Sunday, August 07, 2005

The President Stops Centerton Water Treatment!

By Mark Moore (click "comments" below for article).

2 Comments:

Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

I heard an astounding report on KURM radio yesterday. The normally conservative 790AM station is in Rogers. They report that President Bush and Governor Mike Huckabee intervened to prevent the city of Centerton from building a much-needed water treatment plant.

Centerton Mayor Ken Williams claimed that a very well connected individual objected to the water treatment plant being built on that specific piece of land. Mayor Williams said that this individual was able to get through to President Bush, and that the President contacted Governor Mike Huckabee. The Arkansas Department of Water Quality was to hold a hearing to determine if the plant could go forward. The mayor said that the chairman told him before the hearing, before Williams could make his case, that they were going to deny him the request.

Sure enough, after a meeting in which the chairman left the room even as the mayor and others were presenting the evidence, permission to grant the project was denied. Willaims said that in all his years of public service he had never been at a hearing where the chairman left the room as people were making their case.

This is a bizarre story, more like something we would hear about in a third world country rather than the way government is supposed to be done in America. When I first heard it on KURM I literally did not believe my ears. It was only after they ran the report a second time did it really sink in. Ken Williams is well known in Benton County and is a highly regarded mayor of a rapidly growing city. If says something like this publically then he has good reason.

7:41 AM, August 07, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

C'mon folks. This happened. Is there not one of you who has a comment? Not one of you who heard the same report?

9:14 PM, August 23, 2005  

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