City Commission Meeting (09/15/09)

A sad day

What a terrible loss for the Juden family and the Ark City community.

Bob Juden was my seventh-grade science teacher, and Tyler was in my sister's high school class, so my thoughts go out to them. All of us are connected in a town as small as this, and when one family suffers a loss, we all suffer as well.

I encourage everyone to fly their flags at half-mast, as the city is doing, to honor Sgt. Tyler Juden and his sacrifice.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming

Sorry I have been so remiss in blogging lately. I had a couple of days this week where I needed to work as quickly and on as little as possible, in order to avoid drawing any overtime pay.

And I will admit I haven't felt as compelled, of late, to post that much, because I wasn't sure if anyone actually was reading this yet. Now that I finally have received a few comments, though, I probably should pick it up a bit.

I really don't have any tidbits today, so I'll just promo my story tomorrow, which is a report on the Renaissance Festival held earlier this month. It largely was a success, although not necessarily in the financial sense.

Also, I'd like to offer my sympathies to the City Manager's executive secretary, Nancy Crain. Nancy apparently is stepping down from her position after being diagnosed with cancer. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

City Commission Work Session (09/10/09)

Much ado about nothing

Just a short blurb today, but I'll make up for it tomorrow.

There's a rumor floating around that the Kansas Avenue railroad overpass project has fallen through, or something to that effect.

I called City Manager Steve Archer today to ask him about it, but I was pretty sure I already knew what his answer would be.

In short, there's nothing to it. The project is proceeding as expected.

The start of construction was moved back to January, so perhaps that's where this rumor got started. This is pretty normal for KDOT lately, because they're swamped trying to get all of the stimulus projects done before the end of the year.

To make a long story short: The overpass will begin in January. Once the dirt ramps are built, they have to sit for six months with no settling before the bridge can be built.

Also, Archer told me the money that has been appropriated can't be spent on anything else anyway, so there's little to no chance KDOT would kill the project at this point.

Sacred cows

Well, as you might know from reading last night's live blog, local citizen Pearl Turner criticized the City Commission once more for their decision to allow an Arkalalah beer garden.

I didn't mention this in my story today for two reasons:

1. It occurred after the meeting was adjourned and thus technically was not part of the actual meeting.
2. Frankly, I think enough has been said on this topic already. There clearly is a segment of the town's population that won't be mollified by any justification for the event.
   

That said, something has been bothering me for a while about the whole beer garden debate, and I was reminded of it once again last night.

Obviously, there is at least a segment of the city that is unhappy about the idea - witness the complaints at the last few meetings and the letters to the editor.

But I wonder: Why they didn't voice the same disapproval for the beer garden that was held in the Agri-Business Building at last week's Renaissance Festival? It's not that one was inside and the other will be outside, because these same people objected to the serving of beer inside the Burford last year, as well.

The only explanation I can offer is that Arkalalah basically is a "sacred cow" in this town. The Ren Faire, being relatively new, doesn't stir the same emotions yet.

Anyhow, not everyone opposes the beer garden. Obviously, the commission is for it, and Mayor Jay Warren said last night that neither he nor the other commissioners have received any phone calls on the subject. Furthermore, a poll on arkcity.net last week showed 70-percent support for their decision (although our polls are unscientific, of course).

It will be interesting to see if any of the churches boycott like some did two years ago.

City Commission Meeting (09/01/09)