PINE BLUFF IS YOUR CITY
(State of the City Address, 2007)

A city is a collection of very different people who, to their own individual advantages, work, play, worship and live in the same limited geography.

A successful city, however, is a collection of diverse people who elect to share their burdens and resources, tangible and otherwise, to their mutual advantage. While the citizens of a successful city do happen to share life in the same geographical area, their city is really bound only by the scope of their ambitions, ideas and their determination to put those ideas to action.

Right now, Pine Bluff is simply a city. There are homes, churches and schools. There are employers, employees and customers here. There are restaurants, theaters, parks and other recreational venues. There are more than 55,000 people here, and an abundance of wonderful ideas for the advancement of this city. There is in Pine Bluff seemingly everything a city could need to be successful.

Why, then, is there a feeling of inferiority and dissatisfaction among some Pine Bluffians? Why do some of us believe success is out of our reach?

It is because so many, though not all of us, live from moment to moment, our minds occupied only by our loved ones, ourselves and our day-to-day existences. Too many Pine Bluffians tend to their own futures and leave our city’s future up to those active citizens among us who have taken ownership of this city.

That might work for some of us in the short term. As many of our current and former citizens have found, though, personal success and a high quality of life diminish over time if our neighbors are not able to achieve or maintain a comfortable level of satisfaction as well. How many Pine Bluffians have left us to reside in other cities because too few among us were civic-minded enough to maintain and improve upon what those Pine Bluffians who came before us bequeathed to us? Too many. How many of those who have left us, did so because they themselves were unwilling to roll up their sleeves and work to maintain and advance this city’s interests? Far too many.

Each citizen must recognize one very important truth: PINE BLUFF IS YOUR CITY!

What I posit here is not some sort of communal utopia. To the contrary I suggest that not only will Pine Bluff be better off through an increase in individual effort on behalf of the city, but that each of us will also be more likely to experience personal satisfaction, both material and spiritual, as a result. The personal satisfaction of a citizen with their city, then, relates directly to the effort that citizen has put into making their city a successful city for everyone.

For Pine Bluff to be the kind of city we all want it to be, each of us must do our part and disavow ourselves of the self-imposed alienation from our fellow citizens that has been so damaging to our city. None of us may absolve ourselves of our individual responsibility. As Marian Wright Edelman once stated, “If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.”

So, we know that none of us can wait on someone else to act in our stead for Pine Bluff’s benefit and that all of us must act to improve Pine Bluff, whether out of a sense of communal obligation or of individual self-interest.

Every citizen must understand that change is not immediate. It will take time to get some Pine Bluffians to buy into a community effort powered by individuals, and even then the effort will require perseverance.

A citizen must further contribute ideas and constructive criticism. Just as icing isn’t much without some cake underneath, even the most amazing idea is nothing without a determined effort to see it through to completion. Ideas demand action, and each citizen must determine to act.

To achieve success in restoring Pine Bluff, however, action must be in accordance with a plan. To that end, I will create in the first quarter of 2007 a task force that, with the aid of the Clinton School of Public Service, will produce a comprehensive long range plan of action for the City of Pine Bluff. Invited to participate will be representatives of the Economic Development Alliance of Jefferson County, Pine Bluff’s three school districts, our institutions of higher learning, financial institutions, faith-based institutions, grassroots organizations, local and state elected officials, private sector organizations, and anyone else that can contribute to the process.

Such joint public/private efforts have been successful for Pine Bluff and include the Donald W. Reynolds Community Center, the University Park Neighborhood Revitalization Project and the Lakeshore Pavilion.

Acquisition of land is underway for the University Park Neighborhood Revitalization Project. The Economic and Community Development Department acquired six parcels of land at a cost of $111,000 during 2006. This project, when fully realized, is expected to increase jobs through development, stabilize the community through homeownership, support crime reduction efforts, create community stakeholders, increase community pride, and enlarge the tax base.

While the University Park Neighborhood Revitalization Project will take some years to come to full fruition, the Lakeshore Pavilion will open the first half of this year. The $3 million pavilion complex project at Lake Pine Bluff Park will be a tourist destination for Southeast Arkansas. It will include a 10,000 square foot structure over the waters of Lake Pine Bluff, and will afford a new home for our farmers’ market, provide facilities for a host of outdoor recreation and education activities, and house the Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Department,.

