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911 Blue Ribbon Committee tours call centers
911 Blue Ribbon Committee members gather in East Arkansas for testimony, tour of centers
Wireless phone fees, equipment upgrades, state-level oversight are topics
The Legislative Arkansas Blue Ribbon Committee on Local 911 Systems met in East Arkansas in July to discuss funding and other issues preventing county and city emergency communications systems from operating as effectively as possible.
Sen. Linda Chesterfield chaired the meetings, which took place in St. Francis and Lee counties.
Call center funding was the first issue to be addressed. Counties across the state annually spend $20 million out of their general fund budget to support these centers. However, they were meant to be self-supporting through the fees charged of landline and mobile telephone users.
Landline users pay a percentage of their total phone bill, while mobile phone users pay a flat 65-cent fee. As Arkansans abandon their landlines in favor of mobile phones, a funding shortfall is created.
“The state of Arkansas leads the nation with 35.29 percent of Arkansans having only a cell phone,” said Gary Gray, chairman of the state’s Emergency Telecommunications Service Board and the 911 operations manager in Little Rock.
He said that 80 percent of the 911 calls placed in the state of Arkansas come from wireless phones.
As 911 Blue Ribbon Committee members toured the St. Francis County Detention and Dispatch Center following its July 16 meeting, indications of support for a fee increase were tempered with caveats about the difficulty of passing such legislation.
“You’re going to have to fight that battle with us,” Sen. Chesterfield told those on the tour. “We have to deal with this issue in an anti-tax climate . . . Everybody in here is going to have to step up to the plate.”
Committee members also heard testimony regarding equipment and data upgrades, as well as suggestions that an oversight body be established to ensure that all 911 call centers in the state have the same level of technology and can, therefore, adequately communicate with one another.
Next Generation 911 is a wireless telephone service that allows dispatchers to receive emergency communications by text message. Photos and videos can be texted to dispatchers to help them better respond to an emergency call.
“The four big [wireless phone] carriers are ready for 911 texting,” Gray said. “911 call centers in Arkansas are not.”
No call centers in the state have signed on for Next Generation 911 yet, but some have indicated an interest. The problem is that if call centers do not have the same level of technology, then transferred calls can be lost between jurisdictions.
“We need to ensure all 911 centers have the exact same technology. We need to tell them not to proceed with Next now. If we don’t there will be some 911 calls that will fail,” Gray said.
That is where a state-level oversight committee could help, he and others suggested. Top: Dispatcher Alena Hillis fields a 911 call during the committee’s tour of the St. Francis County Detention and Dispatch Center in Forrest City. The committee also toured the Forrest City Police Department’s 911 Call Center.
Bottom: Shane Dallas, emergency management coordinator with the St. Francis County Emergency Management office, describes what dispatchers see on the display screen when they receive a 911 call.
Extension, counties mark a century of cooperation
By Mary Hightower For County Lines
One-hundred years ago, President Wilson’s signing of the Smith-Lever Act created a national initiative that he called “one of the most significant and far-reaching measures for the education of adults ever adopted by the government.” That initiative is known today as the Cooperative Extension Service.
What is the Extension Service?
Simply put, “extension” means “reaching out.” Along with teaching and research, land-grant universities extend their resources, solving public needs through non-formal, non-credit programs. “Cooperative” stems from a partnership between federal, state and county governments.
“Our partnerships with the counties — at all levels — is absolutely essential to our mission,” said Tony Windham, director of the Cooperative Extension Service in Arkansas. “That’s why we have offices in all 75 counties — to be of service and to be an integral part of the local communities.”
“We want to encourage our county officials to speak with the local extension agents to explore how we can better support them in meeting their local needs,” he said.
Its singular mission was to bring the most modern agriculture research to farmers to improve their yields and earnings, and increase the availability of food and the standard of living for all. In Arkansas, the extension service is half of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. The other half is the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, which conducts research presented to end users by extension educators.
