Accidentally making his point

Conference miscue underscores Bisbee's need for better communication.

— County Judge Dave Bisbee pulled his seat closer to thetable and, with both hands, opened a bag containing food from Sonic. Next to him, comptroller Richard McComas had already put out his food, put a straw in his drink.

The to-go bags, coincidentally, were brown.

These are normally unimportant details, forgotten in the assumption that people eat lunch, especially at noon. And it would be unimportant here too, but those two bags were the only two in the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce conference room at Bisbee's first brown bag press conference Friday.

A miscommunication between Bisbee and a newspaper reporter who does not work for The Daily Record turned a BYO event to a county-catered meeting. Bisbee said he assumed brown bag meant lunch was not provided, but the print version reversed that.

"That's the kind of mistakes we made without even intending to," Bisbee said to a crowd that laughed louder than any stomach grumblings.

The weekly meetings - Bisbee didn't have a preferred term - are intended to solve some of those issues by allowing Bisbee to speak with his constituents and clear up any questions they might have.

The meetings will be in Bentonville on the first Friday of the month and in Rogers on the fourth Friday. On the second and third Fridays, the meetings will be in Bella Vista or Siloam Springs, but the order hasn't been set, and on the fifth Friday, when there is one, Bisbee will visit one of the smaller communities in the county.

There were few questions for the first lunchfree luncheon. So Bisbee talked about his building proposal to the QuorumCourt, which would put the county Health Department in the Rogers Non-Profit Center, eventually leading to a new Juvenile Detention Center, which would free up space to transport prisoners behind the county courthouse instead of in the middle of the Square. Bisbee estimated the plan would get the county away from leased buildings and fill its need for space for up to 15 years.

"This is a buyer's market," Bisbee said. "The thing I don't want to do is nothing."

Then Bisbee turned to McComas for an account of the budgeting process. McComas touched on the plan to cut $1 million from the 2010 budget in anticipation of the U.S. Census coming in February 2011, which is expected to cut the county's revenue by $2.8 million because of a shrinking population in the unincorporated areas. That is about the same amount the county lost when Bella Vista incorporated in 2007.

There was one suggestion that came from the meeting, which about a dozen people attended. Bisbee said he hopes to incorporate the idea to post simplified budget graphs on the county's Web site for the benefit of residents.

The weekly lunch continues next week in the Quorum Court room. Bisbee is being clear this time: Brown bags are welcomed, but lunch is not on him.

News, Pages 1, 10 on 09/26/2009

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