Arkansas Blog

Short answer: NO!!!! Can these nitwits ever just FIX problems instead of creating new diversions? WARBI
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This quote from this Steve Faris.

"With term limits, we need a plan in place that the legislative branch approves to give consistency to meeting our future space needs. Then we won't have knee-jerk reactions when needs come up."

Knee Jerk? Remember that Gay bashing bill SB959 Mr Faris. You were one of the DIXIECRATS (among with Jack Critcher, Bob "Bigalow" Johnson, etc) that cast a knee jerk vote on *that* issue. Spare me the Minnie Pearl act.

Its a power grab and business as usual for The Brotherhood.

Forget, Hell.

Didn't the state buy the old Union Bank building a while back and pay way over market value for that?

Seems I remember some bad deal we got on that purchase.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting a new building is the way to go, Just get people involved that might have a clue.

The problem with the unused office space downtown is that it's ancient. They need massive investments for new network and electrical wiring and their HVAC is decrepit.

The old building where I am now needs maintenance visits at least 3 days a week. In the meantime, we're slowed by trying to stay warm, especially on morns like this. We can't run personal heaters because the old wiring can't handle the load and the centralized HVAC control can't keep up with the temperature swings.

I'm as opposed to the 'edifice complex' as anyone, but to suggest that state gov't worker bees move into the Donaghey or Cohn or other empty old buildings is less appealing when you consider their faults.

Yes, we do need Big Mac 2. There are many reasons for consolidating state offices in one place.

A: For the convenience of the people who have to use state services. Anyone who has tried to deal with state government finds (or loses) himself driving all over central Arkansas, attempting to locate seemingly related agencies. Each department, agency, board or commission, seems to have its own taxpayer-financed castle scattered throughout Pulaski County.
B: Parking is horrible at the State Capitol. Concentration of state services in on area would make the use of mass transit to service the area a reality. As mentioned above we need to to drive to widely distributed locations to get business done and therefore use more parking spaces. Increased parking on the State Capitol grounds has been in the plans for the expansion of office space.
C: State government has subsidized influential real estate owners for many years with little regard for the convenience of the people, the state workers and the state's financial interests. This has led to several questionable transactions.
D: With state services more physically consolidated, we can reduce the size of the state's fleet of agency vehicles and reduce the lost-time state employees spend traveling between agencies (and personal stops in between), and reduce the associated costs.
E: With more agencies on the Capitol Grounds, it may be easier for legislative oversight of the operations of the agencies, their budgeted uses of taxpayer money, and the quality of service to the public.

There are many other benefits of building Big Mac 2, but I've got a long day of house repairs to do. I'll drop back in during breaks.

It's not that complicated. If Steve Faris is FOR it, I'm agin' it. The House and Gov. Beebe will put the brakes on this foolishness.

With due respect Jim, "mass transit?" Here? NOT happening. As for all the traveling, etc. it's the Information/Communication Age. Seems like MOST of these folks could be up here in the hills and no one would know/care. I think it has WAY more to do with Max's headline than "government/$$$ efficiency."

Color me skeptical (cynical?? ;>)

I say build a new one for one reason: It would keep the troika of rapacious downtown developers from sinking their fangs further into the taxpayer jugular.

Sen. Gene Jeffress must not be the brighteast light on the hill. Front page photo of him this morning begging a state commission to ignore the law and the Supreme Court. I hope Mike Wilson is watching closely.

All this is a TOTAL waste of tax money. That $300,000 that Old Jeffries is soaking us out of for a boy's club in El Dorado is the worst...rediculous....give that 300 large back to me and the rest of the people who pay the bills in this state. fairtax.org read it...study it

BJ,
They ALL had their hands in the General Improvement Fund pot, regardless of party affiliation. Jeffress is a moron, but that's because GIF money cannot be allocated to one area or agency, but to fund the specified facet of the program on a state-wide level. He knew this then, he just got his panties in a wad because the boy's club he wanted the money for got a very small fraction of the $300k.

I know we have a huge surplus but NO NEW OFFICE SPACE should be built unless I get to issue the bonds.

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Lwood @Company,
A tradition of serving state needs for over 70 years

Larry,
"As for all the traveling, etc. it's the Information/Communication Age."

Well, I guess the same could have been said when telephones were invented or the postal service was started. Citizens still need to be able to talk to bureaucrats and clerks face-to-face, without having to navigate from one end of Pulaski County to another, trying to find an agency secreted at the end of a cul-de-sac or buried in a commercial office park or hidden in a decrepit building the state bought, bailing out a connected real estate developer. How many taxpayers have been worn down by the geographical run-around having to bounce from one agency to another?

Much of Arkansas remains on the other side of the digital divide. There are many hidden computer costs in the proliferation of outlying agency castles - leasing of lines, maintenance, IT personnel, multiple expensive distance-learning/video-conference auditoriums that sit empty most of the time, purchases of specialized equipment that could be shared instead. Despite all of that technology, agency personnel still hop into a car and drive around the county.

The mass transit I was referring to was the use of frequent shuttles of the Capitol grounds and to and from parking areas.

The scattering of agencies and the difficulty in dealing with government in person has distanced the public from their government and, in turn, government from the people.

Who has the state government organizational chart? The Secretary of State doesn't have it. How can any legislator make an informed choice between Big Mac 2 vs renting without one?

You can figure out a rough organizational chart reading the state government section of the phone book. (How many people from out of town are going to know what and where a 1515 Building is?) In the tons of paper that legislators get at the beginning of the sessions, but never read, are quite detailed descriptions of the agencies and their parts. After 3 terms, most legislators have an inkling of the structure of state government.

Yes.

Don't build new, code compliant, well-designed buildings to acommodate the needs of state agencies for office space. Continue to buy the deteriorating, poorly designed, buildings of private developers like the 1515 Building the DF&A to the West of it and the Aegon Building and spend almost as much as a new building to remodel it, correct the original construction and code deficiency and problems, make it accessible, safe and then shoehorn the agencies into spaces that don't fit their needs.

Think I'm exaggerating. You can still go into the 1515 building in an electrical/communication storeroom on the south end and see the 10 to 12 inches od settlement that Arkansas State Building Services (ASBS0 now Arkansas Building Authority (ABA) had to modify/repair when the legislature took that disaster off the hands of the developer. And that was just the first floor.

New space is much more cost effective, but if you want to help out the poor developers who won't or can't fix and get their old properties rented. Just buy and refurbish those old buildings. Contractors, Engineers and Architects can use the work in the coming/current recession aka "Republicasn economic slow-down."

Consolidation of government agencies in to a single area is one of the basic characteristics of American democracy, or did we all suddenly forget that an ENTIRE CITY was built specifically to cater to the organization of our national government in one place? Surely little ole' Arkansas could fit the bulk of its state agencies on a much smaller acerage than the entire of Little Rock/Pulaski County, such as it currently is spread out over.

And then there are the endless other points Mr. Lendall has so perfectly made: better IT structure, more energy efficient buildings, not spreading taxpayer money among opportunist local developers, and the all important one -- better parking!