Field of 5 seeking Bentonville mayor’s post

While Little Rock’s mayoral race is driving state capital politics, Arkansas’ commerce capital – Bentonville, home to Walmart’s world headquarters – has an equally crowded field of contenders for mayor.

There are five candidates competing to succeed Mayor Bob McCaslin in Bentonville, who announced earlier this year he will not seek re-election.

McCaslin, a former Kraft Foods executive who retired in 2002, served two terms as a Bentonville City Council member before being elected mayor in November 2006. He’s held the job ever since. McCaslin’s predecessor, Terry Coberly, also served 12 years as the city’s mayor.

The candidates seeking the office are, in alphabetical order:

• Stephanie Orman, a City Council member who is director of social media and community involvement for an auto dealership; Filed: July 27
• Terry Shannon, a retired real estate professional and Texas native; Filed: July 27
• John Skaggs, a retired municipal and district judge who served two terms on the City Council; Filed: Aug. 16
• Charlie Turner, owner of Charlie’s Barber Shop in Bentonville; Filed: Aug. 17
• Jim Webb, a former City Council member who works for an outdoor toy company supplier. Filed: Aug. 3.

In telephone interviews with the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal, the candidates addressed a number of topics they felt were priorities for their campaigns.

Orman, a Bentonville City Council member since January 2015, said traffic-related factors — including safety, congestion and development costs — are the city’s most important issues.

It’s no secret road infrastructure is having a hard time keeping up with the city’s growth. Bentonville is the fastest-growing city in Arkansas, according to the latest U.S. Census data. The town’s population grew from 20,169 in 2000 to 49,298 in 2017, a 144% increase. On top of that are the thousands of workers who commute into and out of Bentonville during the work week.

“I think across the board, roads are the number one issue and people are concerned about that,” she said. Orman said to mitigate those concerns, the city council and planning commission are studying a comprehensive road plan to address the growth.

She said engaging different transportation modes, including the cycling community, is important.

“There’s multiple ways to look at roads,” she said. “I think we have around 40 traffic lights and we’ll have around 50 by the end of next year. We’re trying to address it. The toughest thing with roads is the sheer cost, but also anytime you are expanding roads you are looking at relocating utilities and acquiring land, too. It’s expensive and hard to do quickly.”

Orman said the men and women who have worked with her on the city council the past few years would describe her as collaborative. She is also the only candidate to receive McCaslin’s endorsement.

“That’s not tied to anything other than who he believes is the best person for that job, based on what he knows from being in that position,” she said.

Shannon is a political newcomer, although he said he has been unofficially campaigning for the city since he moved to Bentonville four years ago.

A retired businessman, he previously owned a real estate company in Paris, Texas, and later a Yellow Pages publishing company. He said he also has a long history of civic and community involvement wherever he has lived, including Lake Charles, La. and Lafayette, La.

Shannon says he was encouraged to seek the mayor’s office by “long-term generation” Bentonville residents who thought he would get things done right.

“I am not a politician; I am a businessman,” he said. “I am unencumbered. I have nothing on my plate except to do the business of Bentonville.”

Shannon said his campaign’s top issues are related to anti-drug and anti-crime concerns, topics he says other candidates are not addressing.

“There are problems here and it’s because of the expansive growth,” he said. “We need to put a huge slowdown on what we are doing.”

Shannon lauded local law enforcement agencies for their efforts, but said “they can’t be everywhere,” and drugs are a growing problem in Bentonville. He referenced a gazebo near the downtown square along the Razorback Regional Greenway as a “hot point” for drug activity.

“No one is talking about this [issue] and I will tell you why,” he said. “There’s an entity here that is building an oasis and they don’t want a blip on the radar that there is anything wrong with Bentonville.”

Skaggs says he was in a very formal setting for 26 years as a judge, but joked he’d had enough of that.

“I want to have a very informal approach to leadership,” he said. “I want to be involved and know what’s going on, but the main thing is I want to be in contact with the people. I want to open the city government up to the people. I am passionate about communicating with citizens and getting their creative energy into the city government process.

