Go to almost any public forum in Pine Bluff and you’ll hear a concerned citizen or elected official bemoan “all the negativity.” People are clearly fed up with Pine Bluff’s persistently declining image. More often than not, they blame the media for fostering this lamentable thread of criticism. Blaming the media for unflattering news is similar to blaming the police for crime, the fire department for fires or the garbage collectors for garbage. In every instance, these organizations are just working with what they’re given. Sure, there’s discretion on the part of these aforementioned actors. Newspapers decide what to print. The fire and police departments manage calls for service. Garbage collectors determine what will be picked up and what will be left on the curb.
The month we just closed the book on, February 2012, illustrates why messenger-killing is wrong headed. Let us pause to consider some of the stories that made headlines over the past month.
We can start with the intrigue at the police department. Just as the murder epidemic appears to have abated, the police administration chose to self-immolate. There was the firing of Assistant Chief Ivan Whitfield. This imbroglio was conducted under a cloud of alleged personal motives and likely violations of policy and due process. As such, police Chief Brenda Davis-Jones’ decision to fire Whitfield was overturned on appeal. Then there was the flap surrounding the suspension of patrol officer Andrea Cherry. Then there was Lt. Roland Dorman’s termination, also reversed on appeal. Detective Marty Harrison’s suspension was under review by the appeals board until Friday when the board, once again, overturned a decision by the chief — in this case throwing out her 10-day suspension of Harrison and instead gave him five days — and called her level of punishment “arbitrary.” In short, the police administration hardly has time to worry about criminals when it seems bent on shooting itself in the foot a la Barney Fife. All of which has led the city council to reconsider its decision to do away with the Civil Service Commission. You think?
Then there was the suspension of Donald Sampson, director of the city’s Economic and Community Development Department. According to the administration’s version of events, Sampson was suspended because his inaction on a grant application cost the city just under a million dollars.
We can then move across town to the school yard brawl that is the Pine Bluff School Board spat with now-terminated (or is he?) Superintendent Jerry Payne. The parties to this public spectacle didn’t get along from the outset. Payne challenged the old ways of doing things and got repeatedly knocked down for it. Of course, his challenge to tradition was done in less-than-delicate fashion. That the school board met in executive session but never took a vote in public regarding the superintendent’s contract could put the decision in question since, by state law, votes made in executive session but not made in public aren’t binding.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The Pine Bluff School Board is hardly alone in fomenting educational problems. As reported just last week, four staffers at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff — including an assistant to Chancellor Lawrence Davis Jr. — were terminated pursuant to a multi-year investigation by the University of Arkansas System and the Arkansas State Police that included the fact that close to three-quarters of a million dollars in payments made to payroll and purchasing did not go through proper channels. What makes this situation worse is Davis’ lack of contrition and his defense of his own actions even in light of the audit’s findings. This stance would seem to put the chancellor at odds with his boss, UA System President Donald R. Bobbitt, who said the audit was thorough, university policies and procedures weren’t followed, and the UA system is working “to correct the problems uncovered by the audit.” Not a lot of wiggle room there.
This whole cauldron of public brew bubbled to the top in just 29 short days. Maybe we should give school, university and city officials credit for cramming several months’ if not years’ worth of public scandal into just one month, but as economizing goes, that’s a pretty rotten place to start.
All this leads right back to matters of reputation and perception. We can’t expect people on the outside to give Pine Bluff a lot of credit when our local institutions comport themselves thusly. As the county’s primary news outlet, we would love nothing better than a parade of unabashedly positive and upbeat news. While that “good” news is the kind that doesn’t get a lot of play outside our confines, the above-mentioned stories can echo across the whole state. And while a certain amount of arm-wrestling and scuffling goes with running a community, goodness gracious, it seems we get an overabundance of both and the drama to boot.
In short, good-bye February and good riddance.