They have only hosted one meeting, but a new student organization at Van Buren High School is already making waves after more than 60 students attended the first meeting of the Secular Student Alliance (SSA)– the only such alliance among Arkansas’ public high schools.

Senior Aaron Centeno helped found the new student group and said its members were not attempting to evangelize secular beliefs, but rather trying to raise awareness of belief systems outside of the widely-held Christian faith prevalent not only in Arkansas, but across much of the United States.

"We're trying to gear (the) focus toward religious awareness and to kind of get people to know different religions so they get out of the mindset that their religion is the only one available to them."

According to a Pew Research study, 78.4% of Americans identify as Christian, while 4.7% affiliate with other religions such as Jewish (1.7%), Buddhist (0.7%), or Muslim (0.6%). About 16% of Americans identify as "unaffiliated," with 1.6% of Americans calling themselves atheists while 2.4% are agnostic (both fall under the unaffiliated group for statistical purposes).

In Arkansas, Pew reports that 87% identify as Christians, while less than a half percent identify as Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. Another 13% identify as unaffiliated, though Pew does not provide individual figures about atheism or agnosticism for Arkansas.

Sophomore Kieran Horne said the meetings would not focus on conversion of students or attempts at reinforcing belief systems, but instead would create a dialogue on a variety of topics.

"Really, any topic that's big at that moment, or becoming big. Like at our first meeting, we went over homosexuality and abortion," Horne said.

Faculty sponsor Michael Tilley said the students have also discussed bringing in guest speakers from local "free thinker groups" to discuss "certain topics like world religions, or philosophy, bible scholarship." (Van Buren High School's Michael Tilley is not related to or connected to The City Wire co-owner Michael Tilley.)

Centeno, who said he become an "agnostic atheist" during his sophomore year of high school, noted that part of the goal of the group was acceptance for students of all belief systems.

"Mainly, we're just trying to open people's eyes to different things that are out there. We're not trying to say that your religion is wrong or that our way of thinking is right. But we just want to set out information that they may not have seen previously so that they can say that, 'Hey, I'm not the only thing out there. There are other people who are not like me.'"

David Niose, legal director at the Washington, D.C.-based American Humanist Association and author of 'Non-Believer Nation,' told The City Wire that Secular Student Alliance groups are popping up all over the United States, noting that "several hundred" were in existence when he wrote his book more than two years ago. Having groups like SSA, he said, helps to take away some of the stigma of being non-religious in a faith-filled society.

"I think, generally speaking, secular student groups are a great idea. In fact, they are a very important tool in normalizing atheism and humanism in the public," Niose explained.

He said efforts by students like those at Van Buren High School are important in making others understand that atheists and others who share different belief systems are everywhere, even at a nearby desk in math or English class.

"A lot of people are kind of negative toward atheism, mainly because they feel they don't know any atheists and atheism is (thought to be) kind of at the fringes. It's really not. Atheists and humanists are everywhere. Through these groups, children will now see that kid on their little league team is an atheist or that kid they sat across from in first grade is an agnostic. It's a very good tool at normalizing the secular demographic, if you will."

Within Arkansas, the SSA has affiliate groups on the campuses of Arkansas Tech University, the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. In nearby Oklahoma, SSA-affiliated groups can be found on the campuses of Cameron University, Oklahoma State University, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Tulsa Community College, the University of Central Oklahoma, and the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.

The closest high school SSA-affiliated group listed by the organization is found at Sherman High School in Texas.

Junior Daniel Coughran, a Van Buren student and founding member of the VBHS SSA, said he was not brought up in a religious household like many of his classmates.

"It wasn't religious, more of whatever you want to be or think. And it really let me explore different ways of thinking and I guess the whole concept of a religion to me just didn't seem to click at all. I really didn't think there was a higher power and I guess just in the eighth grade, I just figured that I would be an atheist because it (religion) didn't really make sense to me."

The road for the three students to get the group up and running has not been entirely smooth, even though the three said turnout for the first meeting was beyond their expectations.

Horne said, "As expected, there was a lot of hostility. ... It's looked at as the atheist club, the anti-God sort of satanist group. But if they would actually read the posters that they tore down, they would see that isn't the case."

An individual close to the group who asked to not be named due to the controversy surrounding the organization said each of the posters the students posted on two different occasions were torn down prior to the first meeting this month.

Even though there has been some contempt expressed to the founding students of the SSA, Van Buren School District Superintendent Kerry Schneider said he has received no calls or emails regarding the group aside from one note about the posters.

"One of the assistant superintendents sent me an email that said they put up fliers announcing the club and (posted) on Facebook. I said ok, everything's on Facebook eventually. But that's the only thing I've got."

Schneider said the group was allowed to meet like all student groups as long as they have a faculty sponsor.

"There wasn't any reason for us to try to stop that. It's a student organization and I think they're affiliated (with the national SSA)."

Horne said should anyone have concerns about the group, he hoped to make them understand that while it is secular by name, it is not trying to do away with religion or religious student groups on campus.

"It's not a non-religious club. We support every religion. It's what a lot of people have not found out yet."

The healthy pace of traffic growth at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport and the Fort Smith Regional Airport did not slow in September, with XNA enplanements up almost 14% and Fort Smith up more than 16% during the month.

September enplanements numbers for the Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport (Little Rock National Airport) were not available as of Oct. 20. However, the airport has seen enplanement declines during the year. Enplanements for the first eight months of 2014 were 702,284, down 4.99% compared to the same period of 2013. Enplanements in 2013 totaled 1.085 million, down 5.45% compared to 2012.

Labor Day travel may have had a small impact on XNA and Fort Smith numbers. The Airlines for America trade group estimated that 14 million people would travel during the holiday, up 2% compared to 2013 travel.

Enplanement gains also match tourism industry employment gains in Northwest Arkansas and the Fort Smith areas. Employment in the Northwest Arkansas tourism industry set a new record of 22,800 during August, up from 22,600 in July and up from 21,900 during August 2013. The previous record was 22,700 set in June.

Employment in the Fort Smith regional tourism industry set a new record of 9,900 during September, up from 9,800 in July and above the 9,600 in August 2013. The previous record of 9,800 was set in August 2008.

Labor numbers are up nationwide for the tourism industry. Within leisure and hospitality, employment in food services and drinking places was up by an estimated 20,000 in September and has gained 290,000 over the year.

“Travel continues to be a leading force in getting Americans back to work. After losing close to half a million jobs in the Great Recession, the travel industry has added 771,000 jobs and has outpaced job creation in the rest of the economy by 38 percent since the employment recovery began,” said David Huether, senior vice president for research and economics at the U.S. Travel Association.

XNA TRAFFIC
Travelers flying out of XNA during September totaled 53,814, up 13.98% compared to the 47,212 during September 2013. For the first nine months of 2014, enplanements at XNA total 484,034, up 11.08% compared to the same period in 2013.

As The City Wire has previously reported, XNA enplanements are on track to set a new record in 2014. The January-September 2014 traffic is up 8.73% compared to the same period in 2007, the year XNA reached record enplanements of 598,886. Enplanements at XNA fell to 540,918 in 2009 after reaching the 2007 high.

For all of 2013, XNA enplanements totaled 579,679, up 2.58% compared to the same period in 2012. The enplanement growth remained stable through the year, with enplanements up 2.42% at the end of the first quarter of 2013. Enplanements at XNA totaled 565,045 during 2012, up just 0.4% compared to 2011. Although slight, the gain prevented XNA from posting two-consecutive years of enplanement declines. XNA’s first full year of traffic was 1999, and the airport posted eight consecutive years of enplanement gains before seeing a decline in 2008.

FORT SMITH TRAFFIC
The Fort Smith Regional Airport, served by flights from Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth, posted September enplanements of 7,977, up 16.9% compared to September 2013.
Enplanements for the first nine months of 2014 total 68,780, up 7.86% compared to the same period in 2013.

For all of 2013, enplanements at the airport totaled 84,520, down 2.46% compared to the same period in 2012. The decline ended three consecutive years of enplanement gains at the airport.

Based on monthly averages, Fort Smith enplanements could reach more than 91,000 in 2014. The last time enplanements were above 100,000 was in 2005, with 102,607. The last year enplanements were above 90,000 was in 2007, with 99,217.

With 39,723 enplanements for the first nine months of 2014, American Airlines accounts for 57.75% of commercial traffic out of Fort Smith. Delta Air Lines had the remaining market share – 29,057 enplanements – for the first nine months of 2014.

American enplanements out of Fort Smith are up 7.05% for the first nine months of 2014 compared to the same period of 2013, and Delta enplanements are up 8.99%.

It’s a good time to be a cattle farmer or a feedlot operator as prices for feeder calves and fed cattle continue to rise while grain prices decline. But that typically means red ink for packers like Tyson Foods and Cargill and higher beef prices for steak and burger-loving consumers.

The price of 475-pound, medium and large steers in the Midwest have averaged $281.81 per hundredweight the past six weeks, according to Derrell Peel, livestock marketing specialist with Oklahoma State University.

He said this includes the latest weekly average price of $294.80 per hundredweight at the seven federally reported auctions in Oklahoma. This price compares to an average of $183.15 per hundredweight in late September and early October one year ago. Prices are up 54% from a year ago with fed cattle bringing nearly $100 more per hundredweight over last year, Peel said.

“So far this fall, prices have shown no seasonal tendency to decrease from September to October and, in fact, the most recent price is the highest in the six week average,” he added.

Peel expects cow-calf producers will sell weaned calves this fall for record revenues by a large margin. He said revenues are up $500 to $550 per head over last year and will, in the majority of situations, receive record profits, at least on a per head basis. In some drought areas, Peel said total ranch profits may not be up as much due to reduced animal numbers.

“The market is begging for animal numbers so selling calves at weaning is a very profitable strategy now,” Peel said.

Despite the favorable selling conditions, Peel expects some cattle will be held back given the cost to feed is now lower with cheaper corn prices. He doesn’t expect the seasonal pressure on prices between October and November to be as strong as usual given the lower overall supply numbers.

PACKER PRESSURE
Beef packers like Tyson Foods rely on cattle purchases from feedlots for their slaughter and processing orders. Feedlot profit margins are up $138 per head from this time last year to $227.50 per head as of last week. Cash prices for live cattle averaged $163.96 per hundredweight last week, that’s up 28% from a year ago, according to Sterling Beef Profit Tracker.

Feeder cattle ready to slaughter also rose last week $243.58, a more than $81 per hundredweight advantage compared to feeder prices at this time last year. Higher fed cattle prices continue to pinch packer margins averaging losses of $41 per head last week, according to Sterling Beef Profit Tracker. 

Beef cutout prices increased $7 last week, to $243.34 per hundredweight. While packers expect tight to negative margins this time of year, the losses are not as great as the $65-per-head deficit a year-ago, Sterling reports.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture notes in its Oct. 17 report that despite record retail beef prices, meatpackers are caught between high fed cattle prices and cutout values too low to generate positive packer margins.

