State of the City of Pine Bluff, Arkansas
January / February 2006
City officials know from meetings they attend, from newspaper articles they read, from television reports they see and from just talking to the people of this community that Pine Bluffians from all walks of life crave three things for our beloved city:
Pine Bluffians crave safety. We want our children to be safe. We want to be safe in our homes and neighborhoods. We want our businesses to be protected. We are tired of being afraid and tired of others being afraid to come to Pine Bluff.
We hunger for success. We want successful retailers, restaurants and industry. We want successful small businesses and schools. We want successful sons, daughters and families. We want successful careers and, yes, we want successful local governments.
This city yearns for community self-respect. We want to be proud of ourselves, our homes and, again, our local governments. We want to be proud to be Pine Bluffians and, yes, we want the respect of people from other communities.
Pine Bluffians will no longer settle for anything less than a higher standard of living, a better quality of life. Safety, success and self-respect are essential components of that higher quality of life.
We justly expect our local governments to be our agents in securing those components. Last year, in 2005, the City of Pine Bluff demonstrated that it is a capable agent for positive change. It also demonstrated that there is still much more work to be done before Pine Bluff is again the safe, successful and self-respecting city all Pine Bluffians deserve.
In 2006, Pine Bluffians will see even more positive steps toward our ultimate goal. However, the City of Pine Bluff can’t go it alone. We need the participation of every Pine Bluffian. The City needs the vast and diverse pool of our talented people to be more than just residents; we need an active, engaged citizenry. And because we as Pine Bluffians will share in the fate of this community, whether bad or good, we must likewise act in concert to ensure that the outcome is good. We must achieve safety, success and self-respect through collaborative action.
The first groups of people - the first clans, tribes and villages - developed out of a common human need for security. From that need…and from collaborative action…civilization arose. Consequently, the provision of public safety remains the primary mission of all governments to this day… including the City of Pine Bluff. Keep in mind that after all the budget cuts and staff reductions of the previous several years, the City still spends more than one third of the entire general fund on the Police Department.
Because the City embraces its public safety responsibility, its citizens may be assured that 2006 will mark an all out confrontation with crime in Pine Bluff. Much as the military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies of our nation are even now waging global war against terrorists and those who support them, this City will give its every effort in thwarting criminals, bringing every resource to bear on them, denying them safe haven, and destroying their ability and desire to do wrong in our community.
City officials recognize that 2005 was a hard year for citizens from a public safety perspective. Pine Bluffians endured an 11.75 percent upsurge in crime from the previous year, with violent crimes increasing 1.71 percent and property crimes by 11.75 percent.
Our citizens were not alone, though, as other Arkansas communities, particularly Little Rock and Hot Springs, had to contend with the same issue as they neared the top of the crime stats pack themselves.
The hardworking professionals of the Pine Bluff Police Department, however, ably responded to the increase, issuing more than 13,600 criminal and traffic citations from roughly 58,000 separate incidents to which they were dispatched in 2005.
The department’s Bureau of Investigations resolved nearly 88 percent of the 2,053 cases it worked in 2005, and cleared by arrest 14 of the year’s 15 homicides. In all, the bureau filed 919 felony cases with the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, a 34 percent increase from the previous year, and served 63 arrest and search warrants.
The Vice and Narcotics Unit worked 308 cases in 2005, resulting in 266 arrests and the seizure of six vehicles, 59 firearms, $54,000 in cash, and illegal substances valued at close to a quarter of a million dollars. The unit also recovered stolen property valued at approximately $28,000. Vice detectives wrote and served numerous search warrants, raided gambling houses, conducted two prostitution stings and discovered 17 methamphetamine manufacturing labs.
As is plainly evident from these figures, our officers are working hard for the people of Pine Bluff. Despite their tremendous efforts, though, the current crime rate is intolerable for Pine Bluffians. We must do more to reverse the upswing in crime in our city.
Like all City departments, recent years have seen curtailed funding and staffing reductions at the Police Department. These have obviously had a negative effect on the City’s current ability to fight crime. In order to reduce crime in our community, we must make it a priority to increase the number of officers in the department to the originally authorized level of 157 officers.
