Kellams: We begin by checking in with Michael Tilley from Talk Business & Politics. Michael, welcome back to Ozarks at Large.
Tilley: Thanks for having me back. And I look forward to listening to that Sept. 11 look back.
Kellams: Well, let's start with kind of an interesting story about the original fort of Fort Smith.
Tilley: Yeah, a little bit more than 25 years ago. But Kyle, do you ever get your hands on a story and it almost turns you into like a 10-year-old kid again?
Kellams: Oh, yes.
Tilley: So that was this story, because I could see myself losing my pre-teenage mind as I walk through the fort as it may have looked back in 1817.
But here's the background. Fort Smith businessman Carl Corley sat down with me, and I sat down with Phil White also. He's willing to spend about $3 million, or up to $3 million, of his own money to rebuild that original fort. And they have the plans with the detailed list of materials and measurements.
That original fort, it was a small wooden and stone fort. It was built on Belle Point, which, if anybody's been down there, it's a beautiful view. You can see the confluence of what is now the Arkansas and Poteau rivers.
Like I said, it was built in 1817, and at the time it was one of the westernmost federal garrisons. And it was built to keep peace between Native American tribes. It was abandoned just a few years later, in 1824, when federal troops moved further west. And then subsequently the larger fort was built that now includes Judge Isaac Parker's court, the gallows and a lot of that.
But Corley says since 2017, he's kind of had a Jones on for trying to get this thing rebuilt. So he brought in Phil White. And Phil White has been involved in a lot of downtown developments, renovations. He's the guy that's pushing this Butterfield Trail monument that is going to happen later this year. So Phil White did a lot of research and they came up with a cost around $2.3 million, almost $2.4 million, to get this built.
Carl, Mr. Corley, he's 91. And my question to him is, why are you willing to spend $3 million? He said he's 91. He has done a lot of things for Fort Smith, and he wants to do a few more things before his time's up. That's the way he put it. And one of those is to pay to rebuild this fort.
So when Phil White first, well, let me back up a little bit. So they submitted their proposal to the Park Service and they got a pretty quick rejection letter back. This would be on Fort Smith National Historic Site ground.
But the historic site, essentially the National Park Service, essentially said that it has complicated layers of history. There're potentially Osage settlements, other older settlements, even before contact with Europeans.
J. Adam Beeco, the Fort Smith National Historic Site superintendent, told me that building such a fort would, quote, "directly disturb and damage the site's archaeological resources. This would diminish the site's cultural value and integrity." So essentially, Corley got a big fat no.
Kellams: Mhm.
Tilley: When Phil was first telling me about this, I was expecting him to finish the story by saying, hey, the Park Service was excited about getting private money, they're willing to sit down with us. But that's not it. So they've essentially shot down the idea.
Carl Corley, I've known him for a while. He's not successful because he gives up easy. So they're going to keep pushing. They've talked to members of the congressional delegation. We got a statement from Congressman Womack, who said he's willing to help open doors.
So look, at the end of the day, the Park Service may be right. This may not be a sound plan, but it would be nice if at least they would maybe sit down with them and do more than just reject it straight away.
Kellams: Also at talkbusiness.net is the latest Compass Report, which reports on metro areas in the state, economic activity. You give letter grades. C means just like the previous quarter, D's and F's no improvement, A's and B's improvements. And it's all B's this time.
Tilley: Yeah, it is all B's. And so I know this can be boring for folks who don't want to keep up with the economy, but.
Kellams: I don't know who those people are.
Tilley: Yeah. Because it doesn't impact you at all. But the key takeaway here is Arkansas' economy in the four metro areas that we watch are still growing. That growth is slowing, especially in the manufacturing sector. And yes, central Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas, Fort Smith metro and Jonesboro all received the top grade. Little Rock and Fort Smith had a B-minus, Jonesboro and Northwest Arkansas a B.
What that means is that if you get a C, that means your growth was relatively unchanged from the same period a year ago. So a B means there's a little bit more growth. Obviously you want an A.
And what we're seeing in the numbers, like I said, is that there is some employment growth that is slowing. For example, Fort Smith's unemployment rate was 4.5% at the end of the second quarter, which was up from 4.2% the same period in 2025.
