How We See It: Arts Center Gives Its Word On Dickson Street Future

In the study of dramatic structure, an age-old debate center's on defining the various parts necessary to satisfy the consumer of the story being told.

There is, of course, the introduction or exposition, setting the stage, so to speak, for the audience to understand what is about to take place in front of them. There is, naturally, also an ending or resolution. One can debate precisely how many elements exist between the two.

Northwest Arkansas is somewhere between the beginning and the end of the drama known as expansion of the Walton Arts Center on Dickson Street. Every story has a climax, and perhaps this one came last November when Fayetteville voters went to the polls, having been asked to commit taxpayer dollars to pay off up to $6.9 million on bonds to renovate and expand the Dickson Street performance hall. Putting a question in front of voters is almost always a climactic moment in the life of a public project, for it often can determine whether it's a go or not.

In this case, Fayetteville voters stayed true to a call it answered in the late 1980s to help create the Walton Arts Center -- as an organization and a facility -- from scratch. The people last November recommitted to the arts fully knowledgeable of the arts center's plans to expand with facilities in Rogers and, eventually, in Bentonville. The birthplace of the Walton Arts Center still believes in the mission.

If that was the climax of this drama, there are still nonetheless unresolved elements of this story, with the primary characters being the leadership of the arts center and the Fayetteville City Council. The arts center wants aldermen to agree to new governance rules that diminish -- but do not eliminate -- the city's role in the decision-making of the arts center. Those rules strengthen the hand of the Walton Family Foundation, the charitable arm of a Northwest Arkansas family whose generosity has also played an essential role in making the arts center work.

The City Council recently hesitated, wanting assurances that the arts center's commitment to the Fayetteville theater's $23 million expansion and operation is strong. Last week, the Walton Arts Center Council passed a resolution stating no money will be raised for any new performance facilities within or outside Fayetteville without having first funded and completed construction of the Fayetteville expansion.

Resolutions are not binding documents, so should that be adequate to satisfy the powers that be on the Fayetteville City Council? The arts center is hesitant to redraft the governance agreement because they've already been approved by University of Arkansas trustees and the arts council.

Arts center officials have publicly embraced a long-term commitment to the Dickson Street facility, calling it core to its mission for decades to come. They have established that to do otherwise, they will have to break their word in a very public way. Does that guarantee anything? Perhaps nothing more than putting their integrity on the line.

It's time for the Fayetteville City Council to say "yes" to changes that will set the stage for a future of great performances in Northwest Arkansas, including an outstanding facility on Dickson Street.