Today, the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service works in four main areas: agriculture and natural resources; 4-H youth development; family and consumer science; and community and economic development.
Beyond the historic partnership that evolved from the Smith-Lever Act, the Cooperative Extension Service works closely with counties at many levels.
County leadership
The Cooperative Extension Service has offices in each county, and each office has an advisory board called the County Extension Council. Every county judge has a seat on this council, which is critical to guide local extension work.
“The effectiveness of a county’s Extension program depends on involvement of local citizens in program development,” said Martha Sartor, director of county operations for the Cooperative Extension Service. “The County Extension Council System is designed to provide local stakeholder support for county Extension agents to plan, implement, evaluate, market, and support the local educational program.”
On another level, the list of alumni from Extension’s LeadAR leadership development program boasts of members elected to quorum courts in Arkansas, Bradley, Columbia, Cross, Faulkner and Union counties, not to mention a county judge, a county assessor and a coroner.
Learning to vote
In July, Boone County youth ages 8-18 took part in 4-H Splash, a citizenship program. Youth toured the county courthouse, heard from the county judge, treasurer and circuit clerk, participated in a community service project, and a workshop on the types of governments, said Nita Cooper, Boone County Extension staff chair. The lesson included a hands-on experience in the voting booth guided by Boone County Clerk Crystal Graddy. “We wanted our youth to not only understand the importance of voting, but also the importance of having someone be able to step into the roles of county clerk, or judge or quorum court member in the future,” Cooper said. “The presentation by Crystal Graddy was very useful. It helped us to see how technology has changed the voting process. It helped to prepare us for the future,” said Brennan Boone, a Boone County 4-H Teen Leader. “We learned about the value of voting, and that voting is a right and a privilege. It helped to broaden our view of the role of government.”
“We Love VBC”
Extension’s “Breakthrough Solutions” program, which helped breathe new life into Harrison’s downtown, is taking its first steps in Van Buren County, said Mark Peterson, professor-economic and community development. Working with the county judge and others, “We Love VBC” came to life. This group is devoted to first revitalizing downtown Clinton, and helping bring a new energy to all of Van Buren County.
The first actions will be to repaint and repair buildings in downtown Clinton and create two murals designed by nationally recognized artists. And these steps are more than just cosmetic, Peterson said.
“This changes the conversation in the community from a negative focus on all of the vacant buildings downtown to ‘have you seen what’s going on? So-and-so has moved a new business downtown’,” he said. “It’s about developing momentum.”
Breakthrough Solutions is also at work in Montgomery, Scott and Polk counties.
“We want to encourage our county officials to speak with the local extension agents to explore how we can better support them in meeting their local needs.” Tony Windham Director of Cooperative Extension Service in Arkansas
cover story
The EF4 tornado that hit Arkansas on April 27 beat a 24-mile path of destruction from western Pulaski County to Faulkner County and on to White County.
After the Storm
Recovery efforts have been fueled by cooperation among many jurisdictions.
Story by Kitty Chism Photography by angie davis For County Lines
Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson was enjoying Sunday dinner with his mom and siblings when he heard the first foreboding alerts on his cell phone. The threatening storm moving in from the west was developing tornado strength. Dodson bolted from the table, jumped into his white pickup and sped across town to the county Emergency Operations Center, his go-to bag in hand and satellite radio blaring. He reached the menacing gate of the wedged-into-a-cliff, state-of-the-art center off Hogan Lane just minutes after Sheila McGhee, his director of Emergency Services. Then he took a seat with her crisis team around the conference table, their voices low, their laptops glowing, their eyes fixed alternately on a big-screened television and giant wall map as they plotted the path of this storm with the help of radar, news reports and calls from expert storm trackers. It was April 27, 2014. The origin of this powerful squall, Arkansas’ worst in a half-century, was a polar front that had plunged down the Rocky Mountains, fueling a half-mile wide, rotating super-cell that gathered speed as it traveled. It touched ground a little after 7 p.m. Then it beat a 24-mile path of destruction from Ferndale to Vilonia.