High U.S. cattle prices are drawing more animals across the border and imports are up 13% from a year ago. In August, the USDA reported that U.S. beef imports grew 46% from the same month in 2013. At the same time demand for U.S. beef exports has slowed during the late summer months. 

Peel told The City Wire that higher beef imports have helped to moderate the rising costs of ground beef in the U.S. though the summer. He said processors blend lean beef imports with 50% to 60% lean beef trimmings from normal slaughter remains to get the 80% or higher lean beef products sold at U.S. grocery retailers. He said the low U.S. cow slaughter numbers in the U.S. have also fueled the need for more imports to keep up with domestic hamburger demand.

CONSUMER IMPACT
Grocery shoppers are seeing record high beef and other meat prices at their local supermarkets and a recent USDA report predicts meat prices will rise 6.5% by the end of this year. They widened their forecast from 5.5% in August and it’s well ahead of the 20-year 2.9% range.

Beef and veal prices were revised upward to 8.5% gains, pork is slated to jump 8% and poultry prices on average are up 3.5%

Consumers paid an average of $4 a pound for 100% ground beef in August, up 55 cents from the same month in 2013, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices are expected to go higher toward year-end.

“We weren’t so much surprised that we had to raise (beef prices) as we were that demand has remained relatively high for beef,” said Annemarie Kuhns, an economist with USDA’s Economic Research Service who compiles the report. “Typically, you see a bit of consumer push-back that would ease the demand for the limited supply.” 

Grocers across the states have raised prices on 80% ground beef by $1 a pound over last year. Peel said many grocers and restaurant owners have yet to fully pass through the higher costs to consumers which he believes will subsist for at least two more years.

“We don’t know how high beef prices are going to go. We are in some uncharted waters in terms of historically low supplies that will be with us to 2017. Packers around the country tell me they are surprised at the resiliency from consumers who are still buying beef. We don’t know how much more consumers are willing to bear,” Peel said.

The substitution play from beef to lower priced meats like pork and chicken has not materialized to the extent many believed, he said.

“I think those lower income families moved away from beef in 2009 and 2010 following the recession. But, there has not been much digression since then. The beef market is being supported by consumers with a high preference for beef cuts. They may be eating  fewer steaks and more chuck but they want to have beef in their diet. We’ll have to see if that demand stays up when prices move higher,” Peel said.

A meeting Monday (Oct. 20) of Sebastian County elected officials and local members of the General Assembly largely focused on reimbursement from the state of Arkansas to counties for housing state Department of Corrections prisoners.

The meeting was to notify the local delegation of issues of importance not just to Sebastian County but all county governments in Arkansas and start a dialogue before the 2015 legislative session begins, Sebastian County Judge David Hudson said.

Reimbursement of counties for housing state inmates is nothing new, but Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said he is increasingly concerned about the issue due to overcrowding at the Sebastian County Jail in downtown Fort Smith.

Annually, Hollenbeck said the jail allocates housing for 70 state inmates with reimbursement of $28 per day. But the reimbursement rate, he said, is lower than what the county charges other cities and governments to house inmates in an attempt to break even. As an example, Hollenback said the county charges the city of Fort Smith $45 per day to house its inmates.

Due to the disparity in funding, he said 64% of the jail's budget comes from the county's general fund, while only 36% comes from fees or reimbursements from the state. What has made the situation so dire, Hollenbeck said, is the fact that the state is having the county house more than its allocated space for inmates. While the county has set aside room for 70 state prisoners, its jail has housed as many as 200 state inmates. As of Sept. 30, the county had a total jail population of 356, with 150 of those being state inmates.

The situation is so extreme that some prisoners at the Sebastian County Jail are having to sleep on the floor of jail cells, Hollenbeck explained. He added that in order to keep the situation from spiraling out of control, he has had to release some non-violent offenders to keep the jail population manageable for jailers.

Having such a large number of state inmates with reimbursements below actual costs to house and feed the inmates is putting a strain on the county budget, pulling resources from other county departments, Hollenbeck said. As a solution, the county is asking that reimbursements be increased from $28 to $45 per day, which Hudson said is the average cost for all county jails to house inmates across the state.

The county is also seeking tweaks to Act 570, also known as the Public Safety Improvement Act of 2011, which would include addressing mental health needs for prisoners through funding. In his discussion with the General Assembly delegation, Hollenbeck said the state "has taken the ball and punted it" when it comes to addressing prison issues and funding of public safety.

Sen. Jake Files, R-Fort Smith, told Hudson, Hollenbeck and other elected officials from Sebastian County that while he and the other members of the Sebastian County-area delegation understood the issues, it would be difficult to address once the legislative session starts next year.

"I think at the end of the day, all this stuff comes back to money. I mean, everything we're talking about … who's going to pay for it and how do we get it? And I'm concerned that what gets lost in all the campaigning about tax cuts and everything else — and I'm for all that stuff — but someone's got to pay for it.”

Other solutions discussed included the creation of courts similar to drug court that help veterans get back on their feet through counseling and rehabilitation rather than jail time. The idea was also floated for a drug court-like program for the mentally ill who may have run afoul of the law.

But Files again pointed to money needed to start such programs, which Rep. Charlotte Douglas, R-Alma, said could be obtained through grants, noting that Sebastian County could be a pilot program for any of the proposed programs and possibly receive state incentive money. Either way, Files said nothing would be a quick fix to the prison situation in Arkansas but he said a combination of all the solutions discussed Monday would help to address the situation in coming years.

"At the end of the day, something has got to give and so I think having these conversations across the state (and getting people) in the mindset of something's got to be done or public safety is compromised,” Files said. “It plays such a pivotal point in the waterfall effect on all your budgets and on how you deal with stuff."

U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Dardanelle, has stretched his lead against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor, according to a new poll released by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College.

The poll question was: In the race for U.S. Senate, the candidates are Democrat Senator Mark Pryor, Republican Congressman Tom Cotton, Libertarian Nathan LaFrance, and Green Party Candidate Mark Swaney. If the election for U.S. Senate were today, which candidate would you support?
40.5%     Democrat Senator Mark Pryor
49%     Republican Congressman Tom Cotton
2.5%     Libertarian Nathan LaFrance
2%     Green candidate Mark Swaney
6%     Undecided

In a late July TB&P-Hendrix poll, Cotton held a two-point lead over Pryor 44-42%.

The new polling of 2,075 likely Arkansas voters was conducted on Wednesday, Oct. 15 and Thursday, Oct. 16 after two U.S. Senate debates last week. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.2% and includes live cell phone calls (16%) and automated landline respondents.

The statewide results are a compilation of four different Congressional District level surveys completed from four different Congressional District level samples. This combination not only offers a “super-sized” poll for statewide results, but allows for large enough sample sizes at the Congressional District level to draw detailed observations. More on the methodology is discussed at the bottom of this post.

“As early voting begins and candidates begin their homestretch run, Cong. Cotton is poised to knock off Sen. Pryor barring any major disasters,” said Talk Business & Politics Editor-in-Chief Roby Brock.

“I do think this race tightens, however, as Democrats are pushing for a massive get-out-the-vote effort among newly registered and dormant voters. How big that impact will be is anyone’s guess. It’s complicated and nearly impossible to accurately poll that universe,” Brock said.

Talk Business & Politics has released two other polling results related to this latest battery of surveys in the First and Second Congressional Districts and involving three ballot measures.

ANALYSIS
Dr. Jay Barth, professor of political science at Hendrix College, helped analyze the survey results in the U.S. Senate race. (Editor’s note: Dr. Barth has been a financial contributor to the Pryor campaign.)

• Congressman Tom Cotton has enlarged his lead in our survey from his two-point margin in our July poll, the last time we checked in on the Senate race.

• Cotton leads in three of the state’s four congressional districts. He holds healthy majorities in both the First and Third Congressional Districts and has a plurality lead (49%-42%) in the Fourth Congressional District he has represented over the past two years. Pryor’s sole lead is in central Arkansas’s Second Congressional District where he holds a 48%-43% advantage.

• As has been shown in previous surveys, both candidates have locked up support among their fellow partisans. In this survey, Cotton has a strong advantage among the state’s voters who term themselves Independents (although surveys we have completed in the past suggests that most of them now actually see themselves as closer to the Republican Party). Among this crucial group, Cotton leads 59%-28%.

• In terms of key demographics, a gender gap persists in the race but Pryor now trails among both men and women. The gap with women is small but the gap with male voters is 55%-37%. Among the youngest group of voters, the candidates are even, but Cotton leads among all other groups by age. Most importantly, older Arkansans (a group that has shown some malleability in the race across the months) now goes to Cotton by a 51%-42% margin.

• Moving into early voting, our survey says advantage Cotton. For Pryor to close the gap, a monstrous and effectively targeted turnout operation and the entrance of large numbers of new registrants into the fold are both essential.

• Democrats are anticipating an electorate that includes more persons of color and more younger voters than does our model (one that is explicitly based on 2010 turnout patterns). Therefore, we tested this theory on our sample.

• We re-weighted the sample to reduce the percentage of white voters to 78 percent of the electorate and to increase the percentage of voters under the age of 44 to 34 percent of the electorate. In addition, because we are seeing different attitudes in this race between cell phone users and land line respondents (partly because of the age and race factors), we also weighted the sample for cell phone users to 30 percent of the electorate.

• With all these shifts more in line with Democratic turnout models, Cotton still held a 7-point advantage (48%-41%).

METHODOLOGY
This survey was conducted by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College on Wednesday and Thursday, October 15 and 16, 2014. The poll, which has a margin of error of +/-2.2%, was completed using IVR survey technology and live cell phone respondents among 2,075 frequent voters in Arkansas. Only respondents who positively identified that they planned to vote in the November 4th general election were allowed to complete the survey.

Approximately 16% of the voters in our sample were contacted via cell phone with live callers. This is in response to the increased reliance by voters on cell phones. Additionally, we applied generally standard weighting to the poll results based on age, gender, race and Congressional Districts.

Age (weighted according to 2010 statewide vote)
8% Under the age of 30
19% Between the ages of 30 and 44
41% Between the ages of 45 and 64
32% 65 or older

Ethnicity (weighted according to 2010 statewide vote)
11% African American
1% Asian American
83% Caucasian or White
2% Latino
3% Other

Party Identification (unweighted)
34% Democratic
30% Independent
29% Republican
7% Other

Gender (weighted according to 2010 statewide vote)
46% Male
54% Female

Congressional Districts (weighted according to 2010 population)
25% CD1
25% CD2
25% CD3
25% CD4

Layoffs appear to be on the table for Fort Smith city employees as the city budget woes continue.

According to an email Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack sent to the city's Board of Directors on Thursday (Oct. 16), "there doesn't appear to be an end in sight" to the budget problems.