To that end, the City of Pine Bluff will refine its officer recruitment and retention plans and looks to increase the pool of uniformed police officers by an average of six officers per year for the next three years. Where desirable, the City will also move to put civilians into positions currently occupied by sworn law enforcement officers. That will mean more officers on our streets.
As we have seen, however, manpower alone isn’t the answer. Training, whether it involves tactical, strategic, or philosophical issues, is also crucial to successful law enforcement activities. Apart from traditional training, our officers will be given the opportunity in 2006 to attend the “Police Dynamics” seminar through Pine Bluff’s Character First! initiative. Presented by nationally renowned Dorchester County, South Carolina, Sheriff Ray Nash, the seminar details how officers and police departments can both better interact with citizens and also reduce crime. We are very excited at the prospect of this seminar because Sheriff Nash used the very tenets he will discuss with us to reduce the crime rate by 32 percent in his community.
In addition to training, the City will also increase its efforts to identify and secure grants from which additional revenues will be used, among other things, to support the City’s law enforcement activities. Grants have already been targeted, for example, that could help the City replace the Police Department’s failing automated reporting system with a state-of-the-art system that meets the department’s current needs and better supports our officers’ hard work. Information technology dramatically increases work and planning efficiencies, and investments in our technology infrastructure such as this…not just at the Police Department…will likely address some of our current operational deficiencies. In other words, it would allow the City to become more productive and efficient.
The City can also do more by revisiting tried-but-true strategies that have fallen by the wayside and by looking out for new strategies that will help our officers in their mission. We know from Pine Bluff’s recent past that community-oriented policing programs such as bicycle patrolling work. Fortunately, in the fourth quarter of 2005 the Police Department took steps to revitalize its bike patrol program and established bike officers in three of the highest crime areas of the city. It is our hope that, along with the expansion of the Weed and Seed program, such strategies will develop further in 2006 and, with the potential return of school resource officers and the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training), and SHOT (See it, Hear it, Tell it.) programs to our community’s schools, return our law enforcement efforts to a proactive posture.
In furtherance of this initiative, the Police Department…along with other participating City agencies…will strengthen its support of the SAFE (Support Abatement with Fines and Enforcement) Team effort that has been tremendously successful for North Little Rock and which has had some success here, as well.
In simple terms, the SAFE concept entails increased interaction and information sharing among departments to reduce crime and increase quality of life in Pine Bluff. The code enforcement officers of our Inspection and Zoning Department and our fire marshals can approach a problem…and solve it…from a different legal and operational direction than can the Police Department. So, in essence, the City can support the Police Department’s mission by way of the execution of the mission of other departments.
Experience has shown that our physical environment greatly influences crime. Some properties…an open and vacant house, for example…present not only hazardous nuisances to their neighborhoods, but they also attract criminals. If a police officer were to make an arrest at such a house, the suspect might bond out or be released because of jail overcrowding in a matter of only hours after the arrest. If violations were to exist at the same address, however, code enforcement officers could put enough pressure on the property owner to board it up temporarily or to demolish the house, thus removing the nuisance from the neighborhood…along with any criminal element. So, in addition to improving our quality of life, the code enforcement officers of the City’s Inspection and Zoning Department can also have a tremendous impact on the reduction of crime.
Code enforcement operations led to the demolition of 146 unsafe structures in 2005 - a 90 percent increase over 2004 demolitions – as well as the removal or repair of 571 inoperable or abandoned vehicles and the clearance of 2,874 junked or overgrown lots. Now, while these efforts are in keeping with the department’s mission of improving our health, safety, quality of life and self-respect in Pine Bluff, they also support the Police Department’s public safety mission.
Pine Bluff Animal Control provides support to the SAFE Team concept in a similar fashion, and in 2005 Animal Control took action on more than 7,000 incidents regarding citizen complaints and calls for services. Its pet compliance program resulted in the issuing of 260 violation / control notices and written orders of corrections. The Animal Control shelter housed nearly 3,000 animals in 2005, including about 1,600 nuisance stray animals that were captured and removed from various neighborhoods within the city. These enforcement strategies contributed to a reduction in the number of reported animal bites and attacks from previous years with only 40 reported incidents.
