Argenta News - $4.68 Million And Not One Scrap Of Paper

$4.68 Million And Not One Scrap Of Paper

Written by Scott Miller

Monday, May 04 2009

It has been months since the Federal Stimulus package was passed by Congress and there have been a few notices in the newspapers about specific grants or monies North Little Rock will be recieving. NLR has seen no need to put out the information on a web site like Little Rock has done for months. Recently I have heard grumblings from other people and groups about the lack of openness and communication from the City on the Federal stimulus money.

As a result I sent in a Freedom of Information request on April 30th to Michael Drake, the person designated by Mayor Hays to coordinate the NLR Stimulus money and projects. You can read a copy of the FOI request here. I recieved the response from Mr. Drake on May 1st which you can read here.

Click on Read More for More of this post and why this response is unbelievable.

Unbelievably enough Mr. Drake says he is not in reciept of any documents, letters or letters from the Feds regarding stimuls money. Keep in mind I did not ask just for records in Mr. Drake's reciept as he words his response. The City has received $4.68 million from the Feds without one scrap of paper from the Feds to document any of it. Mr. Drake and Mayor Hays have both travelled to Washington DC to meet with Federal officials and they don't even have a meeting agenda or itinerary to show for it.

The following is my e-mail response to Mr. Drake which he recieved late in the evening on May 1st.

Thank you for your prompt response. I believe their is more information that you or the City may have. I am aware of specific PowerPoint presentations you have done detailing allocations of stimulus funds. Where are those? Where are the specifics on where the funds are going? What contractors have been hired? What buildings will be improved?

Your response is a general response, very light on the specifics I have requested. I find it incredible that despite at least one trip to Washington DC and numerous grants you or the City does not have a single sheet of paper from the Federal government on the stimulus moneys..

I also asked for records of disbursements (where the money is going) . Your memo says that is attached, yet there is nothing about where the money is bring spent. Merely a table and pie chart of the $4.68 million that has been received.

Please reconsider my FOI request and search the City records for the information I requested. I did not specifically ask for only those documents and records you have received or are in possession of.

Scott Miller
214 West 5th Street
North Little Rock, AR 72114

WOW!!!! $4.68 million dollars and only one internal e-mail and one pie chart. Does anyone really believe this is all the documentation the City has regarding the stimulus money? Is this open and transparent government?

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Comments (10)

Good for you Scott
Written by angry guy, on 02-05-2009 00:29
keep at it! I hope you can either afford to hire a lawyer to get the info you (and us) desire, or get someone with the monies to help you along. 'Cause they have the info you want. If they tell you "no" and you go away FOI means nothing. Sometimes you have to force them, and the only way that happens is with a lawsuit. Then a judge forces the issue and we all get what we want. If they don't want to give you the info you request, they will see how far and how much money you are willing go and spend. If you don't believe me, ask the Arkansas Times or the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Both have had to hire lawyers to get their FOI requests filled. Just be ready for a fight and good luck to you!
I hope this wasn't too negative for some of you, assuming that the government may want to hide something from the public and require the public to force it out of them. As I said, both the Arkansas Times and the Dem-o-zette have had to sue, so it's not unprecedented.

Written by reader, on 02-05-2009 00:33
So at this point the biggest mystery is the $2,062,510 to the "NLR Housing Authority". Almost HALF ( 44 percent ) of all funds received.

Just a straight 'dump' into the 'general fund'. What the heck does that mean?

New carpet for the NLRHA offices?

Research trips to Cancun for the NLRHA Officers?

Here is the 'Mission Statement' from the City's website for the NLR Housing Authority...

[snip]

Mission Statement

The North Little Rock Housing Authority's mission is to provide affordable housing in good locations for low-income families, senior citizens, and disabled persons. Two programs are available - public housing and rental assistance. Applicants must be income eligible and subject to background checks.

[/snip]

So if even one DIME of that money shows up subsidizing the City Grove project or getting a downtown Parking Garage off the ground again... is anyone going to call Hays out on it? I hope so... 'cus I think that's what's gonna happen.