"It may be time for us to consider a fundamental change in our General Fund services and the number of employees," Gosack wrote. "We have experienced this fiscal stress for at least 6 years, and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight. The increasing frustration with the budget difficulties year after year may have to be solved by re-evaluating our ability to sustain current service and employment levels in the General Fund.”

Gosack had said throughout the year that his goal was to provide pay raises to all city employees, but he said with sales tax revenues remaining flat and expected flat revenues through 2015, no money is available.

"We began the 2015 budget process with a goal of providing pay adjustments. We’ve worked diligently to do so, but the resources aren’t available unless we’re willing to make fundamental changes to the business we do. Perhaps the time has arrived to have that discussion.”

The city's sales taxes (1% for streets and 1% combined for water and sewer projects and fire and parks and recreation) collected $3.27 million in the August report, the most recent data available. The figure is 0.74% above the same month last year, but 1.66% lower than budgeted.

For the first eight months of the year, the total tax collections including the August report from the city's sales tax collections are up 1.37% from the same period last year but off budget by 1.04%.

In a separate email Tuesday (Oct. 14) to city department heads, Gosack called the pressure on the general fund "significant" and explained how cost of living adjustments (COLA) would impact the budget.

"A 2% COLA and restoring merit/step pay increases in the General Fund costs approx. $940,000. A 1% COLA and the merit/step pay increases would cost approx. $640,000.”

City Director Mike Lorenz blasted Gosack in an email to the rest of the Board, saying he was "disappointed" that the administration "would make a 180, pulling it off the table before exploring other options" after discussing pay raises for much of the year. He continued and said open positions should be reviewed in each department, asking whether the positions should be filled at all.

"Long-term open positions many times indicate that FTE is not needed, I truly believe there is opportunity in this area as well as careful review of work duties and roles. Why are we not considering eliminating some open positions in exchange for COLA and performance raises? I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree with jumping straight to the argument that more room in the budget can’t be found without cutting services. I am certain there is waste in nearly every department budget – we have to make some tough decisions and prioritize better.”

Gosack's Thursday email said some of those efforts mentioned by Lorenz had already been underway.

"Over the last few days, we’ve had to reduce General Fund spending requests by $1.7 million to get to a 7.5% ending balance. And, those figures don’t account for any pay adjustments. If pay adjustments are included, the needed reductions become $2.6 million. We don’t have many vacant General Fund positions. The police dept. has frozen 8 patrol officer positions for the last 2 years, and will likely need to do so in 2015 in order to meet their budget targets. Fleet replacements in General Fund programs have been sparse the last few years. All this to say that I don’t believe there’s much waste in our budgets with these kinds of choices having been made, and with the staff’s desire to provide employee pay adjustments.”

It was last year that City Director Keith Lau was critical of the 2014 budget, calling it "faith-based budgeting," and asked for a $2.2 million budget cut in anticipation of continued budgetary issues. At the urging of Lau, Gosack last year prepared a set of proposals that would have increased revenues by $500,000 and reduced expenditures by $1.695 million.

The biggest cuts to the general fund would have come to the police department, which showed expenses reduced by $667,200 in the hypothetical 2014 budget. The cuts included eliminating all animal control services and the boarding of animals at the Humane Society. Additionally, no calls for animal services will be answered by the police department. The proposal also eliminated two dispatchers, one records clerk and one police officer.

The department to show the next highest figure in reductions was the fire department, which could lose $332,000 in funding.

"(It) would result in a rolling brownout of fire station closures," Gosack wrote in a prepared memo to the Board of Directors at the time. "It's estimated that one fire station would be closed 86% of the time, and that two fire stations would be closed 20% of the time. This lengthens response times for affected areas, increases property damage from fires, impacts firefighter safety, could harm the ISO fire insurance rating, and increases the potential for vandalism/damage to unoccupied fire stations and apparatus.”

Also included in the proposed cuts was elimination of outside agency funding for non-profit organizations, which would save the city $162,000.

As a result of the cuts, the scenario formally rejected by the Board last year would have resulted in the elimination of 14 paid staff positions from the general fund and resulted in furloughs of three to five days in the building safety department.

Asked last year whether he was intentionally presenting a budget that was worse than it had to be, Gosack was direct in denying any such action.

"No. No. And that was one of the instructions to the staff when we began this was to make sure that we were not doing that because I knew it would be one of the criticisms.”

Attempts to reach Gosack, Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman and City Finance Director Kara Bushkuhl Monday (Oct. 20) were unsuccessful, with City Communications Manager Tracy Winchell saying the city would not comment on the budget outside of a public meeting.

Lau said by telephone Monday that all options were on the table for dealing with the budget shortfall, including raising not only the franchise fee from 4% to 4.25%, but imposing a franchise tax on water and sewer customers.

"That's on the table, too. You could throw franchise fees on water and sewer. The bottom line is that we need to look at all revenue and all expenses in order to shore up our balance sheet in the general fund," he said.

Word of the cuts, and the soon to be bankrupt police and fire pension contribution fund, has reached back to the Fort Smith Police and Fire Departments.

Cpl. Matthew Holloway, president of the Fort Smith chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, said there had been discussions among not only police officers and firefighters, but other city staff, of staging protests at the city offices on Garrison Avenue. He said there could be a large number of police officers and firefighters showing up to city Board meetings to voice their displeasure with the budget situation, including the pension fund situation which Gosack did not mention in his emails regarding the 2015 budget.

"I've been contacted by both fire department union guys and they are upset. We're all upset. Our budget has been drastically cut again," he said, later adding that plans at this point are for protests on Nov. 4, though the date could change. "But we don't know if that'll happen or not.”

In responses to the threat of protests, Lau said all city employees should understand that the budget cuts are not about city staff.

"This is only us looking at the financials," he said. "This has nothing to do with them as employees. We're still formulating (where the cuts will be made). There's nothing written in stone. But this is not a slam on employees, this is simply a financial matter.”

Asked whether city directors and administration could shoulder some of the burden during budget cuts – including possibly giving up car allowances or rescinding a 2.5% pay raise given to Gosack last year – Lau said it was possible.

"I'm open for anything and I hadn't even thought of that because we're so early into this deal," he said, adding that the outside agency funding of $162,000 was also on the table.

The September labor report is more of the same. Arkansas’ jobless rate fell to 6.2% compared to 7.7% in September 2013, although the size of the workforce fell by 1.89% and the number of employed dropped by 0.37% in the year-over-year comparison.

There are an estimated 25,112 fewer Arkansans in the workforce and 4,648 fewer Arkansans employed in September compared to September 2013. The September numbers, released Tuesday (Oct. 21) by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, are subject to revision.

Arkansas’ labor force was an estimated 1.299 million in September, above the 1.296 million in August, but down 1.89% compared to 1.325 million in September 2013. There are 67,511 fewer Arkansans in the labor force compared to the peak (1.367 million) in May 2008, a decline of 4.93%.

The number of employed in Arkansas during September was 1.218 million, above August employment of 1.214 million, and down an estimated 4,468 jobs compared to September 2013. The number of unemployed was an estimated 81,014 during September, below the 81,863 in August, and well below the 101,478 in September 2013.

NONFARM PAYROLL GAINS
Although the top line numbers continue a downward trend, economic researcher Greg Kaza said said nonfarm payroll numbers are trending in the right direction. The nonfarm category does not include farm workers, private household employees, non-profit employees and “general government” employees. Investopedia estimates that the nonfarm category represents about 80% of the total workforce that contribute to national GDP.

Nonfarm payroll during September was estimated at 1.194 million, better than the 1.191 million in August and up 17,700 jobs over nonfarm payroll of 1.176 million in September 2013.

“Last month's gain was greater than the average Arkansas September gain of 13,117 in the expansion that started in mid-2009,” said Kaza, who is executive director of the Arkansas Policy Foundation. “We need more reports like September's in the other 11 months so Arkansas can equal the U.S. average during this expansion. Arkansas employment has increased 2.8 percent versus the U.S. average of 6.5 percent in the expansion.”

Nonfarm jobs reached a high in Arkansas of 1,209,800 in February 2008.

Arkansas’ annual average jobless rate fell from 7.9% during 2011 to a revised 7.5% during 2012. The initial annual average jobless rate for Arkansas during 2013 is 7.5%.

ARKANSAS SECTOR NUMBERS
In the Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector — Arkansas’ largest job sector — employment during September was an estimated 244,400, up from 243,900 in August and ahead of the 241,100 during September 2013. Employment in the sector hit a high of 251,800 in March 2007.

Manufacturing jobs in Arkansas during September totaled 154,800, down from 155,500 in August and above the 151,900 in September 2013. Employment in the manufacturing sector fell in 2013 to levels not seen since early 1968. Peak employment in the sector was 247,300 in February 1995.

Government job employment during September was 214,500, down from 214,800 in August and below the 215,700 during September 2013.

The state’s Education and Health Services sector during September had 175,500 jobs, up from 174,700 during August and up from 171,700 during September 2013. Employment in the sector is up 22.7% compared to September 2004.

The construction sector employed an estimated 48,800 in September, up from 48,000 in August and above the 44,400 in September 2013. The sector is off the employment high of 57,600 reached in March 2007.

Arkansas’ tourism sector (leisure & hospitality) employed 108,800 during September, down from a revised 109,000 during August, and above the 105,500 during September 2013. Employment in this sector reached a high of 109,100 in March.

NATIONAL, REGIONAL DATA
The BLS report also noted that 42 states had unemployment rate decreases from a year earlier, five states had increases and three states had no change. The national jobless rate during September was 5.9%, down from the 7.2% in September 2013.

Georgia had the highest unemployment rate among the states in September at 7.9%. North Dakota again had the lowest jobless rate at 2.8%.

The September jobless rate in Oklahoma was 4.7%, unchanged compared to August and down from 5.6% in September 2013.

Missouri’s jobless rate during September was 6.3%, unchanged compared to August and down from 6.4% in September 2013.

Arkansas’ open 4th District Congressional race suddenly got interesting. In contrast, there is no political drama in the 3rd Congressional District race in which incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, has a commanding lead in the polls.

In a new Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College Poll, Republican Bruce Westerman still has a lead over his Democratic rival, James Lee Witt, but the margin has shrunk from 14 to two points in the 4th District race

In late July, Westerman led Witt 48-34%, but now his lead stands at 44-42% in a new survey of 607 likely Fourth District voters.

Q: In the race for Congress in your congressional district, the candidates are Republican Representative Bruce Westerman, Democrat James Lee Witt, and Libertarian Ken Hamilton. If the election for U.S. House were today, which candidate would you support?
44% Republican Representative Bruce Westerman
42% Democrat James Lee Witt
4% Libertarian Ken Hamilton
10% Undecided

The Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College Poll was conducted on Oct. 15 and 16, 2014 among 607 respondents among landline and cell phone users. It has a margin of error +/-4%. Demographics for the poll are provided in the methodology below.

“In July, we identified Witt as needing to shore up his Democratic base, especially among African American voters. He has made gains in that area,” said TB&P Editor-in-Chief Roby Brock.

