Chili, sex and silence

Like a good pot of chili on a cool and damp fall day, the following collection of sentences, punctuation and bad grammar contains several ingredients. We hope it satisfies without causing the consumer gastric distress. Or mental distress.

• Sex and The City Wire
The national news again includes the sexual preference debate among our troops. The news made us aware at The City Wire that we don’t have a policy about sex. Knowing that such a subject is deeply personal and important, we spent several minutes considering a policy. In the interest of transparency and on the chance that our intensely evaluated policy research might be helpful to you or your business, we disclose here The City Wire policy about sex. The policy is: “We’re not asking. We’re not telling. If you hurt yourself, you’re either doing it wrong or you’re into that sort of thing. Either way, we’re not asking and we’re not telling. Try to keep it medically safe, indoors and within the species but outside the immediate family.”

• An acceptable level of racism
With respect to two racial incidents involving white Fort Smith City Director Bill Maddox, we recently (Sept. 13) in this space posed the following questions: Will the other six members of the city board come together to make known their disapproval of such bad judgment? What about the Mayor? Will our business groups reprimand, or make public their discomfort with the recent racial insensitivity? Will groups like the Leadership Fort Smith Alumni Association and the Young Emerging Leaders issue statements that let the world know this one man does not represent the true heart of Fort Smith?

The answer to all questions was silence. The silence is anything but silent in that it, at a minimum, suggests a willingness to countenance behavior overtly rejected by most communities desirous of fostering a climate attractive to members of the creative class. Such silence could be interpreted as, “We don’t consider the actions of Maddox troubling or worthy of expending our political and social capital.”

Some will assert too much is made here of this issue and lack of response. Maybe so, but the best thing to do with anything that remotely looks cancerous is to address it quickly and absolutely.

• Chamber opportunity and obstacles
The subject of the more frequent questions of late is the much-publicized plans by the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce to change its leadership structure and seek more involvement from chamber members. More specifically, the question goes something like this: “What do you think of this Paul Harvel fella?”

Harvel is the new president of the chamber, and, as fellas go, he’s top-notch.

Harvel has embarked upon a broad, aggressive and fundamentally deep change at the chamber he hopes will have three positive outcomes. First, he wants to get the chamber’s finances back on solid ground. Harvel rightfully notes that a chamber is no good to its community and members if it lacks adequate finances. Secondly, he sincerely wants chamber members to be more involved in chamber committees and/or community goals. And third, he wants to ensure the chamber is a leader and/or solid partner in regional economic development efforts.

Let’s consider a few of Harvel’s obstacles rather than attempt to estimate any measure of success. Harvel’s biggest obstacle is in proving he’s not another Tom Manskey — which is to say, he’ll have to prove that when he seeks physical and fiscal collaboration, it will be a transparent, two-way street.

Another obstacle is that he has a talented, but relatively inexperienced staff. Harvel’s past successes in the chamber world included the support of a staff with rich chamber and community experience.

The last obstacle we will note is that of the chamber’s historical inability to conduct more enlightened economic development on a consistent and/or long-term basis. The chamber, and other regional economic development partners, will talk favorably about innovative approaches to economic expansion but often return to the more comfortable and traditional effort of recruiting and retaining manufacturing.

Because we all need the chamber to be successful, let’s hope Harvel’s obstacles are no match for his experience.

• Looking for a new Peter
We’ve received a few good applications, but we continue the search for a new Peter. The new Peter will produce a weekly column about area dining options, music venues/acts, and other cultural offerings (theater, music festivals, art center events, county fair beauty pageants, etc.). These weekly offerings will be written in a manner that is creative and engaging, engaging and creative and/or informative yet damn fun to read. Link here to learn more about how you can apply to be our new Peter.