What happened to the I-49 push?

story by Michael Tilley

(Editor’s Note: For the complete version of this story, watch for updates at www.talkbusiness.net.)

Perhaps there is no better visual analogy of the recent efforts to promote construction of Interstate 49 through western Arkansas than the erosion and thick grass found on the few miles of preparatory I-49 dirt work on former Fort Chaffee property near Fort Smith.

Add to that disconcerting visual the nearby fading, peeling and hard to read promotional I-49 signs. The small billboards once provided passersby a clear indication that a sparkling concrete and steel interstate connecting the Fort Smith area with the rest of the world would deliver, at that very spot, truckloads and busloads of commerce and tourism.

Indeed, I-49 would create a north-south interchange in the Fort Smith area with a major east-west interstate (I-40). This interchange would connect the commercial hubs of New Orleans and Kansas City with numerous hubs of commerce stretching between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

That I-49 — which stretches from Texarkana, up through Dequeen, Mena and Waldron, into Fort Smith and on through Northwest Arkansas — would be a tremendous economic development engine for all of Arkansas is a given. All that stands in the way of this interstate reality is several small segments at the Arkansas-Louisiana and Arkansas Missouri borders and a large 185-mile segment between Texarkana and Fort Smith that posts a price tag of around $3 billion.

The potential benefits and tremendous funding obstacles of I-49 make it all the more puzzling as to why the once well-organized and very public grass-roots effort to promote the funding and construction of I-49 has generated little more than silence in the past few years.

COALITION HISTORY

Cities, chambers of commerce and other interested parties formed the I-49 International Coalition in late 2002 for the single-minded purpose of working every local, state and federal angle possible to find support for the construction of I-49.

Tom Manskey, president of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce and president of the coalition, said Congressional leaders and lobbyists advised I-49 advocates in Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri to form the all-inclusive coalition.

According to OpenSecrets.org, a Web site sponsored by the Center for Responsive Politics, the coalition was billed $620,000 between 2002 and 2007 with Johnston & Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm founded by former U.S. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., and now merged with the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson.

Gard Wyat (pronounced “Guard Weight”), who lives in Shreveport, is the coalition’s executive director. It’s a part-time gig for Wyat, whose full-time job is as an insurance salesman .

The last major publicity event pushed by the coalition was a fall 2003 tour of the proposed I-49 route by several members of Congress.

Internet search engine returns recall very little in the way of significant activity. There was an October 2006 meeting in Rogers that gathered coalition members and state and federal highway officials to discuss the progress, or lack thereof, in I-49 funding and construction.

Don’t bother asking the coalition for an I-49 economic impact or business benefit study. The coalition, in its almost six-year existence, has not crafted such a study.

And good luck trying to find an official I-49 Web site. The coalition has been billed more than $600,000 for lobbying and communication services but hasn’t been able fund, build and maintain something as simple as a Web site; i.e., a public connection via the Internet.

‘DRIED UP’

However, it doesn’t take an Internet search or appreciation for the broad presence provided by a Web site to understand that I-49 lobbying has slowed to a speed only a geologist could appreciate.

Billy Dooly wonders what has happened to the I-49 effort. So does Sandy Sanders.

“I had big hopes for the coalition to continue the work. But it has just dried up,” said Dooly, a former president of the Fort Smith chamber and long-time vocal I-49 advocate prior to his 2003 retirement.

Dooly was the chamber president between 1987 and 2003. He, along with Robert “Swede” Lee, the former president of the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce, spent many chamber days pushing the need for I-49 to anyone willing to listen, and even some who weren’t willing.

“We kept it on the forefront. It was always our No. 1 economic development priority because it was good not only for the (Fort Smith) area, but for western Arkansas, the whole state, really, and the nation,” Dooly said. “There was not a month that went by that we didn’t have an I-49 activity.”

He still gets questions about I-49, but not the kind he’d like.

“People come up to me now and ask, ‘Hey, what has happened to I-49? Why isn’t anyone pushing for that?’ And I have to tell them, ‘I don’t really know,’” Dooly said.

Sanders, the director of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority between 2001 and 2007, said the I-49 message has clearly become quieter.

“There hasn’t really been anybody waving the flag, keeping people’s feet to the fire and making sure that issue is a primary objective,” he said.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Eric Tober, a lobbyist with Johnston & Associates, readily admits the coalition has seen more active days. He is less talkative when asked to explain why.

As it turns out, Tober’s employer has not been paid for all its I-49 lobbying services. Manskey said the coalition owes Johnston & Associates about $100,000.

