Talk Business & Politics' Michael Tilley discusses sales tax, water leaks, live streaming and the U.S. Marshals Museum.
Kyle Kellams: With me on the phone to start our show is Michael Tilley with Talk Business and Politics, welcome back to the program, Michael.
Michael Tilley: Thank you, I'm in a good mood. The temperature is 20 degrees lower than it was this time last week, might as well be 100 degrees lower, but yeah, I love it.
Voters Renew Sebastian County Sales Tax
KK: You know who else is in a very good mood? That is Sebastian County officials and city officials in Sebastian County because the 10-year sales tax has been overwhelmingly renewed.
MT: Yes, it has, and “overwhelmingly” is a great word for it. I would like to think after watching for 30-something years I have a good handle on the pulse of the voters, but if you would have told me that the tax was going to be renewed—it's a 10-year renewal that's 1% county wide sales tax in Sebastian county— by a 75.3% margin I would have deemed you being very, very optimistic. But that's what it did. Now I could be wrong, but I think this is the last election in Arkansas that doesn't have to be tied to a primary or general election. You had a little over 3,300 votes out of 60,000 plus registered voters so it was a low voter turnout, I get that. But still in a conservative very politically conservative part of the state, the 75% that showed up to vote, voted keep this tax on the books.
I think that this is a function of a couple of things. One: like I said, special elections and low voter turnout can create kind of a surprise in the numbers, and there was no organized opposition, that was the other thing that no one was raising hell about it. And two: this has been in place for 20 years now, I think people get it they see that because it's not just a tax that goes off to support whatever. It puts fire trucks in fire buildings and puts parks in smaller cities in the county that couldn't afford them, it supports the police cars, physical things that people can see and they benefit from. When you have a tax that has such a direct impact on folks, they want to keep it around and I think that's what we saw. There was very little spending to support it. there was a group Citizens for Continued Progress that raised $17,500 and spent most of that on flyers and yard, it wasn't a big overwhelming get out the vote, right? So, kudos to city and county officials, they get another 10 years to continue to do the right thing with the money which generated about $34 million last year for the county and for cities within it.
KK: And we should point out that a similar measure on Tuesday was extended in Alma.
MT: Yes, and again, in a politically conservative area, if folks see that it has a direct impact on their world around them they're going to keep it on the books.
Water Leaks Continue to be an Issue
KK: Alright, I'm going to play good news bad news with you now. Good news: 182 repaired water leaks in the second quarter of the year in Fort Smith. Bad news: that still leaves 426 which is more than the amount of known leaks at the end of 2022.
MT: This is what happens when you let several decades—I don't mean two or three, I mean more than that—go by without raising enough money either through sales tax or through water rates and sewer rates to have an ongoing maintenance schedule, and that's what, unfortunately, Fort Smith just didn't do for many years, because the local politicians didn't want to raise water rates or sewer rates they didn't want to get in trouble with folks. I find it interesting when people say 'we need to run government like a business,' and then when they show up and say 'we need to raise your water rates' and they say, 'not quite that much like a business,' right? So that's where we are.
The city of Fort Smith just has a very old water and sewer. We're under a federal consent decree to fix it, we've already spent several $100 million to do that, there'll be several $100 million more spent and this is just a function of trying to fix all of it. There'll be some more issues down the road—we haven't reported on it, but we will—with some federal regulations on lead and copper in pipes, so that's going to create issues not just for Fort Smith but for many communities around the country.
But yes, the city is struggling to keep up the water leaks. Just for some more background, the city had 2,575 reported water leaks last year and that was 779 more than were reported in 2021. Now a part of that, to be fair, it’s an old system, but to their credit, the city's been more proactive in saying, 'hey let us know when you see a water leak, we need to start getting out and fixing them.' It's one of those things when you start asking for more of “x” from the public you're going to start getting more of “x”, so that's what we're seeing.
It's a struggle to keep up with it, it's a big issue we're spending a lot of money. The city has a contract with Forsgren, it was a multi-million dollar contract and there’s still some of that left. Forsgren is a contracting company, and the city just didn't have enough people on board to address them all so they had to find the third party. And that continues to be an issue for the city, in our story I talked about the vacancies they have and the training. Not only do they have vacancies, but the city maintenance department gets people hired and on board, they have to be trained. And while they're in training they can't be up working on leaks. It's a struggle—I'd like to say there is some light at the end of the tunnel, but I don't see it yet—but to the cities credit, they're on it.
City of Fort Smith board meetings to be livestreamed
KK: There is going to be a little bit more of a spotlight on the Fort Smith board of directors meetings because they're going to be livestreamed and shown on cable television live.
MT: Yeah, and again to be fair to the city, I've been one that's been on their tail in recent years because they have struggled to be transparent in many things and some of those things have gone to courts even the Arkansas Supreme Court. But to the city's credit, they've invested in a system to not only live stream the board meetings and other meetings in a better manner, but it's interactive, so to speak, because you can pull up the agenda, the documents related to what agenda item they're on and you can follow along.
I've been following the city for 20-something years, even when you have a history of following them and understanding their process it can still be difficult, and so I can't imagine what it's like for somebody just coming new to the to the city board meeting to try to understand it. So, kudos to the city for putting this in place, I have yet to see it go live, but just the description and how it will work and how citizens can use it to keep track of what's going on, it's a good investment. I know there was some debate early on years ago about whether they spend this kind of money, but I think it's money well spent anytime you can make the government process more transparent to citizens and that's what they're doing with this system.
U.S. Marshals Museum Visitor Count
KK: Finally, the U.S. Marshals Museum opened on July 1 and the head count of visitors during the first month of operation right around 10,000 folks.
MT: The quote we got from Ben Johnson was “we're very happy with the almost 10,000 who showed up in July,” and that 10,000, it's a little lower than their study—which was years ago, before the pandemic—had them looking at around 125,000 visitors a year, so that that's on target. Now, I think it'll be interesting at the end of the summer months, and as kids come back to school, they talked about having a lot of school groups through there, so it will be interesting to see how those numbers change or go up. But, a good start for the museum after a long wait to get it open. If you've not been, I think you'll enjoy it. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the information. It’s one of those museums that unless you've got just all day to go through it, it's going to be one of those places that may take you a couple times to get all of the info because there's a lot of data, a lot of info, and a lot of artifacts to look at.
KK: You can learn much more about everything we've talked about and much more and TalkBusiness.net. Michael, continue to enjoy the temperatures the lower 90s. Before you know it, it's going to be autumn.
MT: I'm all for that, it's my favorite time of the year.
This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
