Fort Smith region not well-connected to Little Rock, D.C.

story by Michael Tilley

Decisions are made daily in the rough-and-tumble world of politics and business that may make or break the socio-economic fortunes and future of a city or metro area. Having credible and consistent connections to the decision-making circles is a must for any community desirous of progressive improvement.

Unfortunately, business and civic leaders in the Fort Smith region have been anything but consistent and credible in maintaining connections with decision makers Washington D.C. and Little Rock. And that opinion comes from past and present business and civic leaders in the Fort Smith region.

At a May 12 study session of the Fort Smith Board of Directors, Mayor Ray Baker complained at some length about Fort Smith “losing prestige” around the state, adding that the second-largest city in the state has little influence in Little Rock. City Director Gary Campbell, responding to Baker’s tirade, said Fort Smith has lost prestige because “we just sit here in Fort Smith” and don’t “play” with the rest of the state.

“We’re not engaged around the state. … And we need to be because we have a lot to offer the state,” Campbell said during the study session.

SUCCESSES
No story about the alleged loss of prestige would be fair without first noting recent regional successes and improvements in relationships in Washington and Little Rock.

The key wins are:
• Reversing reversing a Department of Defense recommendation in 2005 to close the 188th Fighter Wing in Fort Smith — then a unit supporting F-16 fighter jets — and remove its almost 700 jobs from the area. A community lobbying effort resulted in a decision to keep the base open but replace the F-16’s with A-10 “Warthogs.” That scare also resulted in the formation of the 188th/Fort Chaffee Community Council. The council works to “BRAC proof” the 188th and the active military base at Fort Chaffee.

• Winning a national competition to have the U.S. Marshals Museum built in Fort Smith. Again, a community lobbying effort helped convince the Marshals Service to locate the museum in Fort Smith. Gov. Mike Beebe provided $2 million to fund the effort, and the Robbie Westphal family gave valuable downtown Fort Smith riverfront property for the museum location.

• Most recently, Rep. Rick Green, R-Van Buren, successfully pushed two bills (HB 1749, HB 1750) “to support the development and implementation of regional intermodal freight facilities and operations in the west and northwest regions of Arkansas.” This effort was awarded $375,000 from Arkansas’s General Improvement Fund.

Apart from those vital wins, Deputy Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack believes the region has in recent years improved its relationships with “key staff in various federal agencies” and with key staff of Arkansas’ Congressional delegation.

“We are now much more aggressive about pursuing federal funding for local and regional projects. Our efforts produced some success when Fort Smith received $1.3 million in earmarks in the federal government’s 2009 budget,” Gosack said. “Simple things, like personally meeting with the senators and congressmen in Washington D.C. at the right time of the year and following up on our funding applications and legislative priorities, make a big difference in how we’re perceived in the nation’s capitol.”

David Olive, who served as chief of staff for then-U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., in the 106th Congress and is now head of a Washington D.C.-based governmental affairs firm (Catalyst Partners), said the Fort Smith area has enjoyed relatively good support in Washington thanks to the continuing influence created by many years ago by U.S. Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt and U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers.

FEW CONNECTIONS
But Gosack and Olive say the region has room for improving connections.

That room for improvement might best be exemplified in reviewing representation on important Arkansas boards and commissions and the region’s success in filling top elected positions with people from the area.

Bumpers, former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson and present U.S. Rep. John Boozman are the only top state and federal elected officials in the past 35 years with a connection to the Fort Smith region.

The Fort Smith region has a poor, if not virtually non-existent, showing on key Arkansas boards and commissions. The region presently has no representatives on the Arkansas Highway Commission, Arkansas Board of Education, Arkansas Board of Higher Education, Arkansas Parks Recreation & Travel Commission, Arkansas Development & Finance Authority, Arkansas Forestry Commission, Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, Arkansas Livestock & Poultry Commission and Arkansas Waterways Commission.

The region does have representation on the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (Fort Smith businessman Chester Koprovic, Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce President Paul Harvel) and on the Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission (William Dawkins, Carolyn Pollan and Charles Wohlford).

Fortunately, the region has connections to Gov. Mike Beebe. Morril Harriman, a 16-year veteran of the state senate from Van Buren, now serves as Beebe’s chief of staff. Gary Grimes, a former Sebastian County sheriff, is Beebe’s liaison with the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, and Amy Click, former Sebastian County Election Commission chairwoman, is Beebe’s liaison with the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

Harriman, in a December 2008 interview with The City Wire, said “communication, communication, communication” is vital for area business and civic leaders interested in keeping the needs of their communities in front of Gov. Beebe and his staff.

‘PLAY THE GAME’
But some say the problem is that Fort Smith has refused to get in the game and be a willing participant in that rough-and-tumble world of politics and business.

“Fort Smith has to decide if it wants to join Arkansas and the United States. It has to decide if it wants to play the game,” said Emon Mahony Jr. “The only way get ahead is to play the game of politics. … You don’t have to like it, but you have to recognize it and deal with it because the only way to get ahead is to work well with all sides. Period. It’s that simple.”