“The real trigger for our response, after we knew for sure that the tornado had touched down, was the call from [Mayflower Fire Chief] Carl Rossini telling us what he saw happening,” McGhee said.
Rossini had been standing in the parking lot behind Mayflower’s City Hall, watching the shadowy swirl of the angriest storm he had ever seen, snapping power lines, mangling trees and scrubbing houses right off their slabs. The sight was riveting until it became terrifyingly clear that the debris-spewing tempest was headed straight for him and the City Hall safe room, where he had encouraged a dozen city workers and friends to take cover.
Then, just as the funnel got within a few thousand yards of him, it made a sharp turn northeast across the interstate. He actually saw it pivot, heard it roar into the RV dealership on the other side of the highway and felt its deadly force as it blew out windows and sheared off roofs of everything it did not demolish.
By then Rossini was set to turn his office into a mini command center for local search, rescue and medical responders, volunteers and road department crews. By the time he saw the funnel pivot, he was already
A statewide mutual aid system approved a decade ago allowed other counties, including Garland County, and cities to aid Faulkner County.
hearing 911 reports of people lodged under debris, crushed behind shelter doors, bleeding from flying timber and holed up under staircases in the River Plantation subdivision west of his town. A swath of elegant brick homes there had been reduced to ruins. There were casualties already, too, just as there were all along hard-hit Dam Road beside Lake Conway. And disoriented residents were wandering around in shock, searching for their homes, kin and belongings in the rain as dark descended over the landscape with no electricity or cell phone service anywhere — except in City Hall and the Emergency Operations Center.
Rosinni didn’t go to sleep for the next 24 hours.
Neither did McGhee and several others at the Operations Center who would log more than 100 hours in the next five days. Their first task was relaying crisis alerts to all of the other jurisdictions in the predicted trajectory of this dark, angry column. “We [trained emergency managers all over the county] all had our Weathernet [high powered satellite] radios, so we could keep talking to each other on a single channel as we kept an eye on the path of the storm,” McGhee said.
The actual route of destruction was made clear by the waves of 911 calls that poured in from first one area and then another. McGhee’s team then moved seamlessly into their targeted response mode, notifying water and utility companies, contacting teams of medical, security and law enforcement workers standing by, and finding equipment, including backhoes and bulldozers to clear the roads where callers reported that people were trapped or injured.
Within minutes first responders were racing to the hardest hit areas, making way for utility trucks to tend to gas and electrical hazards. Next to get there were search and rescue vehicles, fire trucks, dump trucks and ambulances to extract people suffering from everything from collapsed lungs and gouged heads to fractured ribs and broken hips. More than 100 people were rushed to Conway Hospital before the night was over, while rescue teams continued to look for the missing and dead, sending regular reports of the heartbreaking scene back to McGhee. Red Cross volunteers moved in quickly, too, to open shelters for those with no place to sleep or even any way to get to friends or family, their mangled cars strewn across the terrain like contorted Matchbox toys.
“I think we did better at everything this time,” McGhee said of her operations center’s response compared to tornados in the past. “One thing that really helped is that Dodson is such a take-charge leader and such an advocate of preparedness.”
You could hardly blame him. Less than two months after he was appointed county judge in early 2013 an underground Exxon pipeline burst in Mayflower, forcing widespread evacuations, fears of toxic exposure and months of cleanup. By sheer chance, however, just weeks before this tornado, Dodson had called together everyone around the county involved in emergency response for a series of storm readiness dialogues and refresher training.
“We put together ‘go-to bags’ of personal supplies, food, water and batteries so we could each be self-sustaining for several days out there if necessary,” McGhee said. “We made sure everyone knew how to use the radios, which I had all cleaned, and we practiced. Little things, maybe, but if you can’t communicate you can’t tell someone, ‘hey we need something over here.’”
