By Marcus McClain
NEA Town Courier
The Blytheville mayor’s office organized a town hall on June 27 at the Ritz Civic Center, the first of its kind in recent history.
Previously, councilman R.L. Jones has arranged community meetings at the library during summer months, but few have been attended by department heads, city attorneys and the mayor as well.
Concerns from the citizens were fielded through the mayor’s office prior to the meeting and addressed accordingly. The advancement of the city is the priority for both the citizens and city administration, and the first goal in doing so, is improving its perception according to mayor Melisa Logan.
“The reputation of the city has to improve. We are what people say we are. If we keep saying that Blytheville is ‘Thugtown’, there’s nothing for people to do here, the schools are no good, people are violent and our streets are raggedy, then nobody will want to come. So we’re going to have to situate ourselves to become attractive again,” Logan said.
To do so, she noted the city's partnerships with Retail Strategies, an Alabama-based consultant company, built to assist companies in attracting businesses, as well as East Arkansas Planning and Development. The two are also coordinating with the county overall through the Great River Economic Development Board.
While acknowledging the losses that the city has taken with closures such as Popeyes, Dirt Cheap and Cato, she noted that Starbucks is currently under construction in Blytheville and a new hotel chain could be on the horizon.
“Once we put in our minds that we want to move forward, things start to change. Because we start to believe that we look better in the future than we do right now. But we can't believe it if everything that comes from the mouth of people that live here is negative. We’ve got to have hope in turning this city around together,” Logan also added.
Addressing the city pool, she stated that city partners such as Nucor- Hickman and Nucor-Yamato are continuously working to resolve water leaks. The city was expecting to open on June 10, but after filling the pool near midweek, five and a half feet of water was lost by the weekend.
“The pool was built in 1937. And currently, it’s the only public pool we have. Under whatever circumstance, the pool at Williams Park was closed so we didn’t have an alternative location. So in order not to lose a million gallons of water per month, we’ve had to go in and make some changes,” Logan said.
Funding the pool's needs was also a concern presented by the citizens and turning to county government was presented as a solution. Logan noted that because Nucor was already addressing this issue, she did not make a request for the pool. She did however submit an application to repave all of Walker Park through the county’s Infrastructure Grant Program.
Although the city did not receive that grant, a separate project addressing N. Byrum Road was awarded for $200,000. Logan and wastewater director Gary Carr explained that a pipe in the area required immediate attention before affecting the nearby lift station.
Smaller road repairs were planned to be addressed with the city’s Pothole Patcher truck which was purchased last year. However, the city has struggled to keep a full staff of CDL drivers, leaving this truck on the back burner.
“We purchased the pothole truck looking for ways to improve our streets. A complete overlay is very, very expensive. This was a way to try and get the biggest bang for our buck,” CFO John Callens explained. “[However], in the last three fourths of the year, public works has been very short handed. We can’t seem to keep a CDL driver. The garbage truck comes first, along with the knuckleboom trucks that pick up the trash. So the one that gets left out is the Pothole Patcher. We can make a huge dent if we can get an additional CDL driver and an individual or two working with him. Then hopefully we can run that truck close to 40 hours a week.”
Public Works director Mark Key added that in the last month, the pothole truck has been run for approximately one week. He went on to explain how the truck functions once a dedicated driver can be secured and addressed concerns about Ward Lane.
“We can make repairs no bigger than four by four and three inches deep,” Key said. “The situation on Ward is about a block and a half to two blocks long. We can’t go in and totally overlay it. The truck won’t allow us to do that. It won’t leave a consecutive line that far, that’s just not what it’s made for.”
Police chief Ross Thompson also fielded questions relating to crime, SkyCop cameras and police procedure.
Concerning SkyCops, Thompson stated “Around 2020 we started getting a lot of information from the cameras. From 2020 up to 2023, we’ve had nine homicides. And that’s nine too many, but the SkyCop system has provided vital information in seven of those nine cases. I can not overstate the importance of this system and how it has paid dividends to us.”
He went on to state that each unit is approximately $5,000 at the base price but can fluctuate according to the different features added. An additional $1125 is spent each month in operation costs such as broadcasting back to the police department.
Further citing SkyCops effectiveness, Thompson cited the city murder clearance rate as compared to the national average. In April, NRP reported that the national clearance rate has been on a constant decline and dropped below 50% in 2020 marking a new record low. Thompson noted that since 2015, the BPD has dropped below the national average only once, which was in 2018 when the department’s first SkyCop was purchased.
“[With these cameras], we’ve been able to track people from the time they committed the crime to the time they walk in their front door. And it’s a powerful tool in court as well,” Thompson said.
In closing, Logan stated that she desires to hold more town hall meetings in the future.
“A lot of people wanted to know why we wanted the questions submitted. And it’s because as you see, we had a wealth of questions and only two hours. And we were nearly to the minute in our two hour time period,” Logan said.
“Next time it may be an open mic. But you will always have an opportunity to be in touch with the administrative staff with the city of Blytheville.”
A host of additional topics were also discussed during the meeting. A live stream of the meeting is available for review on the city’s Facebook page.