Freshmen council members named Headliners of the Year

The three freshmen Blytheville City Council members brought a new energy and fresh ideas to the table in 2011.

Council members John Musgraves, Missy Langston and Stan Parks generated a number of positive headlines this year, not the least of which were taking recycling to another level and the CleanerSafer Blytheville campaign that brought hundreds together for a common cause.

For their efforts, the trio shared the Courier News Headliner of the Year honor.

"I can't speak enough about their helpfulness, their enthusiasm and the commitment that they have for the job that they've taken on," Blytheville Mayor James Sanders said. "Often times, people come into a position and they are dealing with self and only trying to make themselves look better. These three Council members have come in, they've helped me. I can bounce ideas off them. They've been supportive when they need to be and they've been critics when they believe that they should be. That's what it's going to take to make government work, not everybody having one train of thought. We have one main goal and that is to make Blytheville better. They bring a lot to the table. I've seen a lot of good things that have happened because of them being the Council members that they are. And I'm expecting even more things. They set the bar high for themselves the first year. Each of them still have three more years to contribute. I want to see what they're going to do to top what they've done the first year."

All three found their first year to be challenging, but rewarding at the same time.

Ward 2 representative Langston said: "My whole purpose in running last fall was to try and make a difference and to inspire people my age who feel like they don't have the time or don't know enough about city politics to get involved and to stay involved. I kept seeing friends and families my age leave and give up and not get involved in city politics. I decided I needed to put my money where my mouth is and learn as much as I could. It's been a huge learning experience this year. I don't know that I've had enough time to make a big difference yet, but we've taken some little steps."

Ward 1 representative Parks and Ward 3 representative Musgraves offered similar sentiments.

"It was challenging, to say the least," Musgraves said, noting council members get to see what goes on behind the scenes. "You get a true feel of what politics is about. You get a chance to understand the dynamics of it, how it affects the city, how it affects the people in the city. Being a councilman has its ups and downs. I learned this: you can't satisfy everybody. When you zig, somebody is going to say, why didn't you zag."

Parks added: "It's been challenging and a learning experience. It's been rewarding trying to help the community."

All three say they learned a lot at the winter and summer Municipal League conventions.

The council members not only picked up tips, but they networked with other leaders of different cities and learned more about each other.

Langston said she enjoys working with the other Council members.

"We all, I think, had the same passion when we were elected to make a difference and represent the people in our wards and I think we've done that," she said. "There's more to do ... It's a challenge, but it's worth it. It's my hometown. I'm not going to give up."

Musgraves noted the veteran Council members, Shirley Overman and Mylas Jeffers, showed them the ropes and never treated them like the new guys on the block. Councilman Monte Hodges has been an asset as well.

"We have really bonded well," Parks said.

Musgraves said: "Everybody has their own ideas; we don't always agree on everything. And that's a good thing because you have to work together. You find out what the needs are. By us coming together, it made a difference."

"We've had a cohesiveness," Musgraves added. "This is the only thing that is going to help move our city forward -- that positive atmosphere that we share. We have to have that working relationship because this is our city. We can't move our city forward bickering at each other."

Parks said the city's governing body has looked at the long-term effects of decisions, not just the short-term.

"We're not going there just to say I'm on the Council," Musgraves said. "We're looking at what we can do to make Blytheville better."

Advocating recycling

As chair of the Health and Sanitation Committee, Langston has played a key role in moving recycling forward this year.

Continuing to learn the ins and outs of the department, Langston serves as a major advocate for city-wide recycling, a program former City Councilwoman Shirley Connealy championed for years.

Langston visited civic clubs and organizations to promote the underutilized recycling program and even earned a spot on a county subcommittee that doled out grant funding for the blue recycling bags. The city then began weekly curbside pickup in August.

"There's always ways to improve it," Langston said. "We hope to get designated trucks that will drive by and pick up the blue recycling bags. Eventually, we want to do away with the blue recycling bags altogether and have crates because the blue bags create another item that has to be recycled. We hope that is going to save money, save trips to the landfill. There are a lot of opportunities in recycling."

She added residents are becoming aware of its value, both in being good for the earth and saving on landfill costs.

Meanwhile, Langston said the city will continue working to improve its services. She said she enjoys hearing comments from citizens.

"I hope that the community will be patient and supportive and continue to share their concerns with me, either through emails or phone calls," she said. "I'm always happy to take them. I hope that they will be understanding of the situation that we're in with the ($3.2 million) payroll tax debt (to the IRS). No one on the City Council knew about that. It was overwhelming, yet with the help of attorneys, and Legislative Audit, hopefully, we're going to get all of the exact answers that everyone wants and needs. We just ask for a little more patience on that. I have the same questions everyone else does."

Cleanup

unites community

As Parks and Musgraves campaigned last year, they became friends and began discussing ways to make the city a better place to live.

Parks started researching what other communities have done, finding ways they came together and cleaned up distressed areas.

Together, Parks and Musgraves had a vision for the CleanerSafer Blytheville program, which united hundreds of all backgrounds to clean up neglected parts of south and west Blytheville.

The councilmen got local churches involved. In fact, the executive board was comprised of local pastors, led by Pastor Paul Strong.

An estimated 800-1,000 worked the first cleanup. They used their own equipment to trim trees, clear alleys and clean lots, filling 56 40-yard dumpsters in a four-hour period. The county even partnered with the city by waiving the landfill fees. The second cleanup also had hundreds of participants.

"A lot of times, people in that environment lose hope and don't feel like they are a part of the community," Parks said. " I think what we did, coming together, when he (Musgraves) came up with the idea to involve the churches, that was great because the foundation of the community is our churches. Through them, we were able to reach more people, quicker. The greatest thing about the cleanup was the boundaries that we crossed."

Parks noted they broke down racial, age, gender and socioeconomic status barriers in the effort.

"The Lord put it on my heart that we've got to get these pastors involved," Musgraves said. "I had the opportunity to meet some of the best pastors in Arkansas, in Blytheville. The pastors didn't say I'm a leader and I want to lead this thing. We asked Pastor Paul Strong to help us and he took the ball and he ran with it. I've had so many pastors tell me about Pastor Paul -- this guy is a fireball for the Lord and his vision is so overwhelming. But these pastors took his lead. They didn't say, this guy is a young pastor. They believed in him. They took his vision and they ran with it. The end result was all of these pastors coming together. The cleanup day was so overwhelming; I got chills watching the people come in. I stopped at the stop sign at McHaney and 21st and I said, 'Lord, nah.' The people were just coming and coming. God gets the glory for this."

Parks added: "As our slogan said, we showed there was unity in our community. And we all can come together for a common cause."

Musgraves thanked local resident Gertrude Smith for coming up with the slogan. Smith, who attends nearly every city meeting, pointed out the word unity is in community.

"That's what is going to have to happen," Musgraves said. "We've still got a long way to go. This is just the tip of the iceberg."

He added residents are keeping those areas clean.

"They have pride about it now," Musgraves said. "That really makes you feel good."

Parks pointed out each pastor brought a different strength to the cleanup effort.

"Everybody had their own specialty and it all just meshed together," Parks said. "The only way it could come together so smoothly is by God having his hand in it."

Musgraves and Parks thanked everyone involved in the cleanups, particularly Nucor and Walmart.

Two more are planned in the spring.

mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com