve our energy dependence problems. These are the same folks who promoted ethanol. And we listened to them. And we drove up the price of corn and food and dumped a Grand Canyon-load of chemicals into the Mississippi River and New Orleans delta trying to grow enough corn to produce ethanol AND feed your bacon and your steak and your frito chili pie. These are often the same folks who have have said for the past 40 years that electric cars are just a year or two away. Remember when the Toyota Prius was going to save the day?

Other than being too vague on details, the best criticism of my little plan is it leaves the process in political hands. I was reminded that a Congress controlled by hundreds of special-interest levers will buy, relocate, destroy and then rebuild in the original spot a restaurant managed by at least three federal agencies under court supervision following a class-action lawsuit related to discriminatory hiring practices when the original purpose was simply to order a ham and cheese sandwich.

See ... you were warned this was a waste of time.

Billy, the college friend from thousands of years ago, has called again. He’s equal parts amused, concerned and curious about comments on The City Wire.

For what it’s worth, Billy continues to believe The City Wire will never be a long-term success unless it includes stories about hunting seasons, high school football and presents a weekly photo feature of a local Hooters girl.

Billy: Got your note about this new version of The City Wire being up for 20 months. Well, it’s better to be lucky than good, because going 20 months without so much as a photo of some old boy tagging a deer is running on pure dang luck.

MT: Maybe so, Billy, but am surprised you didn’t suggest we have a photo of some old boy tagging a Hooters girl.

Billy: You think you’re a real live wire, dontcha? I’m surprised your little smart-alecky mouth hasn’t written a check your ass can’t cash.

MT: Sorry, Billy, I just thought

Billy:  And that would be your first mistake: you thought.

MT: Wow. You’ve come loaded for bear.

Billy: OK, maybe that was a little rough. You know I like this City Wire thingy you got going, and I really do hope y’all do a swell job with it. But I’m not sure if them comments won’t be the death of The City Wire.

MT: How so?

Billy: Well, frankly, the comments are beginning to wear me out. I mean, when y’all first opened up this thing for free-wheelin’ comments, hell, I hit your site several times a day just to see what folks were saying. But anymore it’s just a bunch of conspiracy nuts who think anybody with any type of government job is out to destroy the city or kill the environment or take away their birthday. And when it ain’t conspiracy folks, you get comments from people who are negative about everything. You could post a story about how motherhood is good, and within three comments you’d have a back and forth with idiots saying city director so-and-so is against motherhood because he puts his left foot forward when he walks and we all know that left-foot-firsters are part of a secret Freemason plot to end motherhood by using the Mayor’s budget to buy ice cream and ammunition. Or some crazy junk like that.

MT: I hear what you’re saying, but we are the only media platform that allows citizens to engage in unfettered public discourse. There will be some bad that goes along with what we see as the positives of open discussion.

Billy: Yeah, I get all that about being open, but, damn, do you really have to let comments stay up that are just flat out wrong or crazy?! A few days ago you had comments about how Mayor Ray Baker and Ken Pyle, that housing authority guy, were in cahoots to screw citizens out of their property and money. Now c’mon Tilley, I don’t know much about Fort Smith politics, but I do know that Baker and Pyle are about as far from running buddies as possible. I’d go so far as to say they probably don’t have much account for one another. So how do you let that kind of stuff be posted as a comment?

MT: That was humorous about Baker and Pyle.

Billy: It wasn’t humorous. It was wrong.

MT: We are closing comments on stories when they get off topic, and we do delete vulgar comments or those way beyond the line in terms of being mean-spirited. But moderating comments may become a slippery slope.

Billy: If you can cut mean comments, then cut the comments when they are wrong.

MT: Because I’m not comfortable with me being the final arbiter of what is wrong. Sure, the thing with Pyle and Baker was a black and white case, but many of the comments with which you or I or someone else may disagree may be more a matter of perception than a matter of clear right or wrong.

Billy: Tilley, I think you are getting dang close to outsmarting yourself.

MT: No, hear me out. For example, we had a few folks post a lot of comments about how the city of Fort Smith was spending too much money and could use a good round of budget cuts before finding a new way to fund the Fort Smith Convention Center. Some of the comments were a little personal, and maybe we should have cut a few. Also, most of the comments were, in my opinion, wrong and way off point with respect to a rational, long-term solution for the convention center, and

Billy: OK, Tilley, get to the dang point.