Skaggs, a lifelong Bentonville resident, was a practicing attorney serving four terms as municipal judge and two terms as district judge for Benton County. He was also twice elected to two-year terms on the City Council in 1984 and 2014.

Skaggs said traffic and affordable housing concerns are matters that need to be addressed in order to keep up with the population growth. Confidence in city government is also an issue he repeatedly hears from voters.

“It’s not a lack of confidence in that the city has been operated from a business point of view,” he said. “There’s just a lot of frustration about being able to have some input into city government. It’s not a criticism of anyone in particular. It’s just an atmosphere that people don’t feel like they are being heard.”

As mayor, Skaggs said he would address that concern by making City Council members be more proactive in communicating with their constituents.

He said if elected, he would also consider creating a chief of staff position within his administration.

When asked what he considers to be the city’s major issue, Charlie Turner said safety on Bentonville’s portion of the region’s growing trail system is his priority. In the past decade, Northwest Arkansas has grown to include 350 miles of natural-surface trails and shared-use paved paths spanning the region, according to the Walton Family Foundation.

“None of them [City Council members) will talk to anybody, including me, about safety,” he said. “I want call boxes and cameras on those trails, especially in the desolate areas. There have been assaults on those trails. I don’t want my wife or daughters or granddaughters out there on those trails. And the council won’t talk about it. That’s why I filed.”

Turner has been in the barber shop business for almost 55 years and said he never sought the mayor’s office until now. He did run unsuccessfully for City Council in 2002 and lost, he said, by 30 votes.

Turner said his five-plus decades of business experience in Bentonville is something he can offer in the race that other candidates cannot.

“I have seen Bentonville change; a lot of it I like, a lot of it I don’t,” he said. “I think I know as much or more about this city than any [of the other candidates]. I’ve forgot more than of most of them know. If I can’t handle the job or answer the questions, I know who to go to and find out. I’m going to depend on other people to answer questions that I don’t know the answer to.”

Jim Webb is also a Bentonville native, whose grandfather and father were heavily involved in public service, including elected office. He said as mayor, he would prioritize working with state and federal officials to make sure all possible funding mechanisms are being applied when it comes to road infrastructure.

“We’ve got to stay in front of the traffic issue,” he said. “I think we’ve let that get away from us a little with the growth we’ve been experiencing.”

He said affordable housing options are vital to support Bentonville’s growing economy, particularly in the hospitality and culinary sectors. He said the city’s role is to be good stewards of its master development plan.

“We can’t waver when someone wants to build affordable housing or high-density housing,” he said. “We’ve got to allow property owners the right to build whatever they want to build on their property, if it’s within zoning regulations.”

Webb said he thinks Bentonville’s growth is at the right pace, and he would like to see more partnerships between private interests and local government to add to the development, particularly in the downtown area.

“There are opportunities for public-private partnerships,” he said. “We have got to address downtown parking, and I would like to see a parking garage with maybe some retail spaces. That would make sense, if it works for both the city and the private entity.”

Webb was twice elected to the City Council in 2014 and 2016, but resigned his spot earlier this year after he moved out of the district that elected him. He works for a supplier in Bentonville calling on Walmart and Sam’s Club, and said his 15 years of experience managing multimillion-dollar budgets separates him from the other candidates.

There are two remaining candidate forums scheduled before the nonpartisan election on Nov. 6. — Oct. 17 at 6 p.m. at the Bentonville Public Library and Oct. 24 at noon at the Bentonville Community Center during the regular meeting of the Rotary Club of Bentonville.

With five candidates in the race, a runoff election seems likely. Arkansas law mandates a runoff if no candidate receives either a majority of the votes cast, or a plurality of 40% of votes cast. If one of the candidates does receive a plurality of 40%, they must get at least 20% more of the votes cast than the second-place candidate to avoid a runoff.

If a runoff is required, it would be Tuesday, Nov. 27.