Kyle Kellams: Let's start this Friday edition of Ozarks at Large with Michael Tilley. He's with Talk Business and Politics. He's in his office in Fort Smith. Michael, have you had a good week?
Michael Tilley: Yes. Because as I've told you before, us fat boys like this cooler weather. So I've enjoyed the low temps.
Kellams: Well, it is mid-November. Time to maybe be thinking about holiday gifts. If I wanted to get someone on my holiday list. A parking meter from downtown Fort Smith. Can I get one?
Tilley: No, I think you're out of luck. There were, uh, there were under 400 that you could have had, but they went pretty fast. Which I would have never guessed if I would have given you if you had told me. How long is it going to take for the city of Fort Smith to give away about 397 parking meters? I would have told you it would be a few days. Weeks? Uh, it took ninety minutes.
That's just interesting. So the back story here is this began in 2023. There was and there's been an off and on push for decades. But in 2023, the board of directors I think finally got serious about it. They authorized the Fort Smith Police Department to study. You know, the impact of not having the meters active. They put bags on the meters for several months, and the department essentially said, not only are the meter, not only do meters not have any impact negative on businesses, but we've looked at what it costs. And actually we lose money every year to enforce parking meters to maintain them, police on that kind of thing. So the board decided to get rid of them.
And so they've been stored in the city warehouse. So the city recently on November third opened up a window. It's going to go from November 3 to November 28. You could sign up and get a meter. Well, like I said, it was ninety minutes and they had to put out another social media post saying, “Hey, stop, we're done. We got them all. They're all gone.”
And I talked to Josh Fink, the public relations manager with the city, and he said they were all surprised. He said the response was bigger than they anticipated. But they did, I thought it was interesting. They held back at least one of the meters, uh, for the Fort Smith Museum of History.
Kellams: Good.
Tilley: So one will go there, but. I didn't know this, but information from the police department showed that the meters, not the ones that they're giving away, but meters, were first installed in downtown Fort Smith in the 1940s. More meters were installed in the 50s, and so they've been around for a while. Most of the meters that the city is giving away are digital meters. They don't have the old school analog time expired kind of thing, but, um, they, they went fast. So who would have thought that, as you said, that parking meters may be on somebody's Christmas list?
Kellams: Fewer parking meters in Fort Smith, fewer water leaks as well. That's something that's to be championed.
Tilley: Yeah it is. That's a great point. It has been a concern. And the city officials have began to attack more aggressively tackling the leak issue in 2022, when the number of leaks at the end of the year was over 2,500, which was 43% more than they had been in 2021. So there was a kind of some, you know, some holy crap moments there with the board, like, how do we fix this?
The city reported that and they've been working on it. They've dedicated some work crews, dedicated some equipment, and they got the number down to just a little over 1,100 in January 2024. That number is down to 739 active. Known active leaks, uh, to begin 2025 this year. There's been a little bit of a change. Um, the city's kind of reorganized the departments, and they've put Matt Meeker in charge of the city's public works department.
And, uh, Matt is someone I wish everyone could meet. He's, uh. I don't know if all of your listeners will appreciate this, but he reminds me a little bit of, uh, the Andy Griffith character. Sheriff. Sheriff Taylor from, uh, um, uh, the Andy Griffith Show, just down to earth, you know, kind of gives that good old boy vibe, but he's probably going to outsmart everybody in the room, right? You know, kind of thing.
So he's been active on it, and he's been pretty aggressive. I mean, he's even, um, told some of the crews that, hey, if you know where your job site is, go to the jobsite, don't come to the work yard first. Don't return to the work yard just to take lunch, you know, get your lunch there. And his goal is to fix 50 leaks a week, not a month, a week. That's his goal. But they are down. They're down to as at the end of October, the number of active leaks, uh, is down 37% and is down 47% compared with where they were to begin the year. So part of that is Meeker.
When he took over, he conducted an audit. He found that there were 179 leaks still on the list that had already been repaired, but just hadn't been removed from the list. And also this city, they always want us journalist to know that not all leaks reported to the city are on city infrastructure. If the leak is between your house or your business and the water meter, it's on you. If it's between the city easement or the city line and the meter, it's on him. But look, this is obviously a good thing.
