#1 Keep our kids safe
Continue to fund our city’s School Resource Officer (SRO) program
In the wake of the May 2022 horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the Fayetteville City Council passed a resolution calling for a phased roll out of armed School Resource Officers (“SROs”) to be placed in each and every Fayetteville public school. These SROs are trained members of the Fayetteville Police Department who are under the Department’s chain of command, while working collaboratively with school principals, teachers, and the school superintendent.
At the city council meeting in which this ordinance was proposed, dozens of our fellow citizens spoke to the council, many of whom were teachers, principals or assistant principals, as well as the Superintendant of Schools at that time, Dr. James L. Colbert. Many more of the citizen speakers were parents of school children. All of the school staff personnel, and the overwhelming majority of the citizens who made their way to city hall that evening, and waited for hours for their turn to speak, implored the council to pass the resolution.
As these citizens shared their respective stories and background, it was clear that they came from every part of our community. By their own words, they were Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. Some were older and spoke of their grandchildren needed to be protected; others were younger and wanted their preschoolers to be safe when they were ready to start kindergarten. There was no division, cross words, or sarcasm, rather there was near unanimity among the citizens of this city wanting their children to be protected during those seven hours a day when they are at school.
Several residents spoke about their students’ interactions with SROs while still in high school and recounted that it was an extremely positive experience. They spoke of how the SRO became a mentor and accountability partner for many students. After a time, the SRO was just “Officer Dave”, a friend at school. If one was in the council chambers that evening, as I was, it made you proud of our Fayetteville Police Department and proud of our city.
In the midst of society’s bickering over politics, this public meeting was like a breath of fresh air with citizens of all stripes, and all backgrounds, coming together in a common purpose to do everything that can be done to guard those we hold most dear.
That should be the end of the story but unfortunately it is not. New members of the City Council have been seated and there is now an effort brewing to attempt to roll back this city resolution, and de-fund the SRO program (Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 5.03.23).
There are three contested City Council seats up for grabs, and depending on the outcome of those races, this effort to de-fund the SRO program may gain further momentum. That makes this race in Ward 4 critical. This vote on the council could be the swing vote on whether we stay the course on rolling out SROs to every public school (including Holcomb Elementary and Owl Creek Elementary, as well as keeping the new SRO at Holt Middle School in place). If elected, I will do all I can to support the current resolution and work towards seeing an SRO in each and every school as soon as possible.
#2 Keep our city safe
Support our First Responders
Those who sit on the Fayetteville City Council must always prioritize taking care of our Police Department, Fire Department and EMS service.
The first job of the city is make sure that its citizens are safe and that if someone needs to dial 911 for any reason (fire, intruder, injury, illness, weather event) that the response will be timely and that the men and women who arrive on the scene will be highly trained and equipped with the tools necessary to address the emergency.
As has been often been said, every time a first responder straps on their gear and reports to work, they cannot know for sure that they will be able to return to their families after their shift. It was not very long ago that Fayetteville lost a brave police officer to a murderer’s bullet while he was sitting in his patrol car.
Let me add something here as a proud Dad. I am extremely proud that my daughter, Holly Hertzberg, sponsored and secured passage of the city ordinance that renamed Exit 65 as Stephen Carr Memorial Boulevard. In this small way, we will always remember this fallen hero. Perhaps children and grandchildren will ask “who is Stephen Carr”? And we can honor his memory by explaining his sacrifice.
Adequate staffing for both the Police Department and the Fire Department is mission critical. The pay schedule needs to be competitive so that we can recruit and retain the best men and women to serve in those departments. Arguments can be made that both departments are currently under staffed compared to cities the size of Fayetteville. Both the safety of citizens and the safety of the officers and firefighters depend on staffing that is not stretched too thin. We need to explore every possible budgetary option to bring our police and fire staffing in line with peer cities.
Additionally, attention needs to be paid to our present ambulance service, Central EMS. Fayetteville pays Central EMS a great deal of money to provide ambulance services throughout the city. The City Council needs to maintain oversight to insure response times and service to our residents are comparable to other Northwest Arkansas cities, such as Springdale, who provide ambulance services directly with their own employees.
#3 Keep our city livable
“Smart Infill” over high-density chokeholds
It is exciting to live in a dynamic city such as Fayetteville. We all benefit from the opportunity to try new restaurants, shop a variety of stores, utilize new services and enjoy entertainment options without having to drive away from town. A growing market such as Fayetteville attracts those businesses and enhances our quality of life.
