A couple of weeks ago, I had heard very little opposition to any of Fayetteville's bond issue projects.
The colorful "10 for Fay" fliers hitting people's mailboxes in recent days might have gotten some folks stirred up.
Early voting got underway last Tuesday and continues until 4:30 p.m. on Monday at the Washington County Courthouse, then comes Election Day on Tuesday.
So far, 1,184 people have cast ballots in the special election. Fayetteville has 52,742 voters eligible to cast ballots, according to Washington County Clerk Becky Lewallen.
Mayor Lioneld Jordan and the Fayetteville City Council have outlined a $226 million plan of 10 ballot questions. Question No. 1 is simple: Do voters want to continue a citywide 1 percent sales tax and devote it to paying off a previous debt plus a new collection of capital projects over the next 12-15 years?
Questions 2-10 outline money requested for specific projects or collections of projects. These range from a $3 million pool for economic development to a $31.7 million plan to build a parking deck near the Walton Arts Center, create what supporters call a civic space on the arts center lot at West Avenue and Dickson Street and develop an "arts corridor" south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Other issues involve parks, fire and police facilities as well as updates on other city buildings, roads and trails, and drainage projects. (For this newspaper's recent coverage of the bond program, visit www.nwaonline.com/faybondelection.) The largest is more than $70 million for roads.
Absent any organized opposition, I've felt voters would be favorable to what the city has requested. Voices of opposition, however, have gotten a little louder in recent days.
Most of that opposition has been focused on the so-called arts corridor born of a Walton Family Foundation grant of $1.8 million for design work. Opposition has come in two forms: those who believe the project is an unneeded extravagance and those who say the parking lot cannot be replaced in a manner that won't harm the arts center's viability, particularly among older patrons (who, by the way, fit a demographic that tends to show up at the polls). That older demographic might also make up a decent portion of the arts center's philanthropic audience.
Advocates say the project will be as transformational as the arts center was to Dickson Street when it opened 27 years ago.
Oddly, a couple of people have linked their arts corridor opposition to the uncomfortable bike lane test project on Rolling Hills Drive. If that's the kind of project the city thinks is needed, their thinking goes, then the city's leadership doesn't know what it's doing.
The other big criticism aligns with the gripes about recent capital project votes in Springdale, Rogers and Benton County, namely that special elections are manipulative of the voting public. Critics say their small turnouts give a tiny percentage of the population too much power to make decisions for the long-term. It's entirely possible for such projects to be placed on general election ballots, they say, but government leaders prefer special elections because it's traditionally easier to notch a victory.
Last week's early voting represents about 2.25 percent of the voters eligible in Fayetteville. I'd be shocked if Monday's and Tuesday's turnout is large enough to disprove the critics' concerns.
The ones who find special elections most distasteful are the people who oppose the question(s) on the ballot but do not have the resources to muster a opposition campaign. A general election, they know, draws more people and thus more potential "no" voters.
How many more people in Fayetteville are eligible to vote in a general election vs. a special election? Zero. If they want to vote Monday and Tuesday, they are eligible to get off their duffs and do it.
My prediction? All the questions will pass. But if a voter is going to wrestle with any of them, it's going to be the arts corridor.
Commentary on 04/07/2019