MT: The point is, the commenters were about half right. The city did, or does, need to evaluate its budget and find short- and long-term efficiencies and cost savings. For example, the city department heads recently outlined about $2 million in one-year real cuts or in not hiring people for unfilled positions. Also, city employees noted that the city could save more than $225,000 a year by stopping the program that provides taxpayer dollars to local non-profits and entertainment events.

Billy: So how were they half wrong?

MT: They are wrong because a few budget cuts from a $40-plus million general fund will never be enough to consistently maintain in future years the convention center. A more financially efficient city government and finding a long-term management and funding solution for the convention center are two different issues.

Billy: What about them comments about the convention center being unnecessary and just shutting it down or moving the city offices to the convention center?

MT: That’s another good example of comments that are wrong, but valuable to the discussion.

Billy: Wrong AND valuable? Do you get how stupid you sound? Do you ever just listen to yourself be stupid?

MT: Look, I realize it’s somewhat counterintuitive, but hear me out. By my conservative estimates, the convention center annually generates more than $8.5 million in regional economic impact. It could be as much as $20 million if using commonly accepted economic rollover theory, but let’s stick with $8.5 million. The question, then, is are we willing as a community to pony up about $1 million a year to capture a minimum of $8.5 million in economic activity? Only a diehard aginner who refuses to accept or understand the benefits of tourism and business travel would reject such a proposition.

Billy: That’s all good and swell, dips%$#, but how is a wrong comment also valuable.

MT: Because it provides business and civic leaders in the area a sense of what people are thinking. Knowledge is power. And knowledge of what people think is what The City Wire provides.

Billy: Maybe you have yourself convinced that knowing what people think is valuable, but I don’t see any benefit in it. There are nut jobs what still think the earth is flat. Where’s the value in that?

MT: I’m not saying all comments are valuable. I’m saying that our relatively open comment policy is more likely to create better community discussion than some static letters-to-the-editor screening or letting me be the judge of what is right and wrong.

Billy: I think you’re drunk.

MT: And I think you’re wrong, but am posting your comments anyway. See my point?

Billy: Yep, you are drunk. And speaking of points, when are you going to quit being a politically-correct homo and start doing regular features on Hooters girls?

MT: When I really am drunk. Talk to you later, Billy.

Editor's note: This essay, written by Michael Tilley, first ran in the Times Record back in 2007. You can link here to the TR version.

Please accept what follows as an apology for being so danged serious all these years.

This space has been used to encourage folks to work harder to improve the socio-economic realities in the Fort Smith region; question why our Congress won’t fix Social Security; bemoan the state’s inability/unwillingness to get serious about boosting average income levels and matriculation rates; wonder why every street in Fort Smith is a bike route; complain about the lack of progress at Lake Fort Smith State Park; and question the odd beast that is an Arkansas county government.

On more than one occasion I was told to pipe down because there are many things going on behind the scenes in a lot of areas in which I don’t understand. Little did I realize the great and troubling truth these great and troubled political and business leaders carried.

It seems that improvement doesn’t matter because civilization as we know it will expire in 2012. The “I Ching” and Mayan calendars point to Dec. 21, 2012, as the end of the world. While this is hard to believe, the revelation was well documented in a show on The History Channel. Or maybe it was the Discovery Channel. Either way, it was a television show that few people watch because it has nothing to do with funny home videos or celebrities adopting African children.

Also, details of this troubling truth are all over the Internet — a fact that gives it more credibility.

If the world is to end in about five years, why worry with Social Security? Why bother to move with smart and focused expediency to bring better jobs to the Fort Smith area? And a bike route will be of little importance — except maybe to the most ardent proponent of reducing greenhouse emissions — when civilization is crumbling.

Here’s the deal. Ethnobotanists and fractal time experts Terrence and Dennis McKenna developed the Mandelbrot fractal, which is a number device that creates time patterns that match well with historic events. According to one of the Web sites brave enough to post this startling truth: “By matching the levels of the pattern with key periods in history, they determined it would fit best if the end of the time scale was December 21, 2012.”

