MAIN STREET HARDY

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In favor or against it, the temporary closure of Johnson St for a trial year as a entertainment area along Main St has come to a dead end. Maybe it was poor timing, bad temperatures or poor planning of events. Either way, the trial closure and option to make it permanent will not happen.

Johson Street Open For Business

Almost a year ago the City Council had held a special meeting to approve the closing of Johnson St and the  purchase by A & P of the stage for various venues. However, the biggest problem seemed to be that the majority of the business owners along Main Street were not even given a choice in the matter. Many especially felt it prevented many travelers access to parking and thus lost business from those who never stopped. This all came to a head recently when Dale Maddox a long time business owner presented to the City Council, at its regularly scheduled meeting, a petition of over 25 individuals with the same opinion. This led to some lively conversation between the City Council members, the Mayor and those in the audience. The surprise result however happened at the next evenings A & P meeting where the Mayor motioned for the stage to be moved and the street re-opened. This was motioned and approved by the A & P board.

 A few days later the stage was moved and the city crews were at work making sure the newly re-opened street would be safe for vehicles turning onto it toward the parking lot. This street is one of the main access points to the main public parking area for tourist. Once the new parking signage is in place we know more tourist will find it convenient to stop and visit our Main Street area.

The trees that had been planted along the street during the closure have been removed and will be transplanted to new locations by City Hall and in Loberg Park.  The “stage” has been moved down to the waste water plant for the time being. We will keep you up to date on its planned future use.

The issue of Sharp County voters being able to vote on the County’s ability to sell alcohol is dead. It will not  appear on the 2010 ballot.

Once again your right to vote has been thwarted by those who knew the correct filing deadline but who would not let the information be known that the filing date for petitions had been changed. The 2010 Secretary of State’s Initiative and Referendum pamphlet still had the old filing deadlines.

The County Clerk’s office says it does not give legal advice. However, it is in the public’s (not the special) best interest to make known any changes that might affect a crucial issue. the County Clerk and staff are public servants. There are over 5,000 interested individuals who wanted a chance to vote but the interests of a few prevailed.

The missed deadline has been widely covered in the media. SAVE ENERGY REAP TAXES (SERT) representatives have been asked WHY and WHAT HAPPENED by people who have signed the petition. There is still interest in getting our right to vote on this issue on the ballot. We will not let you down but we need your help. How much is your right to vote worth to you?

In order to prevail in 2012, we need to hire a lawyer who will be with us through the whole process and we need money to pay for that lawyer. Our opposition is well financed. The Committee to Oppose Alcohol in Sharp County spent $56,018 to keep the wet/dry issue off the ballot in 2008. Not one cent of the money was contributed by Sharp County. Who knows what the opposition will call itself next time but be assured there will be an opposing faction that is well financed by liquor interests. SERT spent $10,549 to defend your right to vote. $700.00 was contributed by Fulton County residents. All the rest came from Sharp County.

The issue is not alcohol. The issue is YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE. How many men and women have fought and died throughout our country’s history protecting your right to vote?

“SERT” plans to start our next petition drive as soon as we get a new petition drawn up. We need you to sign the petitions again and we need money to get this process through.

All donations are gratefully accepted.

Donations can be made through SERT’s website by clicking  HERE

by mailing them to the SERT president at 48 Ouachita, Cherokee Village AR 72529,

or by contacting Ruth Reynolds at 870 257-4596.

Chief Ernie Rose presented to the City Council during the Aug. 17, 2010 meeting his choice for the new

Chief Rose & Gary D. Henry

 officer  position, Mr. Gary David Henry who is a four year veteran law enforcement with the Fulton County Sheriff department. The council voted and it was approved by all the Alderman.

   He will start off working part time until Sept. 1, 2010  at which time he will then qualify for full time employment.  It was noted that he was well qualified for the job, a long time area resident and a family man too. Once Sept. 1 arrives he will automatically qualify for all the benefits of a full time officer.

We look forward to his presence on the city streets helping protect and serve our community. 

County Clerk Tommy Estes accepted the 5,100 or so signatures to get the petition on the November ballot but will not process them unless ordered to by a court.

“I can’t say whether or not it will be on the ballot,” Estes said. “They’re going to stay on the shelf until I’m instructed to do something else.”

Sharp County attorney Larry Kissee told Estes not to process the petition because the state-mandated deadline for submission was Aug. 4, exactly 90 days before the election, according to a letter .

