I received another letter sent to Metroplan in opposition to the Arkansas Department of Transportation’s request to return to the plan for a billion-dollar swath of I-30 concrete through downtown Little Rock if state voters provide the needed dollars by raising their sales tax in November to keep highway contractors fat.
This one was from Pratt Remmel Jr. of Little Rock.
Excerpt:
Metroplan, i.e. you, are supporting a pig in a poke that will harm Little Rock and central Arkansas for decades to come. Please use your heads for more than hat racks and act like ethical urban planners, mayors who care about our future, and not shills for Arkansas’s power structure.
One of the most egregious things I ever saw in a public meeting was several years ago in the huge ATHD public hearing about 30 Crossing in the Clinton Library Ballroom when an ATHD official answered a question about why they had not considered building a Chester street bridge in their overall transit plan relating to 30 Crossing. He said ,”Chester Street is not a state highway thus we could not consider it in our planning”What utter bull. All ATHD had to do is name Chester Street a state highway and then they could have studied the multi layers of savings, re; 30 Crossing, that a Chester Street bridge would have offered / and still could offer.
Spicy. But Remmel’s letter is useful in that it includes a letter written in opposition to the project in 2016. The Little Rock Board, a captive of the business community as state government is, paid it no mind.
Among others it had this quote from Wilson Stiles, a former state historic preservation officer:
“Little Rock is not the first city to be faced with the challenge of responding to the needs of interstate traffic flow and the needs of the community at large, while at the same time recognizing the importance and necessity of preserving the beauty, functionality, and vibrancy of the historic district and commercial area an interstate bisects. Through cooperation other cities have seized the opportunity for a fresh look at all the factors that define urbanism, resulting in innovation that enriches the entire community”
Well, sure. But get a load of the people who signed on:
Anne Bartley, the first Director, Department of Arkansas Heritage/SHPO, 1975-1979
Tom Dillard, Director/Arkansas Heritage, 1981- 1986,
Wilson Stiles, State Historic Preservation Officer, SHPO, 1981-1987
Joan Baldridge, Director/Arkansas Heritage 1989-1992
Beverly Lindsey, Director/ Arkansas Heritage, 1993-1996
Cathy Slater, State Historic Preservation Officer, 1988- 2000
Cathie Matthews, Director/ Arkansas Heritage / SHPO, 2000-2012
Martha Miller, Director/Arkansas Heritage / SHPO 2013-2014.
Yeah, I know, they labored for the most part in Democratic administrations. That’s all over now, along with much concern for the city of Little Rock.