F-35 jet arrival, I-49 work, consent decree among top 2024 Fort Smith metro stories
by January 4, 2025 1:01 pm 394 views
F-35 jet built for Poland (photo from Lockheed)
The first two of many fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets roared into Fort Smith in late December to mark another milestone in the foreign pilot training center at Ebbing Air National Guard Base. Arrival of the jets is part of the top area news in 2024.
Other key events in the year included the beginning of what will be more than $1 billion to complete a stretch of Interstate 49 in the Fort Smith metro, negotiations to amend a federal consent decree that has since 2015 challenged the City of Fort Smith, and a settlement in a tragic prisoner death in the Sebastian County Jail.
Following are summaries of the top 10 metro stories, and a short list of honorable mentions.
• Units activated, first jets arrive for foreign pilot training center
The two F-35 fighter jets purchased by Poland arrived in Fort Smith in late December are the first of many from several countries to be based at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith for pilot training.
The 85th Fighter Group and the 57th Fighter Squadron, both under the Eglin, Fla.-based 33rd Fighter Wing, are based at Ebbing and are responsible for training F-35 pilots from numerous U.S. and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allied countries. Significant construction on permanent facilities is expected to begin in mid-2025.
Ebbing, home to the 188th Wing in Fort Smith and co-located with the Fort Smith Regional Airport, was selected in March 2023 by the U.S. Air Force to be the long-term pilot training center supporting F-16 and F-35 fighter planes purchased by Singapore, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Finland and other countries participating in the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
• Work begins on I-49 segment between Alma and Fort Smith
An almost $300 million contract to build part of a section of Interstate 49 between Alma and Barling was awarded in October by the Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT). The award includes building the interstate bridge across the Arkansas River.
Tulsa-based Manhattan Road & Bridge received the $282.5 million contract to construct a 3.1-mile stretch of I-49 between Highway 22 in Barling and Gun Club Road in Crawford County. It is the first of four projects needed to build the almost 14-mile segment between Barling and the I-49 and Interstate 40 interchange near Alma.
The awarded segment is being funded by a combination of regular Federal-aid highway funding, Federal grant funding, Congressionally Designated Spending, and state funds, according to ARDOT. ARDOT estimates the cost of the total project at $1.3 billion.
State officials in October 2022 ceremonially broke ground on the 13.7-mile segment that will connect a segment of I-49 in Barling north to the I-40 interchange in Alma. That section will include a bridge over the Arkansas River.
• Consent decree negotiations
Fort Smith officials met in November with state and federal officials in an effort to modify a federal consent decree that requires the city to make extensive and expensive upgrades to its sewer system.
After decades of failing to maintain water and sewer infrastructure to federal standards, the city entered into a federal consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in late 2014, with the decree officially beginning Jan. 1, 2015. The consent decree, when initially enacted, required the city to make an estimated $480 million worth of sewer upgrades in 12 years.
The city spent around $49 million prior to enactment of the consent decree, and spent $87 million on consent decree work between 2015 and 2019. Between 2020 and 2023, the city spent $64.1 million on consent decree work. The total for the work, including prior to 2015, is around $200 million.
The problem is, the estimated cost of the work required to meet the full measure of the federal mandate is $635 million, with some estimates discussed approaching $800 million. Also, the city faces a possible $25 million penalty if state and federal officials do not approve a city plan to modify the federal consent decree.
• Sebastian County pays $3 million to settle a lawsuit over a jail death
A $6 million settlement was reached in a lawsuit related to the 2021 death of Larry Price Jr., in the Sebastian County Jail. The settlement included a $3 million payment by Sebastian County.
A federal lawsuit was filed by the Price family on Jan. 13, 2023, seeking a jury trial. Sebastian County and Turn Key Health Clinics, the company contracted to provide medical care at the jail when Price died, were named as defendants.
In August 2020, Price, who had a history of mental illness and had several interactions with law enforcement, entered a Fort Smith police station where he was alleged to be verbally threatening and pointed his fingers in the shape of a gun. He was charged with making terroristic threats and booked into the Sebastian County Jail with bail set at $1,000. Unable to make bail, Price would remain in the county jail, often in solitary confinement, for more than a year. He would die on Aug. 29, 2021.
Catherine Fontenot, a corrections officer from Louisiana who was hired by the plaintiff’s attorneys to review the case, said Price’s treatment at the hands of Sebastian County officials and Turn Key Health was “cruel and inhumane.”
• Efforts begin to dissolve the FCRA
Work began on the process to dissolve the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority in 2024, but would stall in October.
The FCRA was formed in 1997 to oversee redevelopment of 6,000 acres of land released by the U.S. Army from Fort Chaffee as part of a Base Realignment and Closure downsizing. The trust has four beneficiaries – the cities of Barling, Fort Smith and Greenwood and Sebastian County. The cities of Barling, Fort Smith and Greenwood and the Sebastian County Quorum Court have passed resolutions calling for FCRA dissolution. Only the authority board can vote to dissolve the organization.
The FCRA Board of Trustees passed a resolution May 16 to continue forward “in its successful mission pursuant to the terms of the Indenture of Trust agreed upon by the Beneficiaries on February 19, 1997.”
Barling Mayor Greg Murray, Greenwood Mayor Doug Kinslow, Barling City Administrator Steve Core, Sebastian County Judge Steve Hotz, and Fort Smith City Administrator Carl Geffken and Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman attended a meeting June 10 with Daniel Mann, FCRA executive director and CEO, and Dean Gibson, chairman of the FCRA board of trustees, to begin discussing the process of a possible dissolution of the FCRA trust.
Representatives of the four beneficiaries and FCRA representatives planned to meet again Oct. 15, but not all representatives could attend. There have been no public meetings held by the officials since the planned Oct. 15 meeting.
