The Thursday line is open early. Some notes:
* EX-PROSECUTOR CITED IN AUDIT: A tipster calls attention to a legislative audit released today for 2010 activities of then-Prosecuting Attorney Marcus Vaden of Conway. A number of bookkeeping shortcomings cited, included an extra payment to a deputy prosecutor that the auditor said appeared to be for official duties. The audit also recommends that Vaden pay $1,439 for labor costs associated with reconstructing data on hard drives that Vaden had removed from the office. He returned them, but by then they’d been cleared of office data.
* PULASKI TECH SETS RECORD: Pulaski Tech reports 11,947 enrollment this fall, a new record and up 7 percent over last year.
* COMPLAINTS AT UAMS: Several UAMS employees have complained about Chancellor Dan Rahn’s e-mail to staff (see jump) with an overwhelmingly positive assessment of the slush fund to be created by a 200 percent city sales tax increase that would have taxpayers fund a research park that might be used by UAMS employees. He doesn’t expressly advocate a “yes” vote. A spokesman says this is merely an educational e-mail, but she declined my offer to write a similarly educational e-mail for mass distribution to UAMS employees from another point of view. UAMS employees believe this to be a violation of policy against employees’ use of the institution’s name in “political activities.” UAMS insists singing the glories of a potential tax handout is not political. Same old same old. We already knew the rules just don’t apply to the fat cats. Not the FOI law when it comes to chamber spending of tax money. Not the ethical disclosure law when it comes to spending money to pass this half-billion-dollar bureaucrats’ gold mine. Wait until the good suits get their hands on the city taxpayers’ money. They’ll treat it like it’s THEIRS. UALR is busy shilling for it, too, of course, officially and unofficially.