Little Rock's history of real estate developer leadership is a long one, with very mixed results--as is its history of Chamber of Commerce domination. That said, the voter's choice now is not among five candidates, including three very progressive ones. It is between Baker Kurrus and Frank Scott.
Baker is a competent and broad-gauged lawyer/business person with a strong record both of public service and managing large organizations and projects. Frank is a banker and former highway commissioner who voted for and strongly supports expanding interstates through downtown. Both are centrists, both are unifiers, both are local business people, both are good candidates.
Both are also so mainstream that Little Rock's stodgy old elites should feel equally comfortable with either. This fact may make many voters hoping for a change uncomfortable. I understand that discomfort. As a progressive Arkansan by choice who moved here well into adulthood from afar, I often share it. I suspect that neither remaining candidate will do much to rock the business boat here. For progressives hoping for a breath of fresh air, the remaining choice may be disappointing. I get that, but there is still a real choice to make. Experience matters. Votes matter.
While I do not know Frank well, Baker's heroic service on the school board has allayed my concerns that he might just be a tool of the real estate development community, determined to build more sprawl, or a tool of the Chamber, determined to do the bidding of big business. Baker is very much his own man, and is not easily pigeon-holed. He's a passionate technocrat. An enthusiastic detail nerd. A lively policy wonk. As I share these oddly mixed traits, I find Baker a kindred spirit--which I did not expect when we first met. Within Baker's bald, white head is a remarkable brain--fit, hard at work, agile and devoted to service.
Baker did not take a stance of firm opposition to the highway expansions, as did Warwick Sabin. However, unlike Frank, Baker is deeply ambivalent about expansion. Unlike Frank, Baker is committed to track the process closely, and to ensure that expansion does minimal damage. Baker has also articulated clear and feasible ideas for how to encourage neighborhood level redevelopment in the city core south of Interstate 630 and east of I-30. If Baker can indeed use his skills as a developer to help repopulate the doughnut hole of the inner city, if done with sensitivity to the historic housing stock and the needs and concerns of long-term residents, this could benefit Little Rock as a whole.
Over the past 15 years, I have devoted much time, and with the help of our wonderful community lenders some of your savings (thank you!), to restore ruined and endangered historic homes near Central High. Baker completely won me over in a couple of hours of walking around my corner, as I pointed out restored homes next to buildings neglected for decades and vacant lots where salvageable homes once stood. He listened, and fully understood my frustrations, both as a neighbor and as an investor--and my heart-sinking sense that progress is far too often made despite city government, rather than because of it.
Baker's determined focus on rebuilding vacant lots and saving vacant properties could soften our curse of residential segregation, decrease crime, increase household wealth of mostly African American homeowners, encourage neighborhood commercial districts, improve the tax base and thus help make our city less divided, and better able to compete with its suburbs.
While Frank may work to adopt similar policies, and seems eager to help our struggling neighborhoods, the work is devilishly hard. Needed reforms can only be implemented successfully if long-standing policies are changed, and local government is held accountable on a deep level. For this, serious managerial experience with complex bureaucracies is the best training ground. Baker already has it.
Those raising concerns about "same old, same old" should not underestimate Baker. Given our current choice, voters should weigh heavily the potential benefits to Little Rock of finally having a real, experienced CEO coming in to take charge of overseeing our too often sluggish and non-transparent city bureaucracy.
Baker is a bulldog, and will doubtless insist on a level of reporting, procedural clarity, fiscal discipline, legal follow-up and compliance, the likes of which the Little Rock administration has never known. To get Little Rock unstuck, we need someone who can crack the whip, dig into the budget, analyze the problems deeply, win the support of the board and push through solutions to the administrative and financial problems that hold us back.
While Frank may well be able to do this (and if he wins, merits all our support), we already know that Baker can.
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Paul Dodds is managing director of Urban Frontier LLC in Little Rock (www.urbanfrontier.org).
Editorial on 11/16/2018