By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
Only one bid was received for leveling 26 acres of land recently purchased by the city adjacent to the existing Forrest City Sports Complex.
The bid, opened during Tuesday's city council meeting was from Jimmy Sadler of Marianna, for $13,979.40.
The bid will be studied.
The council also passed three resolutions. One was to authorize Mayor Larry Bryant to apply for funds from the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism to build a walking trail, under the Trails For Life grant program. The objective of the program is to construct trails to encourage physical exercise for health reasons. The grant would be for $35,000. Bryant said the trail would be at Southside Park.
The second resolution authorized the acceptance of $33,009 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance in the form of a Local Law Enforcement Block Grant.
The third resolution declared a house at 208 Water Street to be condemned, and giving the owner 30 days to either tear down the building or to obtain a building permit to restore or reconstruct the building. If nothing has happened after 30 days of notification, the city will have the building torn down.
In other action, the council agreed to advertise for architects to submit their qualifications for the multi-purpose building to be built at the Municipal Sports Complex.
On another matter, Bryant said there will be some police saturations, which he called directed patrols, in different parts of the city over the next 30 days. Council member Mary Jeffers asked if the extra patrols would be also cracking down on loud music, and Bryant said they would. He said hundreds of tickets for loud music have been written by the police department.
In other business, Bryant said the Arkansas Municipal League is trying to gather support for removing the sales tax exemption from some items. He said there will be a resolution prepared for the next meeting for the council to support or reject the idea. There were no specifics mentioned Monday on which currently-exempt items might be affected.
Council member Roger Breeding announced that there will be a meeting of the committee appointed to work out differences between Sanyo Manufacturing and King Disposal, at 6 p.m. before the next regular council meeting on Oct. 21.
Council member Steve Hollowell has been serving on a committee to work out differences between the city and St. Francis County on the 911 emergency system. "Mrs. Jeffers and I have met a couple of times with quorum court members and some other people, and I think we're making some progress on that and will get it all worked out," he said.
On another matter, Breeding said he understands the mayor's position that the city shouldn't be mowing the state right-of-way on the cloverleaf.
"But if we can't get something worked out where they are going to maintain it a lot better than they've been maintaining it," he would suggest looking into the cost.
"What I'm doing," said Bryant, "and I'm trying
to do it subtly, is working on getting special consideration for
this cloverleaf, because it's the only other one in the state
of Arkansas (outside Little Rock)...If we can get them to cut
it, and then we can do some other manicuring, so to speak, without
violating any federal regulations that they (the highway department)
is having to abide by, that's where we're trying to get. Hopefully,
we can get there before next spring."
St. Francis County residents have a couple more days to get to the Sheriff and Collector's office to pay their 2002 property taxes without penalties.
According to a press release from Chief Deputy Collector Emily Holley, any taxes paid or postmarked by Friday, Oct. 10, will avoid any penalties.
"If people come in, or get their tax payments postmarked by Oct. 10, then they won't have to pay any extra fees," said Holley.
According to Holley, collectors have been busy recently taking in over $3.9 million that had been collected through Wednesday.
"We've had our slow times, but for the most part it's really been busy. It seems like everyone meets up here to pay their taxes, so even though it's busy, the people keep the lines moving," Holley said.
Tax collections compared to the same point last year show over a $100,000 increase in collections. According to Holley, at the same time last year, collections came in at over $3.7 million.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln told the Forrest City Rotary Club on Tuesday that the coming year will be interesting politically and economically, both at home and abroad.
"You pick up the newspaper today and you see a great deal to be concerned about," she said. "Just three years ago, our federal budget was posting record surpluses, and we were paying down our national debt, and now we're looking at record deficits, really, for as far as the eye can see."
She said the economy has changed a lot.
"Although the last few months have brought us some encouraging signs from the economy, it's driven in large part by substantial government spending," she said. "The key is that we allow the market place to begin to get a handle on things and work things out."
She said she feels that most Arkansans are not feeling particularly confident about the economy right now. Even if some indicators are improving, "It's a simple fact that most people aren't feeling the improvements in their own lives."
One big issue is the cost of the U.S. military in 35 countries, particularly Afghanistan and Iraq. And while she said she supports the troops, she questions some of the expenditures.
"Great challenges remain, and our soldiers are still at great risk," she said.
"Along with many of my colleagues, I supported the use of military force in Iraq and in Afghanistan, because I thought action in those counties would be a step toward securing global security and stability in the long run," she said. "I know you've heard some of the information that's come out since the war, suggesting our intelligence may have been faulty or that Iraq's weapons capabilities may have been exaggerated. I do think we need to get to the bottom of why that happened."
