A convenient absence

Alderman Rhoads, where are you?

— WHEN THE going gets tough, an alderman like Fayetteville's Robert Rhoads gets going-right out of the room.

The tough issue before the city council last Tuesday: Would the aldermen follow the recommendation of the city's planning commission and rezone some property to allow a developer, Campus Crest, to build an upscale apartment complex for students near the national cemetery in South Fayetteville?

Or would the city council deny the request, and thereby permit veterans' groups and others to acquire property beside the existing cemetery for its future use?

When the Yes-or-No moment of truth arrived, Alderman Rhoads was nowhere to be seen. As a consequence, the motion to rezone the property for the apartment complex failed-3 to 4.

Mr. Rhoads later told Robin Mero of the Northwest Arkansas Times that he'd made arrangements with the city clerk to leave the meeting for a personal reason.

And what could be more personalthan wanting to avoid casting a controversial vote?

The alderman added that he would have voted for the rezoning had he been present. Which would have produced a tie vote, 4 to 4. And that would have meant passing this scalding-hot potato on to Mayor Lioneld Jordan, who would have had to cast the deciding vote.

Luckily for the mayor, Mr. Rhoads was conveniently out of the room, and it never seemed to dawn on the mayor that he could have put off the vote till Alderman Rhoads returned. Or maybe luck had nothing to do with it. If we didn't know better, we'd suspect that such a well-timed coincidence was no coincidence.

But whatever the reason for it, the result of the vote is one all of us who want to assure a peaceful buffer zone around the cemetery, and provide for its future needs, can welcome.

Sometimes local politics works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. Which may be the only resemblance it bears to the divine.

Editorial, Pages 16 on 09/25/2009

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