The Local Beat

The Summer Edition 2023

Baxter County - Mountain Home, Arkansas July 2023

If you read our previous issues, you’ll know we’ve had battles over moving to only paper ballots that seem to have subsided for the time being. An election commissioner resigned one month in, and it seems the Republican Committee has gone past the deadline for nominating a new one. More on that in next month’s Local Beat.

What’s been a hot topic as of late is the Economic Development contract offered to the city and the county from the local Mountain Home Area Chamber of Commerce. The contract in question is for 40k from each entity to go towards Baxter County’s short and long term economic development goals. In summary, if both the city council and quorum court agree to contract with the Chamber for 12 months, it will result in an 80k investment into our area's economic development. It’s a one time contract for 12 months that only renews if the city and county wants to. The money to fund the contract comes from the same general fund that the Chamber helps contribute too.

We are going to present the facts as we know them and prepare talking points for you to use when discussing this with others in the community as well as when you reach out and contact your council member and justice.

WHAT IS THE CHAMBERS PROPOSAL?

There is literally tons of information available on the goals and tiers of this plan for anyone willing to do a little reading. Read about the foundational work and check out the goals here: https://enjoymountainhome.com/plans-of-action/

A few components of the proposal::

Half of the funds would be used to hire another employee to help tackle the day-to-day tasks. It’s been noted Mountain Home has the 15th largest chamber in the state but has half of the staff. As stated in a conversation at the meeting on July 25, the common practice is one Chamber employee for every 100 members of the Chamber (we currently have 600+ members in the Chamber and 3 employees.)
The additional employee will allow our current director to take on roles, tasks, and duties related to the plan at hand which includes things like updating the industrial park and preparing site selections for commercial and industrial applications for potential new business and new jobs. It also includes things like grant writing, and programs in the area of leadership and workforce development while also tackling more complex issues like providing small business incubator services and grants.
Of course, the first step is to form the Economic Development Board which the chamber plans to fill with someone from the city council, one from the quorum court, and others scattered across local business and industry leaders as they are able to.

IF THE CHAMBER DOES NOT DO THIS, THEN WHO WILL? As revealed at the July 25, 2023, joint meeting of the county’s Budget Committee and the Quorum Court’s Economic Development Committee, NEITHER of those entities has plans or structures in place to do this work that the Chamber is willing to do under this contract with the city and county.

CHAMBERS PRESENTATION TO THE CITY COUNCIL

The presentation from the Chamber from the first city council meeting can be streamed here:
Watch the city council meeting where the presentation was given, Q&A, etc:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=665073035666907

In this meeting, the city council actually voted in favor of the contract on a 6 to 2 vote, but it was discovered this vote was done in error due to procedural error. Mistakes happen as we’ve seen in our own state government when the Governor and the Arkansas Legislature passed an education overhaul, but ultimately they did not follow the process correctly. This is why the LEARNS ACT is in constant limbo and tied up in courts.

The City Council has since publicly apologized and they are exploring the accurate pathways for the city to potentially hire and contract with the chamber. A new vote will have to be taken because a mistake was made, and now the opposition is jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon, and as you could imagine, the personal attacks have flown at supporters on city council via Facebook groups.

FALLOUT FROM THE FIRST CITY COUNCIL VOTE

Leading the charge against growth is the local Ozark Patriot group, a MAGA-style political group that has taken over the local Republican Committee in terms of voting power. Ironically in their latest streamed meeting, speaker Beth Sandland makes an open statement demanding anyone from the audience who is a chamber member get out. Ironically, she was standing and conducting the meeting in the Pizza Inn, which is a member of the chamber (Start at the 32:00 minute mark to see for yourself:
https://rumble.com/v2u3mki-ozp-meeting-june-12-2023.html?fbclid=IwAR0zWd3dOYVxEez4P1uIHinEL63QdV-V2Peh7QiHDBByU7TA75_tgcXWHyo

The local Republican party also uses the Chamber frequently for meetings. Many small businesses are now under attack as are others who have worked with the chamber simply for being supportive of the plan. This has led many to silence their public support over fear. Businesses and individuals are having to choose between the potential positive impact of economic development for the city and county, and having their names drug through the mud and their businesses possibly boycotted due to the negative social media post from those who are against the plan. It is sad that rather than weighing the pros and cons of what is in front of them, we have conversations around half-truths in order to perpetuate them.