However, growth has to be planned, and has to be smart, especially when infill projects are considered. Unfortunately “infill” and “high density” have almost become synonymous in Fayetteville.
In the last several years, far too often this situation unfolds: A two or three acre parcel of land is cobbled together by a developer adjacent to an established neighborhood with single family homes. The developer asks for a rezone for an extremely dense project, maybe 20 units per acre, or perhaps much more dense than that. This rezone is often shepherded through the approval process based upon its merit as an “infill project” which theoretically will help alleviate the housing affordability crisis by adding to the overall housing stock in the city. It doesn’t seem to matter that the sales price, or rents in this project are higher than the median market prices in the city. Voices of the neighbors in the nearby adjoining homes are sometimes self-censored as they are made to feel that they are part of the problem if they don’t acquiesce to the new high density project. In my opinion, this is not smart infill.
Smart infill needs to consider every project with respect to its impact on traffic, utilities and drainage. In many parts of our city, the basic infrastructure is already stretched to the breaking point. High density infill projects only exacerbate those infrastructure weaknesses and pinch points. Smart infill needs to highly value the voices of the neighbors who live in the established neighborhoods nearby. As the saying goes “less is more” sometimes needs to be right answer for Fayetteville. Recently, we seem to be on a track where only “more is more” wins the day.
We also need to seriously consider smart expansion of our city’s borders. These projects on the edge of town can provide good housing opportunities for first time home buyers and others who, because of kids and pets, simply need a fenced backyard of their own.
On the other hand, in already densely developed parts of our community, such as the College Ave corridor, infill projects should be highly valued. Those projects can often actually provide for new green spaces, and walkability upgrades, as well as a fresh look to a tired main artery.
A thornier problem is how to address the continued increase in student enrollment at the University of Arkansas. The city should do all it can to make it efficient and economical for the University to build new student housing on its expansive footprint. The dearth of good sites for off-campus student housing is apparent. As long as the University falls behind in providing housing, it will be a point of potential community conflict as to where these mega off-campus housing projects should be built.
#4 Keep our city empathetic
Tackle the homelessness and housing affordability issues
As an initial proposition, the problem of affordable housing is unrelated to the problem of homelessness. For thirteen years I directed my church’s homeless ministry (Clearwater, FL) and that experience has given me a vantage point into the plight of the homeless.
From my experience, the majority of homeless people suffer from serious social (drugs, alcohol), mental disorders or physical limitations. From my discussions with hundreds of homeless men and women over the years, it seems one common characteristic of many (not all) is an inability to trust, mental problems bordering on paranoia, or actual paranoia, especially when it comes to those in authority over them. Consequently, normalcy in a relationship with a boss or a manager becomes simply impossible for many in this population. The inability to keep a job for any meaningful time then becomes a root cause of the failure of these men and women to provide for their own shelter.
Accordingly, most in the homeless population need significant wrap-around services, including mental health support, in order to attempt to improve their situations. Thankfully, we do have some great non-profit organizations in our city that provide those wrap-around services to the homeless.
Simply having an abundance of rental apartments at an extremely low rental rate would not touch the homeless problem because that does not address the need for the homeless to receive significant social services and mental health support in order to hold a job and break the homeless cycle.
Besides supporting those non-profits that are ministering to the homeless, the one thing that the city should always insure is that there is enough cold weather shelters available so that no person who seeks a place for warmth has to shiver outside through a freezing winter night.
Turning to the problem of housing affordability, it is a tremendous problem across the nation, and of course locally. A recent fact reported in the Wall Street Journal underscores the magnitude of this problem: “In January 2021, a family needed an income of $49,152 to afford the median-priced single-family home with a 20% down payment, according the National Association of Realtors affordability index. In June 2024, the family would need an income of $110,544 to make the same purchase.”
The starkness of that change has caused many to lose hope that they will ever be able to afford a home. As the Dad of both a millennial and a Gen Zer who have never owned a home, I see that resignation of never being able to buy a house in their own lives and it is sad. Moreover, most of my legal clients are renters, and they consistently report that their rents are going up every year, and their wages are not keeping pace.
Unfortunately, the city of Fayetteville has limited tools to fight against national economic headwinds of high interest rates, rising costs of building materials and labor costs. I support the Mayor’s Housing Affordability Task Force. We cannot underestimate the power of ideas and human ingenuity. I hope that by putting some very talented minds together, there will be some policy improvements that can be adopted by the city to help (even in a small way) the housing affordability crisis.