Kellams: Our first conversation today with our friend Michael Tilley from Talk Business & Politics. Welcome.
Tilley: Well, I'm glad to be back. I probably shouldn't admit this, but as a kid I used to like to say Amsterdam because I could say damn and get away with it.
Kellams: Now that we've proven that we are still at heart seven or eight years old, let's talk about some week's news, including new information coming up. Well, not coming up, but you have published at talkbusiness.net about this computer attack suffered by the city of Fort Smith.
Tilley: Yeah. So this attack, it was first made public on Aug. 16, so we have to assume that's when it happened. But it has been over a month now. And the investigation, as we talked, the investigation is still going unless the city has wrapped it up and has not let us know about it.
But we've learned, and again, it was very disruptive. It shut down a lot of city functions. We talked about it last week. I think it made it difficult for the police department to do their job. It made it difficult for some people to make online payments. It was holding up consent decree work. I mean, just across the board, it impacted how the city conducts business, how it conducts business with other folks.
But we've learned a couple days ago that an outfit called Interlock Ransomware claimed that it was the entity that hacked into the system. We got these reports from an outfit called Ransom-DB and DysruptionHub. Both of those folks, they provide information about these folks, and the way these ransomware folks work is if they don't get, if they don't, you know, whoever they've attacked, if they don't meet their ransom, they will go out and post, "Hey, we're the ones that did this. And here's the information we found." It's, you know, it's just modern day extortion really is what it is.
But what we still don't know, Kyle, is, you know, how much of an impact this is going to have on city employees, city residents, all the vendors, because Interlock claims that it collected more than 100,000 Social Security numbers. It has police station files with photos, which could be a very bad deal if it, you know, interrupts ongoing investigations or lawsuits or court cases. They allege they've stolen phone data, dumps of people's phones there. They say they've got data on the city's water supply system. They say they have a complete database of 911 calls and incidents. I mean, it's just, it's not a pretty picture.
So the city said on Sept. 15, Tuesday of this week, that they're almost complete with the investigation, and they'll try to be more forthcoming about it. They say they've been working with cybersecurity specialists include federal and state partners to investigate the incident.
When we learned about this Interlock, that Interlock had taken credit for this, or blame, however you want to look at it, we sent a list of questions to the city. They didn't directly answer our questions. That's not necessarily a criticism. They haven't yet completed the investigation. And if there's some legal action that's going to result, some info still may be privileged.
But I'm quickly going to run through these questions because I wanted our readers to know that we're trying to get as much information as possible. One, you know, is it true that Interlock is responsible for the attack on the city's computer system? You know, what kind of ransom did they demand? Was it paid? Was it paid by an insurance provider? Have the photos, which could be personal photos, murder scenes and, God forbid, child pornography, has that been placed out on the dark web by Interlock? What's the city doing to protect citizens and those who interact with the city from misuse of their personal information? And if the attack originated with the police department, which the city says it did, how did it also impact other parts of the city's computer system? You know, for example, was there not a firewall up? Is it right? You know what, how did it go from that little part of the city system wide?
So we know a little bit more, but there's still a lot. This is a classic tip of the iceberg of what we know. So stay tuned, as I guess all I have to say on that.
Kellams: Let's talk about Cisterna Park. It's downtown Fort Smith. There is, there has been, and it appears to be again, an effort to sort of what, renovate it or upgrade it?
Tilley: Yeah, all of that. Yes. Renovated, expanded. You know, I've been looking at that Cisterna area for almost 30 years now, thinking that it'd be a great place for an expanded park. And many people in Fort Smith have thought that. It's been an on again, off again project over the years, but I think there is now enough of a group of people, if that makes sense, that are kind of pushing in the same direction to make it happen.
At a recent meeting of the Central Business Improvement District, they talked about kind of re-engaging some plans they outlined in 2024 to redevelop Cisterna. They want to build on that. That plan had about a $900,000 cost. I suspect what they want to do now is going to be more than that, but we don't know yet.
But CBID members Trent Goins and Eric Hartness talked about the project again being a priority. They're focused on working with city of Fort Smith officials. And I think what really, I thought was interesting about this is they are, it appears to be going out of their way to bring in all interested parties, people.
And I should back up a little bit. You know, the William Darby, the General Darby statue, the big Darby statue is in the park, so the members want to work with people to put that statue up. They want to work with Darby and Ranger groups. They want to work with this, obviously, the city of Fort Smith. They're trying to bring in all players to get all the input they can, and hopefully have a design goal by the end of this year.
That's a pretty aggressive plan. And then, as Trent Goins said, if they can get it designed and get all the approvals out of the way, they'd like to get it completed in 2027. So there's been a fire lit under this project. It's good to see that. And we'll see if this effort to bring in all parties and this aggressive schedule comes to fruition, but it would be a great addition to that east end of Garrison Avenue. It'd be a nice sized park. That could be a lot of events there. I could see vendor fair or food truck fairs there. It would be, again, a great addition to the avenue.