The latest round of polling also shows Third District Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, easily on his way to re-election against Libertarian Grant Brand. No Democrat or Green Party candidate filed for the office.

Q: In the race for Congress in your congressional district, the candidates are Libertarian Grant Brand and Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Womack. If the election for U.S. House were today, which candidate would you support?
19% Libertarian Grant Brand
64% Republican Congressman Steve Womack
17% Undecided

The Third District poll was also conducted on October 15 and 16, 2014 among 426 likely voters via landlines and cell phones. It has a margin of error of +/-4.7%.

ANALYSIS
Dr. Jay Barth, professor of political science at Hendrix College, helped analyze the latest polls. He offered this analysis of the poll results.

• Congressional District 4
The most dramatic shift in our polling since July shows itself in the Fourth Congressional District. There, Democrat James Lee Witt, who still trails Republican nominee Representative Bruce Westerman, has shrunk a 14-point deficit in July to a two-point margin that is within the survey’s margin of error.

In July, Witt showed difficulty in coalescing the support of his fellow partisans and of African-American voters. That is no longer the case. Witt now has an 85%-6% lead with Democrats, nearly equaling Westerman’s 88%-6% lead with Republicans. As is the case with most Republican candidates in Arkansas, Westerman leads with Independents (53%-28%), but the historic Democratic advantage in the district in terms of partisan identification helps prop up Witt’s candidacy.

Similarly, Witt now leads among African-Americans 75%-5%, a major improvement from July when one in five African-Americans surveyed voiced support for Westerman. Even with this marked improvement, Witt shows some additional room to grow in his standing with African-Americans in the closing stages of the campaign. Former President Bill Clinton’s visits to several outposts in the Fourth District last weekend was clearly targeted at further cementing Witt’s standing with key parts of the Democratic base in the District.

Westerman is performing well with older voters (he leads those over 65 49%-43%) and with men (where he leads 46%-40%), but Witt has leads with women and voters under 65.

The race shows all the signs of being exceptionally close in the end but, at this stage, it appears that James Lee Witt, still with more funding for advertising than does Westerman for the stretch run, has a legitimate chance to pull the Fourth District back into the Democratic fold.

• Congressional District 3
There is little to be said in analyzing the Third District Congressional race where Representative Steve Womack is on his way to his third term in Congress. Womack leads with almost all demographic and political groups in the district with the exception of Democrats (who lack a clear option in the race) and the district’s small number of African-Americans.

The key question now: Does Womack plan to hold the safe district the remainder of his political career or consider a higher office in 2016 or 2018?

METHODOLOGY
The Fourth Congressional District survey was conducted by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 15 and 16, 2014. The poll, which has a margin of error of +/-4%, was completed using IVR survey technology and through live contact calls among 607 likely Arkansas voters in the district.

Only respondents who positively identified that they planned to vote in the November 4th general election were allowed to complete the survey. 13% of respondents were cell phone users.
Age (weighted according to 2010 statewide vote)
8% Under the age of 30
19% Between the ages of 30 and 44
42% Between the ages of 45 and 64
32% 65 or older

Ethnicity (weighted according to historical patterns)
16% African American
0.5% Asian American
78.5% Caucasian or White
2% Latino
3% Other

Party Identification (unweighted)
36% Democratic
28% Independent
28% Republican
7% Other

Gender (weighted according to 2010 statewide vote)
46% Male
54% Female

The 3rd Congressional District poll was conducted on Oct. 15 and 16, 2014 among 426 likely Arkansas voters in the district using IVR survey technology and through live contact calls. It has a margin of error of +/-4.7%.
Age (weighted according to 2010 statewide vote)
8% Under the age of 30
19% Between the ages of 30 and 44
42% Between the ages of 45 and 64
32% 65 or older

Ethnicity (unweighted)
3% African American
1% Asian American
93% Caucasian or White
0.5% Latino
2.5% Other

Party Identification (unweighted)
25% Democratic
34% Independent
36% Republican
5% Other

Gender (unweighted)
43% Male
57% Female

As U.S. and international oil prices struggle to stay above $80 barrel, many energy analysts fear that slow global growth and soft demand for energy could signal a permanent shift in the market for benchmark crude.

On Tuesday, prices for the two major benchmark futures, North Sea Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, were moving lower. The global Brent contract ended down 76 cents or 0.9% at $85.40 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. Light sweet crude futures for front-month November delivery fell 4 cents at $82.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Kevin Kliesen, business economist and research officer for The Federal Reserve of St. Louis, said it is difficult trying to figure out exactly why crude oil prices have gradually declined over the last four months, ending with a precipitous 20% drop in the past week.

“The tricky part is that you’ve got so many other things going on that are affecting oil prices,” Kliesen said. “It is hard to disentangle what are the key factors driving prices.”

Kliesen did note that supply and demand factors are affecting crude oil prices, especially in the global market. Just last week, the Fed economist said, the International Energy Agency’s Oil Market Report for October reduced its forecast of global oil demand for 2014 by 0.2 million barrels per day (bbl/d) from the previous month, to 92.4 bbl/d), on lower expectations of economic growth and the weak recent trend. 

Kliesen also cited record U.S. oil and gas production driven by new and innovative technologies in U.S. shale plays as another reason for lower prices. Earlier this month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s forecasted that domestic crude oil production in 2015 is likely to reach its highest level in more than four decades, averaging 9.5 million bbl/d. If realized, the 2015 forecast would be the highest annual average crude oil production since 1970.

Overall, U.S. crude oil production averaged an estimated 8.7 million bbl/d in September, the highest monthly production since July 1986. Long term, Kliesen said he does expect international crude oil markets to recover, especially if global growth rebounds.

“We have large economics like China and India that will continue to grow relatively fast, and from that standpoint you would expect the demand for energy and crude oil to continue to increase and put pressure on prices,” he said. “But, we also learned in the past that new and innovative technologies have been developed to extract more and more energy; if that holds true, obviously we will see a greater level of supply as well.”

DOWNWARD PUMP PRICE PRESSURES
As oil prices have dropped sharply over the last several weeks, Arkansas consumers were rewarded at the pump with prices for regular unleaded at or below $3 a gallon. That trend should continue through the holiday season to the beginning of the New Year, analysts say.

The national average for a price of regular unleaded has now dropped on 26 consecutive days, according to AAA. Today’s (Oct. 21) national average price for regular unleaded gasoline is $3.09 per gallon, representing the lowest price since Feb. 1, 2011. Nationwide, drivers are saving an average of 60 cents per gallon compared to the 2014 high of $3.70 (April 28), and pump prices have tumbled 10% since Labor Day when the national average registered $3.44 per gallon.

In Arkansas, motorists today are paying in average of $2.91 per gallon to fill up their tank across the state, 25 cents cheaper than a year ago, according to AAA’s daily fuel gauge.

Pump prices in the state’s metropolitan areas range from a low of $2.81 per gallon in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers area to a high of $2.96 in the Pine Bluff area. Motorists in the Fort Smith area are seeing prices at an average of $2.86 per gallon and travelers and residents at the Texarkana state line and in the Little Rock-North Little Rock area are paying an average of $2.90 and $2.95 a gallon to fill up their tanks, respectively.

Drivers choosing to fill up the tanks with a higher-grade of gasoline should expect to pay an average premium of $3.29 a gallon across the state. Big rig drivers and other diesel fuel users will see pump prices at about $3.51 a gallon, down five cents from only a week ago.

OIL PRICES, INFLATION AND CONSUMER CONFIDENCE
Still, questions remain on whether the falling oil prices are drastically affecting the rate of inflation and consumer confidence. The AAA says that for every penny the national average falls, more than $1 billion in additional annual consumer spending is estimated to be freed up.

On Friday, the Preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment for October came in at 86.4, the highest level since July 2007. Kliesen said the survey was taken before “all the recent turmoil” with the Ebola scare, the crude oil slide and stock market fears.

“Consumer confidence is a tricky thing,” he said. “It could be affected by oil prices, but people also see the stock market falling and the value of their 401K plummeting. All those things have an adverse effect on how they feel.”

Kliesen also said it is conceivable that headline prices for some consumer goods are falling because of lower energy prices, but noted the costs of housing and medical care as other major factors. The rate of inflation stands at 1.7%, below the 2% level the Federal Reserve judges is most consistent over the longer run for price stability and maximum employment. 

“It is not just energy feeding into lower prices and inflation. It is a lot of things,” he said.

A "retreat" of Fort Smith's Central Business Improvement District commissioners Tuesday (Oct. 21) morning explored bringing more events to the district and forming a master land use plan for the downtown area.

CBID Commissioner Sam Sicard made the case for more events in the downtown area in simple terms.

"We're not even utilizing the assets we have," he said, pointing to the riverfront amphitheater and other venues throughout the downtown area.

Richard Griffin, chair of the CBID, said there was "no marketing strategy" for downtown and the riverfront, specifically. Commissioner Steve Clark noted that the amphitheater and other downtown parks properties needed a qualified individual who would not simply wait for event organizers to contact the city, but would be actively recruiting shows and events to the region.

John McIntosh, a former board member of the Second Street Live organization, was on hand for the meeting and told commissioners about the necessity of having an individual to recruit acts to Fort Smith.

"There hasn't been anybody proactively seeking promotors or seeking concert series like they have at the AMP (Arkansas Music Pavilion in Rogers). … In order to make it more viable to use as an existing asset, we need to have a discussion with the city about who's in charge and what authority does someone have to book rather than just waiting for someone to call and say there's a date. Well, I would like to promote a concert in the park.”

McIntosh said for downtown growth to happen that will drive everyone from young to old, a different type of management style had to come to the amphitheater and other parks assets in the downtown area. And while McIntosh said the amphitheater's management was key to growing downtown, Clark said there is a waiting list for apartments in the downtown area which is a sign that there is interest in the district.

In past meetings, there has been talk regarding how to stimulate and grow the downtown and bring development. Commissioner Phil White took those ideas, along with the marketing strategy discussed Tuesday and other concepts such as a motorcycle rally coming to Fort Smith and said he would like to see the CBID get focused or set priorities since downtown development has continued to lag behind the rest of Fort Smith in recent years.

"But maybe it's our fault because we have not prioritized to keep our eye on the ball," he said.

Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman told the commissioners that different areas of the CBID – which stretches from Sparks Hospital to the riverfront – have different needs and not all areas will have the same focus. That was when meeting facilitator Rusty Myers told the commission that he believed the downtown neighborhood was favorable for development if the commission could effectively articulate its vision for the downtown area.

"In my opinion, there's not been a clear tying together of these projects," he explained, adding that a clear vision for downtown is what kept companies like ArcBest from relocating in the downtown area based on discussions he has had with corporate executives.

White proposed creating a master land use plan for the district that would answer the question of vision.

"If you had a master plan and say, 'Here's what we've adopted and here's what will be over there…' I think that's something that's needed. We're visionaries and we have a lot of ideas.”