The exercise paid off. In the end there was only one house fire in the whole tornado path, Rosinni said. The official death toll was 16, including a baby declared stillborn after the mother was critically injured.
The county coroner said he had expected more, considering the EF4 magnitude of this storm, the second strongest category of twister force, on a rampage that robbed 300 families of everything they had.
It was up to Dodson, as chief executive of the most affected county, to officially declare the scene a national disaster qualifying for FEMA assistance. After that, he said, the close coordination of Faulkner’s resources with those of Lonoke, Conway, Cleburne, Perry and Van Buren counties became key. And that was only possible because of a statewide mutual aid system, approved by lawmakers just a decade ago, allowing counties and cities to help other jurisdictions in disasters, no matter the cost to their own taxpayers.
“This was just a terrific example of the benefit of making that permissible,” he said. “Immediately I got calls from the other county judges, the very first being Doug Erwin in Lonoke, asking what we needed. We were at full deployment at that point, and we needed back hoes, chain saws, dump trucks, tractors, bobcats, you name it, to help clear a path. There was unbelievable destruction, unbelievable piles of debris. The other road departments were a great resource. And MEMS [Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services ambulances subsidized by Faulkner County, Pulaski County and Maumelle taxes] was crucial.”
County Coroner Pat Moore lost his own home near Vilonia to the tornado during the hours he and his seven deputies were tending to the fatalities. Yet he, too, echoed Dodson’s take on the extraordinary value for first responders, mentally and physically, of mutual aid. Five minutes after the tornado hit, he said, “eleven different coroners were texting me.” Without knowing the scope of damage at that point, he nevertheless knew he would have more than enough additional help if needed, which is important when most of the dead are found in their homes by distraught family members, he said.
“We were able to do our job with dignity and respect and get it done without a hiccup,” Moore said.
Only then could the debris-removal and cleanup really begin, but people, once they have processed what happened to them, always want it done as quickly as possible so they can put it behind them and go on with their lives, Vilonia Mayor James Firestone said. He knows. Three years ago a twister battered the close-knit town he has lived in all of his 60 years, killing four residents and tossing roofs and fences around like matchsticks.
It took Dodson a few days to assess the full extent of this disaster’s damage. By then it became clear to him that the quickest and most cost effective approach would be for the county to oversee all the cleanup using mostly local government crews and equipment to clear the uprooted trees and mountains of drywall, shingles, carpet, pipes, furniture and, oh yes, 83 dead cattle.
Firestone, a part-time mayor who also works for the Little Rock Port Authority, still recalls the relief he felt when Dodson notified him that the county would take charge of it all. Managing the storm recovery three years ago had fallen entirely on his shoulders and it was backbreaking, he said.
“But this was just so much more massive, whole sections of the town including older homes and landmarks [were flattened],” Firestone said, surveying the scene three months later. Driving around triggers headshaking story after story of what used to be in this city where he knows literally everybody. He stops at a clearing of empty house slabs. “Now here, just think of it: There were 56 houses, I mean, sturdy, substantial houses, and only one left standing . . . That church over there had just built a new gym. That gas and service station, completely destroyed except for one back room . . . Here is what is left of our brand new middle school. That’s insulation flapping from those tower joists, everything else was wiped out . . . This little shopping center, it had a bank and the Cockadoodle Dough cookie shop. Gone. In here we had Mr. Fred’s donut shop, my little granddaughter’s favorite. Gone. Our park, five ball fields, light poles, fencing, concessions. All gone.”
As he expected, it would be tougher for residents the second time around to get the crumbled remains of their lives off their property and out in the street where county haulers could pick them up and take them to FEMA-approved dump sites. Thankfully organizations of volunteers like Team Rubicon, a veterans group, and the Arkansas Dream Center, an organization dedicated to helping hurting people, offered help for those people.
“We could not have done it without them,” Dodson said. “And gradually we’re all coming back,” Firestone said as he pulled his truck back into the parking lot of City Hall.
