While various businesses and industries are booming in Arkansas, some cities and towns are struggling. As Little Rock Public Radio reports, Arkansas Municipal League Executive Director Mark Hayes says thriving industries need to step-up and help their local communities where their employees live and work.
While speaking at the Little Rock Rotary Club on Tuesday, May 19, at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Hayes told members, “They (industries) need a local presence. They need that kind of tax base. But more importantly, they need that sense of community. When you are in that sense of community, you tend to do a better job at your job, you tend to be more engaged so your kids are better engaged. It is a synergy that must happen in these areas of the state. If it doesn’t, you’re going to see, I fear, some of those industries looking elsewhere.”
Hayes says an upcoming ballot initiative, allowing for economic development districts in the state, could prove useful. “It is a ‘keep up with the Joneses’ kind of thing. If we don’t keep up, every state around us has these tools and they’re killing it in some places. There are several cities in Texas that have solved their housing problem with that tool.”