Paige Evans and Susan Stockton were the two no votes from City Council. When questioned both responded almost immediately and gave me an answer that ultimately came down to, “they didn’t want to see taxpayer funds go to private businesses”. This is of course a logical, understandable, and even a relatable answer, if not were the fact that this is a contract for services and not a handout. It also paints the picture that some big for profit corporation is standing here asking for money when what we are talking about is a 501c6 and a 501c3. On this we simply agree to disagree.

CHAMBERS PRESENTATION TO THE QUORUM COURT

The issue next went to the Quorum Court, where a similar proposal was given followed by a Q&A again. https://fb.watch/lXEIjknzar/

The discussion at the Quorum Court was not a vote but just a presentation from the chamber. Since then a few of the JPs organized a public meeting between the Quorum Court’s Budget Committee and Economic Development Committee which took place 7/25/23 at 5pm in the court house. It was between the first Quorum Court meeting and this special joint committee meeting that we started to hear myths (often from elected officials) like:

1. “We don't want a new tax” (This one has been made over and over even by elected officials when they know full well it’s not a new tax but a few insist on calling it that. That’s frustrating when you want your elected officials to debate and vote on the merits of what is in front of them, not fantasy.) Rather than just say they don’t want to do economic development, a select few feign a rescue for the taxpayer.

2. “We don’t want to use government funds to give the chamber director a raise”. (This is another one that has been consistently perpetuated.) Those funds are not giving the director a raise, they are to hire an additional employee.

3. “We don’t give money to nonprofits”. (They have given FAR more in the past to nonprofits, the Saddle Club is one that came up that a few of the JPs bemoan). Again…this is not a gift, it is a contract for services.

4. “The Mayor supports it, so I’m against it.” (When personal feuds enter politics, everyone loses.)

5. “Gaston’s don't support it” (How any elected official in Baxter County would assume our largest attraction, Gaston’s White River Resort is against tourism and economic development is amazing. Jim Gaston is synonymous with economic development and growth and the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree in that respect. When officials speak up on behalf of a business, they should call them first.)

6. “We don’t want to be Fayetteville”. This one makes my eyes glaze over as the reality is that we would need the world’s largest companies, an interstate, a major airport…the premise is ridiculous. No one wants to be Fayetteville, or Hot Springs, or Jonesboro, we want to be Mountain Home as the best it has to offer. We are the unique tucked away paradise.

Tourism is a responsible, sustainable way of maintaining what so many of us adore about small-town life. This is like saying we want Arkansas to be Texas or New York. No one wants that…but we also don't want to be Mississippi.

JOINT MEETING OF THE COUNTY Budget Committee and the Quorum Court’s Economic Development Committee - JULY 25, 2023

(Here is the audio from the joint committee. For whatever reason the majority of the JPs just will not speak into the mics and seem to get offended when asked to do so. The mics are plenty loud, they just won’t speak into them or even in their general direction most times. This makes it hard to hear in person and nearly impossible to hear after the fact. We have done our best to boost the audio).

Conveniently Theresa Smith (Baxter County Collector) opened the joint committee by letting the budget committee know that our IT costs were about to go up substantially, but the IT companies couldn’t even tell us whether that was gonna be 10k or 100,000k (or more) and there was not an ounce of pushback. No questions about bids, quotes, or why it is being presented that we just have to accept the invoice as received.

Here are some observations from the meeting. The majority of the meeting was focused on the “concerns” that some of the JPs had about giving “taxpayer funds” to a private entity and in questioning the Chamber about their plan.

If you watched the meetings and listened to the audio from the joint committee, JP Dirk Waldrop was rough on the presenter from the Chamber of Commerce, Dani Pugsley. The line of questioning regarding how much time was spent on trying to raise this 80k ignored the hours poured into making the economic development plans in the first place (much of it out of normal business hours), and the fact that we know statistically our chamber is already understaffed. Asking an understaffed contractor to simply “do more” seems counterproductive to trying to find genuine solutions. The questioning here focused on why the Chamber did not pay more attention to, and focus manpower in looking for and writing grants for the 80k.