Indeed the evidence is everywhere. Keith McCord has opened the mechanic shop portion of his gas station and has more business than he can handle. Another new school is already on the drawing boards. And plans are in place for a new, bigger ballpark.
Recovery is visible in Mayflower, too, where the Lumber One hardware store in the center of town and a metal works company appear back in full operation although the owners of True Value will retire instead. Major new construction and fixing up is underway along Dam Road. And in the River Plantation neighborhood you can’t help but admire people like Robin Sanders and her husband Thomas. They tore down their elegant waterfront home and set up a 39-foot motor home to live in while they design a replacement. The idea is to move on, said Robin Sanders, who understands starting over after losing her first husband a few years ago. “My mom asked me if I cried at all, and I said ‘But our lives were spared, and I know a lot of families whose were not.’”
You sense that gratitude in practically everyone touched by the twister whose resolve intensified when they saw how much other people wanted to help them, too. You sense that from the sign outside Mayflower’s Northside Apostolic Church that now reads: “All is well. And then some.”
You also hear it when outsiders look in and are somehow reassured about humankind.
“I could not be more impressed by the spirit of community that is here,” President Barack Obama told officials in Vilonia when he visited a week after the disaster. “The community has responded.”
Volunteers and donations are still needed to assist Arkansans affected by the April 27 tornado. Here are a few of the organizations that continue to aid victims:
Arkansas Rice Depot www.ricedepot.org (Click on “Disaster Relief”) (501) 565-8855
Faulkner County Long Term Recovery www.faulknerrelief.com
Forest Service and the federal government.”
— Alvin Black,
Montgomery County Judge
Above: Judge Black tells members of the Arkansas Legislature, “Do what you can to make sure our fragile economy in Montgomery County and the surrounding region is not destroyed by overly protecting a mussel.”
Right: Judge Black begins each day the same way his father, who was an elected county official, did — by seeing off the road crew, and then attending to business in the courthouse office.
Judge is advocate for rural counties
By Christy L. Smith AAC Communications Coordinator
Federal monies, legislation are everyday worries for official in Montgomery County
It’s no exaggeration to say that Judge Alvin Black grew up in the two-story stone building that has housed Montgomery County government since 1923. With parents who served as elected county officials — his father was sheriff, county clerk and judge for a total of 22 years; his mother was county clerk for three terms — Black had many occasions to walk the courthouse halls as a youngster.
In fact, one of his fondest memories is escorting his father to work.
“One of my earliest memories is going with my dad before school,” Black said. “He would go up to the road department and see the road crew off in the morning, and then we’d go back home and have breakfast. Then I would go to school.”
It’s the same ritual that Black follows today — minus the school part.
“It’s really surreal in a way because that’s what I do now. I go to the road department and see them off in the morning, and then I come up here,” he said.
Black, a native of Mount Ida, is in his third term as Montgomery County judge. He previously served 14 years as county treasurer. And though he is surrounded by a rich history every day that he goes to work, he faces a set of challenges much different from those of other counties, even in Arkansas.
Judge Alvin Black, who starts every day by seeing the road crew off, gets an update from grader operator Bart Williams. The county has 1,100 miles of roads, only 100 miles of which are paved.
deposits and its expansive share of the Ouachita National Forest and Lake Ouachita, as well as the Ouachita, Caddo and Little Missouri rivers, the county draws thousands of recreational sportsmen each year. Yet these same attractive natural resources are at the heart of a county financial crunch.
Approximately 70 percent of Montgomery County is owned by the federal government — about 60 percent belongs to the National Forest Service; the remaining 10 percent belongs to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The federal government is not subject to state or local taxes, so less than one-third of the county produces revenue in support of county-paid services. As such, Montgomery County is heavily dependent upon monies generated by the recreation industry and provided under federal programs such as Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) and the Secure Rural Schools and Community SelfDetermination Act of 2000.
