Chamber, city ramp up governmental affairs work

Efforts by the governmental affairs division of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber to become more active at the state and federal level are to include a March 17 trip to Washington and work to place more people from the Fort Smith region on key state boards and commissions.

John McFarland, chairman and CEO of Fort Smith-based Baldor Electric Co. and chairman of the chamber board, said at a general chamber membership meeting in early January that improving political connections would be a key goal during his one-year tenure.

“We’ve (the Fort Smith area) been underrepresented at the state level and at the federal level,” McFarland said in January. He added then that improved federal connections could help secure money for Interstate 49 and the U.S. Marshals Museum project. “We also need them to stop doing some of the things they (Congress) are doing.”

Ricky Cross, chairman of the chamber’s governmental affairs effort, said during a Friday (Feb. 19) division meeting that he has worked with Mike Callan, president of Fort Smith-based Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp., to prepare a list of state boards and commissions. The list is expected to be narrowed down to those with a direct and vital influence over businesses and governments in the Fort Smith region.

(Coincidentally, the effort got a boost Friday when Gov. Mike Beebe appointed Lee Webb Jr. and reappointed Chester Koprovic as members of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.)

Members of the division also talked about dispersing the narrowed boards and commissions list to area leadership groups with the hope that would encourage more applications. Cross said the chamber will work with Jackie Krutsch, president of the Van Buren Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Fort Smith chamber’s governmental affairs group, on the effort to get more area folks on state boards and commissions.

Improving connections at the federal level is part of a planned March 17, one-day trip Cross, Fort Smith chamber President Paul Harvel and McFarland will take to Washington D.C.

“We will be doing that to begin to re-establish relationships with our Congressional offices,” Cross said.

Officials with the city of Fort Smith will leave Feb. 23 for a lobbying trip to Washington. The schedule released Friday by the city includes meetings with U.S. Reps. John Boozman, R-Rogers, and Mike Ross, D-Prescott; meetings with U.S. Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark.; and a meeting with Dwight Home, director of the office of program administration with the Federal Highway Administration.

Other activities planned by the chamber include:
• Participating in the May 10-11 “Washington Fly-In” organized by the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce;
• Establishing legislative priorities for the 2011 regular session of the Arkansas General Assembly;
• Scheduling a meeting in Fort Smith with area legislators prior to the 2011 session; and,
• Partnering with other area chambers and cities on the Western Arkansas Legislative Gala scheduled to take place in Little Rock on Feb. 1, 2011 (during the 2011 legislative session).