Mahony has spent many years working with all sides. He served as president of Fort Smith-based Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp. from 1977 to 1996, and was a long-time board member of Little Rock-based Alltel Corp. He most recently served on the three-member transition team for Gov. Beebe. Mahony was a commissioner on the Arkansas-Oklahoma River Compact Commission, and served as a senior aide from 1968 to 1975 for U.S. Sen. John McClellan, D-Ark. Mahony now lives in El Dorado where he helps manage a family business. (Link here to read Mahony’s guest commentary on this subject.)

He said the rugged frontier spirit of the region is its best trait and its worst trait.

“Independence is good, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you can take that independence too far,” Mahony explained.

Olive, in an e-mail interview with The City Wire, echoed Mahony’s comments.

“If political influence can be measured by election to office, a relationship that may or may not be valid, then Fort Smith has not had much influence in Arkansas for quite a while and there are a lot of people in Fort Smith who think that is a badge of honor, not a complaint!” Olive noted.

Gosack said the lack of consistent and credible connections resulted in lost opportunity when former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was elected to two terms as U.S. President.

“I think a significant shortcoming at the federal level during the last 20 years was not getting more I-49 funding while we had Arkansans in The White House and as secretary of transportation (Bill Clinton and Rodney Slater). That was a missed opportunity,” Gosack said.

Fort Smith City Director Campbell said the region has great organizations and good leaders, but lacks a coordinated effort focused on building and maintaining productive connections with Washington and Little Rock.

“Unfortunately, we do not have an organization whose primary focus is ‘strategic visioning’ for future economic development issues,” Campbell noted. “I believe there is room for such a group that focuses its efforts on area visions and promotes their adoption. I’ve learned from my national involvement that many successful areas of the country have similar groups including the Northwest Arkansas Council and New York’s Creative Core.”

THE COUNCIL
The Northwest Arkansas Council is a model of successful regional collaboration often cited by people in the Fort Smith region who seek a similar effort.

Alice Walton, the daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, was the first to chair the council when it formed in 1990. The council was financially and politically supported by the likes of Don Tyson, J.B. Hunt, the Walton Family, Red Hudson, Hammerschmidt, and President Clinton. Not afraid to think big out of the box, the council decided shortly after it formed to lead the charge for a new commercial airport in Northwest Arkansas — a charge many thought foolish with Dallas and Denver the only cities in the previous 25 years able to convince the federal government to approve a new commercial airport.

But in 1998, the airport opened and President Bill Clinton stepped off Air Force One to congratulate Alice Walton, Carol and Uvalde Lindsey (then the unofficial co-directors of the council), and the council on its success.

“A sense that ‘we’re all in this together’ — for better or worse — is critical for achieving some of the key regional priorities,” Mike Malone, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Council, said in an interview when asked what it takes to pull a region together. “We have to get over the ‘Friday night fight syndrome’ and realize that we’re really competing with large cities and metropolitan regions around the world for jobs and economic activity.”

Malone, who worked six years in the White House during the Clinton Administration and was named to head the council in January 2006, said success with the Marshals Museum, Chaffee Crossing and the intermodal study is proof the Fort Smith region is capable of creating transformative connections. However, any regional effort must have the one factor that allowed the Northwest Arkansas Council to succeed — complete support from top business leaders in the area.

“The key is going to be having very senior-level involvement from some of the largest employers in the region and clear agreement on key priorities,” Malone advised.

BYPASS CONNECTION?
Campbell and Sam T. Sicard, a vice president of First National Bank of Fort Smith and member of a family with influence in the Fort Smith region, believe the region could improve its state and federal connections by creating a closer connection with Northwest Arkansas.

Sicard, who helps oversee the bank’s Northwest Arkansas interests with the First National Bank of Rogers, said his goal was not to approach leaders in that region to see what they could do for the Fort Smith area.

“My goal was to see what we could do for them to help start building that relationship,” Sicard said. “It makes sense to me that we work together and lobby together and support each other.”

Malone, who has met with Campbell and others in the Fort Smith area to strengthen relationships, said the two regions could forge a strong alliance.

“We have over 600,000 people in a single, growing media market in northern and western Arkansas. That large population base gives us several great assets and resources to sell. Again, the key is going to be keeping a focus on two or three key regional priorities so that federal and state policy makers are getting the same message from business, civic and government leaders,” Malone explained.

It’s possible the first collaboration might see the Fort Smith region supporting the effort to obtain federal funding for the Bella Vista bypass, a key I-49 connection in Benton County in Arkansas and McDonald County in Missouri.

Arkansas’ five highway commissioners signed an agreement earlier this year to join with Missouri highway officials in an application for $250 million from a $1.5 billion discretionary fund of the Secretary of Transportation. Officials from the two states have agreed to use the money to complete the Bella Vista bypass.

“Obviously, there is an opportunity there where we can work together on something,” Sicard said of the bypass. “It (Bella Vista bypass) is not directly important to us, but it is very important to putting the entire interstate together. So with that, then I have to think, and I would think people in Fort Smith would also see that helping with that is something we need to do if we really are interested in building (I-49). … That to me is an immediate thing we can do.”

Olive advises that the first goal of the Fort Smith region is simply for business and civic leaders to focus on building connections.

“How many times have people from Fort Smith taken a trip to DC or Little Rock for the sole purpose of building relationships rather than asking for money? Fort Smith is a great community. It has so much potential even in a down economy that it provides a constant source of hope for the future. Whether it achieves any portion of that potential is up to the residents and the leaders they elect.”