The only problem, Griffin said, is funding such a plan or study.

"We have no revenue other than the empty building … so that's a fair subject that we always run from. How do we fund?”

While there were no set policies to come out of Tuesday's session, Myers said funding solutions could be found.

"It may not be up to you. There are groups out there, and they are there, then some of these things could be assigned to them if they're willing to pickup and run with it."

Asa Hutchinson, the GOP nominee for Arkansas Governor, has an 8-point lead over his Democratic rival, Mike Ross, according to a new Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College Poll.

The question asked in the survey was this: In the race for Governor, the candidates are Libertarian Frank Gilbert, Green Party Candidate Joshua Drake, Republican Asa Hutchinson, and Democrat Mike Ross. If the election for Governor were today, which candidate would you support?
2.5%    Libertarian Frank Gilbert
2%     Green candidate Joshua Drake
49%    Republican Asa Hutchinson
41%    Democrat Mike Ross
5.5%    Undecided

In a late July TB&P-Hendrix poll, Hutchinson held a five-point lead over Ross 46-41%.

The new polling of 2,075 likely Arkansas voters was conducted on Wednesday, Oct. 15 and Thursday, Oct. 16. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.2% and includes live cell phone calls (16%) and automated landline respondents.

The statewide results are a compilation of four different Congressional District level surveys completed from four different Congressional District level samples. This combination not only offers a “super-sized” poll for statewide results, but allows for large enough sample sizes at the Congressional District level to draw detailed observations. More on the methodology is discussed at the bottom of this post.

“With two weeks until Election Day, Republican Asa Hutchinson is in a solid position to win the Governor’s race,” said Talk Business & Politics Editor-in-Chief Roby Brock. “We see many similar voter patterns in the Governor’s race and the Senate race that suggest at the top of the ticket voters are leaning to Hutchinson and Cotton. As I’ve said previously, Democratic efforts to rally new and dormant voters remain the ‘X’ factor.”

Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College have released several other polling results related to this latest battery of surveys in the First, Second, Third and Fourth Congressional Districts, the U.S. Senate race and involving three ballot measures.

ANALYSIS
Dr. Jay Barth, professor of political science at Hendrix College, helped analyze the survey results in the Governor’s race. (Editor’s note: Dr. Barth has been a financial contributor to the Ross campaign.)

• In the battle to replace Gov. Mike Beebe, former Congressman Asa Hutchinson has enlarged his lead since our last check-in on the race in July. Then, Hutchinson led former Fourth District Congressman Mike Ross by a margin of 46% to 41%. Now, while Ross has held his support at 41%, Hutchinson is nearing a majority of the electorate. Libertarian Frank Gilbert and Green Party candidate Joshua Drake trail in low single digits.

• As discussed in our results on the U.S. Senate race yesterday, Democratic operatives believe that the turnout patterns in 2014 will differ from those in 2010 (on which we rely for our weighting). Even with key racial and age groups weighted in the manner Democrats hope for, Hutchinson maintains a 6-point lead, also outside the margin of error in this large poll sample.

• While both Ross and Hutchinson have strong support from fellow partisans, Hutchinson’s overall lead is driven by his large lead among Independent voters. With that group, he gains 55% of the vote to Ross’s 32%.

• In terms of key demographic groups, Ross does lead with the youngest voters (those under 30). This group is also more likely to be undecided or supportive of the third party candidates. Hutchinson has leads among all other age groups, including nearing 50% with both of the two older age groups.

• A gender gap remains present although it is driven mostly by Hutchinson’s strong lead among men (he leads 53%-38%). The two are nearly tied among women where Hutchinson has a 1% lead. Hutchinson is gaining just over 10% of the African-American electorate and is winning white voters 53% to 38%.

• Finally, Hutchinson leads in three of the state’s four congressional districts, including Ross’ former home 4th District (which was redrawn in 2011). He gains 51%, 57%, and 48%, respectively in the First, Third, and Fourth Districts. Ross does lead in the Second District, which is showing itself to be one of the Democrats’ brighter spots in this cycle 48%-41%.

Link here for details on survey methodology.

The Fort Smith Board of Directors and the Sebastian County Quorum Court voted Tuesday (Oct. 21) to enter into a contract with Erie, Pa.-based American Resort Management, but the deal is not yet done since the Quorum Court did not have enough votes for passage on the contract's first reading.

The deal would contract ARM with the city and county for the amount of $88,000, split between 2014 and 2015 budgets. Each body would be responsible for paying its half of the fee each year for pre-operations, which would amount to $22,000 this year and another $22,000 next year for each government.

Work expected to be completed during the pre-operation period includes marketing (naming, branding, and advertising), consultation with the governments on operating budgets and policies, recruiting staff, programming, community outreach, training and safety programs for staff, as well as setting pricing. The contract stipulates that an annual budget will be approved by the city and county which ARM will have to abide by annually. The budget would set pricing, as well as operations and maintenance budgets.

The agreement would also establish a facility account from which the company would pay all bills associated with the aquatics center and would be subject to review by both governments. Daily reporting of the fund will be available for the governments.

The contract would also include performance pay as incentives for the company to turn higher profits at the aquatics center. The draft contract presented to the board laid out a 5% straight payout of revenues, plus a bonus of 10% if operation goal of 110% was met, 7.5% if 105.1%-109.9% of goal was met, and 5% if 100.1% to 105% of the goal was met.

Justice of the Peace Tony Crockett spoke against the proposed contract during a joint meeting on Oct. 9 and was one of five justices to vote against the contract Tuesday at the Quorum Court meeting at the Greenwood courthouse.

Crockett spoke with another company that had bid for the contract before the Oct. 9 meeting, Amusement Aquatic Management of California. AAM's CEO Kent LeMasters had previously spoke to both governmental bodies about the need for a wave pool in the water park. LeMasters had also privately expressed concerns about costs for the construction of the water park, saying in an email to the city that construction costs were too high.

Fort Smith Parks and Recreation Director Mike Alsup said Oct. 9 that Lemasters' proposal included a price tag of $155,000 annually, while the ARM proposal equaled about $75,000 based on revenues of $1.5 million, receiving a 5% cut."Kent's pre-opening fee was $114,750," Alsup added, drawing a contrast to ARM's pre-opening of $88,000. Even if revenues were higher, Alsup said, $2 million in revenues would equal pay of $100,000 per year to ARM and $2.5 million would be $125,000.

Other justices of the peace to join Crockett in voting against the contract included Phil Hicks, Shawn Looper, Linda Murry, and John Spradlin resulting in a vote of 8-5. Without nine votes in favor of the contract, Sebastian County Judge David Hudson said the resolution to approve the contract and appropriation would have to come back for a total of three readings.

"I've asked them to reconsider. I'm hoping that at least one of them will reconsider so it passes on the next reading next Tuesday. It's important to keep the project moving forward on a timely basis," he said after the meeting.

Even without the second reading or passage with a possible third reading, Hudson said the city and county would move forward as scheduled.

The Fort Smith Board of Directors passed the contract unanimously. Other budgetary items associated with the park that will still have to be paid for by the city and county include marketing expenses, according to City Administrator Ray Gosack.

"That'll be the most significant," he told the Board. "There will be some reimbursement with travel. But (many of the meetings and communications) can be done through e-mail exchanges.”

Holman told the bodies that ticket prices would likely be in the range of $16 to $21, though there would be specials for different zip codes and possibly sponsored days in partnership with local businesses and industries.

In other business, the Board approved the hiring of Tracey Shockley as internal auditor. The position has been vacant since Mitzi Kimbrough resigned May 16. Shockley will begin work for the city on Dec. 8 and will be paid an annual salary of $74,600. Shockley is relocating to Fort Smith from Texas, where she has been internal auditor at the Spring Independent School District.

As the world becomes more digitally connected, expanding broadband access for Arkansans has become an important issue across the state. And in the area of education, broadband access has become an issue of paramount importance.

Act 1280 of the 2013 General Assembly now requires all public school districts in the state to provide digital learning courses during this school year. But access to broadband Internet has been a challenge, according to the Arkansas Education Association.

“Under current law, K-12 schools can only obtain broadband access through contracts that local school districts negotiate with private providers or through the state’s largely outdated APSCN network, which uses lines leased from private providers,” AEA President Brenda Robinson said in an AEA policy statement.

Even with private operators, the prices can sometimes be cost prohibitive, Robinson said, with costs ranging from $1.20 per megabite to as much as $280 per megabite. The average, she said, was $34.

The AEA has asked legislators for access to legally grant schools access to the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (ARE-ON), which is only available for higher education.

MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY
Another option that has been discussed in years past is the use of fiber optic cables in Arkansas highway right of ways.

According to Randy Ort, spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, the department houses more than 700 miles of fiber optic cable on controlled-access rights of way across the state.

But for anyone assuming access would be simple, he said they should think again. Ort said the only reason the AHTD has fiber optic lines running parallel to interstates and other highways across the state is because it is federally mandated to do so.

“There was the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 that required the states to negotiate with telecommunications providers to allow placement of fiber optic cable on interstate highway rights of way,” he said. “And like I mentioned to you before, prior to that we do allow by permit utilities on state highway right of way, but not on fully-controlled access roads like interstates. But this act required the states to work with those companies to try to accommodate them.”

Ort said between 1997 and 2002, the highway department negotiated deals with Alltel, AT&T, Digital Teleport, Level 3 Communications, MCI/Worldcom and McLoud Communications to install the fiber optic at no cost to the state.

“So we have agreements in place with those entities. The act, I go back to the Telecommunications Act … it allowed each state to determine fair and reasonable compensation for allowing the placement. So there’s not a certain template. State’s were given leeway to do things, you know, however they saw fit,” he explained. “So here in Arkansas, we negotiated for either fiber or equipment to be able to use fiber. And the agreements are in place as long as the fiber optic cable remains on the right of way. So there’s no end to them.”

The way the agreement works is that providers installed the capacity needed and left one or two “dead wires” for the AHTD to use. And while the highway department uses the network to connect its district and county offices, it still has excess capacity.

BROADBAND FOR SCHOOLS
But any chance of local school districts getting access to the “dead wires” is zero, Ort said, due to the state and federal laws, noting that even if the state updated its laws the federal government under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 still prohibits the state from becoming “a provider” of Internet services.

He also said giving away the access provided in the agreements with the six service providers would actually not be up to the state highway department, either.

“Back to your question of why can’t we provide it to another governmental entity. Well, if there’s a water line on our property, we can’t provide water to somebody else. If there’s a gas line, we can’t provide gas to somebody else. The only thing we can use this cable for is for highway purposes.”

As for whether the AEA will get its desire for a change in the law, there was not a simple yes or no provided by legislators from both parties.

Sen. Jake Files, R-Fort Smith, said he had “definite interest in looking at it,” adding that it may require looking at other avenues outside of ARE-ON.

“All schools need broadband access, but not necessarily ARE-ON, but we need to find a way to provide good broadband access across the state. That may be with a public network or private providers.”

Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, said the situation was coming to a head over the summer and nearly resulted in a request of Gov. Mike Beebe for a special session of the General Assembly.

“There was talk of the governor calling a special session. But (regarding access to ARE-ON), I have not yet made a decision. But I do know I want to make sure our schools get better broadband access. I think it’s almost criminal they don’t have that access.”

THE ISSUE IS PRICE
The issue is price and with the highway department unable by federal law to become a provider to the schools and private Internet providers having such a range in price, would the legislature be willing to place limits on what local service providers could charge school districts should ARE-ON not become accessible by statute?

“That’s a tough one,” Files said. “On the one hand, I’d like to say ‘yea, we need to put caps in.’ But on the other hand, there may be extenuating circumstances. There may be only one provider in a community and they may have to spend a lot of money to get it to the school.”

Even though Files does not believe in the government involving itself with private commerce, such as setting rate caps, he said schools should receive “fair and reasonable charges that is in the best interest of the public and is a fair cost to the providers, as well.”

Robinson said cost should not be a factor in providing broadband to school districts required to abide by Act 1280.

“New infrastructure would have to be built in many areas in order to connect our schools with the (ARE-ON) network,” she said. “Those, however, would be one-time costs of which the federal government’s e-rate programs could cover the lion’s share.”

But until the access is available, Robinson said “our state will not be able to fulfill our constitutional obligation of providing an adequate education for our children and the next generation will find themselves on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide.'”

Neighborhood Markets have been the shining star among Walmart U.S. formats in recent years, though they pale in comparison to overall revenue generation of the supercenter format. Greg Foran wants them to be shinier and maybe reverse the pale comparison.

Foran, the new CEO of Walmart U.S., spoke during the retailer’s recent investors conference of big opportunities with the Neighborhood Market grocery format and said he’s eager to build on the successes of 50 consecutive months of positive same-store sales. He’s got the full backing of his boss Doug McMillon, CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 

“Customers like the convenience of the supermarket trip and we offer a great value in our neighborhood markets. ... Now, as Greg moved into his role I like knowing how much passion and experience he has with fresh food,” McMillon told analysts at the Oct. 15 investor meeting in Rogers. 

McMillon also said he’s eager to see what Foran and his leadership team – Judith McKenna, Gisel Ruiz and Duncan Mac Naughton – can do with neighborhood markets.

“Greg’s got a strategic mindset. He builds strong teams. I really like how he's thinking about the division. It's been fun to watch him do it and I look forward to seeing what he's going to do with it,” McMillon said.

That was the primary reason McMillon gave for slowing the pace of new store openings for 2015 and 2016.

“I want us to be judicious about how many we grow next year because I'd like to give this team a chance to put their fingerprints on it,” McMillon said. “I think the Neighborhood Market could be even better. ... Before we end up with thousands of them, I want to make sure that we've got that right.”

McKenna said Wal-Mart will open between 180 to 200 Neighborhood Market stores next year, on top of the 170 new stores coming online this year. She said 60% of the stores coming online this year will open between November and Jan. 31, 2015 – the  end of the retailer’s fourth quarter. Wal-Mart had originally planned to open about 200 Neighborhood Markets this year.

“Our focus will be on quality. We want to ensure we're in exactly the right location to allow us to maximize convenience for the customer. We'll be judicious and disciplined in our rollout plans. But we are still excited about the future of Neighborhood Markets and we're encouraged by the strong performance we continue to see,” McKenna said.

The top management group recently realigned the operational management team for smaller format grocery stores that range from 40,000 to 12,000 square feet. This move was done to give the Neighborhood Markets more individualized attention. Small store operations have previously been lumped in with supercenter formats.

Michael Moore, the new president for small formats, said the squeakiest wheels always get the most attention and it was hard for the Neighborhood Market stores at 400 or so to get the same level of oversight and operational direction when there are 4,000 plus supercenters. The supercenters generate 80% of Walmart U.S. sales.

McKenna said the management team’s focus for improving Neighborhood Markets includes four key objectives: 
• Improvements in fresh, particularly around bakery, produce and deli;
• Operational improvements that will introduce new store processes geared to driving efficiencies;
• More focus on customer services; and
• Doing a better job with store of the community that reflects the products and services geared to a particular neighborhood’s needs.

IMPROVING FRESH OPERATIONS
Foran did not mince words with his objectives on improving “fresh” products in Neighborhood Markets and supercenters. He said it’s not one or two things that could be done better, but more like four or five.

“I have seen in some of the initial stores that I went into that we were becoming too cluttered in fresh. I want to be able to walk in to the store and I want to be able to see what we want to sell to the customer. ... If you're going there at the moment, you expect to see apples because it's the beginning of the apple season. I don't want to have to stumble over two pallets of Coca-Cola and three point of sale signs directing me to buy Halloween candy when I want to walk in to produce,” Foran said.

Secondly, he said the company does “a reasonable job with fruit but I do worry about our vegetables and particularly our green leaf vegetables. I think that is really a cue for many customers on freshness.” He said Wal-Mart can’t afford to let customers see brown lettuce because it has not been properly rotated in the store.

Foran also raised concern about the number of fresh produce items in the store saying it’s likely that Wal-Mart carries too much merchandise. 

“Many of our stores get seven-day deliveries,” he added, also noting that it is building up in the back of stores which is a huge problem for fresh items that must be quickly rotated through the store.

“We might be carrying one, two, three days too much inventory in produce,” Foran said.

He also addressed the million dollar labor question. Foran said he is making sure there is enough labor in the backroom and the store and that’s an ongoing discussion with his leadership team.

“I can tell you that when you're on an automated replenishment system, which we are in produce ... If you don't get your perpetual inventory counts right, it ain't going to work,” Foran said. “I'm not convinced we have enough discipline around counting inventory in store either monthly or weekly to get that count right.”

WIth respect to fresh meats, Foran said most of the product in the meat cases comes from Cargill or Tyson Foods. He said the meat buyers have been in discussions with these two suppliers in recent weeks.

“I don't see the consistency in the cattle. I don't see the trim is good enough upon buying muscle meat as steak. I expect to see the same cut on that meat because when I take it home and fry it and season and I want it medium rare. I want it medium rare all the way through. I don't want it tailored off at the end,” Foran said.

He sees opportunities in meat procurement, as well as upstream and downstream opportunities in that supply chain.

“None of this is easy to get after but we do know how to do it. And you start one store at a time and you get on with it, you create a store of excellence,” Foran said.

Foran has provided details about possible changes to bakery and deli, but has said modifications in those areas are being considered.

OPERATIONAL/SERVICES IMPROVEMENTS
The new team designated to oversee day-to-day operations for Neighborhood Market is a giant step forward for the format, according to Moore. This grocery format has done quite well on its own, offering low prices, large assortments and convenient locations, with both fuel and pharmacy.

Moore said the new model of Neighborhood Market also will have more service offerings similar to those found in the supercenter and a new expanded services area at the front of the store. This modification was made in the recently opened Siloam Springs store.

He said location for new stores is also an area getting more scrutiny because having fuel pumps is a high priority for each of the new smaller formats planned, even the 12,000 square stores. Foran said fuel is important to Walmart customers and it’s a known traffic driver. He said Walmart wants fuel stations connected to stores and even pickup centers where it’s feasible.

A pharmacy is also a beneift for the Neighborhood Markets, which will now offer more services like insurance counseling, as well as immunizations and health information programs.

August hospitality tax collections in Fort Smith and Van Buren, sector employment and traffic at the Fort Smith Regional Airport point to continued recovery in the region’s tourism and travel industry.

Hospitality tax collections in Van Buren for the first eight months of 2014 total $292,039, up 2.1% compared to the same period in 2013. The city collects a 1% tax on lodging and a 1% prepared food tax.

August receipts totaled $36,555, up an impressive 6.6% compared to August 2013. Maryl Koeth, executive director of the Van Buren Advertising & Promotion Commission, said winter-weather related changes in the school calendar helped boost August business.

“Normally we see a slow down in hospitality spending in early August as families begin to prepare for the start of the school year. This year because of the abbreviated summer break due to the extreme winter weather we saw more people vacationing and taking day trips later in the summer giving a boost to the August hospitality tax numbers,” Koeth explained.

Collections in Van Buren during 2013 totaled $423,221.83, remarkably close to the $423,222.91 during 2012. During 2012, Van Buren hospitality tax collections totaled $425,554, up 5.2% compared to the 2011 collections. Hospitality tax collections in Van Buren during 2011 totaled $429,561, up 2.34% compared to 2010. The 2011 collections ended a two-year skid in Van Buren.

Employment in the Fort Smith regional tourism industry set a new record of 9,900 during September, up from 9,800 in July and above the 9,600 in August 2013. The previous record of 9,800 was set in August 2008.

The Fort Smith Regional Airport posted September enplanements of 7,977, up 16.9% compared to September 2013. Enplanements for the first nine months of 2014 total 68,780, up 7.86% compared to the same period in 2013.

FORT SMITH NUMBERS
For the first eight months of 2014 the Fort Smith Convention & Visitors Bureau collected $513,674, up 3.1% compared to the same period of 2013. The city collects a 3% tax on lodging.

August hospitality tax collections in Fort Smith totaled $64,856, up 10.2% compared to August 2013.

Claude Legris, executive director of the Fort Smith Convention & Visitors Bureau, said events hosted in August of this year included the second half of the Bandmasters convention, the Arkansas Cattlemen convention, the Slamily Reunion (car show rally) and a Lockheed-Martin meeting.

Also according to Legris, hotel occupancy was up 10.4% over the previous August and average daily rate grew 3.1%.

“The summer tourist season has also shown positive results with the Fort Smith Visitor Center seeing an increase of 9,540 visitors on a year to date basis, which is an increase of 29%,” Legris said. “We hope mild fall weather and stability with the decreased price of gas will combine to bring us a strong fourth quarter for 2014.”

Collections in Fort Smith during 2013 totaled $731,057, down 2% compared to the same period in 2012. During 2012, Fort Smith hospitality tax collections totaled $746,182, up 5.37% compared to the 2011 period. The 2011 collections were up 4.3% compared to 2010.

ARKANSAS TOURISM TREND
Collections of Arkansas’ 2% tourism tax during the first seven months of 2014 totaled $8.21million, up 7.12% compared to the $7.664 million during the same period of 2013. (The state did not have August numbers as of Oct. 22).

The 2% tourism tax set a record in 2013 by reaching $12.716 million. Richard Davies, the state’s tourism chief, predicted 2014 would be even better for Arkansas’ tourism and travel sector. March, April, May, June and July set records for collections of the state’s tourism tax for the months.

The 2013 collections were up 2.5% compared to the $12.405 million in 2012, and well ahead of the $11.378 million slump in 2009 when national economic conditions proved tough on Arkansas’ tourism industry.

Arkansas’ tourism sector (leisure & hospitality) employed 108,800 during September, down from a revised 109,000 during August, and above the 105,500 during September 2013. Employment in this sector reached a high of 109,100 in March.

