I wasn't there and I didn't see it.
But I heard about it.
As we move into the final weeks of the first round of municipal elections, things are starting to get just a little testy down the home stretch. It appears like that all the back-biting, plot-making and shady dealings of the past several months are starting to take their toll on the frayed nerves of some of the participating candidates and their supporters.
The bottom line. When you have hand-picked puppets that have campaign signs planted in the clutches of those that have been the "make it or break it" forces behind the scenes for the past several years, those puppet-masters are not going to stop pulling strings without a fight
I'm not going to name names. Anyone that is paying attention and has observed how "Tab A' fits into "Slot B" in this community. There is a level of deliberate and sustained malfeasance and corruption on the local government that has stained this community, probably for ever.
Between threats of lawsuits, potential "belly bumps", directed attacks against anyone willing to seek the truth and various other efforts to keep the city's business hidden under a bushel, the elections in approximately two weeks are important to over very existence. And the power-brokers elite (let's call them "The Band") are all set to mount an all out assault on the information you see and hear that night upset their white-wash buckets.
In 2016 in the Presidential election we heard about rigged debates designed to give one candidate an upper hand over another candidate in a particularly partisan effort to steal an election.
And while these municipal elections are designed to be "non-partisan", they are anything but. I'm not talking Donkey versus Elephant as much as I am Liberal versus Conservative...but it is fairly easy to attribute the correct animal symbolism into the fray.
While we are skunking away our status as the second largest city in the state, our neighbors to the north are looking down their noses at us and laughing at our plight. While the economy booms, population explodes and communities thrive forty-seven minutes up the road, we are mired in a delusion that changing the things that made life worth living in Fort Smith need to be washed away in some sort of effort to create "change".
There is nothing wrong with change. If you take the jingling change from your pocket when you get home every day from work and throw it in a jar, you will eventually have enough change to take it to the bank and turn it to folding cash.
But "folding cash" is the problem. The people that control this city have most of it already, and they are going to do everything in their power to guarantee that if it doesn't filter through their personal jar, it's never going to make it to the bank...unless they either cash the check or figure out a way to benefit from the transaction.
These elections are important. We have some coming up in two years that may be even more important. But if the voters in 2018 allow 'The Band" to keep their hand on the throttle, the trolley ride may be over by then anyway.
This is a free city, in a free county, in a free state, in a (thankfully) still free country. I would never endeavor to tell anyone who they should vote for because that's none of my business.
But I would implore you pay attention. I beg you to think of Fort Smith one or two decades ago and compare it to the ideals, "progressive" goals, and philosophies that have taken control.
And vote accordingly.
I love Fort Smith. But I love her the way I loved the first girl I ever kissed. I loved her back then, and I couldn't tell you where she is today.
Same deal here. Fort Smith is exactly like that girl. If I saw her today, I'd hardly recognize her.