No link available to D-G coverage, but the City Board made quick work of the Curran Hall controversy last night thanks to Skip Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School of Public Service. Rutherford withdrew an offer to lease the building for classroom space. Too much controversy had been engendered by those who’d worked to restore the historic home. They want it used as a Little Rock visitors center and nothing else, not a classroom building with a visitors’ kiosk.
It was a bungled deal from start to finish.
If the city really needed a visitor center, budget it and stick with it. If it didn’t, don’t.
If the visitor center isn’t working, don’t work out a secret deal to change its use, particularly not with someone, Rutherford, who’s done a lot of work with the city agency — Advertising and Promotion Commission. And, please A&P, how about observing bid laws?
Then, if you still screw everything up, let the public speak. Unlike the City Board did last night, when it refused to hear from critics of the Curran Hall plan.
Fat lot of good the protest did. The visitor center proponents seem likely to win a closed Curran Hall, or an obligation they must figure out how to fund. That’ll teach ’em.
And still, city officials wonder why city government has a bad rep.