One of the notes from Kendall Ross, vice chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, who does an amazing job pulling all this data for us and pulling some analysis from it, he pointed to continued weakness in unemployment and manufacturing, although he said pretty much gross sales and use tax broadly was up, which is a good sign of consumer spending.
But another number that he pointed out was that the number of unemployed in Arkansas was up more than 2,000 at the end of June compared to June 2025.
So again, the takeaway, economy is still doing well. It's slowing down a bit, which means this next quarter, this third quarter report, fourth quarter report, you hope that that slower growth trend either moderates or quits or moves in an upward direction, because you don't want to continue seeing quarters like this.
Kellams: Gotcha. Hey, it's been about a month since we learned about an attack on the city of Fort Smith's computer system. What do we know a month out?
Tilley: Very little. So it's a pretty broad, or I would say it's not a pretty broad, it's completely broad attack on the city's computer system. Almost every department, if not every department, was impacted. We first learned about it, the public first learned about it, on Aug. 16. So it's unclear when the attack first happened. But it's yet to be resolved. It continues to negatively impact city services and projects.
And the key thing is, I guess I was a little naive going into it, and I'm willing to admit that. I thought I knew that they wouldn't be able to provide details, but I asked them a week or so, 10 days ago, look, there are 1,030-something city employees, more than 36,000, 38,000 city residents and businesses who have water and sewer accounts, for example. And you've got data with all the vendors who do business with the city. Is there personal and financial information safe? Should they be on the watch for anything?
And the city wouldn't even respond to that question. They just pretty much said, we've got an ongoing investigation and we can't talk to you.
The Fort Smith Board of Directors on Sept. 1 went into executive session to hear about it, but when they came out from executive session, they didn't share any information.
So everyone I'm hearing from, including Fort Smith Police Chief Danny Baker, who was willing to share with me some pretty concerning details, that their department is greatly limited. That's the word he used, in terms of responding to or producing accident reports, communicating electronically with other state and local law enforcement agencies. He said they're still able to do their basic public safety activities. But he said, we continue to be, quote, "hampered on almost everything we do."
I talked to a contractor, or a person who's involved in the work for this ongoing consent decree. We're trying to rebuild the city sewer system. And this person told me that those projects are now seeing delays, seeing delays in permitting. They're seeing delays in construction approval. They're seeing delays in payment.
So that's another, I mean, those are just some of the major issues. Because the city isn't talking, we don't know how in-depth is it. Ransomware? Was personal financial information accessed or removed? So the city's not talking.
Part of me doesn't blame them, but my instincts tell me this is going to have some long legs. At some point, we're going to find out some more details. And at some point, the efforts by the city attorneys and the insurance attorneys to block any release of information about what is essentially a public system, those efforts will fail.
And I will not be surprised if what we learn down the road, that could be next year, later this year, a year from now, two years from now, but I will not be surprised if what we learn is concerning, if not troubling.
Kellams: A few weeks ago, we talked about the launch of a new series on Talk Business connected to AmeriCorps at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Earlier this month, you wrapped up that series.
Tilley: Yes, we did. It's a great program. I'm kind of a geek for these kinds of things, but the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, they expanded what is their AmeriCorps program, the federal program that helps pay students and puts them into community projects. It kind of reminds me of some of the WPA programs of the '30s and '40s.
But the university expanded that. They've got 40 students that are going to go out into communities in different areas. One of the last areas that we reported on, we had a series of five stories, and the fifth story talked about, they're going to put up to five university students into programs like the River Valley Regional Food Bank and a group called Community Connections to help address, primarily to help address, what is a lot of food insecurity in the area.
We learned that among children, food insecurity is acute among 21% of kids in Sebastian County, 20% in Crawford County. Those are kind of troubling numbers. River Valley Regional Food Bank serves over 100,000 individuals every month. I would not have guessed that number.
But look, this is just five students, but I'm going to hope that that's five students who are getting a front row seat with an issue we, including too often us in the media, we'd rather not be bothered with because it's not pleasant to look at.
But I guess I'm confident that years of this program will result in these young minds and these young hearts, with their energy and their passion, they'll not only raise awareness, but help develop some meaningful solutions, make some meaningful changes in the lives of those kids with special needs and with hunger issues.
Kellams: And you can read every installment in that series at talkbusiness.net. News from around the River Valley and around the state there. Michael Tilley, thank you so much for your time.
Tilley: You're welcome, sir.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
