{"id":1808,"date":"2019-02-22T22:32:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T22:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=1808"},"modified":"2019-02-22T22:32:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T22:32:08","slug":"marshals-museum-tax-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=1808","title":{"rendered":"MARSHAL’S MUSEUM TAX TRAP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

THE TRAP IS\nBAITED.<\/strong>                                                                                 February\n22, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will the prey (taxpayers) take the bait in this expanding\nmaze?\u2014they always do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marshal\u2019s Museum murky maze has expanded. First a brief\nhistory beginning approximately at the onset of this pretzelizing endeavor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was announced, initially, the project would be a private\nenterprise undertaking and absolutely NO<\/strong>\ntaxpayer dollars involved. The no taxpayer position shortly proved to be\nuntrue\u2014a lie.  An FOIA submitted early on\ncontained a few names of private citizens but the names were redacted before\nthey touched my hands. What were they hiding that early on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a little help from a couple of citizens I was able to\ndocument that Griffin & Sicard and the consummate insiders had obtained\nfrom government agencies–DC, Little Rock, Sebastian County, Fort Smith, etc. at\nleast $36 million plus 3 assets that listed no stated values, undoubtedly in\nthe millions\u2014coin minting, real estate, tax credits, etc. all was based on a\nlie\u2014no taxpayer dollars used– which then translates to grand theft by the MM,\nInc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently when the U.S. Marshal\u2019s Museum, Inc. determined\nthey needed $16-17 million more to complete the physical facility they then\nmade their wishes known to the Fort Smith city government.  Remember newly elected city Mayor George\nMcGill had assumed the captaincy of the F.S. government probably due to the\nfact McGill\u2019s campaign was outrageously financed (circa $65,000) and directed by\nGriffin, Sicard, & enablers.  Their\norder on this occasion was to instruct the City Board to put a 1% sales tax for\na special vote to take place March 12, 2019.  One brave dissenter, Director George Catsavis\ndid not cave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about this\u2026the hypocrisy\u2014they sold the project with\nthe premise it \u201cwon\u2019t cost the taxpayers a one red cent\u201d, shortly they received\nmillions from the then Senator Jake Files & his state legislation for $25\nmillion, as well as the city and county tax monies already kicked in\u2026 and then\nthey end up whining for citizens to pass a \u201c9 month 1% sales tax\u201d which in all\nprobability will never end, if passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Front page 2\/22\/19 Times Record, 5 individuals of the CBID\nwere pictured, of the 5 at least 3 are multi-millionaires, absent Sicard who\nowns numerous banks. These are principals in the MM, Inc. and they have the\ntemerity to demand that middleclass Fort Smithians and others subsidize their\nexpensive ostentatious creation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their next step is the formation of a 5 member \u201cPublic\nFacilities Board\u201d who will then purchase the new Museum building with the\nfunding from the sales tax and with that comes no responsibility in maintaining\nby the Public Facilities Board nor the city of Fort Smith.   Say again? \nNext Griffin & Sicard put out the lie that Mayor George McGill will\nbe the only one who will appoint the 5 member PFB. Really? Mayor McGill was\nhired as the Registered Agent for the MM, Inc. It is said this is a necessary\nbusiness arrangement since Agent\u2019s primary function is to make businesses aware\nof legal changes.  But what other\nfunctions might they serve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor McGill owns his own museum which appears on the\nSecretary of State website and creates a nexus between the 3 producing a\nsymbiotic relationship creating a host of Conflicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor McGill comes in handy in another way, he is a 6 year\nalumni of the Arkansas General Assembly that ended last year.  An educated guess; he will be spending\ninordinate amounts of time reacquainting himself with his old legislative buds\nfor carrying out the wishes of Griffin, Sicard, himself,  et al. \n I would also surmise the Mayor\nwould convey Griffin & Sicard\u2019s political orders to Rep. Boyd & for\nsure Sen. Matt Pitsch\u2014the riverboat captain, while reporting on current\nlegislative and inside activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you believe that Griffin & Sicard would solely allow\nMcGill to pick the 5 members of the PFB? \nMore conflicts.   With that in\nmind, Director\/Principal Robyn Dawson (double-dipper) sent me an email last\nMonday scolding me and stating how much she agreed with the Mayor\u2019s position\nabout public discussions vs. FOIA\u2019s. I noted the time (10:00 AM) she was discussing\ncity business on public school time\u2014back\nto the no transparency issue<\/strong>.  Conflicts?  She also boasts of owning 2 businesses (what\nare their classifications?)\u2026therefore, does she & her husband conduct\npersonal business on citizen\u2019s taxpayer time? \nOf course, you can guess the answer to that, which makes the Marshal\u2019s\nMuseum mystical maze & the F.S. government a microcosm of the DC\nswamp.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here the transparency trail goes cold since their media\nstatements read like a Chinese fire drill. \nLogically they explain nothing coherently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Times Record editor, Jack Moseley, in the T.R. lauded\nthe construction of the U.S. MM, Inc. in Fort Smith but not the methods used in\nconstruction and fundraising activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue here is not to be for or against the project, it is the lie\u2026\u201dnot one cent of tax\nmoney to be used in its construction<\/strong>\u201d, accompanied by lack of transparency\n(since taxpayer money in the main has and is being spent\u2026millions), deception,\nobfuscation, conflicts of interest, and surreptitious methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack, you have been missed as editor of the T.R., but you\nhave never seen fit to look beneath the veneer. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recall the engineering\/land\/building site Lee Creek dam\nfiasco, which was declared by you, the city government and the downtown cabal\nthat Lee Creek would provide water for 50 years while I was calling for\nelevation of the Lake Fort Smith dam which all of you said was an engineering impossibility.  Look at it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another example of not looking beneath the veneer was your\ndenial of Kerr-McGee dumping radioactive pitch blend in the Arkansas River from\ntheir Gore, OK plant. It was later proven long after my assertions that the\npitch blend was indeed flowing down the River and into Lee Creek, also through\nfaulting. It has only recently been cleaned up, despite your denials of its\nexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With your endorsement of the Marshal\u2019s Museum tax proposal,\nyou\u2019re again refusing to look beneath the veneer\u2014Follow the citizens\u2019 money\u2014Qui\nBono?    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe McCutchen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arkansas Freedom dot com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE TRAP IS BAITED.                                                                                 February 22, 2019 Will the prey (taxpayers) take the bait in this expanding maze?\u2014they always do. The Marshal\u2019s Museum murky maze has expanded. First a brief history beginning approximately at the onset of this pretzelizing endeavor. It was announced, initially, the project would be a private enterprise undertaking and absolutely NO … Continue reading MARSHAL’S MUSEUM TAX TRAP<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,32,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-city-government-offenses","category-city-politics","category-state-government-offenses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1809,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions\/1809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}