Future Fort Smith implementation chair talks committee challenges, hears from city transit department

Fort Smith’s Comprehensive Plan Implementation Committee (CPIC) has only held a handful of meetings since its formation in mid-2015, following passage of the Future Fort Smith Comprehensive Plan in December 2014, but it’s starting to find its voice.

Chaired by John Cooley, chief financial officer at Propak Logistics, the committee is a joining of both private and public partners in an effort to provide citizen-led oversight to city government and private stakeholders. It is a flashlight for a 20-year plan with implications lasting well beyond.

“When we had our first meeting, we kind of looked at each other and said, ‘How do you want to do it?’” Cooley said in recent comments to Talk Business & Politics, explaining the CPIC had to determine its own responsibilities before it could provide guidance to the varying departments and entities.

Cooley credited city government for getting a head start by tying budgeting decisions and capital expenditures to the comprehensive plan on a departmental basis.

“What we’re doing now is essentially what we’ve already been doing at the city level, but now it’s coming from the committee, and it’s a way to make sure responsible people and leaders in the community and responsible departments and leaders within the city know what they’re responsible for and that they’re working toward those goals,” Cooley said.

Cooley said the committee’s goals are to provide a “30,000-foot view,” showing what’s been accomplished and how it ties into the plan while also placing under the microscope areas for improvement. Being able to do that effectively requires an open line of communication between each stakeholder group, and there are 55 — 23 on the public side, 32 private.

The CPIC held one of its first communications with a group entity on Monday (Oct. 24) from the Rose Room of the Creekmore Park Community Center, hosting Fort Smith Transit Director Ken Savage. In an hourlong presentation to committee members at the start of the meeting, Savage shared some of the incremental progress made toward the comprehensive plan for his department including a $10,000 donation the city was able to procure from First Presbyterian Church in Fort Smith toward the installation of seven new bus stop shelters along fixed transit routes. The private donation enabled Fort Smith Transit to leverage federal dollars through a matching program to complete the $50,000 project.

Additionally, later this month, the transit department will receive five new buses, which will be retrofitted to a compressed natural gas (CNG)/unleaded bi-fuel system to reduce emissions and operating expenses. The acquisitions will bring the total bi-fuel fleet to nine, allowing the department to operate almost entirely on CNG throughout the majority of the workday.

Both accomplishments, though relative blips in citywide implementation progress, are exemplary of the challenge CPIC has laid out before it — one that will last for many years, according to Cooley.

“It’s definitely going to be an ongoing process,” he explained. “Even the document itself is broken down into short-, medium-, and long-term goals, and normally when someone says short-term, they’re saying one year or less. Well, these short-term goals are five years or less. Mediums are in 10 years, and long terms are in 15. There’s no race here. This is a marathon.”

Cooley continued: “This is literally just making sure we’re pacing ourselves and making sure we’re continuing to move forward; that we recognize where progress is being made and if we need to focus on areas where progress isn’t being made, then we know where those areas are.”

Cooley acknowledged that as a long-term project, “some of the faces may change” on the committee “or the approach may change.” The CPIC’s goal moving forward (for now) is to receive an annual report from each of the city-run departments by mid-year. The reports will allow CPIC to fashion its annual report to the Fort Smith Board of Directors, and it will also give city departments time to focus on budgeting goals for the year ahead.

Furthermore, Cooley said, some of the 55 departments on the list may not need to stick so rigorously to the reporting requirements since it may be that “they only have a couple of items and it’s a waste of their time.”

“I think we’re just going to have to play it as we go to some degree. We may find certain departments need more attention than others,” he said. “Maybe they have more on their plates, so we need to be talking to them more than maybe we do others. Now that Ken’s presented for transit, I don’t know if there’ll be a reason to have him back any time soon. But someone like (Fort Smith Parks and Recreation Director) Doug Reinert — he presented three or four meetings ago — so much of what he does has to do with trails, I could see him being someone that comes back on a more regular basis.”

The keyword for Cooley is “guidance.”

“We can’t tell people the details of their job or how to be doing their jobs,” he said. “That’s not our role. It’s not what we were put on this committee to do. We just want to shine a light on the progress we’ve made and the path forward.”