Tober is the chief I-49 lobbyist on behalf of Johnston & Associates, where he is a senior policy advisor. Tober has 15 years experience pushing I-49, first as a projects director for former U.S. Sen. Johnston, and then while working with the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce in its I-49 push.

But he declines to comment publicly about why the I-49 Coalition has been quiet.

“I would hesitate to place the blame in any particular place,” he said. “It’s hard in the intervening years (between major federal highway legislation) to focus on the push.”

As a self-proclaimed “believer in I-49,” Tober remains “hopeful and excited” about the future of the coalition. He said there are things going on behind the scenes.

REBUTTING CRITICISM

As for criticism that the coalition has not adequately kept a public profile, Wyat bristled, suggesting that those who criticize should get involved and find out what is happening.

“It’s easy to criticize,” he said. “In short order, good things will come. If we can get this agreement with these three governments, then I think the interest will return.”

The interest must return if the coalition is to remain financial viable.

Wyat also admits the coalition is behind on its bills with Johnston & Associates. Also, Wyat, who is supposed to be paid $3,000 a month by the coalition, said he hasn’t been paid in many months. The coalition attempted a fund-raising drive earlier this year that “didn’t raise what we had hoped for,” Wyat said.

“After the success we had in that (getting $328 million federal dollars in 2005), a lot of the members of our group didn’t think they needed to be involved, or didn’t need to be involved financially,” Wyat said. “So we had to restructure our arrangement with (Johnston). We had to take a hiatus from using their services because we didn’t want to build up more debt.”

Wyat said he didn’t know the financial situation of the coalition. He referred financial questions to Bob Carver, a Mena businessman who serves as the coalition’s treasurer.

Carver initially said he would have an accountant forward via e-mail the coalition’s most recent financial report. Several days later, however, Carver said he had been instructed by Wyat to not release the financial information.

Numerous messages were left on Wyat’s cell phone between Sept. 17 and Sept. 24. Wyat never replied. Manskey later promised release of the financials, but they were not supplied, and a follow up request by e-mail received no response.

As for a Web site?

“We have a Web site pending, and we’ll probably have that up by the first of the year,” Wyat said.

It’s odd, if not troubling, that one of those willing to admit that the coalition has been too silent these past few years is Manskey, the Fort Smith chamber president who, as president of the coalition, also has been responsible for its management.

“The coalition really hasn’t been that effective the last few years,” Manskey said. “I think when we went to having a paid executive director, I think that the voluntary leadership, myself included, got a little lazy.”

That laziness, according to Manskey, resulted in fewer coalition meetings, sporadic communication between coalition members and possibly too much of a focus on fundraising at the detriment of public grassroots efforts. And, believe it or not, there is no succession plan with the coalition’s voluntary leadership. After two years as its president, Manskey does not know how long his term will last or who might be the next president.

URGENCY NEEDED

Indeed, if there was a time to for the I-49 Coalition to shake its lethargy, that time is now.

Congress will begin in early 2009 consideration of the next major federal highway bill. In fact, discussions about particulars of the bill have begun. Some estimates suggest the next federal highway reauthorization bill will include as much as $500 billion in spending, considerably more than the $284 billion in the 2005 reauthorization.

And then there is the shortfall in the federal Highway Trust Fund that was recently given a temporary fix of $8 billion. That money and expected fuel tax revenues that feed the Trust aren’t expected to meet the more than $24 billion in Trust Fund obligations.

Pile on that the recent negative political environment surrounding “earmarks,” aka, “pork-barrel spending,” and the push to find adequate funding for I-49 appears nothing short of Herculean.

HIBERNATION MISTAKE

It’s for all those reasons and more that David Olive considers it folly that the coalition has been so quiet in recent years.

Olive served as chief of staff in 1997 and 1998 for former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., and is today the principal in the Olive, Edwards & Cooper government relations firm based in Washington, D.C.

“I think it’s a mistake, a big mistake, to go into hibernation like they have. You have to stay active,” Olive said. “Even if you’re not doing high-profile public events, you should be conducting studies or building your data or reaching out to various groups so that when the time comes, you have your information and you have your support lined up.”

Olive suggested the coalition shift its focus to “work the state highway commissions more strongly” and to build an “indisputable” economic and business argument for the completion of I-49.

Sanders, the former Chaffee authority director, said the lack of public action by the coalition may have caused some people to lose interest. However, he said there remains a “core group” who still understand that I-49 is important to Arkansas’ future economic growth.

“It’s just going to take strong leadership. The leadership we have now at the (Fort Smith) chamber has let I-49 drift as a top priority. That has to change, in my opinion,” Sanders said. “It will take several strong people who can be leaders to get the movement going again.”