Cotton meets with Northwest Arkansas mayors

Tom Cotton
Tom Cotton

CAVE SPRINGS -- Infrastructure, taxes on Internet sales and drug crimes ranked high on concerns from Benton County's small town mayors, who met Wednesday morning with U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

Money for items from parking lot paving to buying storm sirens will dry up when the state ends General Improvement Fund grants, and small cities will need such grants from some other source, mayors from Centerton, Cave Springs, Gravette, Siloam Springs and other towns told the senator.

"GIF helps us with some of our biggest infrastructure challenges, but with a Republican governor and scandals, it looks like it's going away," said Mayor Peter Christie of Bella Vista at the 10 a.m. meeting with Cotton at the Cave Springs Coffee Co.

Former state Rep. Micah Neal, R-Springdale, pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to accepting kickbacks in return for GIF grants. Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he has no money for these small grants to local entities in his budget and has said the practice needs to stop.

Congress and the president are aware of the country's municipal infrastructure needs and would address those, Cotton told the mayors.

On other issues, Cotton said he would support collections of taxes on Internet sales. Small town businesses are suffering losses to Internet commerce, and the towns are thereby losing sales tax revenue.

"A lot of Republicans keep saying this is a new tax," Cotton said. "It's not. I expect changes on that to be part of the tax reform that's coming.

"Every year we don't address this problem, it gets worse," Cotton said.

Cotton brought up the issue of police and fire protection. The common response to what the biggest problem is in that area was drug abuse, both of illegal and prescription drugs.

"We've watched the number of drug arrests rising, and now it's to the point we're going to have to hire an undercover officer," Christie said.

NW News on 02/23/2017

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