October typically unleashes a flood of pink products, ribbons and signage across corporate America and retailers. Professional sports leagues, cities and businesses are awash in pink, with some raising money and others just promoting breast cancer awareness.

Consumers have most likely been desensitized to the pink, but that doesn’t mean companies necessarily have anything to lose from promoting awareness. New research from Fayetteville-based Field Agent found 52% of women surveyed this month said they have not made a purchase decision of one brand over another because one of them supported breast cancer awareness. They surveyed 250 moms on that question in mid-October, at the height of “pink” mania.

Rick West, CEO of Field Agent, said the study objective was to engage shoppers at the very moment of decision making. They did so using mobile technology to engage shoppers in various locations in 44 states during the “pink” promotional month.

“It’s a very different way to think about research, it’s real time data with expansive coverage collected at a low cost. At Field Agent we are able to get answers to questions  that brands want to know about a myriad of topics, even consumers’ attitudes toward breast cancer awareness campaigns and their effectiveness,” West said.

Field Agent’s research on the power behind “pink” brands began in late August with the first set of respondents who were asked if pink branding made the difference in their product purchase decision. In that first survey of 250 — 175 females and 75 males — they found 58% were not influenced by pink branding.

60% of men in the first survey said they were not influenced by the “pink” designation. The second survey conducted in October included 250 moms, with the average age of and a diverse income criteria. Again, 52% of them were not driven to buy a product because of its “pink” designation. Each of these mobile surveys showed that while pink brands do enjoy influence over consumers, the majority of shoppers remain unswayed when making brand selections, Field Agent noted in the research.

GOODWILL OR OVERKILL
Field Agent also looked at less direct benefits to brands and retailers who openly support breast cancer awareness. The researchers want to know if pink ribbons and signage creates goodwill among shoppers toward the brands or perhaps taking a more cynical view that the pink marketing has been overdone.

There are critics who claim that going “pink” has become more of a branding opportunity than a public service or benevolent venture. Angela Eikenberry, researcher in philanthropy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, has written that cause marketing, which she labels consumption philanthropy can have dire consequences.

“From pink ribbons to Product Red, cause marketing adroitly serves two masters, earning profits for corporations while raising funds for charities. Yet the short-term benefits of cause marketing— also known as consumption philanthropy—belie its long-term costs. These hidden costs include individualizing solutions to collective problems; replacing virtuous action with mindless buying; and hiding how markets create many social problems in the first place,” Eikenberry noted in her report.

Field Agent’s October research found 54% of the respondents have a favorable opinion of products or stores that support breast cancer awareness. Of the 54% favorable, 22% strongly agreed and 32% agreed. Also, researchers noted that 38% of those surveyed were neutral on the issue. When combining neutral and agreeing numbers of some 92% surveyed, research suggests companies don’t have much to lose by promoting the breast cancer awareness cause. In fact, research suggests that companies may improve reputations among a minority of female shoppers. The number of respondents who disagreed or strongly disagreed totaled 5% and 3%, respectively.

Field Agent researchers said they expected pink promotions to have a stronger hold on consumers — up to 70% — given the amount of attention businesses and brands give to breast cancer awareness. Their timely research does not support that assumption.

AWARENESS VERSUS GIVING
Attitudes strongly influence how consumers behave — what they buy, when they buy, how they buy. Companies have invested heavily in pink promotions but critics urge consumers to do their own research before they buy pink merely based on the label.

There are no regulations around using pink ribbons in advertising, packaging or labels. Companies from Avon to Lands End and even the NFL utilize pink branding.
Some of these companies and organizations have made generous contributions to breast cancer awareness and research over the years. For example, since 1992, Avon has raised $815 million for various breast cancer programs, Field Agent noted.

Other’s like the NFL give a percent of royalties on sales of “pink gear” products. Mainstream media has called attention to the NFL’s promotion of “pink gear.” For example, a tee-shirt deemed “pink” might retail for $30 but just $3.75 or 12.5% of that price will go toward the league’s partnership with the American Cancer Society. The NFL says it gives 100% of its royalties, which is 12.5% of the retail sales amount.

The nonprofit sector raises around $3 billion for breast cancer each year, and there are more than 1,400 breast cancer-related charities to partner with.

"It has extended into everything we see," says Larissa Jensen, director and industry analyst of the NPD Group. "On TV, the entire NFL franchise wears pink accessories. Have you seen the pink Dyson vacuum? Bottom line, it's been successful for brands in the past, and where there is success, many more brands and products will follow."

One vocal group, Breast Cancer Action, notes that more consumers are being turned off by partnerships between the Susan G. Komen Foundation and corporations that raise millions annually for the nonprofit. This year Komen made headlines partnering with Baker Hughes on 1,000 pink drill bits used in fracking in exchange for $100,000 donation to the nonprofit. The action group claims that fracking is believed to release carcinogenic chemicals that have been linked to cancer.

"Once you start to peel back the layers, it's quite insidious," noted Angela Wall, spokeswoman for Breast Cancer Action.

Field Agent said a couple of the respondents in its latest survey took the time to say why they didn’t support “pink” causes on face value. These respondents cited issues with actions of the nonprofits benefiting from the sales.

ADVOCATE RESPONSE
Advocates said promoting awareness by displaying pink or working toward local fundraising campaigns that promote screenings and other early detection programs are one way skeptical consumers can support the cause.

Springdale-based Everett Chevrolet wrapped its dealership in pink this year in support of the “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer” campaign of the American Cancer Society. The company’s connection to breast cancer is personal. Everett cofounder Susie Everett is a breast cancer survivor. This year the company set a goal of raising $6,000 among its three Northwest Arkansas Dealerships for the local “Making Strides” campaign.

Earlier this week the dealership cooked hot dogs and burgers for $5 donations — all of which went toward $6,000 goal. Marketing spokeswoman Jessica Hudson said they also sell custom designed $15 tee-shirts at the dealership and all proceeds go toward the corporate goal.

“We have been active in this cause for several years. It’s a personal mission for us and the community is largely supportive,” Hudson said.

Polls released by Talk Business & Politics this week show Republicans Tom Cotton and Asa Hutchinson with eight point leads over their Democratic opponents in races for the U.S. Senate and governor, respectively. With less than two weeks until the general election, is there any way for Democrats Mark Pryor and Mike Ross to catch up?

According to two political experts who spoke with The City Wire, campaigns are going to shift from winning votes to driving turnout in an attempt to turn the tide.

Will Watson, a Fayetteville-based Democratic political consultant and director of digital media and data analysis at the Southern Progress Fund political action committee, said the way many campaigns would respond to the latest polling this close to an election is to not overreact but instead focus on get out the vote efforts.

"In the face of that kind of data, it just focuses the campaign's attention on turnout," he said, noting that Democrats have traditionally not done as well with get out the vote operations in elections past.

Dr. Hal Bass, professor of political science at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, said Democrats have improved during presidential election years but it has yet to be seen how get out the vote efforts will go in a mid-term. He said if the campaigns want to succeed with an effective get out the vote strategy, the planning would have had to have been in place well before Monday's (Oct. 20) first casting of votes.

"You can't set this up on the fly. You must have done your homework and legwork in advance," he said.

During get out the vote efforts, the campaigns target voters who have voted in Democratic primaries in the past in an effort to secure their early votes.

"The rules help here (in Arkansas) when you can do early voting. They allow a campaign with good precision to go into election day with a good expectation of the results. You can for all intents and purposes go a long way to winning the election before election day," Bass explained.

He said past elections have shown as high as 40% of votes in an election having been cast before election day.

"It's a matter of public record who has voted and both campaigns will be watching the courthouse postings and if the campaign organization has done its homework and the likely voters are targeted, you should have an idea of where you're doing well and where to get your act together. That's what I think you'll see the Democratic campaigns doing."

Watson said well-funded campaigns, like Pryor and Ross' campaigns, are also doing the right thing by being visible in multiple parts of the state throughout the two weeks of early voting.

"If you look at the schedules for Ross and Pryor, they are crisscrossing the state trying to get with as many voters one on one as possible. The more voters they meet, the more voters connect with their moderate approach to governing."

He said the Senate and gubernatorial races, they are likely to come down to geography and name recognition for the undecideds.

"I think that the statewide races amy come down to the areas where neither candidate is known very well. Asa has an advantage because he's run for statewide office before. Ross has ground to make up in eastern Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas with people who've never been able to cast a vote for him before," Watson said. "Northeast Arkansas, like we're seeing in some legislative races, may prove to be a battleground in the governor's race."

Bass cautioned professional and novice political observers to not place all their faith in a single poll.

"Don't bet on one poll, but look at aggregations and the averages that you see there. In that sense, I do think the volatility of the polls smooths out when you do that a little bit. You get a better sense of what the play is. There's plenty of historical examples of polls being wrong and being underweight in constituencies or whatever sample it is just doesn't reflect the universe."

The Talk Business & Politics Senate poll with Cotton at 49% and Pryor at 40.5% with a margin of error of +/- 2.2% was re-weighted "to reduce the percentage of white voters to 78 percent of the electorate and to increase the percentage of voters under the age of 44 to 34 percent of the electorate. In addition, because we are seeing different attitudes in this race between cell phone users and land line respondents (partly because of the age and race factors), we also weighted the sample for cell phone users to 30 percent of the electorate."

Even with the shift, Cotton was 7% ahead of Pryor (48% to 41%).

A RealClearPolitics average of polls in the race shows Cotton with a 5.5% advantage over Pryor, while its average of gubernatorial polls has Hutchinson up 7.5% on Ross, not too far off the Talk Business poll, which had Hutchinson at 49% and Ross at 41%, an eight point spread. More than 5% of voters said they had not yet decided.

But convincing undecideds to vote and then to vote for your guy is going to be a challenge for Democratic and Republican campaigns, Bass said. That is why he said it is all about get out the vote efforts for both parties, but especially the Democrats.

"The thing to watch in the next two weeks is turnout. If early voting looks extraordinarily high, it is debatable but I think it's good for Democrats. And the Republicans have an operation too, but the Republicans typically turnout for the midterms anyway."

Wal-Mart Stores’ more than 11,000 retail locations across 27 countries provides the Walmart U.S. division a testing lab stretching across five continents, according to Walmart International CEO David Cheesewright.

Joking to the crowd gathered during an Oct. 15 investor conference, Cheesewright noted that he was the third speaker of the day who has English as a foreign language. To that point, the world has become smaller and more connected via technology. Retail is at the center of that change. Changes seen in the global markets often make their way back to the Bentonville mothership, he said.

Cheesewright said several ideas tested in U.S. stores now were first tried in the retailer’s international segment, something he expects will continue. He said the lessons from trying ideas not only include formats and services, but also merchandising and product development.

Cheesewright said his international leadership team has a vast array of experience across different formats and functions and 50% of them, including himself, are in new roles. He sums up Walmart International in two words “big” and “diverse.”