She said other nations look to the United States as a superpower, "But they want to be able to depend on us using facts, that we don't use hypothesis to make decisions, particularly in terms of pre-emptive war."
She said the war on terrorism will be fought with intelligence, and the intelligence community needs the freedom to do its job.
"And those covert analysts and agencies have to know that they can remain covert," she said, referring to the recent leaking of the name of a CIA agent, in what some critics have called political retribution for criticism the agent's spouse made of the administration's justification for the war in Iraq.
She said she believes it is clear that not enough planning was done for post-war Iraq.
"Nowhere has it been more clearly demonstrated than in President Bush's recent surprise request for an additional $87 billion to support military and reconstruction operations in Iran and Afghanistan. That is on top of the $79 billion that was requested and appropriated last spring.
"There is no one in Washington who doesn't want to provide the $50 million that's in this package to support our service men and women who are there," she said. However, adding there was a problem with some of the rest of the package.
"We weren't allowed to separate them, and that's a real problem for me because I want to support the funding for the troops. But then I look at the fact that in this reconstruction, we are spending eight times the amount of money on wetland reclamation in Iraq than we are in this country. I've got farmers lined up til the cows come home with land that qualifies for wetland reserve. And yet we don't have the funds to do it."
She said there is also funding for school construction.
"I find it odd that this administration would support so much school construction dollars in Iraq, and yet does not support school construction dollars in the U.S.," she said. She said Iraq does need help, but the help needs to be sustainable.
"That's why the federal government...wants to know there is a local investment in any of those projects," she said. "We've got to make sure as we look at the reconstruction that we've got a plan, that we understand what we want to do, and that we're engaging not just the Iraqi people, but the global community as well."
Lincoln also said that everyone needs to realize that the United States is tied to the global economy.
"We have got to recognize the importance not to this nation,
but to Arkansas," she said. "One of the earliest lessons
my dad taught me was, 'Blanche, we can't just build a fence around
ourselves and sell our widgets and gadgets and hamburgers to one
another.' He knew we had to develop trading relations with other
countries."
By ALAN SMITH
T-H Staff Writer
Smoking prevention through the East Arkansas Enterprise Community got a large financial boost Tuesday from the Minority Initiative Sub-Recipient Grant (MISRG) Office of the University of Pine Bluff.
Dr. George Blevins Jr., coordinator of the office, awarded an implementation grant of $80,256 to the EAEC for its Stamp Out Smoking (SOS) initiative and Breathe Right program. The MISRG office provides funds from the master tobacco settlement fund through the Arkansas Health Department to organizations that teach about the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke.
"I am very pleased to be here to award the implementation grant to the EAEC," said Blevins. "We had 46 organizations apply for funding across the state this year, and you are one of 24 that we could fund," he told EAEC board members. "These funds are used for smoking prevention. I was a smoker for 30 years, and I quit about 11 years ago. I know how hard it is to quit and the risks people run when they smoke. We appreciate what you are doing here. Down the line, what you are doing will save us money in healthcare costs. Your success is our success."
According to Delores Woods, the EAEC Health Outreach Coordinator, this is the second time the MISRG has awarded the organization with tobacco settlement money.
Woods also talked about the group's plans for the future. "We will continue with our SOS and Breathe Right programs, and we want to talk with city and county government. We hope to get ordinances passed for non-smoking in some buildings. We want to work with grocery stores and restaurants about second-hand smoke. It is very dangerous. Our motto is: 'Breathing is a right, smoking is a privilege.' We want people to think about the effect second-hand smoke has."
A Life Blood drive has been scheduled on the East Arkansas Community College campus.
The blood drive will be held in Classroom Building 4, Room 102 on Wednesday, Oct. 29, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. The drive is being sponsored by the Mid-South Regional Blood Center and EACC. Everyone who donates blood will receive a free T-shirt.
To register, contact Melvin Tinsley at 633-4480 ext. 304.
The St. Francis County branch of the NAACP will hold its 26th annual Freedom Fund Banquet on Friday, Nov. 14, beginning at 7 p.m.
The focus of this year's event will be Economic Empowerment and area administrators from area financial institutions have been invited participate in the event. For more information on the NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet call Charlene Sykes at 633-4695 or the NAACP at 633-5790.
A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held Wednesday, Oct. 15, from 10 a.m. until noon, for a new multi-family apartment community, Alcott Manor, located at 7923 Highway 70 W. in Palestine.
The ribbon cutting will be hosted by the Arkansas Land and Farm Development Corp.
Following that, from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m., there will be a second groundbreaking for Phase II of the Meadowbrook Subdivision, located at 716 Meadowbrook Way in Marianna.