MatthewPetty.org - Economy, Ecology, & Technology from Fayetteville, Arkansas

Why the Council should have the final say on a second motorcycle rally

mpetty — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:32:09 +0000

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I received incomplete information during my meeting with our City Attorney in December. Yesterday, the Assistant City Attorney (our regular City Attorney is out sick), informed me that because this permit is already in process, the Council has no legal grounds to deny it. Any action the Council took could only affect future permits. So I'm dropping opposition to this event.

Instead, I will be adding a discussion item to the agenda for Tuesday January 19. As it is a discussion item, no legislative action will take place regarding Bikes Babes and Bling at the meeting. The public will have a chance to share their concerns about the permitting procedure. More details to come in the following days.

You may or may not have heard, but there could be a second motorcycle rally this year in Fayetteville. Organizers are calling it Bikes, Babes, and Bling, and the event is planned for Independence Day weekend.

I've called for a City Council vote on whether or not to approve the event permit. This is the first time a the Council has reviewed an event permit, but according to Kit Williams, our City Attorney, the use of public lands has always been the Council's jurisdiction. In fact, there isn't any legislation that authorizes the Mayor to sign event permits without Council approval.

Because of that, the City Attorney recommends an ordinance to explicitly allow the Mayor to sign most event permits without a Council vote. We need to follow our Attorney's advice so that the Council isn't stuck micromanaging event permits every meeting. Some people are pushing the rumor that I want every permit to come to the City Council. That couldn't be farther from the truth, and I'm actually going to be bringing forward legislation that will give the Mayor the power to sign most permits without coming to the Council.

In the meantime, there are some events which deserve extra scrutiny. A second motorcycle rally is one of those events. Having just one motorcycle rally is extremely disruptive to businesses, residents, and safety resources, but it's just one weekend, and it's tolerated. Adding a second puts an unnecessary burden on too many people in our community.

My move to have this considered by the Council is being criticized as failing to support businesses. I'm being told that in these hard economic times, we should do anything that brings any kind of money our way.

But if that were true, we'd approve every new development for the property taxes and the construction jobs, and we'd cut noncritical services like concerts in the park which only cost money and don't draw people to local businesses. We don't do that because money isn't where the conversation ends; we have other considerations, too. We know that to be a successful community means we have to keep compatibility in mind, and a second motorcycle rally is not compatible. It is good for only a few.

Some local businesses are hurt by the disruption a second motorcycle rally causes. Even downtown, in the heart of the rally, businesses suffer through the event. At least one retail store, Nightbird Books, is on record saying it hurts their business. A second rally would be one more hardship for locally-owned, funky businesses to cope with.

On the other hand, this rally isn't critical to the success of the businesses pushing for it. I've only been going to George's for six years, but they've been around for more than 80. I know they, other bars and restaurants, and hotels get a lot of business during big tourism events, but they don't need a second rally to survive. George's even survived the Great Depression! By all accounts, our economy is not as bad as it was then, the worst of this recession is over, and with the predictions being made about the Hogs, I'm sure they'll do just fine this year even without a second rally.

There's more to this rally than the money, and there's more to our community than bars, restaurants, and hotels. How will a second rally affect the Walton Arts Center? They've said in the past that they haven't been able to do anything when Bikes Blues and BBQ is happening. They tried to serve beer at the last one, but attendance was lackluster. Will they be able to coordinate anything with a second motorcycle rally? Do we want to remove another week of possible performances from the Walton Arts Center's calendar?

Not to mention the affect is has on peace in our neighborhoods. Residents already tolerate one rally. A second rally just goes too far.

When it comes down to it, the businesses who want this are only looking out for themselves. The City Council's job is to look out for the entire community, and that's why this event needs to be considered by the City Council.

What you can do

If you can, commit to coming to the City Council meeting on January 19. It starts at 6pm, but this will be the last item on the agenda, so it's probably safe not to show up until 7. Either way, be prepared to spend a few hours at City Hall.

The other thing you can do is write your Council members and the Mayor. The best way to do that is to ask the City Clerk to forward your comments to us and include what you say in the record. Her name is Sondra Smith, and you can reach her at ssmith@ci.fayetteville.ar.us.

City Council: First meeting in January

mpetty — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:06:11 +0000

One year down, three more to go. I've enjoyed my first year on the Council, and I'm looking forward to being more active this year, now that I've learned the ropes.

Here's what's coming up...

