week that was
EYE ON ARKANSAS
Draft Mike? We have a feeling he’ll be golfing in Searcy, but the one Democratic politician who seems immune to the dead-red tide in Arkansas is Gov. Mike Beebe. A Public Policy Polling survey released last week found Beebe leading Republican Sen. John Boozman in a speculative 2016 Senate matchup 46-40.
192,210: Number of low-income Arkansans who have gained coverage via the state’s private option version of Medicaid expansion. 44: Percentage of private option enrollees aged 19-44, making the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace significantly younger overall. 22.5: Percentage of uninsured Arkansans in 2013, before major coverage expansion provisions of Obamacare, such as the private option, went into effect. 12.4: Percentage of uninsured Arkansans midway through 2014. The decline in the number of uninsured, cut nearly in half, was the largest drop in the nation.
Quote of the week “We didn’t run. We ran the plays. Oh my God, all the old coaches that beat me, they said, ‘Man, your team is very well coached. …’ But I was losing! I didn’t like that, and I started biting, grabbing, slapping, trying to create turnovers, try to win the possession war.” — Former Razorback basketball coach Nolan Richardson, in his acceptance speech after his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last Friday, on his first season in Arkansas, just before his helter-skelter “40 Minutes of Hell” style was born.
brian chilson
Health care, by the numbers
SINGING WORKS JUST FINE FOR ME: James Taylor at Verizon Arena last Friday.
Little Rock: Where the gold rules and just about everybody is connected A Little Rock Board decision took a little more space than normal. Plus, it’s a good time for full personal disclosure. By Max Brantley
Dogtown left The most liberal town in Arkansas: North Little Rock. At least according to survey data compiled across the country by political data analytics company Clarity Campaign Labs. Most conservative: Marshall, up in Searcy County. We should note, however, that Marshall has the oldest drive-in movie theater in the state, a quality-of-life factor transcending politics.
The judicial election problem Lame-duck Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said recently that Arkansas judges should be appointed rather than elected. The issue in a nutshell: 1) Appointment is preferable to election; 2) Appointment doesn’t remove judges from politics; 3) Appointment ain’t going to happen in Arkansas; 4) Secretly supplied money will play an increasing role in judicial politics; 5) More often than not, corporate money will prevail; 6) Every now and then a thoroughly disreputable judge will do him/herself in (Tiger Droppings, anyone?). Voters too often are none the wiser to such scoundrels.
M
oney talked at last week’s Little Rock Board of Directors meeting. Asked to choose between the eloquent opposition of the city’s own professional planning staff and the people of Broadmoor, Fair Park, Point O’ Woods and the historic University Park neighborhood (developed for the city’s then-emerging black professional class), five of 10 directors and Mayor Mark Stodola (all white) voted for Murphy Oil. All three black directors were on the other side, with Joan Adcock and B.J. Wyrick. Stodola, Stacy Hurst, Dean Kumpuris, Gene Fortson, Lance Hines and Brad Cazort approved a vast 20-pump Murphy Oil malt liquor and Slim Jim outlet (convenience store) at the foot of homes in University Park. This is on a site where Doug Brandon for years quietly sold high-end furniture. The decision wrecks dreams of redevelopment of University Avenue south of I-630. Director Hurst never would have allowed it in her University protectorate north of I-630, home now to spiffy shopping centers thanks to a planning process she championed. Murphy offered no case for a zoning variance except
its profits. There are six such gas/ store operations within roughly a mile radius. It brings no benefit, only harm, to the neighborhood. It will spur no future development. max Murphy’s Wayne Gibson, brantley maxbrantley@arktimes.com a school board member in El Dorado, got off on the wrong foot by insulting the public’s intelligence. He claimed the store would spur economic development and city tax revenues. Out of the same mouth he claimed it would create no additional traffic because it would draw only from existing traffic. A new store doesn’t make cars in a city use more gas or their drivers buy more Honey Buns. Murphy will take business from competitors. Then Gibson talked of Murphy’s corporate citizenship and its funding of the El Dorado Promise, a college scholarship for every graduate of El Dorado public schools. Bad idea. Murphy, to the giant oil company’s credit, has kept its global home in El Dorado. It has invested heavily to Continued on page 12
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August 14, 2014
ARKANSAS TIMES