Independent researcher John Jenkins wrote “Maya Cosmogenesis 2012,” a book that explains how our sun will align with the center of the Milky Way on Dec. 21, 2012. This alignment will likely open “a door into the heart of space and time,” at which time “the cosmos will be reborn or recreated.” The last time this happened is about the time the Neanderthal mysteriously disappeared and the Cro-Magnon man mysteriously appeared.

While Web sites differ on what will happen on this date, the consensus of Web authors on the subject agree that it will not be a pleasant day. (And because a consensus of scientists is all we need to support global warming, it seems fair to make the same application in this end-of-time explanation.)

Somewhere around Dec. 21, 2012, there will be a great shift in the earth’s polarity that will cause the earth’s inner layers to rotate inside the earth’s crust, meaning that Alaska will lie at the equator and all those folks who left colder climates for Florida will wake up with penguins in their palm trees. What’s worse, the Cowboys could find their new stadium in Pittsburgh. (At great risk of pointing out the obvious, the polarity shift will be caused by the alignment of the earth and sun with a black hole that lies at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.)

To be sure, this rotation will mark the end of civilization as we know it. The complete shift of continents, oceans and Starbucks stores will bring an end to food production, medicines and Internet porn.

There are a few folks who are aware of the fact we have just a few years to enjoy our iPods, self-absorbed/ill-informed lives and cookie dough blasts from Sonic.

There are the Freemasons, who have key roles in governments and secret organizations around the world. They know everything. Want more proof that the behind-the-scenes string-pullers know that good government isn’t important with the end of the world just around the corner? Look at the presidential candidates of both parties.

This great shift also is the reason colleges haven’t fixed the system by which we determine the top college football team. Why fix something that won’t matter? Ever wonder why Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton behave like there is no tomorrow?

And there’s the marketing. Nothing is legitimate until it’s properly marketed. Well, some of the 2012 Web sites are selling “Shift Happens” T-shirts.

Also, Men At Work, the popular Australian band that enjoyed commercial success in the 1980s, is aware of the 2012 calamity, and first hinted at it in their 1982 hit song, “Down Under.”
“Do you come from a land down under?
“Where women glow and men plunder?
“Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
“You better run, you better take cover.”

Take cover indeed!

Men At Work spelled backward is “Krowtanem,” which sounds very similar to a Mayan name. Also, reversing the band’s initials spells WAM, which will be the last sound civilization hears when the earth’s polarity decides to change dance partners. As if that is not enough proof, the name “Men At Work,” has nine letters. Nine is divisible by three. So are all the numbers in the date of the end of the world. Do the math.

And do some thinking.

Drunk astronauts.

A 50-pound ice chunk falling mysteriously into Jan Kenkel’s home in Dubuque, Iowa.

FEMA.

Sanjaya.

Oscar the Cat, who lives in a Chicago-area nursing home, and who has visited the bedside of 25 residents who then died a few hours later.

Rosie’s mouth.

Donald’s hair.

Hillary’s cleavage.

Bush’s strategery.

These things clearly point to the odd energy that is building around the not-too-distant future when our sun aligns with the center of the Milky Way and we become the new Neanderthals; the new cave men. (This is end-of-time stuff is so obvious a cave man can figure it out.)

Some folks say the shift will be of consciousness rather than of continents; that we will all, according to one of the many December 21, 2012 web sites, “experience clarity of mind, emotional aliveness and physical health. … Linear time as we know it will end and Earth will enter a new, higher dimension.” Apparently, we’ll all be trust-fund babies with four-day weekends and unlimited access to spa treatments and muscle relaxers — you know, like a U.S. senator.

But the clarity of mind and higher dimension stuff is too touchy-feely, and gives the impression that we’ll all be stoned herbally rather than stoned tectonically — meaning the earth will not end with a bang, but with a bong.

Either way, there’s no reason to be concerned about the future of your community, country or planet of origin.

So relax. Invest in survival gear. And, just in case, stock up on potato chips and other munchies.

Now comes Zeljka Buturovic and Daniel Klein with an interesting piece of research for those who sometimes, frequently or hourly wonder why some folks support government laws, programs and social-engineering containing flagrant violations of fundamental rules of economics.

