How do we stack up as the Natural State? Well, we do and we don't. We do if your first impression is the Buffalo National River or Champagnolle Creek. But what about the other 99.9 percent? We have a long way to go if we're going to put reality into the Arkansas motto.
Let's start with one of the most obvious eyesores: signage, from billboards to street signs and everything in between. Most Arkansas towns have some ugly, cluttered streets lined with fast-food restaurants and strip shopping centers. Those are the exact opposite of being a flag-waving symbol of the Natural State.
Regulating the size of signs is a must. I travel to towns in state and out of state and frequently dine--make that eat--at fast-food restaurants. (There is a movement, which started in Europe, called Slow Food Restaurants; I don't think I have to tell you the difference.)
When I'm traveling to a city that limits sign size, I never have any trouble finding a fast-food place. If your town wants to have any semblance of being a Natural State beacon, you must enact a strict sign ordinance.
Don't expect the Legislature to help. Trying to pass a sign ordinance guarantees opposition even after the ordinance is passed. The idea that a 40-foot neon sign is necessary to keep up with the competition is ingrained in most fast-food restaurant owners' mentalities.
A few years back when Vertis was on the El Dorado City Council, she and follow councilperson Judy Ward managed to get a good sign ordinance passed. A couple of years went by, and someone wanted to check the ordinance to see if a certain type of sign was allowed.
The ordinance was missing. Someone had taken it from the books. The El Dorado City Council is on record as passing the ordinance, but a copy is nowhere to be found.
When considering entryway streets, every city should mandate a certain amount of space in a shopping center, a parking lot, or a new subdivision to have green space. We desperately need that statewide, because the record of our retail and residential developers is right out of the 1800s' slash-burn-build mentality.
I know these developers believe it's easier to build on a scraped-off piece of real estate than it is with having to work around a grove of 100-year-old oak trees. However, the short-term saving of a few dollars turns out to bite them in the backsides when the property appraisals and customers' shopping habits come in to play.
Studies show that residential and commercial properties with trees and landscaping appraise as much as 25 percent higher than blank treeless lots do, and retail sales from a landscaped lot are much higher than blank-parking-lot stores. A city would be doing real estate developers a favor by passing a greenspace ordinance.
A majority of our roads, streets, and sidewalks don't have any attributes of a Natural State. Let's start with the Arkansas Department of Transportation, which presides over more land than probably any other entity. Let's tell it like it is: The sides of our roadways are filthy!
Official signage along our highways makes it very clear: Up to a $1,000 fine for littering, and there is a phone number to report scofflaws. Sounds as if we are really tough on littering, doesn't it? When I last checked, over 600 calls had been received, but not one dollar in fines had been collected. If we don't have enforcement, we can forget cleaning up our highway right-of-ways.
While I'm on ArDOT, recent widening of U.S. 82 and U.S. 167 west and north of El Dorado has folks shaking their heads. I'm in favor of four-lane highways out of El Dorado, and even though here in Lower Arkansas we are the last part of the state to get four lanes, there are a couple of things I question.
In Hampton on U.S. 167 and in El Dorado on U.S. 82 West, ArDOT has added sidewalks. Well, there are sidewalks, and then there are these sidewalks, which are too narrow for a couple to walk side by side. And the planting area between the sidewalk and street is too narrow for anything but grass to be planted. They are an expensive joke!
These sidewalks are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to having Natural State highways and right-of-ways. I go to Texas and New Mexico quite often, and when the highway right-of-ways there put ours to shame, it's time to pull ourselves up, maybe not to Vermont or Maine standards, but out of the upper 40s in ugly highways. (That's my survey.) Let's give the Ledge something to do after it reduces inflation, keeps our police from being defunded, and eliminates wonk.
Pass an ordinance that would require soft drinks and beer to only be sold in returnable bottles, and put a 5-cent deposit fee on returnable bottles. While the Ledge is in the mood, they could attach a rider to prohibit one-use utensils and Styrofoam in restaurants.
"Richard, you've spent too much time in the CBD store." No, I haven't. Every item I write about will one day be the law in our fair state. The only question is when.
Email Richard Mason at richard@gibraltarenergy.com.