Greetings from Eric Francis, Argenta's newest homeowner!

Quite a few of you have known for awhile that I had a contract to purchase Marc and Whitney Festervand's house at 616 N. Willow St. Well, we closed on Friday! However, it will be a few weeks yet before I actually become an Argenital. Since I will be out of town for two weeks in August and have some work I will be doing inside the house after that, I probably won't move in until September.

I've wanted to live in Argenta for years and am thrilled to finally own a home in my favorite 'hood. You'll all be invited to an open house sometime in September once the remodel is done and the dust has cleared.

Sincerely,
Eric

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This is the 4th traffic control box with the completed art work.  This box is located on the southwest corner of Washington & Main Streets at the foot of the Main Street bridge.  Thsi box was painted by  Abby Carman who also did the box on East Broadway and Poplar Streets

This is the west and north side of the box which makes reference to the USS Razorback submarine anchored at the Arkansas Inland Marine Museum on the river a few blocks to the east.

This is the east side of the box, showing the trolley.  This is kind of neat as people riding the trolley down the bridge notice the box and it sometimes sparks a conversation on the trolley.  I have seen this happen myself on a recent trolley ride

The 5th box artwork is underway on the southwest corner of 7th & Maple Streets.  Go by and visit with the artist and tell her how much you appreciate the art.

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The Traveler Game at Dickey Stephens Park will start today at 4:00 pm instead of 6:00 pm as shown on the schedule.  The start time was moved to allow the Tulsa Drill team time to return to Tulsa to attend the funeral of their coach who died as a result of being hit with a foul ball at Dickey Stephens. If you don't go to the game, stop by the gate and contribute to the fund for the coach's family.  Reportedly, over $30,000 has been raised for the family at Dickey-Stephens this week.  Way to go, Arkansans!

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Although it may seem like I am font of everflowing crap for this site, I do believe this site can be better and even more neighborhood friendly and help us get to know each other even better. 

To that end, I would really like for people to e-mail information about their Argenta events, things they notice in the neighborhood and questions.  Examples, might include birthdays, kid's special achievement, people moving into the neighborhood, weddings, someone's fun time on a vacation, new job etc.  Hey people...it is the details and personal things we share with each other that bind us as neighbors!

I have made contacting me even easier by just clicking on the "Contact Author" tab at the top right of this page.  Just e-mail me your note, comment and observation.  We will get it up on the site. 

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This is the intersection of West 7th & Willow Streets in Argenta.  Over the last three months  there have been at least three serious wrecks here.  At least one ended up in the corner owner's front yard.  The combination of high traffic counts, blind curve, truck traffic in and out of Melrose on 7th, all seem to make this one heck of a dangerous intersection.  Speed bumps are oout of the question due to the traffic, a light is probably not a good idea on the blind curve.  Any one out there an amateur traffic engineer with a good idea?  Have you had or seen a near miss here?

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The NLR City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed sewer rate increases at the regular City Council meeting on August 27th.  The public hearing will not be held on August 13th since Mr. Mills, the NLR Wastewater Director will be out of town on that date.

The only problem with this plan is that in order to get the sewer rate increase on the October bill, the Ciity Council will have to vote on the rate increase on August 27th as well.  So does it really matter what the citizen's say on August 27th.  Even if there is a better idea or a majority of the citizen's want a different rate structure, how will there be time to make the necessary analyses and changes to the rate structure?  This sends a message that the City Council may not really care about citizen input.  This perception appears to be confirmed by what seems to be a majority of the Council members sponsoring the sewer rate increase legislation. Is this a done deal even before the public hearing?

So Why Have the Public Hearing? 

I believe this council and Mayor do care about the citizens and welcome their input. The decision to hold the public hearing on August 27th and legilsation sponsors was made after a very long, three hour council meeting Monday night with some very tired council members.  In his defense, the Mayor asked two or three times if this schedule is what the council wanted. The council did not object. Hopefully the Mayor will reconsider and hold the public hearing on August 13th, even without Mr. Mills, so the City can at least consider citizen comments and input.  Let's not send the wrong message by holding the public hearing and vote on the same night.

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For those of you not addicted to watching NLR City Council on Channel 4 on Monday nights (probably most normal people) you may not be aware NLR is proposing to raise your sewer bills in each of the next five years to pay for much needed plant expansions and required upgrades. The City proposes  to raise your sewer bill 9% in October of this year, 8% next year, 7% the year after and 2% each of the following two years. A public hearing will be held on the sewer rated increase will be held on August 27th at the regular City Council meeting.  (more on this farce in the next post).  This is the bad news.

The more bad news is that the NLR Electric Dept customers are looking at another rate increase in January to pay for the increased cost of buying power.  Projections by others have ranged from 5% to 15% for the electric rate increase. This has been made worse by the recent flooding on the Arkansas River, which reduces the amount of power the City can generate at it's hydro-electric plant at Murray Lock & Dam.  Every day the river is high and the hydro plant does not generate power means more power NLR has to buy and likely higher electric rate increases in January. Pray for hot, dry weather.  Preferably a drought. 

Finally the Good News...The 1% sales tax levied to pay for the ballpark and senior citizens center will go off on October 1st. The purchase of everything from clothes to fast food will be 1% cheaper starting October 1st.

I don't know how the math works, but I suspect in the wash with the sales tax reduction, we will be paying less even with the electric and sewer rate increases 

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Although I feel the story of the shooting in the Wal-Mart parking lot has been adequately covered in the media and over covered in some blogs, I did recieve e-mails from readers wondering where was my post on this since this story has an Argenta connection.  I am reluctant to post on this for personal reasons, you will soon learn about. The alledged shooter in the Wal-Mart purse snatching gone bad is a resident of Argenta as reported on kTHV.  The shooter and his family live in the Argenta Square Apartments on Maple Street. Click here for the kTHV story. Click here for an update on the kTHV story with more information

This story is so sad for all those involved, including the victim's family and alledged shooter's family.  Reportedly the shooter may have had some medical issues as well.  This story hits very close to home for me, as I am presently dealing with a close family member who is a young man undergoing medical treatment.   I could go on for days about the failure of our society to deal with these kinds of problems in a proactive mannner.  But this is not the appropriate place or time.

I suggest we all keep both families in our hearts and prayers.  Cornerstone Bible Fellowship Church in Sherwood has set up a fund for the shooting victim's family (the Wordens).  You can make a donation at any Metropolitan National Bank in central Arkansas.  

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