Dirk continued to drill home how he is not into government handouts even though he wasn’t negative about economic development in and of itself. To be clear the court has handed out nearly a million to nonprofits with less accountability than the current proposal. However, Dirk’s record will show he is very consistent with no votes.

Dirk never did come around to the fact that what he was voting on/discussing was money for a contract and not a nonprofit begging for change. He set aside the examples across the state when suggesting outside the box thinking (his suggestion was to charge the current member base more or ask for donations, which takes more labor hours the chamber doesn’t have). Dirk continuously avoided the point that an economic development plan benefits the whole community whether you are a chamber member or not. The bummer is now the responsibility of development over the whole county will likely fall on only chamber members, or it won’t happen at all.

I’m picking on Dirk a lot, and I’m upset with Dirk over how he handled this. I clearly feel Dirk didn’t have intellectually honest conversations during the meetings because his questions were not pragmatic or based on the proposal at hand. However, I believe Dirk is a good man and I’m tired of so many people falling for the trap of hating each other because we strongly disagree on social or political matters. For the most part, Dirk led the questioning from the joint committee meeting. I’ve questioned Dirk personally about this and he has reiterated he is in full support of economic development, wants to see it happen, and believes the money should be raised from private donors before coming to the taxpayer. There IS a precedent for this sort of thing in other areas of the community (ASUMH), but once again it puts the workers trying to implement the economic development plan into constant fundraising mode. It puts our county in an impossible situation of trying to grow without any help from the very tax base that the Chamber has helped to grow. Sales tax collection is up, and we should take advantage of that to keep sustainable growth at the front of our minds. As much as Dirk and I agree on the importance of economic development, I’m still ultimately discouraged about the future of Baxter County given how hard it is to get help from the county or even what we feel like could have been a genuine conversation in court. Dirk wants to see a different solution come forward, and he wants to see a different pitch with more specifics and more metrics.

When asked what the role of the court's economic development committees was, JP Tink Albright stated the court's Economic Development Committee is dedicated solely to infrastructure. But still no answer on what the committee does or has done.

All of the elected officials from Arkansas in the U.S. Senate and Congress (R) voted against infrastructure. Some are now carving up federal money for their districts that they voted against. It wasn’t that long ago our legislators were arguing over whether broadband is infrastructure or not.

This all ultimately paints a bigger picture of where Mountain Home lies in terms of an economic SWOT analysis if you will. When your opportunities are high, your threats are really high too. Infrastructure components are included in the economic development plan making this a potential double whammy of the county not participating or pulling in the same direction as our state, our industry, our attractions, and maybe even our city if the vote still falls toward economic development. In the joint committee meeting, we discovered the Quorum Court’s own Economic Development Committee hadn't met in years (since 2018), and had no elected officers.

JP Cameron Davis pointed out that if we don’t have the Chamber doing the services of economic development no one is going to do it. He pointed out that neither the Budget Committee or the Economic Development Committees do any of the things that the Chamber does to bring in business, support the businesses that are here or answer outside inquiries about our city, schools and more.

I believe it was also JP Cameron Davis who pointed out that the death rate in Mountain Home is outpacing the birth-rate. When our community votes against the millage for the school, and when we treat economic development as someone else's problem…that is not the kind of stuff that encourages young families to stay or to raise children here.

At the joint committee hearing the court allowed three people to speak in favor of the proposal and three against. I’ve actually never spoken in my life at a city council or quorum court meeting. As I’ve sat through these meetings, talked with opposing JPs, questioned city council, etc… one thing that was never discussed was the consequence of throwing economic development to the wind. Here is what I discussed as well as what others said in support and in opposition to the proposal.

