Editorial

First things first

How to save money and cheer for the Hawgs

Hard times can force all of us to re-order our priorities. Or at at least think hard about them. In this state, does that mean continuing to pour state revenues into War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock or putting the needs of children first? That's meant as a purely rhetorical question but strangely enough, to judge by some of the current discussion, it will be taken as an invitation to take them as equally valid alternatives.

Governor Asa Hutchinson asks the best of questions: Why not do both? Draw up a plan to make War Memorial a self-sustaining enterprise and draw more support from football fans, less from state handouts. How? By asking those who would like to keep the game going in central Arkansas to put their money where their cheers long have been.

The chairman of the War Memorial Stadium Commission--Kevin Crass of Little Rock--sounds . . . not exactly as enthusiastic about such a plan as he could be. He sounds worried about how to maintain and improve the stadium without its usual subsidy from the state's taxpayers. But where there's a will, there's bound to be a way to save both money and the stadium. He ought to try it; he just might like it.

"It is my hope," says Mr. Crass, that "we can work with the governor and the Legislature to adequately fund maintenance and operations, including much needed capital projects, so the building's viability can be assured." He also said he's not given up on having the UofA play football games there, which we would hope the chairman of the stadium's commission would say. But if reality imposes, and the Hawgs stop playing games in Little Rock, there still wouldn't be a shortage of football teams around. (UCA and ASU anybody?)

State Senator Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs and Sound Priorities, asks: "How can we provide subsidies for a football stadium when we have needs [to meet] for kids?" Senator Hester has been trying to cut the state's budget for the stadium because Arkansas' children still have so many unmet needs, from arranging for their foster care to providing for their pre-kindergarten education.

Senator Hester clearly has not only a sound order of priorities but something else too often missing in some of our politicos: a sense of shame. For it would be shameful indeed to go on neglecting some of our kids' most basic needs while debating the pros and cons of stadium upkeep. There are trivial concerns and there are major ones, like the future of our state. And make no mistake: These kids are the future of our state.

Instead of providing not even bread but just circuses, our leaders scarcely measure up to the standards of ancient Rome, where the Colosseum was a major landmark and a center of discussion. Commissioned not by some legislative committee but the Emperor Vespasian, it too was a gift to the masses. It featured gladiators' combats to the death and equally ferocious fights between wild animals. By now two-thirds of the Colosseum has slowly decayed, but it remains a symbol of Rome's misplaced priorities.

Let us return to the classical past, and study not just its celebrated achievements but its follies and foibles. For that would be true progress. Asa Hutchinson is no emperor, thank goodness, but a good citizen who on more than one occasion has demonstrated his patience and modesty. And it's borne fruit. Whether he was waiting out a band of crazies up in the Ozarks or enforcing the country's drug laws while respecting the civil liberties of her citizens. He's a good man to tie to, and this discussion about the future of the state's own Colosseum right in the middle of Arkansas demonstrates his leadership once again. It's sober, businesslike and forward-looking:

The current plan "is just part of the process of rolling out our budgeting plans for the future. . . . Ultimately, I would like to see an events center like War Memorial self-sustaining. That's the way it has been historically. It's always operated in that fashion until, I think it was, 2006."

The governor is scarcely a glamorous figure, but he's fair and he gets things done. So let's follow his leadership once again. And profit by it.

Editorial on 10/24/2016

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