BY MICHAEL TILLEY
TBQ Staff Writer
Craig Ferguson, the Scotland native who hosts The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, cracks blue and cutting jokes about presidents, popes and pretty much anything.
Except for Ozark, Arkansas.
Which says all you need to know about the Franklin County city of a little more than 3,500 people nestled comfortably and strategically between the Arkansas River, a major east-west Union Pacific rail route and Interstate 40.
And, seriously, Ferguson told David Letterman during an April 2007 Letterman show he stopped in the "lovely town" of Ozark where he first ate catfish. Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniels sent Ferguson - who was not yet a naturalized U.S. citizen - a letter making him an honorary Ozark citizen.
The problem with Ferguson's "lovely town" moniker is that it's not good enough. The city has the potential to be a booming, dynamic city within the larger Fort Smith metropolitan area, says Jo Alice Blondin, Yvonne Case, Royce Gattis, Sandy Key and Eddie Melton.
Case, Franklin County administrator for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, says the city has several groups with "strong and realistic visions that are poised to make big things happen." All that's needed, Case advises, is an event or leader or group to "instill the art of compromise" and get all the groups to work together.
"We need to get one big thing done and we're on the cusp," Case said. "We're right there, but we have to win that first race."
Some of the groups and projects include Main Street Ozark, an effort by Gattis to construct an up to $15 million east-west collector street between downtown Ozark and 1-40, academic support for the school district, facilitating tourism growth and continued support of the Ozark campus of Russellville-based Arkansas Tech University. All of those things and more - including better broadband service are not just about internal socio-economic improvements.
"We can and need to be in the world market here in Ozark, Arkansas," Case said.
Population 3,525 (2000 census) Median household income $30,436
Melton, executive vice president in Ozark for Little Rock based Bank of the Ozarks, says the agri-based town poultry, cattle, grapes/wine - was once insulated from recessions. This one has been tough, but the "hard-working community adjusted to the times," he said. Melton's office windows provide a view of a multi-million dollar data center the bank has under construction. The data center jobs supported by ATU-Ozark programs - will help bolster a city posting a 3.2% decline in sales tax collections in the first 10 months of 2009.
Tourism growth also is the point of a roughly $11 million Main Street Ozark plan that would completely alter the city's physical and fiscal landscape, according to Main Street Ozark Director Sandy Key. The plan includes a multi-use riverfront pavilion, marina and dock that would be part of a larger River-to-Rails statewide tourism effort. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission provided a $500,000 grant to get the project through some early phases.
Possibly the boldest effort is the collector street plan pushed by Royce Gattis, who left Ozark in 1959 for the U.S. Air Force and returned in the early 1990s to an Ozark he believed could use the real estate experience he gained in Denver. The collector street would stretch several miles between the two arterial roads - Arkansas 23 and 219 that connect U.S. 64 through Ozark to 1-40. The new street would open up hundreds of acres for residential, commercial and industrial development.
"We've figured, based on past growth, that this street would open up enough land for 247 years of growth needs," Gattis said.
Blondin, chancellor of ATU-Ozark, says the people in Ozark think beyond the city's size. She's the first to admit the obstacles are huge, and the first to caution a visitor to not bet against them.
"These people, I tell you, they are solid with those (plans), and they will keep pushing, like Gattis with that street. I wouldn't discount them, not at all," Blondin said. 1BQ
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