The signatures submitted by the group Save Energy Reap Taxes were delivered Thursday — eight days late.

“We didn’t know the law had changed,” SERT president Ruth Reynolds said.

In 2009 the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 1480, which requires initiative petitions to be filed no less than 90 days before the election.

“I am of the opinion that by the plain wording of this code provision, your office cannot accept any initiative petition tendered to you after Aug. 4,” Kissee wrote to Estes.

Reynolds said she wished Estes would start reviewing the petitions anyway. The deadline for formulating the final version of the ballot is Aug. 24.

“That way if we have to battle it out in court, at least it would already be on there,” Reynolds said.

A court injunction is the only way Kissee said he would advise Estes to process the signatures, he said. At least 4,603 of the signatures have to be valid for it to be on the ballot, according to state law.

Thirty-eight percent of a county’s registered voters have to sign a wet-dry petition before it can be voted on.

This is the second time SERT has tried to bring the wet-dry issue to a vote. In 2008 SERT had enough signatures for a vote, but Judge Phil Smith ruled that some of them were not properly notarized, and some were not legal. That left SERT just short of the total needed.

SERT, a coalition of environmentalists and tax-conscious citizens, formed in 2007 in attempt to turn the county wet. Reynolds, an environmentalist who uses her dishes’ rinse water in her garden and has a clothesline, believes long trips by Sharp County motorists to buy beer, wine and spirits contributes to global warming.

Others in the group believe the county loses tax money each year to surrounding counties and Missouri when patrons leave to buy alcohol.

Kissee said it’s unlikely that a judge would allow the petition to move forward. It would be similar to a candidate asking to be placed on the ballot after the deadline, he said.

After spending thousands of dollars and knocking on the doors of virtually every registered voter in the county — for many, twice over the last three years — Reynolds said she hopes her efforts haven’t been in vain. If the signatures can’t be used for this election cycle, Reynolds said she hoped that they might still be valid in 2012.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “After all our work I can’t believe this is happening.”

This evening was filled with some pretty interesting meetings. I’m presently, not at liberty to discuss them on an open forum, but lets just say…the meetings were instructive. While returning from dinner at China Buffet and crossing the bridge we observed the Hardy Safety Vehicle Van and Chief Rose’s grey vehicle down at the gazebo with some additional vehicles. It caught our interest so we decided to investigate.  When we drove up the two departed. The Mayor was driving the van.  There was still a small group of folks hanging out at the gazebo, and to our delight and surprise,  werealized that we knew the people  who had been playing music. It was nice to visit with them and catch up on old times.

It started to get late so we left the park and headed home. To our delight and interest, we spotted the Mayor in the van, the van was driving slowly around the neighborhood streets around town. She even circled my home. I felt much safer now knowing that the Mayor took this extra step before ending her evening to be out on patrol. Thank you Mayor.

It certainly was an interesting evening meeting and talking with so many wonderful people who each had a story to share. Life in Hardy is so wonderful.

Remember if you have a story, or anything of interest around town, feel free  to share it with the community.  It is as simple as  using our online News/Story submission form by clicking  HERE . We want community involvement.

Mayor

Below are the back and forth converations with our Mayor and how she responds to a citizen who was requesting the addition of a event to the official Hardy website. If you ever  wondered what it takes to get a simple answer with the local government, below are the transcripts of my experience. You will be amazed and surprised at how she handles a individuals request and questions.   

It all started with a request on Aug. 5th to please add a city supported event called Junk-N-Jam to the official city website that still on Aug. 16 in the a.m  is not on the official city website.  

UPDATE: THE CITY WEBSITE ON AUG. 16th FINALLY HAS THE EVENT POSTED 

THANK YOU MAYOR 

Othelia (Tillie) Stark age 93 of Hardy, Arkansas died Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at her residence. She was a long time antiques dealer in Hardy, she passed away in her sleep.

Before the antique store opened in the 80′s, Ms. Tillie was very famous for her home-made pies! Her large family of children, grand children and great grand children will be receiving all of her loving friends at the visitation at Tri-County Funeral Home on Saturday from 6pm – 8pm. The funeral will be held Sunday at 2pm at Tri County Funeral Home with the final interment at Baker Cemetery.

She has been greatly loved and will be missed !

I feel that the street closure of South Johnson Street that took place back in late 2009 has been a complete failure ! In late 2009, the city voted to close South Johnson Street in order to test out the new city amphitheater. Originally members of the Hardy City Council met at a special meeting to discuss the closing down of the street for a period of one year! 

