Commentary: AMP Opening Reveals Other Places to Hear Music

Legwork is Needed to Keep Rogers Beautiful

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Rumor has it Blake Shelton performed at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion last week.

Actually, it is more than rumor. Facebook was filled with updates of people who either managed to overcome the ticketing issues, or knew someone who got them a ticket.

I apparently don't know the right people.

Overall, things seem to have gone well the night of the concert. The Rogers Police Department is pretty good about planning for potential traffic issues -- of course, there is always the possibility for crazy things to happen.

Like, a banquet celebrating the career of Frank Broyles, former athletic director at the University of Arkansas, on the same night, at the same time, at an adjacent venue.

Still, reports indicate things went well. All the music was not held within the confines of the AMP. Several people reported sitting on the hill across Interstate 49 at Mercy Hospital enjoying the concert. Some were parked closer to Best Buy.

Why, you may ask, would you sit across a busy highway from a venue? You can't see the performer.

Generally speaking, unless you have really good seats, you can only see them on the video screens anyway, and sometimes not on the screens. That's because people insist on standing up. I don't know why, but they do.

So if you knew what Hunter Hayes, who opened for Shelton, looks like, and you knew what Shelton looks like, and you couldn't get a ticket, why not enjoy just the music?

I gave consideration to doing this, but theorized security would run off those sitting near the hospital, or Best Buy, or where ever. I haven't heard of that happening, and I salute those property owners who allowed people to park there.

In a lot of ways, it would be good for business. Well, maybe not for Mercy, but for other businesses. Personally, I will be far more likely to shop at Best Buy than I would have had I heard they ran people off.

That said, people should be appreciative and not do things to get themselves run off or banned, like leaving trash, making noise or causing customers -- or patients -- problems with access to the business.

Coming up at the AMP this month: Darius Rucker, then the Dierks Bentley concert, which is part of events held in connection with the NW Arkansas Championship golf tournament and is sold out.

•••

People in Rogers are concerned about how their city looks. So said Mayor Greg Hines in a report John Gore wrote last week about the city's code compliance efforts.

Hines said that concern is reflected in the results of surveys done in conjunction with the two ongoing studies regarding the future of Rogers and the region.

Should it take a study to tell city officials that? Yeah, I don't think so either, but apparently it did.

I have had some contact with code compliance on a personal level. Right after Steve Womack was elected mayor, I complained about the Cat Lady whose multitude of cats and unkempt property was doing nothing for the property values in the rest of the neighborhood.

In truth, the fact that someone -- honestly, not me -- called in about the smell and their fear it was a dead person, probably forced the issue. Nonetheless, the animals were moved to healthy situations, the house was torn down and the property cleaned up.

The second situation hasn't gone as well. First, the excuse was someone was living there and officials didn't want her homeless. The most recent excuse was that the house was selling for taxes.

I don't want anyone homeless, but I don't want a house nearby with part of the roof falling off and a hunk of siding off the back even if the yard is kept mowed.

I know that working with owners of foreclosed property is thankless -- mortgage bankers in Chicago and New York just don't care what condition the property they own in Rogers, Ark., is in.

However, some issues just require legwork, like that which John did on the property at 3512 S. First St. City officials insist it was "grandfathered" in, when annexed, as a salvage yard.

Not only it was not annexed as such, the gentleman who owns the property admitted he had no business license and, no, he doesn't operate a salvage yard -- he collects stuff.

Like I said, legwork.

As we in Rogers move forward, its going to take a lot more legwork, and a commitment by officials to see that the work is done.

Commentary on 06/12/2014