Which is to say they offer a plausible explanation if you’ve ever:
• Wondered what the alleged smartest-kids-in-the-class are smoking when they would have you believe a multi-trillion national debt is merely a manageable problem;
• Been puzzled when a Republican or conservative Democrat complains about runaway government spending in Washington, but is there to take credit for $2 million in interstate landscaping from a federal agency you didn’t previously know existed;
• Wanted to slap the nonsense out of Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi when they claim to save money and improve national health care by stepping completely between you and your doctor using the same federal government that has managed to be effective only in rendering ineffective (and bankrupt or damn near) Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, public schools and the basic concept of federal government; and,
• Found yourself repeatedly frustrated by big-government supporters who want to convert marginally justifiable safety-net programs into personal incentive-killing and budget-busting safety-cocoon programs.

Buturovic holds a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University and is a research associate at Zogby International. Klein is an economics professor at George Mason University and the chief editor of Econ Journal Watch.

What their research indicates is that progressives, liberals and moderates have an “unenlightened” view of fundamental economic principles compared to conservatives and libertarians — “unenlightened” being the academic way to say “F’d up.”

Buturovic and Klein crafted a survey they conducted among 4,835 Americans. The survey posed eight economic statements for which the survey takers were to note their level of agreement or disagreement. The correct answer for each of the basic statements is undisputed. (The complete report, including a PDF of the research paper can be found at this link.)

Let’s provide three examples from that survey

• “Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.” A true statement. However, 67.6% of progressives and 60.1% of liberals disagreed with the statement. On the other side, 22.3% of conservatives and 15.7% of libertarians disagreed.

• “A company with the largest market share is a monopoly.” A false statement. But 30.8% of progressives and 27.9% of liberals agreed with the statement.

• “Free trade leads to unemployment.” A false statement. Not surprisingly, 60.8% of progressives and 44.6% of liberals believe free trade DOES lead to overall unemployment — this despite incontrovertible jobs data. On this matter, 16.1% of conservatives and 19.1% of libertarians also posted an incorrect response.

The authors note this of their research: “We think it is reasonable to maintain that if a respondent disagrees with the statement ‘Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable,’ the respondent betrays a lack of economic enlightenment. Challengers might say something like: ‘Well, not every restriction on housing development makes housing less affordable,’ but such a challenger would be tendentious and churlish. Unless a statement in a questionnaire explicitly makes it a matter of 100%, by using ‘every,’ ‘all,’ ‘always,’ ‘none,’ or ‘never,’ it is natural to understand the statement as a by-and-large statement about overall consequences. Do restrictions on housing development, by and large, make housing less affordable? Yes they do. Does free trade lead, overall, to greater unemployment? No, it does not. For someone to say the contrary is economically unenlightened.”

Klein noted in this Wall Street Journal opinion piece about the research: “Adam Smith described political economy as ‘a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator.’ Governmental power joined with wrongheadedness is something terrible, but all too common. Realizing that many of our leaders and their constituents are economically unenlightened sheds light on the troubles that surround us.”

Political satirist P.J. O’Rourke said as much in his 1991 book “Parliament of Whores.” He noted: “The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.”

In addition to the point that liberals and progressives often support big-government policies because they don’t know stuff from shinola about basic economics, there is also a point in the research that suggests universities have done and are doing a poor job of economics instruction.

“Our data indicate that Americans of the sort to participate in such a survey, those who are college-educated are no more economically enlightened than those who are not.”

Ouch. (Note to self: Call Arkansas Tech University and ask if they will issue a refund on Econ I and Econ II.)

One explanation Buturovic and Klein offer is that most college professors are liberal and unwilling or unable to point out how economic fundamentals clash with most liberal government views.

Specifically, they note: “The college professoriate is very preponderantly centrist, center-left, or left. ... Once a person has been acculturated and committed to the pattern of social-democratic political aesthetics, she might become not only unreceptive to economic enlightenment, but actually unfriendly to it, especially where it upsets cherished beliefs and values.”

The point here is that we should all bone up on basic economics before we establish, alter or consider an ideology.

I’ve often said Logic is no match against Loud. As we consider, for example, the national economics of energy (do we drill for oil, build nuke power plants, or hug trees?), the economics of Arkansas tax policy (how do we balance consumption and income taxes?), and local economics (what do we do with a convention center?), we should seek to first challenge what we think we know. And we should do that even if it begins to upset our “cherished beliefs and values.”