So...here's what you essentially need to know.....
There is a cottage industry in this town that is basically people on the left hand giving stuff to the right hand who then gives it back to the left hand for future consideration to the right hand.
I have stated time and time again that NOTHING goes down in our fair city that is out of the control of a nine-fingered conglomerate that is more controlling --and more exclusive-- than the Freemason, the Illuminati and the Skull and Bones put together.
But the bottom line is that, unlike those other secret societies, they're not very secretive at all.
I conducted an experiment where I sent out dozens of questionnaires at random to TIFS readers with one question......"If a "behind the scenes" star chamber in Fort Smith controlled the city, please list the names of the nine individuals and/or families who you think would be part of that cabal?"
This polling really isn't scientific like...you know...that stuff that said Hilary was going to win in a landslide, but the results were still pretty interesting. Fifty-seven percent of all respondents named at least five of the people on my personal "Gang of Nine" list.
So that means that over half of the respondents knew who over half of the puppet masters were. Here's what's even scarier....of that number, eight people got six right, five people got seven right and one person actually listed eight of the nine.
No one got them all. There was one that went out and a new one that went in last year, and there are a number of candidates in the ten-thirteen spot that are flexible within the bottom rung, depending on which way the wind and tax credits are blowing this week.
Everybody knows ya'll are scofflaws. Ya'll don't need a secret handshake.
Now, I ain't naming names but I will give you an example of the type of behavior that fuels these "civic leaders".
Let's say you were going to build a ...oh...I don't know... Marshals Museum. So you would think the logical thing would to be building adjacent to the National Historic Site, Belle Point and the grounds surrounding where the activities that took place to warrant the museum being here in the first place.
Hey look. Here is the old, historic Frisco station right on the edge of that district. How about we use that, build on or adjacent to it and keep things in perspective, both historically and financially? Why.....people are even willing to donate it!
No? Oh...you prefer to build a multi-gazillion gazebo that looks like a stormtrooper doing the "dab" in Star Wars a mile down the road on land that used to be the city dump that is on the edge of the flood plain? Well.....duh...okie dokie!
So the land gets "donated" to the USMM at a ridiculously high estimated value, the former owner gets thousands of dollars in tax credits and the taxpayers catch it up the ying-yang because we have to pay for the infrastructure to the site-- water, sewer, road access, etc.
Oh...and that infrastructure also increases the land value of the nearby property that wasn't "donated" that is still owned by the "community-minded developer".
Now, the city has a policy that says they can't donate to non-profits. So how about we do this? Let's buy back part of the land that was donated to the USMM for a large amount of money and build a skateboard park.
So now, the taxpayers have paid for the infrastructure of the land being developed PLUS are out hundreds of thousands of dollar for land to build a skate park in just about the most illogical place to put one in Fort Smith you could think of. No one apparently thought (or cared) about the fact that you're one good ollie-grab away from being as far west in the city (and the state) as you can be, and you people who live out the other direction just be damned with your skateboarding wants and needs.....
So now... let's have an election and give a bunch more money to the cottage industry known as the USMM. Wait. What do you mean the peasants voted that down? How dare they? Do they not know we have salaries and country club memberships to pay and backs to slap?
So let's see.....GoFundMe? Let's shoot for $2 million while we keep building what we shouldn't have been building in the first place without the money on hand to pay for it. What? $7245 in a month? Well...that didn't turn out too well.
I know. We'll go back and see out friends at the city. They just found $64,000 lost dollars for pickles and balls, so surely they can help out the Museum crowd!
Let's sell them two more acres of donated land for $160,000! That's about twenty times what it's actually worth, but these knuckle-draggers won't notice! We can throw up some rope bridges and some walking trails and call it "economically stimulating" and we get another cash infusion from a city that doesn't "give" money to non -profits.
The real $64,000 question here is do they really think we're that stupid? It's either that, or they just don't care. (Note they are pulling these shenanigans in the midst of our second "100 year flood" in a decade...while doing everything thing they can keeping a legitimate "non-profit" from feeding the hungry and closing down our animal shelter....just saying...)
When you are in a climate where a "developer" can buy a prime piece of land downtown for less than $1000 but the taxpayers are paying $80,000 an acre for landfill property that--by the middle of next week--could be the newest fishing lake in the region, something ain't right.
When you have a city administrator making deals with the federal government that comes with a gag order on how HE is going to decide to get us out of this consent decree mess...the same guy that kept the details of an almost fatal crane accident at the P Street Treatment Plant from most of the Board of Directors a few years back...then the tail is wagging the dog. A nine-headed tail. And that's just the tip of the hush-hush iceberg.
There is an old saying. What goes around, comes around but in this instance, the circle is closed. The wealth, the power, the political pull and the corruption all stays within the Star Chamber. And instead of doing it behind your backs, they do it in the open and laugh in your face.
After they spit in it.
There is only one way to change this. We need to throw out the scoundrels who are beholding to the scoundrels --or those that aspire to be scoundrels by placating the real scoundrels--and we need to start at the top and lope off the heads of this hydra in both the private and public sector.
This has gone on long enough. Recalls, petition drives and ballot initiatives are our only hope.
We need that short chick in "Poltergeist" to do her thing and declare "this house is clean!"
And by clean, I mean spotless.
Let's git-ur-done. Before it's too late.
