Kyle Kellams: We've had this proposed prison in the Arkansas River Valley in Franklin County talked about for a while. Right now it's in limbo?
Michael Tilley: Limbo may be a good word for it. Yeah. This 3,000-bed prison that was foisted on the good folks in Franklin County out of the blue a year or so ago is dead in the water. I don't know how many analogies we can make, but it was going to be a 3,000-bed prison, going to hire 800-plus folks. I guess Gov. Sanders and her folks thought it was going to be received well, but it wasn't. They didn't let local folks know — the state senators, reps, law enforcement folks didn't know about it. It was a surprise to almost everybody except for her office. But it's drawn significant opposition, which has been a little bit of a puzzling side story. The governor gets a lot of kudos for being a great PR tactician and communicator, but I guess she just wasn't on her A game on this one.
It's drawn a lot of opposition, not only in the community, but in the state Senate. We've reported before that they failed to pass legislation that would have funded up to $750 million for the prison in the 2025 legislative session. So it struggled to find funding. The governor's office has essentially said we're not going to push it right now. In fact, they moved some funding that had been approved for it — for the design and that kind of thing — over to other Department of Correction programs.
I had a chance to talk to Adam Watson. I think he's been one of the more vocal community leaders against the prison. I think he speaks for a lot of folks when he says he's glad to see it off the books for now, but they're still on point. The battle is not over, so to speak. He took a little bit of issue — I think Gov. Sanders says she still thinks it's a great location and a great project. His response to that is, if she truly believes that, she's not listening to some of her own folks who pointed out some problems with infrastructure, including roads, water and other issues. But Watson said everyone is still kind of on guard. And I asked him what it would take for them to be 100% confident that the prison project is dead. He almost answered before I finished the question. He said, when the ink is dry on a deed that places ownership elsewhere other than the state.
So as you said, it's kind of in limbo for now, but I don't think anybody's willing to say it's a completely dead project.
Kellams: Right. I don't think that's the last time you will be writing about it at Talk Business.
Tilley: Nope. Maybe the next time will be that it officially is dead. We'll see.
Kellams: It's not the last time you're going to write about Kyle Parker, the first president and CEO of the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education. But he's transitioning.
Tilley: Yeah, he's stepping down. He's been the leader of that since 2014, since there was a spate of dirt turned to create those facilities out there. When this announcement came out this week, it reminded me back in the 2013-2014 time frame. I got a call from Kyle Parker and he said, what are you doing? I was like, I don't know. He said, I'm across the street. He had a temporary office across the street from ours at the time in Fort Smith, and he really didn't give me a choice. He said, come on over, I got something to show you.
Long story short, he showed me this concept that would eventually be the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education. There were 200 acres, it was just going to be the medical school, the osteopathic medical school. And I've got to admit, I was very polite and very nice when I walked out of his office. I thought, this guy is nuts. This guy has lost his mind. He's going to build a medical school in Fort Smith? I'll believe that when I see it.
Well, I'm the idiot, apparently, because not only did he — that initial 200 acres and that small little medical college has now ballooned into more than 850,000 square feet of facilities on a 542-acre total campus. They've got student housing, mixed-use commercial development that includes a grocery store and restaurants, and plans to have a new bank. There's talk of them having a hotel nearby. There have been other private-sector medical facilities built right adjacent. I mean, it has become its own community. If anyone has not been out there to that part of Chaffee Crossing, you need to go look at it. It's amazing what's been built.
But Kyle is stepping down after 12-plus years leading this effort. He'll be president emeritus, which kind of keeps him on board. I hate to say, reading between the lines, he's had the vision for this. They probably still want to keep that visionary-type mind around, but it's become an adult college, so to speak — it's grown up. And I think Kyle, as smart as he is, probably realizes the visionary guy doesn't need to be there anymore directing everything. It seems like a really natural transition, you know — from the visionary person to the people that can now take it and run with it.
And Kyle will be the first one to say — in fact, if he's listening to this, he's probably screaming at me because I'm not giving credit to what he says — there's a whole team of people around him that helped make it happen.
Kellams: Well, maybe you thought when you first had that conversation with Kyle Parker — sure, when pigs fly — we're going to have some flying pigs again in Fort Smith. That has to be the most excellent segue of all the years we've been doing this.
Tilley: That's got to be the best segue. Yes. So that old flying Razorbacks logo that the Fort Smith area lost when the last A-10 left is back, a little bit in a different capacity, but it's part of this foreign military pilot training mission that's now at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith. The 188th Wing announced this week that they formed a detachment that will be up to 34 instructor pilots for this foreign pilot training mission. This mission is bringing in pilots from Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Singapore and several other countries to train on how to fly the F-35 fighter plane, which is a key NATO weapon these nations are coordinating how to use.
It's a new base mission — it was announced in 2023 that it was coming here. But this detachment has been formed, and they're using the flying Razorbacks imagery and moniker. So yeah, that's back. It's good to see it back.
What I don't know yet — and I'm hoping to get an interview on base — but they used to have that big flying Razorbacks image on that big hangar on base. I don't know if that will remain or if they're going to refresh it, but it'll be interesting to see how much of that flying Razorbacks imagery is also physically on some of the facilities on base.
Kellams: Finally, if you were worried that we weren't going to talk about Fort Smith and water in this conversation, we are. We've detailed how there are challenges for the city of Fort Smith to upgrade and update their water distribution. It's going to probably mean some increase in water rates at some time, but maybe not for those residents 65 and older.
Tilley: Maybe not — we don't know. There was a discussion Tuesday by the board of directors during their study session to look at reducing or freezing water rates for those 65 and older. They pointed to similar options in Springdale and Rogers, where they have some lower water rate options for those 65 and — I think 62 in Rogers.
Very preliminary discussion. In fact, they're going to discuss it again in June during the study session. Just based on census data, they might have around 5,800 to 5,900 accounts that may be eligible, out of around 35,000 to 40,000 accounts total. The rough estimate is the water revenue loss — or reduction, however you want to phrase it — could be around $213,000 to almost $500,000 a year.
And you kind of hit on one issue the board has to balance. They're facing hundreds of millions in critical infrastructure needs. They've put off a lot of their maintenance and necessary new work for decades, and it's starting to catch up to them. They're going to have to do something to raise revenue in the next few years — raising rates may be one of them.
Director Andre Good, who requested this study, talked about how we want to help our senior citizens, but we want to make sure we do it in such a way that we don't pass that on and make other residents make up for it. So there's a lot to be discussed yet. The city staff was charged at Tuesday's meeting to go back and come back with some options, with some pros and cons on each. That's where we are — look at it in June. But I have a feeling that something is going to come out of it. We just don't know yet at what rate, how much and who all might be eligible.
Kellams: You can read about everything we've talked about and so much more that covers the entirety of the state at talkbusiness.net. Michael, have a great weekend.
Tilley: You as well, Kyle. Thanks.
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