The City will also hire a facilities and events coordinator to manage the activities at the pavilion as well as at Regional Park’s Lakeview Amphitheater and Waterfront Facility. The coordinator, working closely with the Pine Bluff Convention and Visitors Bureau, will act to promote and sustain activities and events at these facilities, providing Pine Bluffians with new recreational opportunities and drawing visitors…and their dollars…from all over the state and nation. The City firmly believes the pavilion will be a key component in the redevelopment of Pine Bluff’s downtown area and a contributor to the improvement of the quality of life for all Pine Bluffians.

Recognizing that small businesses are also crucial to the economic development of Pine Bluff and that two-thirds of all jobs created in this county are created by way of small businesses, the City also has great hopes for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s Small Business Incubator.

The incubator, along with the Pine Bluff Entrepreneurial Collaborative, will provide support to developing small businesses in the form of technology transfer expertise, back office functionality, business law professionals, state of the art laboratory equipment, and space to support existing businesses’ efforts to grow and create jobs. Its ultimate goal is the creation and support of entrepreneurs who will become valuable contributors to Pine Bluff and Southeast Arkansas’ economic base.

Sustainable economic development in Pine Bluff will not occur, however, without attaining a level of public safety expected by visitors and deserved by Pine Bluffians. To that end, in March of 2006, the City of Pine Bluff hired a new police chief, John Howell. Chief Howell has stated the police department’s intent to reduce crime in Pine Bluff by a minimum of five percent in 2007.

This administration, Chief Howell, and the dedicated men and women of the Pine Bluff Police Department will strive to accomplish that goal in a variety of ways.

The City is purchasing new reporting software for the police department, and to integrate with the new system will also purchase and install Toughbook laptop computers and digital video cameras in patrol vehicles. This state of the art technology, valued at approximately $800,000.00 will be purchased with grant dollars and other means of funding and will improve the department’s productivity regarding reporting, planning, training, operational and legal aspects.

The police department will also study ways to use more civilian personnel in those areas of the department’s administration and operations that do not require certified law enforcement officers, putting more of our current pool of officers on the street.

The police department will also continue to refine its recruiting process. Recruitment efforts in 2006 brought staffing levels up to 135 officers, just two short of the maximum staffing level of 137 budgeted by the Pine Bluff City Council. The City will persist in doing what it can to meet and maintain the staffing level authorized by the Council.

Pine Bluff patrol officers responded to roughly 60,000 calls for service, wrote 12,000 citations and 12,000 reports, arrested 3,700 adults and 570 juveniles, and investigated 1,600 accidents in 2006.

The department’s vice officers, our front line soldiers in the war on drugs, participated in 197 search warrant activities in 2006. That represents a 56 percent increase from 2005 and a 116 percent increase in those activities since 2004. In serving those warrants, they took nearly $635,000.00 in illegal drugs and 60 weapons off our streets and deprived drug merchants of $51,000 in cash.

Police detectives were also busy in 2006, investigating 407 burglaries, clearing a majority of them, and sending 714 cases to the prosecutor.

Complementing the City’s work to reduce crime will be the W.C. “Dub” Brassell Jefferson County Adult Detention Center. The new jail, scheduled to be complete and operational during the second quarter of this year, means local law enforcement officials and judges will finally have a place nearby to put away offenders, thereby keeping them off our streets and away from law abiding Pine Bluffians.

The City of Pine Bluff also offers active citizens many opportunities to participate in our community’s crime control and life quality improvement efforts. Central Park Weed and Seed, chaired by Chief Howell, was established in 2006. The University Park Weed and Seed program has been successful in reducing crime and improving quality of life in the northern part of our city. Participants in the new site’s program are confident the program will meet with success in the heart of Pine Bluff, too.

The program requires not only citizen participation, but inclusion of other City agencies like the Inspection and Zoning Department. Inspection work includes the demolition of unsafe, abandoned houses in neighborhoods like those in the Weed and Seed sites. In 2006, the inspection department caused the demolition of 126 such structures, as well as the removal of more than 1,000 inoperable vehicles from our neighborhoods. Aside from helping to curb crime by depriving criminals of havens for their illicit activities, these activities also contribute to efforts by City agencies like the Economic and Community Development Department to develop our city.

In 2006, we also saw the completion of the Indiana and 11th Avenue Street Improvement Project, which cost $202,000.000. The project site extended from East 10th Avenue to East 13th Avenue and included drainage, curb and gutter, retaining walls and asphalt overlay.

