The little board that couldn’t

On Tuesday (Aug. 24) the Fort Smith board of directors met to consider when they might bring to voters the convention center funding option or options.

Tuesday’s meeting was a spectacular disaster — the Hindenburg of city governance. The public explosion and crumpled destruction of the flimsy skeleton of citizen trust was fueled by years of bottled up malfeasance and sparked by the friction produced when spineless timidity rubs against the dry and dusty surface of reckless delay.

After more than three years of focus on how to resolve a convention center funding issue brewing for more than 10 years, the directors on Tuesday relapsed into a pre-2007 state of thinking. Unfortunately, it is the only thing they have accomplished together on this issue.

The above and what follows goes against my broader belief that folks in elected positions at county and municipal levels deserve our gratitude and polite patience for what is often a thankless job. However, we’ve reached a point with the Fort Smith board to which an unfortunate but avoidable variety of intended and unintended factors has resulted in a collapse of leadership. If this were a Parliamentarian form of government, it would be time to call for a no-confidence vote and seek a new ruling coalition.

Considering all the unnecessary drama, the convention center funding issue is simple. A state turnback program ended in June 2010 from which the city has received about $1.8 million a year. In 2010 the city will receive only $888,723. The operational gap is estimated in 2011 to be $950,000 — or up to $1.1 million if including a maintenance and capital improvements reserve/budget.

If you are a member of the board, please know that many of us citizens are embarrassed for the whole lot of you. You guys have been hashing this out for 3 years, and you came back to square one on Tuesday as if you had completely forgotten the discussions from the previous board meetings, study sessions and special sessions. What’s more, you let City Director Bill Maddox once again speciously filibuster the board down to a sophomoric level from which you never recovered.

As if that is not enough, the board members appeared genuinely surprised when City Clerk Cindy Remler had to remind them it was too late to put the issue on the November general ballot. They had only known about this schedule for months. The only logical conclusions are that such failure is a perfect reflection of the board’s inability to work together, or the board never intended to place the convention center issue on the November ballot. Either conclusion is disturbing.

The fear board members possess of the vocal minority, and their individual devotion to protect their precious political capital are disgusting. Their fear of decision-making and/or inability to work together resulted in their Tuesday request to push up to four convention center funding options to the voters. Faced with several reasonable options to resolve the issue, this board delays, delays, delays and then punts.

In January 2010, after more than 18 months of studying the issue, the board voted 5-2 to go with a prepared food tax. But board members with little to no political and fiscal discipline tremble and recant when the angry and active few bluster and demagogue.

And when board members tremble and recant, they look for cover. The board then appointed an ad hoc committee to dig further into the convention center funding options. The committee recently came to the simple and sound conclusion: The convention center is a tremendous economic engine for the region that in 2009 brought more than 43,000 people to Fort Smith and created an overall economic impact of $12.017 million (And if you cut the impact in half to account for any puffery, the impact is still more than enough to justify continued support.). The ad hoc group recommended a 1% prepared food tax with some of the proceeds supporting the U.S. Marshals Museum, the Bass Reeves statue project and area music festivals and arts groups.

Facts, economic history and the positive voting history of Fort Smith citizens who are often able to see through the fog of misinformation-driven hyperbole were on the side of the January 5-2 vote and the ad hoc recommendation. A consistent, honest and direct voter-education campaign would have carried the day on any of the good options to secure convention center operations.

But the spineless blink. And here we returned Tuesday, with the discussion between directors shockingly absent of any knowledge gained from the previous three years of dissection. It was an ugly snapshot of political recidivism.

It is tempting to request of voters that they throw out the incumbents as soon as possible. But that rarely proves productive. Not only is such a broad political position typically reserved for the mentally lazy who seek easy instead of responsible answers, but we know little of the farm team. Or, more to the point, there is little confidence the board candidates who may be on the board in a few months have any better political or fiscal discipline than the embarrassing Tuesday crowd.

A friend who has watched the board for a few decades said the Tuesday debacle is “easily among the top three” most pitiful collective performances.

As painful as it may be, it might be wise for citizens to encourage the existing board to abandon all municipal governance until the new board is in place. Considering that they’ve been unable to make a decision in three years on a vitally important facility like the convention center, such a request may be redundant.

This board has proven true one rule of local politics: When you try to please everyone, you please none.

Oh, the inanity!