Northwest Arkansas Newspapers. Jan. 24, 2012
A Reprieve For A Piece Of History
Sooner or later, something must be done about the remnants of the Monte Ne resort.
As it is, the main portion of Monte Ne's remains, a three-story "tower" that was part of a 1910 hotel called Oklahoma Row, is an eyesore.
It's covered with graffiti and is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. There is the potential for some trespassers to get hurt on the property, which now belongs to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In November, the corps suddenly started talking as if action had to be taken as soon as possible.
The message we got was that, unless outside groups could raise an extravagant amount of money in a few months for the purpose of restoring and preserving the landmark, then a wrecking ball was coming soon to what remains of Monte Ne.
We're relieved to hear that no such thing is happening ? not yet, anyway.
The Monte Ne resort, built by William "Coin" Harvey in 1900, was one of the most visited resort towns in Arkansas in the early 20th century. As a historical landmark, it might appeal to 21st century tourists if it were properly restored.
Another option is to eliminate Monte Ne's remnants once and for all. But once Monte Ne is gone, it's gone, and we can't get it back.
This is a decision that deserves serious thought.
We're glad that the corps appears to have reconsidered its initial aggressive timeline. Mike Richards, deputy operations manager of Beaver Lake, said recently that no decision would be made until after a corps team from Seattle has thoroughly documented and evaluated the site.
That team will then offer its opinion on whether the site should be preserved or demolished.
The corps estimates a cost of about $240,272 to restore and preserve the area, compared to $132,022 to demolish the tower and let the area return to a natural habitat. If the corps were to preserve the site, it likely would need financial help from a nonprofit organization.
Numerous state and local historical groups have expressed an interest in preservation. Allyn Lord, director of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, said that if the site is preserved, trails are built and the site is marketed, it could be a tourist attraction - just one more thing for out-of-towners to see besides that art museum in Bentonville.
This is the year for Northwest Arkansas to figure out what to do about Monte Ne. We're thankful to the corps for giving us time to do that. It was the right thing to do.
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Harrison Daily Times. Jan. 24, 2012
Fluoride ? how hard will the state push?
A handful of forward-thinking residents pushed aside philosophical differences a decade ago and set their minds toward securing a safe source of drinking water and selling it to some of the state's poorest residents at the cheapest possible price.
They have navigated through property rights issues, government regulations, cranky landowners and opposition from people who just don't like some officials with the Ozark Mountain Region Public Water Authority.
But the Ozark Mountain Region Public Water Authority water board persevered.
Thinly spread across Boone, Newton, Searcy and a little piece of Marion County, they have negotiated and obtained more than $70 million in funding to engineer a dream that most of them never expected to see completed in their lifetimes.
Now they've run into a state-mandate to add fluoride to drinking water. This could be a real sticking point when looking at the mixture of polar ideologies ? a deal-breaker for some people.
Some of our neighbors believe they can buy a pill to cure anything, while other residents want to live a holistic lifestyle without medication or government requirements.
I fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, like many of us. But this water system is for all of us, from Diamond City to Leslie and Deer, and how do you only add fluoride to water for residents who don't object?
The state legislature created a problem for many water associations when it approved legislation requiring fluoride be added to all public water systems with more than 5,000 users.
While that wouldn't affect any single water association in the Ozark Mountain Region Public Water Authority, it would affect the entire system with more than 20,000 people drinking its water.
I'll credit the Ozark Mountain Region Public Water Authority for trying to face the problem head-on and gather a consensus for water systems in this part of the state.
They've calculated that adding fluoride to public water will increase startup costs $281,000 and add 14 cents per 1,000 gallons to residents' water bills.
That might not sound like a lot of money, but when you've got lots of customers living below the poverty line, every cent counts.
Personally, I would vote for adding fluoride to our household's water supply, but that would be the wrong decision for lots of my friends.
That's the same way I feel about adding growth hormones and antibiotics to livestock and poultry feeds. While I'm a long way from an organic farmer, those aren't substances I want to ingest into my body.
Requiring fluoride be added to all major water systems may sound like a simple fix to decaying teeth, but that's a lot of government regulation with no local input.
So here's my input ? leave fluoride out of our water and let the state see how far and how hard it wants to push the measure. I seem to be doing OK with fluoride in toothpaste and other sources.
This way, the only other person being impacted by my fluoride use is my wife.
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Jonesboro Sun. Jan. 22, 2012
Recovery shows in business study
Business Insider, an online magazine, credits the Jonesboro Metropolitan Statistical Area as one of only 26 in the country to completely recover all jobs it lost during the recession of 2007-09. That's out of 363 MSAs, so, if true, it would be quite an achievement for our region and would confirm what we've long suspected: that Jonesboro hasn't been hit as hard by the recession as most other parts of the country.
However, it's a little hard to see how the author of the magazine article came to include Jonesboro as one of the 26, or actually 44 as it actually appears to be.
The basis for the article was "U.S. Metro Economies: 2012 Employment Forecast and the Impact of Export," a new study prepared for the U.S. Council of Mayors and The Council for the New American City.
One of many charts in the study projects the share of jobs recovered for every MSA by the end of the fourth quarter this year, indicating that 44 cities will have recovered all pre-recession jobs lost. Jonesboro has done well but is not among the 44.
The only Arkansas MSA that is, Hot Springs (identified in the study text as in Arizona), will be better off by the end of the year than it was before the recession began.
The Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers MSA, which lost 10,600 jobs during the recession, was also among the top MSAs listed, having recovered 94 percent of its jobs lost.
The Jonesboro MSA was just a little further down the line. The chart shows we had 49,300 jobs before the recession, lost 1,200 of them, and will be back to 49,100 by the end of the year, a 78 percent recovery rate. The magazine article apparently bases Jonesboro's place on an earlier projection because the study also makes reference to 26 cities having fully recovered "as of now."
All the other Arkansas MSAs are having a tougher time recovering, with Fort Smith and Pine Bluff down in the bottom 75 of the list for fourth quarter 2012 projections.
The magazine article shows a picture of the doughboy statue in front of the Craighead County Courthouse and says that the Jonesboro MSA's present employment of about 48,700 represents 4.1 percent of the state's employment. That makes this the fourth largest MSA in Arkansas (West Memphis is in the Memphis MSA, therefore is considered part of Tennessee).
Evidence of the recovery is shown in the overall performance for 2011. when more than 1.6 million jobs were added to American payrolls, a modest increase of 1.3 percent over the previous year. That has pushed the unemployment rate down to 8.5 percent nationwide.
But at the end of last year 125 cities and their metropolitan areas had not seen any net job growth, but the study predicts that all MSAs will have had at least some job gains over their recession low point.
The full impact of the recession will take longer to overcome, as shown by the median household income nationwide for 2010 ? $49,455. That's 7.1 percent lower than the median household income in 1999, which would be $53,252 in 2010 dollars.
Jonesboro's median household income declined from $37,100 in 2007 to $35,500 in 2010. That, of course, negatively impacts consumer spending and affects the local and regional economy up and down the line.
We can take comfort, though, in the fact that we haven't been hit as hard as most other areas of the country and, more importantly, that signs of recovery are beginning to show up everywhere.