One thing that always bothers me about our area is that we often do not discuss the realities of where we live. Before the meeting, I decided to take a look at updated suicide rates and saw that Arkansas is not doing well in this metric. Arkansas consistently ranks among the top ten. What I pointed out to the joint committee meeting is that the lack of economic development has a consequence. Of the top 5 counties (suicide rate) four of those counties are in North Central Arkansas with Baxter County leading the way. Neighboring Fulton County is one of the poorest in the state and residents there still feel the hurt of the T-shirt factory that closed decades ago. If you bother to look through the halls of history we’ve had to expand our local jail and prison multiple times, in fact, our local jail and prison are overflowing and the Governor is calling for a hundred million in spending to solve that. We have the worst re-incarceration rate in America most years. (Recidivism)

During John Montgomery’s recent sheriff re-election campaign, he noted the number one cause of lockups was due to substance abuse. When members of the city council or quorum court say “We don’t want to attract the wrong kind of people', I’m left scratching my head. Newspaper articles year after year, decade after decade talk of new prisons, bigger jails, expanded facilities, upgraded maintenance, and IT contracts (with apparently an unlimited budget), but our local officials say they don’t want to attract the wrong people? Attracting talent is intentional. We now have peddlers at our busy intersections consistently. Who are the wrong people if not thieves, drug dealers, sex offenders, and the like? Our heart goes out to addicts, but I digress. The effects of the lack of economic development can be felt in these places in these metrics and it is a costly mistake. As mentioned in the city council and quorum court presentations, the concerns over Baxter County’s population loss were felt in 2018, and it honestly took a worldwide pandemic to get people to move here. It’s another one of those things that those of us who love our town don’t like to say, but it is true. We have experienced a short-term boom fueled by COVID, by the expansion of remote work, and by our expansion of broadband. (Most of the people moving here are red from states, mainly Texas, so let’s stop the running from blue states narrative). The mistake we are making is shelving all the work we were doing as a community prior to the pandemic. We are making the mistake of thinking someone else has got us in terms of responsibility for the economic future of North Central Arkansas. Included in the lack of economic development is the lack of being able to recruit medical professionals, teachers, and young professionals that we need to keep North Central Arkansas turning. This translates into a lack of services for our senior citizens who may once again have to drive 6 hours for things they used to get locally if we can’t recruit what we need. The Hospital is a MAGNET, an award-winning hospital. Some will say they could do better and that will always be the case no matter how well they perform. Anyone who has ever been in business has heard the phrase, if you aren’t growing you are dying. It’s a cliche because it’s true.

Also speaking in favor of the Chamber’s proposal was Lang Zimmerman, a commissioner from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Lang spoke on the fact that often in other communities in Arkansas, the partnership in question came AFTER a major emergency like a large employer leaving. Too many counties in Arkansas are waiting too long to participate actively in their own economic development. He tells us that once communities feel the sting of economic development they decide it’s important, and not to wait until an emergency to take it seriously. He noted there is precedent for this contract between chambers, cities, and counties across Arkansas. His statement made me think of the T-shirt factory closing in Fulton County and the acknowledgment of how many people still express hurt over it.

Rounding out the three in favor of the proposal was retired surgeon, Dr. Ray Stahl, MD. He noted the need for employment opportunities that would let young people stay in the area, or at least come back if possible. Dr. Stahl made the comment that we sometimes have the bad habit of relocating to Mountain Home only to turn around and shut the door behind us.

Two of the three persons speaking in opposition to entering into a contract with the Chamber expressed “not using taxpayer’s money”, and that is not what they wanted “their taxes” going towards. The third person's opposition was their perceived understanding of what can and cannot be revealed about a 501c6 and 501c3’s financials. They made it clear it is their interpretation that the council and the quorum court would have no idea what the Chamber was doing with the money and that they would not be able to file any FOIA documents asking for where the money was being spent or how. Dani from the Chamber was able to speak to this by reminding the JP’s that it is a contract, not a handout, and that it is the intention of the Chamber to have one member of the city council and of the quorum court sit on the board of the economic development plan, as well as giving quarterly financial reports and updates on how the 80k is being spent and the outcomes of the spending. If after a year the council and the court are not satisfied with the way the money was spent or in the outcomes, then they do not have to renew the contract.

Unfortunately, the Quorum Court decided to table the proposal indefinitely, but now is the time to make your voice heard. Do you want to see the county, the state, and the chamber pull together for the betterment of our area? If you do, you need to contact your JP member and your city council rep and let them know this is important to you and to the future of Baxter County. We ask the court and city council to not make the future of our area hinge on the goodwill of wealthy individuals but rather let us build our future on a solid foundation. (Maps and Contact info below).

Regards,
Derek Huber
Democratic Party of Baxter County
Local Beat Committee Summer Edition 2023