Someone showed up at the city commission meeting last night and asked where they could see the petitions that were submitted on the night of the big box hearing.
This has been asked several times.
Where did the petitions go?
Apparently they have fallen off the face of the earth.
Mayor Dotty Smith said she looked at the petitions when they were given to her, and then she passed them to other commissioners. I don't recall the order of seating that night, but it does seem they got passed around some.
No one on the commission knows where they are. City Manager Doug Russell said the petitions were never given to him.
My guess would be that they were just left behind on the table that night, and maybe were thrown out.
I am not sure what value they would have.
Smith says some names were repeated, and were names on other papers she had received. She said she recognized some of the names as people not from Ark City.
That was her justification for not doing what the petitioners wanted.
She and the other two of the Three Amigos still maintain that they heard more people in town saying NO than saying YES.
Regardless, the deal is done. It's time to move on.
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24 comments:
It's a shame that out of town people were interested. The commission apparently would not want their business or dollars coming into Ark City. Maybe this is the biggest and most important point missed in the whole thing.
I know it is too late, but someone in the commission needs to learn that any business, industry or retail, will require an infusion of dollars from outside the city. Whether it is investment capital or retail dollars we need something coming in for any kind of growth.
Maybe the petitions had some importance after all. It would take someone interested in the matter to notice it.
How do we move on when we know the commissioners have no respect for our wishes? The petitions were completely ignored. It does not matter that they have disappeared. The commissioners didn't pay any attention to them in the first place.
Why should we believe that anything in the future will be any different. They have proven that they will do whatever they want regardless of what the people want.
We are stuck with it for now, but I hope people don't get used to being run over when the next election comes around.
Isn't a petition presented to a City Commission a public record? How can they throw them out or destroy them?
Is that even legal?
Isn't a petition presented to a City Commission a public record? How can they throw them out or destroy them?
Is that even legal?
>>>>
It was an unfortunate oversight.
I tend to believe it was accidental,
but they should have been preserved.
What about the meeting would indicate they didn't intend the petition to go away? And now it's gone. Big "oopsie", no surprise, no evidence, no responsibility and can now claim that the petition had names from non-residents. Is this any way to run a city?
Mistake and not intent? Hmmmm.
Where are the petitions? They did not support the decision made prior to the hearing and or farce.
Good luck on locating an industry on Curry Field in the middle of residential property.
Is Patrick McDonald carrying on a conversation with one or more 'anonymous' folks. It make a difference.
Keep it up Patrick.
I continue to be baffled by these idiots still worrying about the petition. It has no value now and had no value then. It means absolutely nothing except to the people who signed it.
You must be on the City Commission. ; )
Whether we agree or not with the decision of the commissioners, it's done. If Lowe's or someonelse seriously wants to build here because of the demand, why should the no vote stop them. When I read the article regarding A.C. Industries and what they have done for A.C. I could find only one industry that they give themselves credit for and that's the packing house. If they have been working on bringing industries to town since the '50's they have not been very successful. It took 50 years to get one industry here?
400 signatures on a petition don't mean anything and 500 jobs don't mean anything. Man, this is a tough crowd.
No wonder it's hard to jump-start Ark City. The oil is old and thick.
AC Industries? Who else is even trying? We should tell them to keep up the good work and encourage them on the next project. They almost landed a Lowes and restaurant. Definitely partial credit on that one.
I felt the information, that the petitions were gone, needed to be out there.
Was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt about intent.
Why not do something about it instead of waiting for someone else to do something...
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=custSvcRequestStore
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=custSvcRequestStore
The whole link didn't come through the first time.
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?
action=custSvcRequestStore
Sorry, it keeps getting cut off this should be right.
I thought long and hard about signing that petition, because I was puting my name on an idea which I had decided would be a good thing for me, my family, and my city.
It's simply pathetic, and a HUGE cop out to say, in essence, that the signatures on the petition didn't amount to a hill of beans.
I bet if there had been a petition against the TIF, it would have gotten more respect from the three "Amigos" who already had their minds made up. You disgraced us all, and I hope you are voted out at the soonest opportunity.
ONCE AGAIN we need to say here that Lowes can still build here! with or without any 'deals' While u r busy whining about it be sure and look at your new water bill they raised it again because they are raising it for 10 years in a row so YOU the taxpayer can pay for all those 'deals' they give like creek stone getting 10 more years of cheap water bils
the mafia is doing nothing but getting rich. how does that help the rest of us?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI
1st Creekstone has its own water treatement facility and doesn't use the cities facilities. So the idea that the cities water bills are higher because of some special treatement to creekstone would be false. 2nd, there are many LARGE repairs that have not been done over the past 10 years to the infrastructure of the water system in our town. Those repair costs are what are driving the increase in our water bills.
The commissioners were given copies of the petitions. The originals are intact. They can be produced. Who wants them and for what reason?
About those petitions - and the charge that Her Highness the Mayor made that signatures were duplicated, etc. There may have been a duplication or two - but there were nearly 500 signatures. Even if a handful is signees inadvertently signed 2 petitions, there are still hundreds of signees who got zero consideration. And, as for Her Highness the Mayor's charge that some of the signees were from "out of town," there was no requirement that only city residents could sign. We have many, many people who live in the Ark City vicinity who would have shopped at the BB store, gladly paid the extra 1% tax, and done their bit for Ark City's economy. Why shouldn't they sign the petition. THE ONLY REASON THE PETITIONS WERE IGNORED WAS BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T SIGN WITH HER HIGHNESS WHOSE MIND, INCIDENTALLY, WAS MADE UP WELL AHEAD OF THE MEETING.
Does anyone else appreciate the irony of the C of C coffee having a pitch for a workshop for creating a destination city almost immediately following the city throwing out a $38 million outside investment in the city which likely would have made it a 'destination' for lots of folks.
Let's see, shun $38M, take on a $35M school district debt (not including interest,)talk up an industrial park in the middle of a residential area. Lament the fact that young people leave the community.
How much more can we ask for.
Maybe this is being posted in the wrong place, James. If you feel it should go to ideas, do so.
The commissioners were given copies of the petitions. The originals are intact. They can be produced. Who wants them and for what reason?
Just to see who signed.
"inquiring minds"
Where did the statement that they were given copies come from?? Not true in the instance I am very aware of. They were given the ORIGINAL of at least one of the petitions turned in. No copy was made because they were entered in a public meeting and it was a given they would be kept. The mayor specifically asked for the public to bring them forward. Watch the video, that IS available. When a public official asks for documents in a public meeting, particularly then, should they be entered into public record. Commissoner Kuhn had them last and I am not even sure the other 2 commissioners on the other side of the mayor every got to see them.
This original post and comments are about to disappear into history. Covered up with other blogs and comments. I think this is probably the biggest shame in recent history for our town. A lot of people expressed their opinions in print with a signature to last forever only to be completely dismissed without a word or sign. This is very extreme. I can't believe it is going to slide by, under the rug as James would put it. The box deal may be over, but the commissioners ignoring and neglecting the citizens that did put out an effort is unbelievable.
The most important thing is it will all just slowly disappear. As Kuhn would have put it WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?
If you don't speak out now, you will never get another chance. The next time they walk over you they won't even have to think twice about it.
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