Arkansas governor hopefuls weigh in on hog farm, Plant Board, taxes, teacher pay, more

Terry Moseley of Benton looks over the list of candidates scheduled to speak Wednesday at the Farm Bureau Measure the Candidate event in North Little Rock.
Terry Moseley of Benton looks over the list of candidates scheduled to speak Wednesday at the Farm Bureau Measure the Candidate event in North Little Rock.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jan Morgan on Wednesday assailed Gov. Asa Hutchinson over a state agency's denial earlier this year of a hog farm's application for a new operating permit in the Buffalo National River's watershed.

She also criticized the Republican incumbent for what she called the politicization of the state Plant Board.

Hutchinson later countered that Morgan's attacks "are nothing more than misrepresentations and fear mongering she has repeated for the last six months."

Morgan, Hutchinson and three other gubernatorial candidates each spoke separately before roughly 50 people during the Farm Bureau's Measure the Candidate forum in North Little Rock.

The Department of Environmental Quality denied C&H Hog Farms of Mount Judea an operating permit in January in part because, the department said, the farm did not conduct a study on the flow direction of groundwater or develop an emergency action plan.

At that time, Hutchinson said the farmers should be able to operate with "appropriate safeguards" pending their appeal of the department's decision to the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. The company also has applied for another type of permit.

Morgan said "my Department of Environmental Quality will not be used to hurt farmers.

"All the governor had to do on C&H is make a phone call and say, 'Hey, if there is a pollution issue there, then you go in and help these people fix it. You don't yank their permit and put them out of business,'" said Morgan, who is owner of the Gun Cave shooting range in Hot Springs and is a former television reporter and anchor.

"There have been no citations issued for any environmental violations," Morgan said.

She also said she's worried about the politicization of the state Plant Board. The board oversees the use of seed, feed, fertilizer and pesticides in the state.

"When you appoint people to the Plant Board who have political ties to Monsanto instead of appointing people to the Plant Board who are really farmers, I take issue with that," Morgan said.

Afterward, Hutchinson said in a written statement that "the most recent attacks by Mrs. Morgan are signs of desperation.

"As to the C&H Hog Farm, I have said very clearly that they should continue under their current permit and the Commission should make the decision on the appeal," said the governor, who is vying with Morgan for the Republican nomination in the May 22 primary election.

"Having grown up on a farm, I understand the importance of farming to our way of life in Arkansas," Hutchinson said.

"Mrs. Morgan shows a clear lack of knowledge that each appointment to the Plant Board has requirements that have to be met in order to be appointed.

"I have made every appointment to the Plant Board according to what those requirements are including multiple farmers who are associated with livestock, poultry, and row crop. I have backed the decisions of the Plant Board as they have navigated some very tough issues over the last year," the governor said.

In 2015, Hutchinson appointed Jammy Turner of Gillett, in Arkansas County, to the board.

Turner, a Monsanto sales representative since 2002, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last year that he didn't consider himself to be a "full-time farmer, but it [farming] is one of our sources of income." Turner's family owns farmland in southeast Arkansas through a family trust, but hires a DeWitt company to farm and manage it.

Arkansas Code 2-16-206 sets the criteria for the Plant Board's 18 members, with positions specifically for "two farmers actively and principally engaged in farming in this state, appointed by the governor." Turner had one of those at-large positions.

Turner resigned from the Plant Board last fall just before Monsanto sued the board in Pulaski County Circuit Court for various actions that kept the company's dicamba herbicide out of the Arkansas market. That lawsuit has been dismissed; Monsanto has appealed.

After speaking to the Farm Bureau, Morgan said that her campaign has refunded campaign contributions made in a "gun giveaway promotion" and another fundraiser.

Last week, former state Rep. Nate Bell, an independent from Mena whose wife works as an aide for Hutchinson, alleged that Morgan's campaign was conducting illegal raffles through the two events to raise campaign funds.

Last week, Morgan said she temporarily suspended the gun giveaway promotion to resolve questions about its legality.

Morgan said Wednesday that "we refunded all of the money to everyone, period" for both events "because we don't want to even give the appearance of an impropriety.

"It is not worth the fight," she said. She added that she didn't know how much was refunded.

Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mark West of Batesville told Farm Bureau members that he wants Arkansas "to be the destination state, the place where students go to school and come to work.

"I think we can do that if we can limit what we are doing in our government in that direction," he said. "I am not offering a long list of gripes about the governor or about anybody."

Democratic gubernatorial candidates Jared Henderson of Little Rock and Leticia Sanders of Maumelle debated Wednesday night for an hour at the KATV-TV station.

Henderson said Hutchinson's proposal to cut the state's top individual income tax rate from 6.9 percent to 6 percent is projected to reduce state tax revenue by about $180 million a year, and "that is enough to give $5,000 a year to every teacher in the state.

"If we want to raise teachers' pay not just marginally, but dramatically over time, we are going to have to make some [major] changes in our budget, and that's not going to be easy," he said.

Sanders, a hair braider who said she supports legalizing recreational marijuana, said she would support Henderson if he wins the Democratic primary on May 22.

Henderson, who is a former state director of the Teach for America group, stopped short of saying he would support Sanders if she wins the primary election.

"We'll see how the rest of the debate goes."

After the debate, Henderson said "we clearly have a lot of common ground, [and] she is a good person. I haven't spent any time studying all of her platform. I want to do that."

Morgan has said she won't support Hutchinson if he wins the Republican primary, while Hutchinson has said he would support her if she wins the primary.

Information for this article was contributed by Stephen Steed of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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