Through the years, a few (thankfully) candidates for city council or the county quorum court have left me almost speechless.
Mind you, these are elective offices with decision-making about animal shelters or what to pay local police and firefighters or whether a road is going to be paved or graded. My interview would usually start with a softball question, something like "So, why do you want serve on the city council?"
"Because we've got to bring an end to the scourge of abortion," came one memorable response.
"We need people in office who recognize the importance of our Second Amendment rights," offered another.
Never mind the local offices have nothing to do with such matters, which are debated and decided at state and federal levels.
A lot of us prefer government dictating as little in our personal lives as necessary, no matter what level. Still, when it comes to government decision-making, there's long been a level of respect for "local control" -- that is, giving the closest levels of government to the people freedom to fashion local laws and programs to the liking of their constituents.
That left room for Fayetteville to be Fayetteville, Rogers to be Rogers and Little Rock to be Little Rock. If the people of Fayetteville want to "keep Fayetteville funky," so be it. Cities across the state could do, or not do, whatever is necessary to keep Ashdown awesome, El Dorado excellent and DeQueen delightful.
Boundaries between local issues and dictates of state governments, however, don't seem quite as clear these days.
Last year, Springdale discussed the possibility of banning vinyl siding on new developments, a plan that went nowhere. Then the Legislative session happened. As of March, our Legislature stepped in with a law to prohibit cities and counties in most instances from dictating construction material on the basis of appearance.
On a more contentious matter, Fayetteville attempted to establish its own civil rights ordinance to protect gay people and others from discrimination in housing and employment. The Legislature passed a measure to negate those efforts and to prevent other cities from adopting protections the state's lawmakers weren't comfortable with.
When Fayetteville's City Council wanted to discuss a ban on city purchases of single-use expanded polystyrene foam (often called by the brand name Styrofoam), the city attorney convinced the idea's sponsor to wait until the Legislature was adjourned, out of concern lawmakers might try to impose their own standards over those of Fayetteville's.
And last week, the Fayetteville City Council discussed the city's efforts to preserve and protect trees, for aesthetic concerns but also for environmental reasons -- reducing "heat islands" in the city, promoting the production of oxygen and consumption of carbon, slowing down and soaking up stormwater, etc. "Trees are a large part of the answer to global warming," said Will Dockery, chairman of Fayetteville's Urban Forestry Advisory Board.
The review anticipates future policy discussions to achieve goals of preserving more trees as well as planting more. That likely turns into a discussion about development regulations, because if a city wants to protect more trees, that's going to impact how, and how much, development occurs. A lot of money rides on development, so don't be surprised to find resistance to Fayetteville's ideas.
But this isn't about just "funky Fayetteville." It's about cities throughout the state retaining the power to be the kinds of places their residents want them to be.
Don Marr, chief of staff for Mayor Lioneld Jordan, reminded City Council members about the hits local control has taken in the Legislature in recent years. "I want to bring us back to reality, that local control is our No. 1 protection on this topic," he said. "What we in Fayetteville want depends on someone at the state level allowing us to have local control."
Would you rather have your elected city council making decisions about your hometown, or is it better to let people who live hundreds of miles away have their say?
Commentary on 06/02/2019