The Pine Bluff Fire Department’s fire marshals support the SAFE Team mission as well, along with their own mission: protecting Pine Bluffians and their property from fire.
The Fire Department responded to almost 1,500 fire calls in 2005, an eight percent increase over 2004. The department also responded to roughly 2,800 EMS calls in 2005, a four percent increase from the previous year. The total emergency call volume for 2005 was nearly 4,300.
Sadly, despite the elite status of our Fire Department, Pine Bluff lost two citizens to house fires in 2005. There is some small comfort, however, in that this represents four fewer fire fatalities than we experienced in the previous year.
In 2006, the Fire Department will continue the fire safety and prevention education aspects of its mission. Along with the department’s quick and proficient response to emergencies, the education program remains a key ingredient in reducing fires, saving lives and preventing property loss. Safety is also an issue for firefighters themselves and, as such, safety training continued apace and new equipment and systems were introduced.
Many such improvements were funded not out of the city general fund, but from federal grant monies. In a continued effort to help alleviate the city’s financial condition, the Fire Department will continue to pursue all grant opportunities…as will other departments of the City.
And though the new revenues generated through grants like those received in 2005 by the Police, Fire, Airport, Parks and Street Departments are still very much needed, the City of Pine Bluff did witness an increase in its revenues in 2005, with a $610,000 increase over 2004 in the general fund…almost a 3 percent increase.
The City Collector’s Office collected almost $750,000 in occupation taxes for the year…about a 10 percent increase from the previous year, while advertising and promotion taxes held roughly even at $1.4 million. Total court fine collections from both divisions of District Court in 2005 came to $1.5 million, a 22 percent increase from 2004. The Collector also took in roughly $2.5 million in sanitation revenues and $61,000 in mixed drink taxes. In total, the office collected more than $6.1 million for the year.
The increased revenues may in part be attributed to the development going on in Pine Bluff. The Inspection and Zoning Department, a city agency that works closely with developers, reported more than $47 million in new construction in 2005. This new construction resulted in the issuance of 652 zoning permits, 210 new business permits, the construction of 54 new single family residences, five new duplexes, two new apartment complexes, 19 new commercial buildings, 12 new commercial additions, 542 new residential remodels and 65 commercial remodels. For the same year, the Inspection Department sold nearly 3,000 permits generating city revenues of more than a quarter of a million dollars.
As can be seen from these figures, the Inspection and Zoning Department contributes greatly to not only the safety and self-respect of Pine Bluffians, but to the success of this city as well.
Other departments contributed in their own ways to Pine Bluff‘s success and self-respect. The Economic and Community Development Department completed the planning phase of its five-year 2005 Consolidated Plan and began the first year implementation of projects in the plan. In 2005 the department completed 29 units of new and redeveloped housing throughout the city. We assisted 18 families to purchase their first homes and prepared 28 families with various forms of homebuyer counseling before purchase. While the City of Pine Bluff is determined to encourage the development of all kinds of housing for residents, homeowners – true stakeholders in this community - are especially valued as they are most likely to maintain their property properly and to participate in community affairs as active, engaged citizens.
One of our major housing developments, Turtle Creek, will provide 20 newly constructed single-family homes for primarily moderate-income people. Seven Turtle Creek homes have been built and sold to date, with seven more to come in 2006.
Similarly, the University Park plan will bring new construction, reconstruction as well as single and multi-family housing rehabilitation to Pine Bluff’s north side over the next five years, and the acquisition of properties in the area has already begun.
The Community Development Department, in partnership with the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, began construction of the UAPB Small Business Incubator Project, and completion is scheduled for the second quarter of 2006. This project will provide needed tools and support to Pine Bluff’s entrepreneurs and is a step in the right direction…the direction being self-respect and success for Pine Bluffians.