At the meeting

Special election decision

Agenda link

Way back when the HMR tax was approved, the ballot language that was written didn't allow the Parks Department to spend HMR money on park maintenance, only development. Even though state statute has always explicitly allowed maintenance, Fayetteville has never been able to do that because of the poorly formed ballot statement.

The entire City Council wants to change that, and Bobby Ferrell has led the way. We're pondering whether or not to hold a special election (which costs money) to change it. I'm pretty sure it would pass the voters' scrutiny, but my only question is whether or not holding the special election is worth it, instead of doing it in November.

Connie Edmonston, our Parks Director, explained that it wouldn't change her budget, but it would give us (the Council) more freedom if we wanted to change funding priorities for our parks. Parks HMR money amounts to a little more than $1M each year, and right now we can't spend it on things like ongoing programs (changing art installations, for instance), maintaining the landscape, or playgrounds.

That's a good reason to change the law, but without any ideas in mind, I'm not sure we shouldn't wait until November. I'm going to try and think of ideas that would make doing it earlier worth it, and if you have any yourself, you should let me know.

Oakbrooke PZD Evolution

Agenda link 1 and link 2

Oakbrooke is out on Rupple Rd on the west side of town, and the original project was approved a few years back. Now they are asking to improve the zoning by moving the mixed use area closer to the busiest road and clustering some of the houses around common courtyards. It's an improvement over what was originally approved, but for some reason the Bridgeport POA thinks all of the houses should be at least 2000 square feet.

I hope the Ward 4 Alderpersons don't buy into that NIMBYism.

Yardparking ordinance could threaten house shows; but it won't.

Agenda link 1 and link 2

Most people hate party houses. You know the ones, they have a party several times a week. It's loud and it sucks.

The Ward 4 Alderpersons are bringing forward an ordinance that will be a nail in the coffin for most party houses: a yardparking ordinance, but don't fret, it won't be the end of rocking house shows in Fayetteville, because it only applies to constant offenders.

At least that's the hope. There are two possible ways the ordinance could go. The first is that enforcement would be complaint-based. The second is that you'd have to call the City to let them know you were having a party, and you could only do it 10 times a year (1984, anyone?). I'm pretty sure the first option is the one that will be chosen by the Council.

Also, Razorback weekends are exempted, so you can still have your football party and you can still make money by charging fans to park.

On the horizon

2010 Bike Lane Striping Projects

There are eight sections of streets that will be updated with improved bicycle facilities in 2010. There is a map available.

Bikes Babes and Bling event permit

In a turn of events, the City Council will have the final word on the Bikes Babes and Bling event permit. Who knows how the rest of the Council will vote, but a majority of the citizens I hear from don't want it.

I'll be writing more about this soon, but in the meantime, if you have an opinion you should send it to the Council. You can do so by emailing Sondra Smith, our City Clerk, and asking her to distribute your comment to us. Her email is ssmith@ci.fayetteville.ar.us.

Hillside ordinance and engineering foundations

Way back when the Hillside Ordinance was approved, Mayor Coody vetoed two parts of it. One of those parts would have required houses in the Hillside Overlay District to have foundations designed by an engineer.

The intent was pure, but the legislation wasn't very good. There are policy alternatives to what was vetoed that could have been pursued, but everyone was tired of talking about it and so there wasn't any progress for several years. A couple of months ago I asked if we could talk about it again at the Ordinance Review Committee.

This one has been a legislative lesson for me. I wanted to start from the beginning, establish our intent, and figure out what legislation would be the best. I guess I opened old wounds though, because now the Mayor, his staff, and other Council members just want to use the vetoed legislation and be done with it.

That's still not the best solution though. There are many foundations outside of the overlay district that should be engineered, and there are quite a few within the overlay district that don't need engineering (like houses on flat hilltops). Trying to cram this solution into existing legislation just isn't the best option.

I'll have more details on this later, too.

Until next meeting...

If there's anything I should cover that you think I've missed, let me know in the comments or in the suggestion box.

January's Cause of the Month: Move your money to a local bank

mpetty — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:59:12 +0000

Three years ago, I walked into a Bank of America branch and closed my account. When they asked me why, I told them I was fed up with escalating fees, the sterile feeling I got from doing business with them, and that I wanted my money to be used to support more local jobs.

I moved my money to Arvest.

A little more than a year ago, I moved my money to the Bank of Fayetteville. It wasn't that I disliked Arvest, I just wanted to support a bank that was even more local to me.