There was some concern that the aging infrastructure would be too much to stay on top of the leaks. But the city- as much as this is a good thing- the city still has some tough decisions ahead on its water. Water infrastructure. You remember those decades of, I guess, a lack of investment that resulted in the expensive federal consent decree to fix the sewer system. So, you know, hopefully the city won't get in that spot with its water system.
Kellams: We've hit the deadline for filing for Arkansas legislative seats, and there are some races that will affect the Fort Smith Metro. What's your take away from who we now know is running for Arkansas Senate and House?
Tilley: Well, the takeaway and maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but the takeaway is just how dominant the Republican Party continues to be in terms of the races, the incumbents and the filing. So of the races we watch in the Fort Smith Metro Area, there are fourteen that are contested. Three Senate, 11 House. And of the 32 candidates to file in those, uh Senate and House districts, 25 are Republicans, 6 are Democrat, and one was an independent. So that's a pretty wide margin. Um, that's good news. If you're a Republican. Not so much if you're a Democrat or independent.
The one race, of course, that we are watching, we don't know what the election date is on it. It's that Senate District twenty six that was left vacant when Senator Gary Stubblefield died. So there are six candidates in that race five Republicans, one independent. There was a lawsuit filed. Governor Sanders initially set the general election date for next June 9.
A lawsuit was filed and, uh, has been, um, the Pulaski County Circuit Court judge agreed with the lawsuit that the elections should be held sooner. The Supreme Court just recently said, “yeah, uh, we're not going to halt that ruling.” So we're kind of waiting to see what the governor does next. Does she continue to appeal or does she set another date? We're kind of waiting on that.
But the key races that we're going to be watching that will be contested directly in Fort Smith or in the city. Uh, we've got Senate District 27. You have Senator Justin Boyd, the incumbent, against Eduardo Guzman, a Democrat. Representative Crawford House, District 5, Republican incumbent. She'll face Jane Ellen Udouj. Um, and then in House district 50 Representative Zach Gramlich. Republican from Fort Smith. He'll face Democrat Wendy Pierce.
So I'm sure the Democrats have hope for those. But, um, those have historically been Republican districts. They were Republican districts some could argue even before this Republican wave swept Arkansas. you know, we had Travis Miles was a long was a Republican, and he was senator for many decades in the eighties and 90s from Fort Smith. So, um, those are Republican strongholds.
But we saw some races around the country recently that swung Democrat that were surprising. I don't know, that would be too much of a surprise, maybe in these races.
Kellams: Finally, I think we have a nominee to be federal judge in the Western District of Arkansas. It didn't come through the usual channels, but it looks like there will be a nominee.
Tilley: Yes you're right. Typically, the White House will make a big announcement about a nomination, and then all the info will be sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee and they'll begin their nomination process. But this time, it was the other way around.
These names first appeared in the Senate committee. But David Clay Fowlkes, who's been the US attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, since 2020. He's been in the attorney's office, um, for quite a while. He began 2007 working in the office. So he's been nominated.
If he is confirmed, he'll replace a US District Court judge, PK Holmes, who's been, um, who's been there quite a while. He was, um, he's been in the seat since 2011. He's been on senior status for several years waiting for this nomination. Um, so, uh, finally, that's moving forward.
One thing that I think is interesting about the seat, it's the one that was once held by some guy named Isaac Parker, the hanging judge. I don't know if anybody's ever heard of him, but, yeah, it was him.
The Western District of Arkansas is. Includes 34 counties stretching down from Texarkana up to Fayetteville to Fort Smith, Fort Smith. I think some people may be surprised to learn it's still the Headquarter District Office for the district. The other part of this that was interesting, that is a little, um, different than normal is there was a nominee for Fowlkes’ job as US attorney already out there, and it's Crawford County prosecuting attorney Kevin Holmes.
So Kevin Holmes was nominated for the US attorney's position before we learned that the US attorney was nominated for federal judge. So, interesting process. But it is what it is. And here we are.
Kellams: And here we are. And we will be back here next Friday. You can learn about everything we've talked about, including the parking meters that you can't get anymore at talkbusiness.net. Michael, thank you for your time.
Tilley: You're welcome sir.
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