Another such step began several years ago as a dream, the first phase of construction for the Lakeshore Pavilion Project in Lake Pine Bluff Park, will finally be realized in 2006. The facility will provide Pine Bluffians a unique outdoor recreation facility and will also be the home of our farmers’ market. Potentially, the pavilion will also house the Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Department and is considered an anchor for future development for our downtown. This project, begun with seed money donated by Simmons First National Bank in celebration of that institution’s 100th anniversary, has truly been an example of the collaborative action this city needs, with further contributions in money, labor and support coming from Jefferson County, the City of Pine Bluff, the federal Economic Development Administration, the Southeast Arkansas Economic Development District, HUD, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Pine Bluff Downtown Development, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, the Arkansas legislature - through improvement dollars secured by Booker Clemons, our District 16 representative – and too many more engaged individuals and organizations to mention further, here and now.
In 2006 the Economic and Community Development Department will persist in focusing its attention on development in the downtown area and the targeted pursuit of retailers looking for new communities in which to invest. The department will continue efforts to reach out to other agencies whose expertise and resources can help the department further its own mission. Community Development, along with other City departments and local organizations, met with representatives of the Federal Reserve with that in mind in 2005 and all involved came back with a wealth of information that will only further this City’s agenda for progress.
Community Development will also collaborate with the Pine Bluff Street Department on the 20th Avenue and Main Street Drainage project. The purpose of this project, an addition to the 1993 Pitts Drain project, will improve safety at that intersection and reduce flooding on 20th Avenue, between Olive and Alabama Streets.
Infrastructural improvements such as these not only improve our quality of life directly, but they do so indirectly by making Pine Bluff more attractive…more respectable…to nonresidents, including site location representatives of businesses looking for potential areas in which to expand their areas of operation.
Contributing further to our City’s transportation infrastructure, the Pine Bluff Street Department maintained approximately 400 miles of paved City streets in 2005. This entailed sealing 30 miles of street and completing more than $350,000.00 worth of overlays…or approximately 20 miles of newly paved streets, a forty percent increase beyond 2004. Milled and paved were Hazel Street between 28th and 42nd, Emmett Sanders Road, and various other intersections throughout Pine Bluff. The department also straightened the curve in the 2300 block of Main Street.
As CLEAN (Community Litter Elimination Action Network) Campaign participants contributing to Pine Bluff‘s self-respect and success…the Street Department continued to pick up limbs and other related debris about fifteen Saturdays in 2005 and continues to host dumpsters…contributed by Waste Management of Arkansas…in its compound at 16th and Pennsylvania free for use by the private citizens of Pine Bluff.
Expanding on its participation, the Street Department will implement in the first quarter of 2006 a household hazardous waste collection point at its Ohio Street compound. Residents will be able to bring such items as pesticides, fertilizers, mercury products, household cleaning agents, automotive chemicals and the like to the collection site at no cost. These items are no longer accepted at landfills such as that operated by Waste Management in Jefferson County.
In keeping with its other mission of maintaining Pine Bluff’s drainage system the Street Department cleaned 250 miles of ditches, mowed along the edges of the city’s streets, installed 80 feet of pipe on Emmett Sanders Road for drainage improvement, and installed approximately 3,000 feet of pipe at no cost to property owners.
Grider Field Municipal Airport is also a valued contributor to Pine Bluff’s transportation infrastructure. The airport completed a hangar rehabilitation project in 2005 that represents a $380,000 investment in this important facility. The project was funded through grants from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics. The project’s completion greatly enhanced the aesthetic and functional value of the Airport.
The Airport gained eight new tenants in 2005 and will continue its efforts to attract new tenants, increase activity and improve revenues for the airport. As such, the Airport has initiated a new eight bay T-hangar project expected to begin this year and be completed in 2007. Of the $485,000 project cost, the Federal Aviation Administration will fund $285,000, the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics $158,000, and the City of Pine Bluff $42,000…given Pine Bluff City Council approval.
