Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Arkansas Media / Little Rock Government A new low in the veterans center debate
Posted by Max Brantley on Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 6:03 AM
The Democrat-Gazette editorial page hit a new low today in its hysterical opposition to an expanded veterans service center on Main Street. It compared the Department of Veterans Affairs with an authoritarian Germany. Godwin's law strikes. If the words Nazi or Hitler were not used, the intent of the Germanic imagery was clear enough.
The VA just published a notice informing its subjects what was coming. Now we’re all supposed to fall in and follow orders. Jawohl!
The VA gave months of notice and then moved ahead with plans fully allowed by current city zoning to establish a center for vets' education, treatment and miscellaneous service bigger than the one that operates — without reported problems — in a smaller building 10 blocks from City Hall. Imagine what the property rights crowd normally would say if the city cooked up an ordinance after the fact of a legal contract and significant expense to negate that contract.
The City Board will vote tonight on a hurryup "emergency" ordinance to throw a roadblock in front of the VA by requiring a conditional use permit. It will face opposition from the representative of the ward in which the center is to be located, which ought to tell you something. Mayor Mark Stodola seems, however, to have the votes to beat veterans services on Main Street, no matter what the additional cost might be to federal taxpayers.
I'd ask two things: 1) Take a visit to the deplorable location on Confederate Boulevard (what's that neighborhood, chopped liver?) that Stodola and the D-G seem to think is just a fine place to dump the people who return from foreign wars in need of assistance; 2) Remember them and U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, another implacable foe of the VA's plans, when they trot out the tear-stained tributes to troops on Memorial Day.
I have only nominal representation on the City Board (they are typically only proxies for the taxpayer-subsidized Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce), but I'd ask that they resist Stodola's ex post facto attack on veterans services.
UPDATE: Kathy Wells, a neighborhood organization leader and general civic gadfly, opposes tonight's ordinance on broader grounds. Read on:
Please vote down the proposed ordinance on tonight’s agenda that would require conditional-use permits for every community service program in the city. From all we learned in that Group Home Task Force a few years back, from City Atty. Tom Carpenter, the subjection of group homes and residential programs to these permits would likely run afoul of federal Fair Housing laws. Please research the potential for losing lawsuits on this issue before enacting any ordinance.
The Ark. ABC Board and staff have made it clear over the many years of protesting alcohol permits to them that they firmly hold to supreme jurisdiction over issuing alcohol permits in Little Rock. For the city to claim it can grant or withhold a permit for a beverage shop is false, from all I can learn. Why would you knowingly enact a law you cannot enforce?
Using this ordinance against the relocation of the Vet Drop In Treatment Center to Main & 10th St. would be a clever trick. So sharp, you would cut yourselves on it.
There’s been a lot of speculation about that Drop In Center, and what harm might come to the community if this opens on Main St. I personally visited the Center, researched the crime reported to LR police, and concluded this would benefit our area, by moving homeless veterans off the streets.
We need more of that, and better city efforts to do so, as my letter of Jan. 17th reminded you all. By the way, no reply to that inquiry has been forthcoming, so far.
Below is my statement to my neighbors about why I support the Center on Main, for your information.
Yours Truly,
Kathy Wells
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Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
Our city "leaders" should be ashamed. If they really cared about our veterans, they would be beating the drums to make the spot on Main St. a showcase for how to treat and honor our veterans. Why not take the $200,000.00 from the Chamber of Commerce donation and create the seed money for a beautiful multi-story center that would bring praise to LR instead of the usual black-eye. If Mr. Griffin was truely a good representative of our district. He ought to be in the forefront of securing govt.' grants and other funding for the project. What shame.
like
dislike"Support out troops" Seems to mean send them to war and lose them there, but say nice things.
You're correct, Max, about our representation on the city board. But proxy is to gentle a word; she is a puppet, a puppet who will never again receive my vote.
I speak as a citizen of Little Rock who just happens to be a vet when I say that the LR mayor and city council, the D-G, and Rep. Griffin have acted shamefully in this matter.
There is evil in the world, a real committment to self service perferably at the expense of others. Like that poor man who killed his own children, the mind becomes sick and unable to reason or see clearly. Dare I say it, the love of money is the root of all evil. This is just stupid and mean, to no purpose.
They have no plan for downtown except to rip off the taxpayer at any opportunity. If they did, they might know where these services belong except in a condemned building in the old industrial district. They do seem to have a plan for the homeless. Provide as few services as possible in hopes of keeping the population low and elsewhere.
Congratulation Mayor. You should be a candidate for the Democrat Gazette Man of the Year.
I don’t know how many times a year I think about cancelling my subscription to the D-G but never follow through. For me, it’s a situation similar to the rigged poker game that’s the only game in town. I subscribe for the sports section and a few other features such as the obituaries. There may come a time when I find the rest of the paper so odious that the sports page will no longer balance things out.
If the Gazette were still being published, I bet you'd switch in a heartbeat Pavel!
The Arkansas Times is the torch bearer for the Arkansas Gazette. The Gazette would have an entirely different spin on this story, too.
Wait till you see what the city winds up spending wastefully on the Confederate Blvd homeless day resource center and its ineffective results to really get your blood to boil. Warning: Whenever Stodola and Griffin agree on an issue, be afraid, be very afraid.
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