Those who express opposition to the upcoming renewal of the Go Forward Pine Bluff-sponsored sales tax have been getting the talking point of, well, if you don’t like the Go Forward plan, what’s your plan?
That bumper sticker response is a bit disingenuous. In the year or so leading up to the 2017 vote, the organizers of the campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and called together scores of individuals to meet and discuss and plan what a better Pine Bluff would look like. In the end, what they wanted the city to look like was matched with a five-eighths-cent sales tax.
Now, more than a year before the first tax is to expire, voters are abruptly going to the polls to vote again. That rush to approve the renewal of the tax has left little time for anyone to pull together another plan.
Be that as it may, we think it’s fine to get rid of something that’s not working even if there’s not something to take its place. It is from that standpoint that we urge voters to retire the Go Forward tax.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
In a nutshell, there have been too many curtains and not enough sunlight.
The Go Forward tax has raised $32.5 million since its inception. The staggering sum is, in many corners, met with a shaking of the head and the pronouncement that there is no way the city has gotten that amount of good from the sales tax. Even if one doesn’t tread into the dollars and think there has been something ill involved, it is still galling that no citizen can be in the room when the Go Forward board hatches its plans on how the money is to be spent or has been spent. That is because the group is a nonprofit and doesn’t have to operate within the confines of the Freedom of Information Act. Legal? Yes. Transparent? Hardly. And without transparency, how can there truly be accountability? The arrangement is clever, but perhaps too clever by half. The voices we have heard seem to have picked up on the fact that they are in the dark about much of what goes on in Go Forward World, which operates to a great degree behind a veil of secrecy.
One of the most disturbing aspects of Go Forward is the operation of its little sister entity, the Pine Bluff Urban Renewal Agency. In the years since Urban Renewal came into existence, the agency has bought or otherwise acquired some 35 buildings and parcels of land. The idea was to gain control of the properties thereby creating an ecosystem in which businesses take hold and thrive and dwellings are built to house the people who want to be part of a chic downtown scene. That idea has cost close to $1.3 million. And if you gathered together all of the revenue that endeavor has created, you could not buy a cup of coffee.
Another sad aspect of Urban Renewal are the three buildings on Main Street that the agency has tricked out in hopes of luring businesses into them. The buildings are just adorable – on the outside. Inside, they are a blank page: no plumbing, no electricity, no heating and air-conditioning.
To get the buildings to this point, Urban Renewal spent close to $1 million, not counting what the properties cost to buy. And for Judy Businesswoman, who is considering moving her enterprise into one, she would have to spend $600,000 to bring one of the two smaller businesses up to code or twice that for the larger one.
The figures are staggering, both in terms of what was spent on the buildings and what it would take to finish them. It’s no wonder they are still vacant.
Could that change in another seven years? Anything is possible. But how long do you extend a tax when you see it going nowhere fast? We think enough is enough.
The other part of Urban Renewal, its task of knocking down derelict houses, has shown some promise in that it has done that job about 180 times. But even that aspect invites criticism. Urban Renewal has lots of money to use for razing such structures. The city’s Code Enforcement office does the same job but gets very little funding for that work. The situation begs the question: Why do we duplicate these tasks? Properly nourished, Code Enforcement could handle the work.
The lack of transparency also comes into play in other ways. Take The Generator, for instance. Go Forward ran off the previous director and hired the mayor’s son to run it. He is apparently working for no pay — not that any press release or announcement was made saying he was in charge. The absence of a full-time director might be an OK look for a couple of months while Go Forward searches for a permanent replacement, but this has been going on for more than a year.
The city funds The Generator to the tune of $300,000 to $400,000 a year and sometimes more. One would think that something of that magnitude would cry out for a director who was found at the end of a nationwide search. But apparently a fill-in is just dandy. And dare we ask how a grown man can work for free? It’s an oddity.
And it is of note that the Go Forward CEO Ryan Watley bought several houses in the ALICE zone not long before the ALICE program was announced early last year. The ALICE program helps low income people buy homes through low interest loans with the goal of increasing both the level of home ownership and the value of the homes in that area. In short, Watley stands to profit from his home purchases. As former City Council Member Ivan Whitfield put it, it’s an example of “insider buying.” For his part, Watley says nothing was amiss, but perception is everything and this is a bad look for him and Go Forward involving a program he devised.
As well, the son of an Urban Renewal board member is now employed by Go Forward. We can’t recall any public announcement about that hire either. Watley defends it all, but these arrangements won’t pass everyone’s smell test.
State Rep. Vivian Flowers said last week she was against the renewal of the tax but that her no vote now was not a forever no and that she would be for a sales tax that called for more transparency and accountability and one that created a partnership with UAPB and offered a stronger bond with education. We think she’s onto something — perhaps something that is spelled out on a ballot title so people know exactly what they are getting and do indeed have a seat at the table.
The Go Forward tax has definitely propelled Pine Bluff forward, just not as far as was hoped and not in the way it should have been conducted. But the tax’s end does not have to be the end of trying to move ahead. Pine Bluff is better than that.
As for the proposed three-eighths-cent tax for public safety, we cannot muster much enthusiasm for it either. The ballot title says very little and the tax never sunsets unlike the Go Forward tax, which expires in another seven years. We do not care for sales taxes that go on the books forever. People forget they are there. And there’s already a sales tax on the books for public safety. We give this tax a thumbs down as well.
We could also ask why the public safety tax was not proposed by anyone on the city council but instead handed to the council from the Go Forward board. That arrangement gives additional credence to the allegation that the Go Forward board is actually more powerful in some situations than the council itself.
If you agree with us on these matters or don’t, exercise your right as a Pine Bluff citizen and take a stand for what you see as the best path. The May 9 vote is a special election. Not many people bother with special elections so all votes are especially meaningful. Make your voice count. Early voting starts Tuesday at the Jefferson County Courthouse.