“It’s a unique situation for an Arkansas county,” Black said. “It’s hard for [officials in other counties] to understand why some of us are so concerned about the Forest Service and the federal government.”
The reason for the concern is simple: The money is in jeopardy.
PILT payments compensate counties and local governments for non-taxable federal land in their jurisdictions. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced in June that 59 Arkansas counties would receive $6.3 million in PILT allocations for fiscal year 2014. Montgomery County’s share of that was nearly $645,000, and Judge Black said the money goes into the county’s general fund each year.
“It makes up about 25 percent of our general fund revenue,” he said. “So if that ever gets reduced significantly, it’s going to hurt.”
From 2008 to 2012, the PILT program was funded under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act provided funding for the program in 2013. This year’s PILT program is the last to be funded under the Agriculture Act of 2014, which reauthorized PILT for 2014 and funded the full entitlement levels of the program, according to a news release from the Secretary of Interior’s office.
President Barak Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposes to extend mandatory full funding for the program for another year while a sustainable long-term funding solution is developed for the PILT program.
“Rural communities contribute significantly to our nation’s economy, food and energy supply, and help define the character of our diverse and beautiful country,” Secretary Jewell said. “President Obama has made job creation and opportunity in rural areas a top priority for his administration and has fought for continuing the PILT program, which is a lifeline for many local communities.”
The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 amended the U.S. Forest Service’s payment program to states and counties containing National Forest Service lands.
“It amounts to about one-and-a-half million dollars a year,” Black said of Montgomery County’s share. The money is divided between the county road department and the three school districts in the county, with some set aside for the county to maintain the forest recreation areas.
The act originally expired in 2006 but has been renewed each year at reduced spending levels. If it is not renewed for 2014, then the payments will be based on guidelines set out in a 1908 act that bases them on timber sales.
BLACK
Judge Alvin Black points out his mother, Essie Black, in a photograph of Montgomery County county/circuit clerks that hangs on the wall in the courthouse hallway. His father, Bill Black, also served as county/circuit clerk and is featured in the photo collage.
“So it becomes a very erratic payment,” Black said. “It could vary hundreds of thousands of dollars from one year to the next, so it makes it almost impossible to budget because you don’t know how much you are getting.”
The more immediate problem, though, is that Montgomery County has not yet received all of its 2013 allocation.
“There’s some set-aside money — money that is set aside for special projects — that we haven’t gotten yet,” Black said. These special projects must be approved by a Resource Advisory Committee.
“Until they . . . go over these projects, then even though we’ve been allocated the money, we can’t have it,” Black said. “It’s frustrating because I had three people employed with this money, and I had to lay them off back in February.”
After several delays, the committee finally met July 15 and approved two special projects Black had requested: funding the county’s Recreation Area Maintenance Program through 2015 — thereby putting the three laid-off employees back to work — and extending for another two miles the chip and seal surface on Logan Gap Road.
The three recreation employees are charged with maintaining the campsites and recreation sites throughout the county, but the National Forest Service has closed virtually all of its recreation areas to overnight camping due to a flash flood that killed 20 people — many of them children — four years ago.
Recreation is Montgomery County’s largest industry, but campground closures have begun putting a dent in the revenue generated when visitors buy groceries, gasoline and other items. “We were taking care of probably a dozen recreation sites around the county, and with them closing them to overnight camping, they are giving people fewer reasons to come here,” Black said.
The campsites have been closed since June 2010, when heavy rains swelled the Little Missouri and Caddo rivers. Campsites in the Albert Pike Recreational Area in the Ouachita National Forest were flooded. Afterward, federal agencies re-evaluated the placement of their campgrounds and discovered that almost all of them were located in a flood plain.
“I understand the reasoning for not wanting to locate them there because of the danger issue, but on the other hand, that’s where people want to camp is next to a stream,” Black said. “What I tried to get across to them, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears, is if you’re going to close these areas to recreation or to overnight camping, build us another one somewhere. But they’re having financial problems just like the counties are.”
