Complex insanity

Ready, shoot, aim.

That’s been for the past several years the modus operandi of the Fort Smith Board of Directors — and that’s giving them credit on the “Ready” portion.

Fort Smith voters recently approved a plan that extended a 1% sales tax for a program to refinance $55.38 million in bonds and engage a new plan of more than $112 million in water and sewer infrastructure work, fire station and equipment improvements and an aquatics park at Ben Geren.

Part of the plan was to use 0.25% of the 1% tax to fund a myriad of purposes, including a new sports complex at Chaffee Crossing. To be sure, the literature promoting the plan and encouraging a vote FOR the tax extension clearly noted the $1.6 million sports complex would be built at Chaffee Crossing. Anyone who now seeks to say the location was not part of the election is a Liar Liar Pants on Fire.

Nevertheless, the Board is now willing to consider an option that would move the sports complex from Chaffee Crossing to the riverfront area of downtown Fort Smith. Said another way, the Board is now willing to consider changing the terms of a tax package approved by voters. This essay is not to opine on the best location for the complex. Rather it is to suggest such discussion should have occurred prior to the special election.

That this tweaking of a voter approved plan is being considered further ensconces the Board as a tapestry of inanity, superficiality and unoriginality, with a dark pattern of obvious rudderlessness. It’s all woven together with a thread of consistent inconsistency.

This amateurish lack of discipline is not a surprise. With this board, nothing is certain, even when they make a decision. Especially when they make a decision. Sanitation policy and animal control ordinances are two of the most recent examples of the fragility of Board decisions. However, the surprise with this spineless nonsense is that one may have rightfully believed just a few days ago that the Board would avoid undeciding a decision of voters.

To add financial insult to the injury of fiduciary trust, moving the sports complex to the riverfront would require an extra $2.3 million in city (taxpayer) funds for infrastructure. We apparently can’t find about $25,000 to renew television broadcasts of city Board meetings, but allocating $2.3 million to appease interests lobbying for this sports complex move is not a problem.

Ready. Shoot foot. Aim. At head.

Somewhere in the Big Book of Political and Administrative No-No’s, altering a voter approved plan without seeking voter approval of the alteration is found in the “What The F*&% Were They Thinking?” chapter under the “Bobby Petrino” section.

Keep in mind this is a Board that frequently talks about transparency, communication and other aspects of increasing and securing voter/citizen trust.

Here’s what needs to happen.

1. Lee Webb and Sen. Jake Files, R-Fort Smith, architects of the sports complex project, should be clear with the Board that they will not entertain a post-election change in venue. Webb, a member of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and chairman of the Democratic Party of Sebastian County, and Files, a rising star in Arkansas Republican circles, should be more politically sensitive to any activity that so directly subverts a plan approved by 75.8% of the voters.

2. The Board should immediately nix this complex move idea, and issue an apology for even thinking about it.

3. Fort Smithians should accept the apology but remember the lack of leadership that created the need for such an apology.

4. Voters should then note that municipal elections in 2012 and 2014 will be of critical importance if this second-largest Arkansas city is to move forward in a manner that approaches our collective potential.

Ready. Aim. Vote.