That would be 'mis-appropriation' of FEDERAL dollars, this time, not just re-directing local tax income, as usual. Not good.

There's a great Shakespeare quote that ( I hope ) doesn't have to kick in here...

Foul deeds will rise ...Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. (Hamlet 1.2.256).

Written by nlrkid, on 02-05-2009 06:46
Scott you should know by now that Hays keeps all of his projects in his head. You know, in his personal hard drive. He does NOT want to have input from anyone other than those who are rich and tow his line, to a t.

He is past his time. He needs to move on to another life so this city can begin recovering from the last several years of his fanatical, maniacal, unilateral dictating ways.

define
Written by FLavaMalo, on 02-05-2009 10:17
What does CDBG & NLR EECBG stand for?
Frankly, none of us should be surprised @ the Drake's work ethic. He's running this gig just like the last gig, hopelessly lost & obtuse...

CDBG & EECBG
Written by scottmiller, on 02-05-2009 10:29
CDBG stands for Community Development Block Grant and EECBG stands for Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant. Notice the word community in each. Has anyone heard of any outreach to the community on the EECBG money?

Discretionary fund?
Written by reader, on 02-05-2009 15:03
So the latter TWO money dumps are 'discretionary'? No 'mission statement' from an agency to even back them up?

That means if City Grove applies for a 'bailout' because they can't even sell half of what they have already built much less start on the other part of the 'planned project' they can just say it's in the name of 'Community Development' and suck some/all of that money out of MY pcoket with just a phone call ( to you know who ).

Terrific.

All of this needs to be TRACED.
Somehow, someway.

Reader
Written by Big dog daddy, on 02-05-2009 19:50
Check this out its from Argenta news:
http://www.argentanews.com/200904292241/Real-Estate/City-Grove-Half-Sold.html

Saw it...
Written by reader, on 02-05-2009 22:05
...but 'half-sold' also means 'half-NOT-sold'. In other words, it's both GOOD news and BAD news.

The news is even worse if you realize that the ENTIRE City Grove thing was proposed in one fell swoop... but they have already decided to 'limit' the construction and fall back to a 'let's see how it goes' mode. The other entire part of the project is in jeaopardy and may NEVER be built.

If you add up ALL of the units that were promised for the ENTIRE project, as first proposed, then the number of units sold is NOT just 'one half'... it's more like just one-quarter ( 25 percent ) and that's not good news for any commercial developer.

I hope it flies. I really do. I'd hate to think they cut down all those beautiful trees for no reason.

Written by Big dog daddy, on 03-05-2009 11:32
EECBG..Patience friends...Mike Russ, from the Electric Dept
will probably be bringing suggestions from the Green Committee to the council in the very near future. Each alderman appointed two members to the Green Committee last year and 4 from somewhere else. There are a total of 20 members. This committee was set up before the stimulus was even thought of, and they are the ones who will make the suggestions for use.
NLR's allocation is $599,200. These funds are to be used to reduce fossil fuel emissions, reduce total energy use, improve energy efficiency. NLR is so far ahead of other cities because we had the Green Committee in place before any of this stimulus stuff started. They were already looking at ways to reduce. In other words its still in the organizational and idea phase, but be patient, there will be some new things to complain about soon.

Thats also the feeling I get about the whole stimulus thing is with the city too. Its so new that there are few if any concrete plans on what to do with it. I would suggest all of those who have ideas on it to get in touch with your aldermen...and women, and see what is being talked about in your wards for the stimulus money. Plans are still being made and I doubt if anyone has anything planned fully yet. Its only been a couple months since it was aproved. The only thing I have heard of that was even remotely concrete was the roundabout on Pike ave....it was in the paper. Even the HWY dept plans have changed a few times.

Written by NLRockette, on 04-05-2009 09:29
As I have understood what I've read and seen so far, the monies to the Housing Authority will go for low-income type grants to rental locations where vouchers are accepted or qualifying low-income homeowners.

I know for a fact that what has occurred in some instances is projects that were to be funded one way have been shifted to being funded with stimulus money so it counts as a stimulus project and then the money that was to go for that project is re-directed to other things.