Fort Smith City Director candidates make their case for election at League of Women Voters forum

Four Fort Smith city director positions will be on the ballot Nov. 8, but only two will appear as contested races — Ward 2 with incumbent Andre Good versus challenger Bruce Wade and Ward 4 with incumbent George Catsavis squaring off against challenger Neal Martin.

The four candidates offered their vision for Fort Smith — its challenges and opportunities — at the League of Women Voters forum Monday night (Oct. 17), from the Fort Smith Public Library central branch, and for the most part it was a civil affair.

The one moment where the evening turned contentious was in discussion of the $480 million consent decree and Good’s and Catsavis’ votes to accept the DOJ/EPA order against the city for violations of the Clean Water Act. Good, responding to a question on whether he would favor an increase in water rates to help meet the 12-year payoff deadline, said no and expressed regret at having to make the decision to approve the consent order, but noted that it “could have made matters that much worse” voting against it, to the point that instead of paying off the $480 million in 12 years, Fort Smith residents may have had to pay it off in five.

Catsavis affirmed Good’s fear and said he had “never voted for a tax increase or a fee increase except for this one.” The reason he did: “We would have been a lot worse off” under a shorter repayment plan.

While Wade advocated going back to the source of the failings and figuring out why the water and sewer system wasn’t sufficiently maintained for a number of years, he agreed with the three other candidates in saying he would not favor a water rate increase.

Martin, however, pressed Catsavis, stating, “I don’t want to raise water rates at all. What concerns me more around this discussion is the consent decree, which my opponent voted for. It’s $480 million that we the citizens of Fort Smith have to pay out over 12 years.” Martin noted his sewer rates had doubled in the last couple of years. “I don’t think that’s fair, and with this potential water rate increase, I don’t have the confidence I would like to have that my opponent is going to vote against it.”

Catsavis shot back he would vote against it, a remark that was reflected in more of his comments, which blamed city leadership for having “a bad habit of throwing things at you and not telling you five years ago that ‘hey this is going to be an issue, we need to address it now.’”

“I don’t operate like that,” Catsavis said. “I think we’ve been blindsided, and one of the big issues is this 48-inch transmission line coming down from Mountainburg because the old one deteriorated. Well, let them (the city) figure it out. It’s too easy to say, ‘We need money here. Let’s raise a tax.’ No, I won’t raise anything period.”

On the 200-page consent decree, Martin hit the Board as a whole for making a decision on such a large document “in a week’s time” that would affect “generations for the next 20 or 30 years.”

CANDIDATE COMMENTS
WARD 2 — GOOD
Good said he would like to see Fort Smith market its positives better and take back some of the negative narratives that exist about the city. He urged development of Ward 2’s most prized asset — the riverfront — and called for more activities downtown to help grow that part of the city.

While Good praised the friendliness of the people and the quality of staff, he did say there were “transparency” issues within the government and that people on the north side of the city and employees at city hall were sometimes “retaliated” against when they issued complaints.

On possible health insurance increases and the discontinuance of cost-of-living increases for city employees, Good sympathized but said “revenues are not there” and “we don’t have the sales tax and franchise fees we used to.” He endorsed finding more efficiencies in the way the city operates in order to offer employees some relief and wondered if there were “too many planners and chiefs and not enough worker bees.”

WARD 2 — WADE
Wade wanted to see a city that was “more small business-friendly” and one that “promoted programs to grow and beautify” our city. He emphasized the importance of community character and called Fort Smith “ethnically rich,” but wondered, “What do we know about each other? For the most part, we stay in our box.”

Wade said the history of the city — particularly as it related to Ward 2 and the north side of Fort Smith — needed to be “restored and enhanced.”

Wade said the city needs to address questions like “Why do we have industrial property on the north side of town that isn’t being used or maintained?” He decried the point that many downtown businesses are located in dilapidated buildings “in deplorable areas” and said the north side of town needed the same attention and opportunities that are being paid to other parts of the city.

WARD 4 — CATSAVIS
Catsavis discussed ways of marketing Fort Smith and making it more business-friendly, citing an idea he floated to the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce to run an advertisement in USA Today that would hit on the business advantages of investing in the region. He also favored the idea of legalizing casinos seeing them as a resource for good-paying jobs along the riverfront and a chance to create more activities and nightlife downtown.

On diversity, he said he would like to see a day when Fort Smith had more African-American business owners, a female mayor, and a skyscraper, and thanked the citizens for allowing him to serve Ward 4 for six years.

WARD 4 — MARTIN
Along with pressuring Catsavis on his consent decree vote, Martin pushed for “economic diversity,” commenting on the recent layoffs at Golden Living as well as the past layoffs at Whirlpool as examples of why the Fort Smith economy needed to be focused on more than just one industry (i.e. manufacturing, healthcare).

Martin also praised the city’s transportation resources as well as the presence of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith (UAFS), which “stepped up” in the wake of losing Whirlpool and helped to retrain displaced employees so they could build on existing skills or find a different path and reenter the workforce with more marketable skill sets.

On what he would like to see Fort Smith become in 20 years, Martin said it was important the city had opportunities for everyone, whether educated through college or a technical school and that he’d like to see such economic diversity and opportunity so that his now 12-year-old son “will have multiple bidding wars for his skills.”

Early voting for the Fort Smith Board of Directors begins on Oct. 24.