And I've been happy ever since.

If your money is tied up with one of the big national banks, you should consider moving your accounts to a local bank. Check out this video for inspiration:

If you decide to move your money, post a comment why.

Dislosure: My blog will be profitable at the end of 2010

mpetty — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 03:19:39 +0000

It's been a year (or close enough) since I published this website, and it's had its share of false starts. One of my New Year's resolutions is to finally buckle down and start using the Internet the way I've always meant to.

That means creating content. I've gotten pretty good at sharing things, but I've failed to get in the habit of creating original content regularly. That's all about to change. Right? Right!

Truth be told, I have aspirations for this blog. Besides from just being useful, I want it to be my biggest single source of income by the end of the year, and that means it's got to be bringing in about $1500 in revenue each month by January 1, 2011.

Hooray for measurable New Year's resolutions!

Here's how I'll do it:

Almost no direct revenue: I won't be soliciting advertisers, but I probably will join several ad networks related to the content I'm producing. This means you could start seeing ads, but I promise they will never be in your face. Going with ad networks and not direct ads also means I won't have a direct relationship with advertisers (and if I did, I'd tell you). That's important because I'm an elected official. Soliciting advertisements would raise a lot of red flags on the ethics front.
Affiliate programs: I'm going to be recommending products, like books and software. I promise I will always be honest in my reviews of these products, and I won't try to get you to buy anything without giving you an opinion about it. Links on my website or social media profiles may contain advertisements or opportunities to purchase things. In any case, it will always be obvious when I could be paid from something I've recommended.
Ebooks: I'm already working on the first. Some of my ebooks will be for free, but others will be for sale. I'm going to experiment with promotion and launch strategies, and I'll build an affiliate network so you can earn a commission if you like the eBooks so much that you want to recommend them to your own friends and followers. I'm planning to launch at least two this year, maybe more depending on when the information in them needs updating.
Building community won't produce direct revenue for me either, but my hope is that authentic communication with others will build the community that makes the above revenue opportunities successful. I'll be making a renewed effort to wax poetic on other topics of passion to me, including social media, local politics, climate change, and domestic poverty. I'm going to use my own life as an example as much as possible, showing you how I use the Internet, what's going on in Fayetteville politics, and how I'm building an urban homestead (2010 garden season is going to be rad).

That's my plan. I'll update this disclosure policy as necessary, and do let me know if you think I've left anything out. Last updated Feb 26, 2010.

Sometimes, asking a thought-provoking question is enough to get you on TV

mpetty — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:40:15 +0000

It's dead easy to set up a blog, and if you commit to a niche, pretty simple to make a living doing it. Want to start? I'll help.

Are bloggers more trustworthy than journalists? That's the question I asked via my Amplify account, and it intrigued Brad Reed, a news anchor for Fox24, enough that he asked me to join him during his newshour to talk about it.

It was originally going to be just an interview with me, but I suggested turning it into a roundtable with Christopher Spencer of Ozarks Unbound and Bret Schulte from the University of Arkansas journalism program. I'm glad that Brad took my suggestion, because I don't think we could have asked for a better six minutes of air time.

I've uploaded the video to Youtube so that I could add annotations and invite people to continue the discussion in my comments section. This video is copyright Fox24, but I don't think they'll mind my posting it now that I've waited a couple of weeks for their initial traffic spikes to subside (though I didn't ask permission). Besides, it's probably fair use to repost video for the purposes of starting or continuing a discussion.

Without further ado, here I am talking about social media on camera. I was a little nervous, talked a little fast with some redundancies, and I still have a lisp (dammit!), but I think I got my points across despite all that.

Podcast: Kyle Kellams explains how NPR expands their news service without using a subscription model, and other topics

mpetty — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:27:04 +0000

Kyle Kellams, News Director for Northwest Arkansas' NPR affiliate.

In this podcast, I interview Kyle Kellams from our local NPR affiliate about the future of news. We cover a broad range of topics, and if you're interested in the changes happening to journalism, you'll enjoy this interview.

Most interesting to me was Kyle's explanation of how NPR continues to provide, even expand, its news reporting without implementing any kind of subscription service.

This podcast is about 40 minutes long, and it's my first attempt at doing this. If you have any suggestions for the format or delivery of the audio, please let me know. I am open to suggestions.

And if you have your own thoughts on the interview, please share them using the comments below.

