|
Northwest Arkansas Times Wednesday, July 10, 2002 Reprinted with author's permission Whose I-540 Park Solution: Solomon's or Machiavelli's? In mid-June, the Times was playing Solomon, offering and rejecting solutions for best use of the Wilson Springs Office Park -- Fayetteville's erstwhile "Commerce/ Industrial/ Research/ Technology/ Business/ Park." After 12 years of tech-park torment, your advice (editorial, June 16) was for the city to "look for a way out and run. Run far. Run fast." But, a couple of weeks later, you borrow from tricky-Nicky Machiavelli and a July 1 editorial suggests a more politically expedient t route for our Mayor. After first painting local political groups in various shades of green, you neatly hatchet them into a "split constituency," leaving Mayor Dan Coody in a "very green pickle." And, although you now think the whole business park discussion has become a "debacle," you advise the mayor to simply dump former supporters and use an approach that "seems most likely to please the most people" -- a sort of Draconian slash-and-burn solution. Unfortunately, the Times' political color-wheel will likely spark further divisiveness, rather than create the harmony sought by Coody. The mayor surely knows that he first must please our City Council -- with its own spectrum of green -- before further plans can be made at the park. Early on, he shrewdly salvaged the "research" component of the park, moving into a partnership with GENESIS, the University of Arkansas and the Community Design Center. And, more recently, he has shown his political and ecological smarts by considering additional studies and appraisals suggested by the city's Environmental Concerns Committee, and by appointing a Task Force/ assessment team of multiple shades of green. We of a more environmentally friendly persuasion are confident that a systematic ecological inventory and assessment by this task force will convince the City Council and their Chamber of Commerce partners that the mayor has inherited a parcel of wetland property on I-540 with only limited development value. (Why else would some of Arkansas' most successful developers have sold it to the city?) We also believe that local folks whom the Times has painted as "municipal liberals" will begin to question why our city's "entrepreneurial government" is developing property that competes directly with their private businesses. More importantly, we are confident that the park's wetland acres are immeasurably more valuable to the community in their natural state. We hope that all of Fayetteville will take a walk there and celebrate our common ownership of this irreplaceable local treasure. We urge the city to think outside the concrete-bound development box and look closely at the potential of these wetlands for research, education and public enjoyment. As a community, we can jointly seek grant-funding opportunities like those used by other cities for wetland preservation, restoration, conservancy, and recreation -- a far wiser long-term investment. Let's move past the "perfect being the enemy of the good" -- or pleasing or displeasing voters -- and ensure the best and highest use of Fayetteville's rich natural heritage. As Solomon might say: Mediocrity is the enemy of us all. Jim Bemis Fayetteville |