 During that meeting, Hardy Mayor Nina Thornton said “the reason for shutting down the street was to accommodate the new stage that has been purchased by the Advertising and Promotions Committee. She said the building, purchased from Bald Eagle Barns will give the public a place to watch various artists, musicians and other talent.”  

Thornton said that by closing the street for a period of one year, the city will be given enough time to determine if the amphitheater is going to be successful. If, at the end of the year, it is successful, the city will permanently close the street.

Well… I can speak from my own personal experience in addition to many others in the area…the Amphitheater or as we now refer to it the (Empty-theater) has not only had minimal usage since the closing of the street. Here we are currently in the busiest tourist time of Summer and nothing is planned for the amphitheater. The official Hardy website shows nothing scheduled for the stage. You can view the events here.  Now, on the new Kait8 DiscoverHardy weather page that can be viewed here it mentions at the top right of the page for the 2010 Calendar:  a Farmers Market taking place every Saturday. Haven’t seen the first one take place yet! Now to be fair, some events have taken place, but the turn out has been few, and it could just have easily taken place in the small gazebo right next to the street in the city park or in the bigger pavilion at Loberg Park. So, why loose a whole street for the few times it has been used?

Additionally, and most importantly, we also lost an important access point for tour buses to use to access the parking lot area south of the street!  It is a shame that we already have a wonderful area park along the beautiful Spring River called Loberg Park that as we have said has a wonderful pavilion for shows and bands. Plus why not take advantage of tha fact our town is right on the Spring River..hello!! Maybe more events based on river themes are in order!

Lets hope the City of Hardy realizes its mistake and once the year is up, gives us our street back !!! Until then, feel free to express your thoughts below in comments section.

• The views of this article are not necessarily the views of Friends Of Hardy Arkansas but were submitted by individuals with an interest in our community

We are excited for our very own local hometown girl who won the title of  Miss Sharp County during the 75th Annual Sharp County Fair on July 27, 2010.   Brooke Messer,  a graduate of Highland High School lives in Hardy AR.  This was her first beauty pageant competetion. 

 Brooke’s mother Rhonda said she has always made her children compete or take part in something every year they were in school. Some of the other activities Messer participated in during high school were National Honor Society, Basketball, Eecology club. Key Club and she was also the state 4-A track champion in the mile run.  She was on the honor roll,  a competitive cheerleader and served as class president for two years.

Messer is the daughter of Jerry and Rhonda Messer of Hardy, Arkansas who operate Kozy Candles Country Store  and the Spring River Tackle.

Messer said,   “It is just an honor to be chosen, to have little girls who have done a lot of pageants look up to you,”

Friends Of Hardy Arkansas are just as proud…congrats !!! 

One of the stories to be told on the Animal Planet series “Monsters Inside Me,” on Wednesday Aug. 4, 2010 will be a case of ocular myiasis which almost blinded a young Arkansas man.

Kenneth Watson, now 21, was 16 and living in Hardy, Arkansas. One day he felt a gnat fly into his right eye which he quickly removed. Two weeks later while waiting for the school bus, he noticed all he could see from the eye was a large dark dot in the center of his vision. 

Watson’s doctors found a maggot in his eye while performing the surgery to treat the retinal hemorrhage.

Ocular Myiasis (my-EYE-uh-sis) is defined as the invasion of living animal tissue by fly larvae (maggots). When larvae invade the eye, this condition is termed ocular myiasis (OM) or ophthalmomyiasis (op-THAL-mo-my-EYE-uh-sis).

Larvae most commonly attack the lids or conjunctiva (external ophthalmomyiasis), but in rare instances they may penetrate into the eyeball itself (internal ophthalmomyiasis) as happened to Watson.

External OM can usually be remedied without complications. Internal OM is very serious and often results in serious damage including blindness. 

OM is characterized by a condition similar to conjunctivitis, marked by pain, burning, itching, redness, and tearing in the affected eyes. Often these symptoms are accompanied by the sensation of a foreign body moving in the eye. It is rare for the larvae to invade the globe of the eye, but when it does it can cause retinal damage and blindness.

Today, Watson is 21 and lives in Memphis, Tenn., having survived largely unscathed. He has his vision, but now must wear glasses.  To see other episodes and to watch this one check out Animal Planet’s Monsters Inside Of Me.