“We serve about 120 million customers every week. That’s only about a third of total Wal-Mart sales. We're about half of the customer traffic, so typically smaller basket sizes, which probably wouldn't surprise you given some of the markets in which we operate,” Cheesewright said.

This year Cheesewright expects the International division will do around $140 billion in sales which would make it the second largest retailer in the world if it were spun off by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The diverse segment also includes five of the world’s top 10 retail businesses in its portfolio.

SMALL FORMATS
Small formats are the going thing in the U.S, but they have been popular across the globe for years. Walmart International operates in 15 core formats — compared to three, maybe four in the U.S. Cheesewright said those formats range from a big builders chain in South Africa to small kiosks in Japan and everything in between.

“Around a third of our stores are under 25,000 square feet, so much more average size and quite a lot of small stores in our portfolio,” Cheesewright said.

He said there are benefits in diversity because it’s pretty rare to run across a business problem that someone in the portfolio hasn’t already solved. An example he shared are lessons learned from ASDA’s growth in home shopping which are being put into practice in the U.S. and other markets.

“ASDA is a very big gas business, and that's a great traffic driver to the big stores, so that's something I know, (and) Greg (Foran) and I have talked about as an opportunity for traffic. We're also developing standalone gas stations in the UK. And a lot of the learning there and the synergy between pickup points and gas stations is very strong. They're typically in locations where there's a high degree of traffic. People stop a lot at gas stations to fill up and very convenient for them to pick up groceries and other goods at the same time,” Cheesewright said.

He said there are 15 years of learnings from ASDA’s successful grocery business and home delivery operations that that can benefit Walmart’s U.S. grocery operations, with several now being tested.

HEALTH CLINICS, PRIVATE LABEL
He said health clinics are also another driver of shopper traffic and Canada is model for the other countries to follow as they have more than 50 in-store clinics and they see significant increases in prescription counts in those areas.

Walmart U.S. first announced its self-run in-store health clinics this spring with 12 planned openings this year. That number has recently expanded to 17 as more rural stores were added.

“Private label is another area we're strong in certain parts of the world,” Cheesewright added.

Foran also talked about his desire to have more private label brands in Walmart U.S. He said new items will be thoughtful additions where there are gaps in the present market. He does not see any friction with suppliers and did not see them pressuring the margins of major brands.

“We have a huge portfolio of private brands. The U.K. has been developing private label for a long time. They're in the mid-40s in terms of penetration of private label (market share). ... If you grow up in food, you tend to be very supportive of private label. And if you're a business, your job is to save customer's money and you know you can sell them the product that's exactly the same quality or better than the brand. The quality is really, really important but save the customer around 20% in terms of that costs, why wouldn't you do that?” Cheesewright said.

Cheesewright and Foran have worked together to improve fresh produce offerings and management in U.S. stores.

“Like Greg, I'm very passionate about fresh,” Cheesewright said.

GLOBAL LOGISTICS LESSONS
He shared there are good systems to copy and replicate around the world like the IPL (international procurement and logistics) business in the U.K.

“They run a series of offices primarily around Europe and Africa which works in partnership with growers around that region and finds the right source of products. ... In many cases, we move the work closer to the market so we get fresher products arriving in the countries and we take cost out the supply chain. IPL is now the single biggest supplier to any retailer in the U.K. It solely does ASDA and it's there to substantially reduce the cost base,” Cheesewright said.

He said the IPL system is being deployed around the world. 

“We've got sourcing covered through GFS in North America and IPL across the rest of the world but that choiceful approach, the way you do the conversion is something that we can replicate in our countries and it gives us a big advantage on freshness and costs,” he added. “It’s one systematic solution, and that allows us to control (quality of products) and make sure they are aligned across the company. We see this as a big opportunity to add value to our customers around the globe.”

September was a relatively flat month for the national freight and shipping industries, but first half 2014 gains continued in the third quarter and market watchers believe shipping activity will hold up well in the fourth quarter compared to previous years.

The American Trucking Associations’ Truck Tonnage Index was unchanged in September after a 1.6% increase in August. Year-to-date, tonnage is up 3.2% compared to the same period in 2013.

The not-seasonally adjusted index, which represents the real change in tonnage hauled by the fleets, was up 1.7% compared to August.

“September data was a mixed bag, with retail sales falling while factory output increased nicely,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello noted in his monthly report. “As a result, I’m not too the surprised that truck tonnage split both of those readings and remained unchanged.”

According to the ATA, trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy, representing 69.1% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled 9.7 billion tons of freight in 2013. Motor carriers collected $681.7 billion, or 81.2% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.

Costello said overall third quarter industry conditions were positive.

“During the third quarter, truck tonnage jumped 2.4% from the second quarter and surged 4% from the same period last year,” Costello said.

In investor notes on publicly held trucking companies, Brad Delco, a transportation industry analyst for Little Rock-based Stephens Inc., said “overall industry trends remain strong.” He said the trends and commentary from trucking execs suggest a “strong outlook” for the fourth quarter.

The Cass Freight Index reported that shipments were down 1.4% in September, but freight expenditures were up 0.8%.

“The number of shipments fell 1.4 percent in September compared to August levels, but on a year‐over‐year basis the number of shipments in September was only 0.7 percent higher than a year ago,” according to Rosalyn Wilson, a supply chain expert and senior business analyst with Vienna, Va.-based Delcan Corp., who provides economic analysis for the Cass Freight Index.

Wilson said freight figures have shown that shipment weights are rising, which means a decrease in shipments “does not necessarily indicate a drop in freight activity.”

Cass uses data from $22 billion in annual freight transactions to create the Index. The data comes from a Cass client base of 350 large shippers.

Like Costello and Delco, Wilson also expects a better fourth quarter compared to previous years.

“Manufacturing slowed in August but inched back up in September, indicating that there should not be a dramatic fall‐off in freight as we have experienced in the final months of the last few years. New export orders reached a 4.5 year high in China, supporting predictions of strong U.S. import activity to end the year,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s analysis also included the following points.
• The freight industry continues to experience the strongest year since the recession ended, and while there are still headwinds, things should continue to improve for the industry.

• The rise in costs, especially related to labor, are pressing hard on rates and should break through in early 2015.

• The volume growth that has supported the strengthening in freight is still fragile and susceptible to outside forces.

• Consumers, the missing key for recovery, are getting back in to the game. Consumer confidence and, more importantly, consumer spending have been on the rise along with household income. A good holiday season would be a big boost for the end of the year.

Ebola has yet to arrive in Arkansas, but that is not stopping local healthcare providers and government from working together on preparedness and response should the deadly virus ever be diagnosed within Arkansas' borders.

A meeting held Wednesday (Oct. 22) at the Hennessy Center at Mercy Fort Smith was called by leaders of Mercy Fort Smith and Sparks Health System to get local first responders in sync regarding a response to a diagnosed case, according to Dr. Bryan Clardy of Fort Smith AHEC (Area Health Education Center) of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

Jennifer Thomas, vice president of ancillary services at Mercy Fort Smith, said by joining representatives from EMTs to doctors to local governments for a meeting on the threat of Ebola and how to respond, the community was being better protected.

"While we have various hospital partners in our community, it's important for each hospital to understand what's going on at the beginning of dispatch," she said, referring to when emergency personnel or doctors may first become aware of a patient's potential to have the Ebola virus.

"So (with this meeting and training), we understand what's happening at dispatch with EMS as they're responding as partners and we understand each step of the process and have plans and process for an individual who may be exposed to anything," she said. "Either viral exposure or chemical exposure, with any emergency response it is key for all partners to understand the processes so in the hand off (of patients from one medical provider to the next) we know the next step and what to expect and the patient's care is streamlined for best outcomes so there won't be any delays."

Thomas said individuals in the community may not realize that when a patient has symptoms that could pose a public health risk, such as Ebola, the work is not just left to the individual hospital to respond.

"When we do this, it's not just one agency that is responsible, but it is a coordinated response," she said. "It needs to be timely so we are doing proper patient handoff from one agency to the next and timely notifying of proper government agencies for a timely response for that patient and for our community."

To streamline coordination should a case of Ebola be diagnosed in the Fort Smith area, Sebastian County Judge David Hudson said he is prepared to declare a disaster which will make resources available to aid in the response.

"If an incident of that nature occurred in our community, then we would respond in a similar manner to declaring a natural disaster. The county judge would be responsible to declare the disaster, activate the emergency center and work with the state department of emergency management and other state (officials)."

Hudson explained that by declaring a disaster and opening the Sebastian County Emergency Operations Center, the leadership of the community and state would be able to come together in a central location "so resources can be allocated."

"Decision making and allocation of recourses function in connection with state and federal resources as needed through the declaration of a disaster," he said. "So that's the role. It'd be just like if he we had a major natural event. … The leadership comes together to coordinate and allocate resources as to how the response is handled."

He said beyond the practical aspects of providing a centralized location for leadership in government and medicine to meet, plan and implement decisions in coordination, declaring a disaster serves a larger purpose.

"A real compelling reason to do this is not just for communication and coordination, but it releases resources. If declaring a disaster, then it opens up state and federal resources. There's a communication and coordination reason, but there's also a financial reason to handle this matter in this fashion."

Thomas, a doctor of nursing practice (DNP/RN), said the actions of local, state and the federal governments will be essential to getting more than just the financial resources to the community in its time of need.

"You're not just talking financial resources, but human resources and informational resources. As we continue to partner with state and local governments to free up those resources, that's where communication is key. We want to do that as quick as we can."

She said training sessions have continued with guidance from state and federal partners at all regional hospitals to prepare staff on how to successfully stabilize and treat patients without putting themselves or others at risk. She said that training would continue just as it has since the first reported cases of HIV in the 1980s and preparation for possible mass casualty events following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Back when HIV first appeared or 9./11 happened, there were concerns. So as an organization, we try to stay on top of current situations to prepare our staff for any situation. … We try to stay proactive with what current issues might be out there," she said.

Donna Bragg with Sparks Health System said the hospital's nurses, physicians and other staff were part of the multi-agency and multi-hospital meeting and were taking identical steps to Mercy.

"We are following the detailed checklist for EVD preparedness provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and monitoring all updates to this guidance," she said. "We understand the concerns in this current environment and want to provide reassurance of our preparedness. Our dedicated physicians and nurses remain alert and ready to provide care for our community."

UAMS' Clardy said while all the preparedness on the ground is vital, plans are to not have patients with confirmed cases of Ebola within the state of Arkansas for very long before being transported to medical centers in Georgia and Nebraska that have successfully treated the virus.

"And to clarify the regional plan, should we have an actual confirmed Ebola patient, the plan is to stabilize and transfer to a higher level of care, i,e, Emory in Atlanta or possibly Parkland in Dallas," he wrote in an email. "We wanted to inform the community of what measures we have been taking in terms of training, equipping and planning in the extremely unlikely event of an Ebola case present in the region."