Arkansas Blog

These secret meetings and phone calls go on all the time. The officials generally plead ignorance of the FOI or they say it makes it too cumbersome to conduct the public's business, so they ignore the law.

Having them arrested is a wonderful way to get the point of the law through their thick heads. Yes, you gotta love Eureka Springs!

As an inverterate speeder, I'm often on the wrong side of the law and don't always look at the boys and girls in blue appreciatively. But in this instance, ya gotta love 'em.
It's too bad that in most places, in most instances, the gendarmes turn a blind eye to this stuff. Indeed, I know of an occasion in which they rousted the complainer instead.
After being asked to serve on two boards and being flattered that my input was "needed", I quickly discovered in both instances that issues had obviously not only been discussed, but decided in advance of any meeting I attended.
And complaining gets you labeled as a troublemaker quickly.

Doigotta you hit the nail one the head. The average citizen can do very little about FOIA violations. The press doesn't do a very good job of calling out violations when it see them. The law makes it their responsibility to see that public business is really public.

Any news story that begins with "Former Eureka Springs Mayor Beau Satori..." should peg any professional journalist's BS meter. This son of Bob Troutt (another "reliable source") has been a bona fide fraud in Eureka for years. I like the FOIA as much as anyone, but Beau uses it, like everything and everyone else, for his own cynical, egotistical purposes.

Let me say, that as a member of our county quorum court, I often sit down in the coffee shop with two or three other J.P.s, perhaps an alderman or two, maybe the county judge or mayor, a circuit judge and no telling what other public board members and there's nothing sneaking going on. Often times local issues come up but there is no political hanky panky going on. So, I'm not going to condemn the Eureka Springs people without know exactly what was going on. I have been on the city council 14 years and the quorum court (not at the same time, of course) 14 years and served under three mayors and three county judges and I have yet to attend any secret meetings of any kind.

Cheap, ad hominem shot, Kaiser. Or did you get to pick your parents, unlike the rest of us? I've known Beau for many years and found him to be a man of great courage and integrity, wiith a large capacity to stir stuff up. He cares deeply about that bizarre little nexus of Ozark weirdness where I was raised. For me, it's a good place to be FROM.

Only meant to infer that the apple didn't fall far from the tree. I too have known Beau for a long time, socially, politically and from business dealings - and I would never apply any words such as courage or integrity to his character. Sneaky, dishonest, egotistical, not-near-as-smart-as-he-thinks - those are the words most folks around Eureka use to describe him.

The two A&P commissioners and the A&P director were arraigned on Dec. 8th, and a court date set for March 2nd, 2007.

Recent LR A&P revelations in the Ark Dem-Gaze remark about large expenditures being approved with 'little or no discussion', a sure sign of FOIA violations leading to a loss of millions in tourism resources for the city and state, az well az, 'special financial favors' for commissioners. Most A&P revenues end up az special interest slush funds and cash cows for private interests and unscrupulous ad agencies.

The fictional Kaiser Sosay's personal attacks above are the cowardly claims of Kirby Williams, an ad agency hack whose failed agency, KWG, flunked tourism in Eureka Springs, then tanked, after we terminated them. We should have sued them, but az a new Mayor, I waz more interested in reviving our city's tourism and building an A&P department.

Kirby Williams haz never known me socially, nor politically. Hiz words best describe himself. While "most folks around Eureka" remind me everyday what they think of me, our recent elections deposed the entire city council with 62% supporting my 'pleas' for their rejection.

If we, az cityzens, don't make every effort to protect our government from corruption, we all, then, suffer the consequences.

We are all watching Little Rock with hopes of setting a better example for you, here, in Eureka Springs.