The construction continues on the Eureka Heights Housing Development Project at 19th and Lee Street. The $800,000 project includes the construction of a new street and eight affordable housing units in partnership with the Pine Bluff Housing Authority. Completion of the project is expected by the fall of 2007.

The department submitted an update of its Consolidated Plan, which includes projects and strategies for the City of Pine Bluff, to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The request for funding totaled $1.5 million dollars for 2007 between the CDBG and HOME Programs.

The City of Pine Bluff has acquired three properties in the Central Park site and plans to develop each location into affordable housing. These units will be available to low and moderate income families. The City will provide homebuyer assistance to eligible buyers wanting to purchase.

The City of Pine Bluff will focus additional code enforcement attention in 2007 in the Circle Drive area between W. 17th and West 23rd Avenue, in the Central Park Weed and Seed site.

Programs like Weed and Seed, along with other community-oriented policing programs like the SAFE Team and Neighborhood Watch, will continue to contribute to the City of Pine Bluff’s crime reduction, quality of life and economic development strategy in 2007 and into the future.

Neither will Pine Bluff continue to develop without the parallel development of our educational institutions. Understanding this, residents in the Pine Bluff School District and other responsible citizens in 2006 sustained a millage increase for the district that will represent an ongoing $30 million investment in our public education facilities. Pine Bluffians also contributed to the approval of the Arkansas Higher Education Technology and Facility Improvement Act in November. Passage of that act will bring $7 million to UAPB and Southeast Arkansas College (SEARK) for technology and facility upgrades. Our citizens’ support of both initiatives is an investment to help Pine Bluffians develop work skills useful to local employers and in the global market.

Pine Bluff’s development will also require investment at all levels and from all sectors.

We need private investors in Pine Bluff, from within and without. It is for that reason that the City is working towards partnering with public and private agencies in Pine Bluff to retain the services of a retail industry consulting firm. Such a consultant will help us attract retail businesses appropriate to regional buying habits.

Local governments must also invest in themselves to maintain their ability to meet the ever growing need for services. It is for this reason that members of the Pine Bluff City Council and I met with state representatives and senators in December to solicit their support in supplementing our own efforts to meet the City’s capital investment needs.

It holds to reason, after all, that if citizens of Pine Bluff have a responsibility to their city, elected officials of the state also have a responsibility to promote viability in every corner of the state, particularly in the Delta.

The City has recently completed a salary survey that demonstrates it is far behind other like cities in paying its employees market value salaries for their skills. The survey also indicates the City has few guidelines in place, guidelines which are “best practices” at other municipal governments and private corporations, to promote merit-based compensation. As such, I will present to the Pine Bluff City Council at the first council meeting of March a plan to address those shortcomings. To provide the best possible service to the citizens of Pine Bluff, we must invest in our human resources as well as our capital resources. If we do nothing, our level of service will suffer as the City loses employees to employers whose pay is competitive with the market as it relates to their skill sets.

Not all civic participation must be on such a grand scale, though the results of that participation may be grand. Investment by an individual in their city must not always mean big bucks. Shopping and dining locally, for instance, is a simple but far reaching way citizens can invest in their city’s future. Buying a home or maintaining and improving a property you already own or occupy will also promote our city’s advancement. Joining a civic club or neighborhood watch organization is also effective.

There are a myriad of ways we Pine Bluffians may acknowledge our civic responsibilities and contribute to the success of our city. Again, we must make determined, planned action on behalf of our city, our neighbors and ourselves a point of pride in Pine Bluff. And make no mistake, in addition to the aforementioned opportunities and projects realized last year or to be realized in months to come, we in Pine Bluff have much of which we can be proud.

We have the 2006 Southwest Athletic Conference (SWAC) Western Division Championship football team in our UAPB Golden Lions and a new ABA professional basketball franchise, the Rivercatz. The patronage of Pine Bluff and Southeast Arkansas residents at our new Chili’s restaurant has surpassed all expectations and demonstrates to other restaurateurs and retailers that there are other market opportunities here.

Pine Bluff really does have much to offer its citizens and much to offer the world. Just think of what Pine Bluff can accomplish when even more of us have recognized our responsibility in making Pine Bluff the safe, successful and self-respecting city we all want it to be. Just remember:

PINE BLUFF IS YOUR CITY!