Arkansas Blog

Of all the stupid kieas the city has come up with lately, this may top the list. Spending a half million to put a dome on city hall is stupid no matter where the money is coming from. Give the $500,000 to the county for the jail if you want to spend that kind of money. At least there it will make a difference.

I was around when they bricked up the windows, and then, years later, opened up the windows. I have also been around long enough to know that it is all about appearances. It dosen't matter that crime is up, fire fighting equipment is depreciating, pot holes are re-appearing in the streets and we still don't have the soccer fields and baseball fields that have been promised with every bond proposal, as long as all those visitors to downtown have a pretty image of the City of Roses.

This must be some kind of poorly planned gesture to symbolically cave in and embrace the Muslim community - before they car-bomb us, lets make City Hall look like a mosque . . .

If you can raise $500,000 from private sources for a useless dome, surely they would cough up the same for additions to the jail.

We could even name cells for the donors, complete with bronze plaques.

You know, I'm old enough to remember the stupid April Fools' joke the Times printed all those years ago about the stripper who was going to UALR. I didn't think that was funny, and I don't think this dome deal is funny, either. No way our public officials would be stupid enough to pull a stunt like this. Leave the made-up news to The Onion and Jon Stewart.

As an outsider whose vote doesn't count, I propose they put 2 small domes on the building so it will look like boobs. Except for Richard Speck in his final days, name something that doesn't look better with boobs on it!

Everybody needs a (Teapot) Dome scandal.

I did not like it before it was torn down before. If this were April 1 I would know it was a joke. Evidently not! Don't waste money on a new one.

Sigh. In good conscience, I can't ask where you Rockers came up with your governing types. We have a short, fat pier in Lake Pine Bluff which promises to be a Farmers's Market and have some other uses which seem to be changing every time I read a news article about it.
Funded with private money? Well, a tad, but mostly with public funds -- a federal grant, county work crews, local funds, who knows what all.
But the great ideas come not only from government types. Today, for instance, a local reporter tired of walking a block or so to get to the courthouse on its few busy days, suggested in a Pine Bluff Commercial column that we tear down the nearby old jail and put in parking. So what's so bad about that, you ask? He suggests running a shuttle service from the site, less than two blocks from the west door of the courthouse, the only one the public can use now.
Cripe, even I can walk that far on my bad days.
The reporter did remind me of Jefferson County's Millennium Art display that one could admire on a vacant lot west of the courthouse for a year or two. Those of you who have travelled this way probably remember it. It looked like a set of pick-up sticks -- remember the kids' toy where you tossed sticks out of their box, then tried to remove a single stick from the pile without disturbing others? -- fashioned from telephone poles. If I remember correctly, a federal grant was used to create that piece of "art".
Oh heck, let those nice city government guys have their dome. You can always take it down -- again. Wonder how much that will cost?

Perhaps instead of adding a dome that few people remember to the outside of City Hall, they could finish restoring the interior of the building and get rid of the d**n drop ceilings.

I've got it! Build the dome back, but use the otherwise wasted space of a rotunda on the inside as holding cells for the illegal immigrants having the gall to raise their broods here. This will free up space in the jail for real criminals, like people busted for possessing an ounce of weed.

Huh?!

In addition to being a folly the dome doesn't fit the architecture of the building.

That aside, since many of us have some major reality issues with local government I would like to request some info from anyone who knows.

How do you go about initiating and conducting a recall campaign for local elected officials? Where would one look for guidelines?

This is just friggin' stupid. The building looks classy now and clearly the dome doesn't fit. I support almost every project the city, county, state, or federal government has conducted in downtown LR but this is just a waste. Getting the Junction and Rock Island Bridges renovated and lit should be a priority. General downtown street improvements should be a priority. A dome on city hall? It's retarded.

The only thiing dumber than this project has to be Brian Day's comment in today's paper: "It's a birthday present for the building," What is this guy doing in city government? He was the assistant Park's Director overseeing the Zoo when management lost their national accreditation and accompanying trading priviledges. Now he says let's spend a half million bucks on a birthday gift for an inanimate object. I have great confidence in our city leaders.

The only thiing dumber than this project has to be Brian Day's comment in today's paper: "It's a birthday present for the building," What is this guy doing in city government? He was the assistant Park's Director overseeing the Zoo when management lost their national accreditation and accompanying trading priviledges. Now he says let's spend a half million bucks on a birthday gift for an inanimate object. I have great confidence in our city leaders.

I hope this isn't the 'big construction' rumor for downtown posted earlier on the blog. What a dud.

Just another reason to vote NO to any incumbant City Board Member. Especially ones running for Major.

And to also demand seek resignation from the city manager if he or his staff are pushing the measure.