The Airport has also begun discussions with Pine Bluff Cable TV regarding extending broadband cable service to the area of the Airport. The benefits of this would be manifold. The Airport would be able to use broadband service to provide quick and reliable Internet-based weather information to pilots. The availability of broadband also makes the Airport more attractive to existing and potential tenants, both individual and commercial.
The sale of surplus Airport vehicles funded a new airway communication system that allows for better communications with air traffic and more flexibility for the Airport staff.
Pine Bluff Transit is yet another important transportation infrastructure component for the City Pine Bluff. A full year’s funding in 2005…as opposed to 2004…allowed better planning of Transit expenditures. Transit received a funding increase from the Federal Transit Administration and continued supplemental funding from the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. Recovering somewhat from the 2004 rate increase and route reduction…and no doubt in relation to rising fuel prices…ridership increased in 2005.
Pine Bluff Transit is further pursuing arrangements that would allow for students of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff to ride City buses as often as they like for only a small amount of money assessed per credit hour. Students would benefit because of fuel cost savings and the City would benefit in that revenues generated from such an arrangement would provide the City with match money for grants that could allow the City to secure another bus and provide thirty minute…rather than hourly…bus service to the students. The City is further discussing with the university the provision of Transit shuttle service and free Transit service for games and parades.
Transit remains a vital component of city services. Not only does it provide access to jobs that some Pine Bluffians might not otherwise have been able to afford, but it is also a good tool for attracting conventions to the Pine Bluff Convention Center.
Having lost access to state turn-back revenues between 2001 and 2005, the Pine Bluff Convention Center has done much in the intervening years to reduce costs while providing the same excellent facilities and services. Needs at the Convention Center, however, have outpaced revenues. Of most pressing concern is the need to replace the Convention Center’s leaking roof, a project that is expected to cost $100,000. A loan has been proposed as a means of financing the roof project. With creativity and perseverance, we will keep the Convention Center a viable tool in our work to make this a more successful community.
All these infrastructural departments, including Pine Bluff Wastewater Utility, are necessary as we close in on our targets of self- respect and success. The Wastewater Utility is in the process of upgrading its Boyd Point Treatment Facility to give the City of Pine Bluff a 40 percent increase in capacity for residential, industrial and commercial customers. Wastewater expects to complete the upgrade in early 2006.
Much like those infrastructural departments, a city’s parks and their attending outdoor recreation opportunities are a significant contributing factor to a community’s identity and quality of life…to its self-respect. Parks can also play a part in a city’s success in that they can contribute to a family’s - or even a company’s - decision on whether to relocate to or remain in a community.
Recognizing this, Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation began in 2005 the system-wide repair, replacement and upgrade of facilities and equipment as suggested by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. These activities include the demolition of unsafe buildings on Parks property, the removal and replacement of unsafe playground equipment at the Civitan playground and softball complex at Regional Park, efforts to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, renovations to the Bloom Tennis Center, the introduction of a sewer pumping station to the Saracen Trace Recreational Vehicle Park in Regional Park and a host of other initiatives.
One such initiative of note is the renovation of the Townsend Park’s “Big Rec” recreation center. To supplement improvement dollars secured for the project by Stephanie Flowers, our District 11 state representative, a group of citizens, the Big Rec Project Committee, is privately raising funds for the renovation. Upon completion, the Big Rec is expected to expand the scope of what both Parks and Recreation and the Citizens Boys and Girls Club can offer citizens.
These are all improvements that have been neglected over the years, detracting from the quality life in Pine Bluff. Efforts such as these, through an update of the Parks master plan in 2006, will not only return to Pine Bluffians the quality green space they deserve, but they are also imperative as the City continues to pursue state parks grants in coming years.
In years to come, with the re-greening of our green space, so to speak, Pine Bluffians will also notice a renaissance of their city. But as we grow to meet our future, we must not forget our past. The year 2005 saw the introduction of the Pine Bluff Historic District Commission, and 2006 will witness the growth of that initiative. This can be another important element in defining our city’s identity, maintaining its heritage and promoting our city in other communities…proudly.