Black said that from a financial standpoint 2014 has been the “toughest” year for Montgomery County.
“We’re kind of just a little on edge. Financially speaking, we’re better off than a lot of counties our size, and I think that’s largely due to our being very conservative with our revenue projections,” he said. “We haven’t had a reduction in revenue projections since 2004, but we’re getting pretty close to having another one.”
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposal to designate a 13.6-mile section of the Ouachita River from the bridge at Sims to the bridge at Oden as a critical habitat for the Neosho Mucket and Rabbitsfoot Mussel compounds the financial challenges facing Montgomery County.
“It’s not a large section, but one of the few big businesses we have left in the county is Camp Ozark, and they are on that section of the river,” Black said. “I want to keep the little bit of economic base left in our county. We lost a shoe factory last year, and that was about 80 jobs that we lost.”
Camp Ozark is a Christian summer camp that Black says brings “several million dollars a year to Montgomery County.” A critical habitat designation along the portion of the river where Camp Ozark operates might force the camp to consider doing business elsewhere, “and we don’t want them to do business” elsewhere, Black said.
But under new rules proposed by FWS last year — and opposed by Arkansas legislators in Washington, D.C. — FWS would not have to consider the economic impact such designations would have on local communities. It would only have to consider the cost to the federal government.
“In fact, they say there is no local impact, but we know that just isn’t true,” Black said.
Black and his five brothers grew up on a 400-acre farm in Mount Ida, where his parents raised cattle and had chicken houses. He remembers feeding and watering the chickens after school and on weekends when he was young.
His mother, Essie Black, died in 1986, and his father, Bill Black, is 96 years old now. The cattle and chickens have long since been sold. Most of the brothers have moved back home, with the exception of one who is a missionary in Turkey.
Black graduated from Mount Ida High School in 1975, and then earned a degree in forestry from the University of Arkansas
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BLACK
at Monticello.
“It’s kind of a long ways from what I’m doing now, but it does help in my dealings with the Forestry Service,” he said. “I understand how they operate a little more than some people might.”
After college, Black worked for a couple of different consulting firms before taking a job at a sawmill in Union County. When he moved back home in 1986, he went to work for the Arkansas Forestry Commission as a county ranger charged with helping nonindustrial private landowners manage their forestlands.
He worked for his father on the farm for about a year before waging a successful campaign for county treasurer in 1994. Black already knew a bit about campaigning. As a boy he had knocked on doors with his father. Still, his father was ready with advice.
“He told me, ‘Remember who you talk to,’” Black said, explaining that he would come home from a day of campaigning but not be able to tell his father the names of the people he had encountered.
“He also said that when you get elected to office, you quit having opinions,” Black said. “That’s been real hard for me. I want to tell people what I think about certain issues, and sometimes you have to bite your tongue when you’re in this business.”
That hasn’t stopped Black from taking leadership positions in organizations poised to keep federal funds flowing into rural counties like Montgomery County. He serves on the National Association of Counties’ (NACo) Public Lands Committee, which meets twice a year. He also regularly attends NACo’s legislative conference in Washington, D.C., where he and other county elected officials from around the country lobby legislators for vital funding.
Black said that the Arkansas delegation has been supportive of his efforts. The challenge, he said, is appealing to legislators from states unfamiliar with the complexities of a rural county with so much federal land.
“Only 14 other counties in Arkansas have federal land or receive these Secure Rural School payments, so it’s hard to make some of them understand why this is so important to us,” he said. “It’s the same way in the United States. The bulk of the federal land is in the western states, so it’s hard to convince people from other parts of the country . . . that this is not just a western problem.”
Though his affiliation with NACo takes him away from home on occasion, Black said he feels honored to be able to lobby on that level for Montgomery County.
“Some people may not think that the trips to Washington are important or that the national conference isn’t important. That million and half we get from the Secure Rural Schools or that $500,000 we get from PILT, that’s why I go. To keep that money flowing,” Black said.
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