Audio Podcast:

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

MatthewPetty.org - Future of Media Interview with Kyle Kellams.mp3

What's your blogging vice?

mpetty — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:50:17 +0000

In general, I try to make sure my posts don't just share links, that's what I use my Amplify account for. But this video was so inspirational to me, I felt like I should share it, even if I don't have much to add.

If you're a regular visitor to my blog, or a subscriber to my email list, you may have noticed how sporadic my posts are. That's a bad habit, and it's why I found this first link particularly helpful.

It comes from Darren Rowse at Problogger.net. It's titled: "What's your blogging vice?"

I'm one.

mpetty — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:24:41 +0000

I've seen this video before, but I keep going back to it every couple of months. It may have a few inaccuracies (I have not fact-checked it, and I'm skeptical of some of the claims), but it's so powerful to me that I can't help but be inspired.

What gets me every time is the simple fact that there are 90 million people in my generation. That's 20 million more than the baby boomers, and we'll all be voting age by 2016. With each passing election, we gain more and more political power.

What will the youth of America bring to the table?

Watch the video and find out. If you're really into this stuff, download the PDF, or buy the book.

The Five Stages of Social Media Grief

mpetty — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:31:40 +0000

I found this list on Scott Monty's website a few weeks ago, and I really liked it. He's the new media guru for Ford Motors, and he's adapted the grief model from psychology to social media.

It's really quite clever, and it reminds me of the social media resolution I brought to the Council near the beginning of the year. In the weeks after introducing the resolution, I watched the public go through each of these stages, until finally the resolution was passed and we entered stage 5: acceptance.

And next year, we'll be doing exactly what Monty says those in stage 5 do, develop a communications plan and an IT assessment.

Here is the list from Scott Monty's website, but you should really check out the entire article (more graphs 'n stuff):

The Five Stages of Social Media Grief, courtesy Scott Monty

Denial - first stage of social media grief in which the marketer refuses to acknowledge the existence of social media. This was the case early on in the industry's development. Luckily, I don't think there are many companies left that think like this.

Common phrases: "It's just a kid's thing," or "It's just a fad."

Common behaviors: avoiding the Internet, putting hands over ears and singing "I can't heeeeeaaaarr yoooouuuuu. La la laaaaa."
Anger - In the second stage, jealousy and rage are misplaced and rage ensues. Common phrases: "This is stupid," "I've got better things to do with my time."

Common behaviors: full-fledged slave to work email; increase in print or television media buy to show effectiveness and superiority.
Bargaining - Anger gives way to hope that incremental adoption of social media will be enough to make a difference.

Common phrases: "If we have a Facebook page, we should be covered," "Let's just create a blog," or "Let the agency figure it out."

Common behaviors: the use of social media only in time-limited campaigns; half-hearted efforts on a limited number of social sites.
Depression - The fourth stage manifests itself in an understanding that the inevitable cannot be delayed and the marketer becomes doleful.

Common phrases: "Twitter/Google/Facebook is taking over the world," or "We're overwhelmed with choices."

Common behaviors: moping; pacing; complaining to friends on Facebook.
Acceptance - With the final stage, the marketer finally realizes that social media is here to stay and begins to determine ways to integrate activities and craft strategies that are truly integrated.

Common phrases: "Let's craft a comprehensive social media strategy," or "Let's spend some time listening to what consumers are saying about us."

Common behaviors: integration of marketing and communications functions, determination of measurement goals, online and offline alignment from the beginning of projects.

Good stuff, eh? What stage do you think your company is in? Or our newspapers? Or our schools?

Reality check: the new era began a while ago

mpetty — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:20:06 +0000

Warren Stephens and Walter Hussman have joined forces to create a blessed spot for conglomerate media and move towards paid content at 'ludicrous speed.'

Today, each of the NWA Newspapers ran a story about the merger signaling “a new era” for news in our corner of the state. They even said “This region shall have the strongest, healthiest, newspapers in these United States. This 'blessed spot' will have more of what so many other regions are losing or have already lost.”

Blessed spot? That's the funniest thing I've heard...

I guess the editorial boards presume their biased media conglomerate is different from other media conglomerates. And I guess they think a region with zero print competitors (not even an independent weekly!) constitutes a “blessed spot” for print journalism.

Or, maybe I've got them wrong. Maybe they're finally realizing that the whole reason for the merger is that their model can't compete with social and independent media in the first place.

Nah... who am I kidding?