Pine Bluffians can also be proud that their City Council took a state-wide leadership role in 2005 when it adopted progressive legislation limiting smoking in restaurants and other places of business. The smoking ordinance was not only a public health-conscious initiative, but it also demonstrated the self-respect of Pine Bluffians who supported it and garnered much respect from communities all over Arkansas. We can be proud that we have provided a model for so many other cities. Furthermore, naysayers were proved wrong about the ordinance in that advertising and promotions, or hamburger, tax revenues remained steady for the year, even in the face of the closure of a number of popular restaurants for nonpayment of state taxes.
Success and self-respect will also come from improvements to Pine Bluff’s schools and it is for this reason that Pine Bluffians should sustain the millage increase for the Pine Bluff School District. That investment in safe and modern facilities, up-to-date equipment and state-of-the-art technologies will provide our children the best chance possible of securing for themselves success and the American dream. In the process, they will also secure for Pine Bluff our community’s dream of once again becoming the vital, vibrant and successful city…the leader for Southeast Arkansas…that we once were.
Just as we won’t achieve that dream without reducing crime, likewise it will not be realized without good schools. So, as the City of Pine Bluff seeks your collaboration in working for a better Pine Bluff, so does the Pine Bluff Schools District need the partnership of the City and all Pine Bluffians in taking this new step toward elevating opportunities for our children, our pathway to the future. In this modern, globalized economy it is essential to this city’s success that we be smarter about education in Pine Bluff .
Perceptions…and oftentimes misperceptions…about Pine Bluff also affect that ability. Pine Bluffians should realize their own negative comments about this community feed the misperceptions about Pine Bluff of people from other communities, making progress for this city even more difficult. Understanding this, a group of Pine Bluffians has banded together as the Pine Bluff Image Campaign Committee, to shore up this community’s image…it’s self-respect…and promote an accurately positive image of Pine Bluff in other communities.
The Character Council of Southeast Arkansas’s Character First! initiative should complement the Image Committee’s efforts well. In 2001 Third Ward Alderman Bill Brumett introduced legislation that led to the identification of Pine Bluff as a “City of Character”. It wasn’t until 2005, however, that the full realization of Alderman Brumett’s legislation came about. Through the Character Council, 2006 will see the continuation of the Character First! initiative’s regime of educating all sectors of our community in those qualities that make us better individuals, family members, employers, employees, students, citizens and public servants. Those qualities also make for successful communities, proud communities that command respect from others.
City of Pine Bluff employees showed great character of their own in 2005. The members of the Pine Bluff Fire Department distinguished themselves as engaged and compassionate individuals in their selfless efforts to aid our Hurricane Katrina guests, as did Pine Bluff Transit employees and others…not to mention the great outpouring from our compassionate community, our non-profit community service agencies and our active, engaged citizenry.
City employees also gave of themselves in support of the United Way of Southeast Arkansas. Pine Bluff Wastewater Utility employees, who by far gave the most of any City department, should be particularly proud of their contributions to the campaign. Keep in mind that these contributions of their time and money…above and beyond the call of duty…have come despite a lack of significant raises, even cost of living adjustments, for roughly four years now.
Thinking smarter in 2005, the City changed health insurance plans. The new plan, offered through the Arkansas Municipal League, will not only save the City roughly $300,000 annually, but it will also provide our employees with more benefits at less cost to them.
The City’s Human Resources Department will not only provide plan administration for the new insurance program in 2006, but it will also proceed with plans to secure a professionally conducted salary survey. The survey will not only support Human Resource operations, but should also provide employees with rational, objective guidelines upon which pay rates, pay increase, promotions and the like can be based.
City employees are actively engaged to the benefit of this community, and by that example hope to encourage others in Pine Bluff to do the same. So, come to council meetings, join a civic club, volunteer, do anything you can to help us move forward. Remember it is only through your help, through collaborative action, that the City of Pine Bluff will be able to achieve the safety, success and self-respect we all want for Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Thank you for your time and attention. A copy of this address and of each departmental end-of-year report for 2005 will be on file with the City Clerk following this meeting.