• Ongoing expansion at ACHE
The Arkansas Colleges of Health Education officially opened in November its Biomedical Resource Center and the Center for Rehabilitation Research to focus on “innovative therapies” and “impactful studies.”
The two centers are located in the ACHE Research Institute Health and Wellness Center (RIHWC), located at 1000 Fianna Way in south Fort Smith. The building was the former corporate headquarters of Golden Living. ACHE estimates it has spent around $12 million so far to renovate space and provide equipment for the two centers.
According to the ACHE, the RIHWC is “a dedicated hub for advanced health science research and innovation.” Institute activities include hosting community health and wellness programs. The biomedical facility provides research space for oncology, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, genetics and personalized medicine, and neuroscience, aviation and aerospace medicine.
ACHE was formed when Fort Smith-based Degen Foundation used part of $70 million from the sale of Sparks Health System in November 2009 to what was then Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates to build the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM) at Chaffee Crossing. The $32.4 million college and its 103,000 square feet is now home to 600 medical students.
• Fort Smith Board fires city administrator
With a unanimous 7-0 vote, the Fort Smith Board of Directors on Dec. 10 fired Fort Smith City Administrator Carl Geffken, who had been in the job more than eight years. The decision was announced after an almost two-hour executive session.
His dismissal followed a Dec. 3 Fort Smith Board meeting in which an open microphone caught someone muttering “God these people are stupid,” after remarks from a citizen. The board believed Geffken made the comment, although Geffken never publicly admitted to making the comment.
Geffken was hired to be the Fort Smith city administrator in March 2016 with a salary of $175,000.
• Franklin County residents, officials push back against planned state prison
Gov. Sarah Sanders, Arkansas Department of Corrections Secretary Lindsay Wallace, BOC Chairman Benny Magness, and other state and local officials announced Oct. 31 that the state has purchased land north of Charleston in Franklin County to build the prison. The cost for the 815 acres was $2.9 million.
More than 1,800 area residents attended a town hall on Nov. 7 at the Charleston High School gym to ask questions about the prison and push back against it being built in Franklin County.
Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen has been selected as legal counsel for a Franklin County group opposed to a planned state prison in the county. The Franklin County & River Valley Coalition announced that McCutchen and his firm “will be representing the coalition as we prepare to explore legal, legislative, and political options concerning the proposed prison in Franklin County. The proposed prison, which would be the state’s largest, raises serious concerns regarding local infrastructure, economic strain, and taxpayer burden.”
• Historic Adelaide Hall in downtown Fort Smith to be demolished
There was hope a Nov. 6 fire at Adelaide Hall in downtown Fort Smith would not be the end of one of the city’s most historic buildings. But it is not to be. The building that most recently housed the Bricktown Brewery restaurant will be demolished.
Built by William Meade Fishback in 1871, the building was the second oldest building on Garrison Avenue. Developer Richard Griffin restored the building in 1994, and its first tenant was the Varsity Grill restaurant. In the summer of 2014, Oklahoma City-based Bricktown invested more than $750,000 in renovations to remodel for its restaurant brand.
Rick Griffin with Griffin Properties said they are in the process of redesigning a replacement building and hope to see construction begin in the spring. Bricktown Brewery has stated they want to remain partners with the Griffin family and keep their presence in Fort Smith.
• Fort Smith to receive almost $15 million from EPA grant
A coalition of groups representing Northwest Arkansas, the Fort Smith metro and central Arkansas will receive $99.999 million from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to support climate change reduction efforts in the three areas. The grant award was announced in July.
The Fort Smith metro will receive a $14.5 million allocation for use as subawards and direct project costs to the City of Fort Smith and nonprofit organizations.
The Arkansas coalition projects will include sequestering and reduction of emissions by protecting and restoring natural areas, increasing efficiency, and improving access to active transportation and transit, nstalling LED streetlights and EV charging stations, and plans to support net-zero technologies for public and commercial buildings.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
• Water rate increase
A 2024 water rate increase was approved by the Fort Smith Board of Directors. For customers using 3ccf of water in a month, the majority of customer bills, rates would go up about $2 a month. It was the first water rate increase since 2011.
• Sims buys former KFSM building, Carnegie Library
Diana Sims owns the former Carnegie Library building that most recently housed a television company, and her early plans are to work toward restoring the building to its days as a library. Sims, a University of Arkansas at Fort Smith accounting professor since 1982 who also provides accounting services, was the top bidder on the historic building at $149,000 in a public auction held in early August. She closed on the property on Sept. 9.
• Fort Smith metro building permits down almost 49% through November
Building activity in the Fort Smith metro in November regained momentum with an almost 120% increase in building permit values, but it’s not enough to catch up with the record-breaking 2023. Fort Smith, Greenwood and Van Buren reported combined November building permit values of $32.261 million, up 119.9% from the $14.672 million in November 2023. Year-to-date the region has issued $238.198 million in building permits, down 48.7% from the $463.875 million reported in the first 11 months of 2023.
• Controversial $4.2 million expansion of waterpark
The Fort Smith Board of Directors passed an ordinance Dec. 17 to pay for the second half of the cost of new slides at Parrot Island Waterpark. Sebastian County and the city have had a joint venture agreement with the waterpark and have since 2015 shared the capital costs for the facility. However, the Sebastian County Quorum Court voted twice against sharing the $4.2 million cost of the new slides.
• Fort Smith School Board president discusses superintendent search plan
The Fort Smith Public Schools Board of Education is preparing for a search that could begin in January 2025 for a superintendent to oversee a district with more than 13,000 students and more than 2,000 employees. Board President Dalton Person said the district is going to publish a request for qualifications (RFQ) soon for search firms that can help the board locate the best superintendent for the district. A Jan. 7 school board meeting has been set to approve an RFQ.