Kellams: Some of the medical professionals at the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education in Fort Smith could add something to our medical vocabulary. Going to do a research about why we do or don't lose weight.
Tilley: Yes. And the reason I want to talk about this quickly, I'm not going to belabor the point, because they use a lot of big terms that I don't understand, but it's essentially, as I noted in the story, you know, have you ever wondered why you can, you know, do weeks of long daily walks and not lose a pound, but your friend can walk to the mailbox and lose five pounds?
Kellams: Mhm.
Tilley: So they're going to kind of study that. They're not kind of, they are going to study that. They got a $3.3 million grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. So it's not a small study. And it'll be 120 participants will be part of a 24-week supervised exercise intervention program, which sounds a little bit like boot camp that I went through a long time ago, but this will probably be much more scientific, I would hope anyway. And it will be.
But I do want to make a key point here, and I'm not sure a lot of folks in the Fort Smith area understand that, you know, Arkansas Colleges of Health Education is truly in the research business. You know, we hear from UAMS and University of Arkansas frequently getting these big research dollars. Now, Arkansas Colleges of Health Education is not at that level yet, but they're also part of the research mix.
And so I just thought when I saw that press release come in, I thought, well, here we go. This is kind of building that up toward that goal. When this research facility was first built, this is what it was built for. So it's good to see that those big federal research dollars coming in.
Kellams: As they say on the Marketplace Morning Report, let's do the numbers. Let's start with some building permit numbers, up, but small up overall, sort of, you know, longer year to year kind of the same.
Tilley: Yes. Yes. So when we look at Fort Smith, Greenwood and Van Buren, we look at their building permit numbers, and they were up almost 48% in August compared to August 2025. But for the first seven months of the year, from January through August, the building permit numbers are down about 14.1%.
Fort Smith numbers in August were up almost 64%. That was a healthy number in Fort Smith. But for the year, the city numbers are down almost 19%. Fort Smith is obviously the biggest chunk of the permit activity in the Fort Smith metro.
And so it's just a good news, bad news, not really a bad news, because I want to reinforce, I think we talked about this last time we talked about the numbers, there is a hell of a lot of work going on in Fort Smith area that doesn't get permitted. You have all of the construction going on. It's for the foreign pilot training center at Ebbing Air Guard Base. You have all this consent decree work, millions in consent decree work, millions that's ongoing to build this Arkansas I-49 River bridge and the I-49 section between Alma and Barling.
So that's just unusual to have three very large projects going on at once, and none of those will show up in permit work. So I would just caution people to not say, well, gosh, our building activity is down. I suspect it's not down, but it's down in permitted numbers.
Kellams: And speaking of numbers, we know it was the last century when Fort Smith reached its manufacturing jobs height, 1999. I don't bring that up for salt in the wound. I bring it up because over the last five years there has been a steady increase in manufacturing jobs.
Tilley: Yes. And you nailed it. The sector reached peak employment of 29,200 in June 1999. And then it just fell off. You know, the U.S. manufacturing sector fell off, and Fort Smith lost Whirlpool and all of the suppliers to that large refrigerator plant.
But I just got to looking at the numbers here that came out in July, the manufacturing jobs in Fort Smith that had an estimated 17,900. Now, that was just up 1.1% compared to July 2025. But when I look back five years, just to see what the trend was looking like, the sector has added 1,900 jobs, almost 2,000 jobs. It's almost 12% compared to July 2021.
So, you know, that's a good sign. Typically manufacturing jobs are better than average paying jobs. And so in that, it continues. So far this year we've seen that level of employment continue. And I doubt that it'll ever get back to 29,000. But it's good to see a good healthy, like I said, almost 12% gain in the last five years.
Kellams: Let me express some ignorance about how economy or job markets work. Can it be not necessarily exponential, but can more manufacturing jobs give you a better chance of having more manufacturing jobs?
Tilley: Well, yes. I mean, there's the old rule of thumb that if, you know, if your facilities are doing well and you're able to produce and you're able to capture, not really, capture is not the right word, but recruit and retain workers, then yes, employers will want to keep that plant going.
And one of the big things we hear frequently when I talk to these manufacturers is just their struggle. They may have 50 jobs to fill, and they can only find 30 people, you know, qualified to fill them. So I think that's to see these gains in the light of that, what has been a difficult recruitment challenge for the manufacturing sector broadly, that's to me, that's also a healthy sign.
Kellams: All of this at talkbusiness.net. We'll talk again next week. Michael, have a safe weekend. Thanks for your time.
Tilley: Hey, you're welcome, sir.
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