May 11, 2017
The residents of the city of Fort Smith, AR, I say residents simply to include citizens, illegals, and guests who are subsidizing, that is paying with their hard-earned cash, the furtive failed productions authored by the Mayor, the Board of Directors and the current & past City Manager.
There is significant evidence that this is the most dysfunctional, incompetent collection of individuals ever to sit at the helm of a FS city government.
The proof of the accusation follows:
• The 1985 1% street/sewer tax generated $650 million in the first 25 years of this ongoing tax and was misapplied—observe the state of the FS sewers/streets.
• At that point, $100 million would have fixed the EPA sewer concerns by 1990 and since EPA has leveled & fined the city twice more and the current City Manager is negotiating for another 12 year extension making the revitalization a 32 year project. 7 additional tax years added on to the first 25 year $650 million & ongoing—big dollars…where did they go? The EPA’s last mandate was accompanied by a $300,000 fine.
• The $30 million cost for the Lee Creek Dam, all the while former TR editor Jack Mosely and a bevy of engineers said the Dam at Lake Fort Smith could not be raised. Lee Creek is & was a dismal failure as I warned in a full page ad in the TR why it could be raised & what this would positively mean for the city. How many years was it until the Pols came to grips with the water crisis & determined the dam could be raised after all?
• The 5 year Senator Jake Files & Commissioner Lee Webb’s Sports Complex debacle, accompanied by no city oversight from any quarter and ultimately the city spending just south of $2 million cash, plus what Files called “in kind services”, e.g. U.S. military equipment (that’s us the taxpayers)—observe the results. The question is and has always been why were politicians Republican Files & Democrat Webb given this potentially very lucrative contract? Also, there were with no contractual arrangements protecting “we the people”, making both parties guilty. After the story was broken, Files still received thousands on the urging of the city government and dispensed by another dysfunctional organization WAPDD.
• The city government accepting a million plus bribe from Delta Dental to continually impregnate the pristine waters of Lake Ft. Smith with the toxic agent, Sodium Fluoride…all against the voted on wishes of the citizens of the city. (Bill introduced by Sen. Files among his other deceptive legislative acts).
• Sam Sicard & Richard Griffin’s nascent Marshal’s Museum, billed as a private enterprise entity, while receiving millions of taxpayer dollars from county, city, state & nationally. Sen. Files bequeathed the Marshal’s Museum somewhere around $2 million from the money pit—the General Improvement Fund. At some point the taxpayers will be forced to assume ownership of this proposed behemoth.
• Another Sicard/Griffin operation is the downtown new-age Urban Renewal project, born out of the ‘60’s that forces taxpayers to subsidize redevelopment of downtown private property. Who is benefiting?
• $700,000 yearly fed to the overstaffed, overpaid, underutilized, failed Convention Center which should be used additionally & more properly also by the FS school district.
• The proposed 87 mile Trail System, and apparently with some kind of financial/contractual relationship with the formerly defunct & now revived Frontier MPO. Estimated cost, $17 million.
• Most recently, the hiring of a new Chief of Police for our city who is now advocating the creation of a paramilitary police force, which is commonly defined as a light infantry unit that the military can commandeer at any time. The TR in its initial story regarding the reorganization of the police force quoted the Chief calling it a paramilitary reorganization; recent stories have ceased using the term paramilitary.
• The most recent head shaker is the sanitation fiasco that frankly is surreal. It has been said that under the auspices of the former sanitation director & deceased City Manager items for recycling were not delivered to appropriate sources and were dumped in with all the other trash. How could it be that this is breaking news to City Directors when it’s apparently been going on for years and costing & making fools of the taxpayers & in all likelihood millions of lost revenue since the practice began & we are to believe no one in the City Administration, nor Directors was aware? And they are still doing it—WHY? 7 trucks & 14 employees at a cost of $52,920 per month! In your face taxpaying suckers!!
• Then there is the matter of the shortfall in the Fire & Police retirement funds, as well as the city continues to raise utility charges on an ongoing basis.
• Is there a bidding process for the purchasing of the myriads of equipment used by all city services?
One of the many questions that abound is why FS Sanitation Director Mark Schlievert was the fall guy…he was the last to enter the cast of incompetent palookas. The City Government of Fort Smith will not enjoy honor & respect until these overhanging black clouds are abolished. The City Manager, the Deputy City Manager, accompanied by the Sanitation Chief should have been fired immediately, followed by the Mayor and City Board’s mass resignation.
Who is ultimately to blame for the dysfunctional incompetence in city management–is it the taxpaying voters not displaying a modicum of common sense by continuing to return the Mayor & Directors to office? As is the case with most politicians?
Incumbency & lack of transparency are toxic arrogant weeds.
Joe McCutchen
arkansasfreedom.net
