Attitudes

A poster on another thread brought to my attention a poll in a local newspaper. The poll shows 79 percent think Arkansas City is inferior to other towns. It should be noted that this is 154 votes.
Last week the guy from Municipal Solutions - the audit company - gave results of their survey. They sent out surveys in the water bills, and people were invited to send them back. They got 161 back, and half of those said the city either meets or exceeds their expectations.
The two surveys do ask different questions, but they do show different results.
One survey says people have a positive attitude and one says they have a negative attitude. Of course, 150 or so is not really representative of 12,000 people.

I would agree that Ark City has more than its share of negative people. I call them naysayers, and they will be negative no matter what.
Remember the doom and gloom about the hospital. Its more than 1 million under budget and going to be done a month or two early. Im sure they will still find negativity.
Remember the traffic circle on  the Bypass and Kansas Ave. ? and how it was going to result in hundreds of wrecks, deaths, mayhem and general bad things? Just how many wrecks have we had? One i think? i dont have official stats, but I would bet there are fewer now than there were before the thing was put in. .

As I have said before, people need to get out more. I dont think AC is better or worse than most towns. A town is not good or bad in itself .. it is what you make it.

I have to tell you all about the town of Crossett Arkansas. No worse or more godforsaken place on the planet in my estimation. Its in LA, lower arkansas, near Louisiana. Nasty hot in summer and extremely humid, cold and cloudy in winter but no snow. This used to be a company town that produced paper and grew those fast growing pine trees. It still is a paper mill town. Huge paper mill on one side of the tracks, town on the other. Stinks awful all the time, some days worse than others, but ... oh my goodness.
Smells like rotten eggs all the time.
For miles - probably 50 miles -in all directions there is nothing but rows of pine trees. Not even real forest, just rows of planned pine trees.
The only good thing is a small park with a decent trail through the woods, but it is by a stagnant lake - big pond - and mosquitos will eat you alive in the summer, so its not usable 6 months out of the year.
There are no cool looking old buildings. It was started as a company town in 1900 or so, and just has wooden structures. Anything that might have been historic was torn down.
Its also a dry county. You have to drive 20 miles into louisiana to get alcohol. and thats a two lane road that makes the road by the casinos here look like an interstate. About once a week there was a major accident with fatalities or serious injuries on that road  with people drinking on their way back..
It had about 8,000 people in the early 80s. The mill was the only employer of substance.. 
People were not friendly either. I lived there 2 years and was always an outsider...
Ok, the thing is though, the people that live there, who grew up there, LOVE their town. They think it is great. They dont even mind the smell.
One interesting fact. Coaching Legend Barry Switzer was born and raised there .. I dont remember, it was his uncle or cousin or something, that was municipal judge when i was there. Thats about the only good thing I could say about it, one interesting fact ... thats it. and he doesnt even go there anymore.

So, I come to Ark City. Historic old west town. Not so terribly hot in summer (usually) and not that humid. Has four seasons. Some snow but winter is tolerable..
Some interesting looking old historic buildings and homes. Nice looking brick streets. Somewhat active downtown.  A lot of great trails to hike on. Interesting looking countryside. Rivers to explore. Sort of close to larger cities - wichita, stillwater, oklahoma city, -
Has some good things going on...
Yet people are negative toward it ....

What do you make of that?


 

Rolling on the river?

There are a few days left to vote in the poll. The question is, should river access be made a priority. So far the vote is very lopsided in favor.
The point of this post is to give people a place to comment on the rivers.
I don't think it would require any kind of major investment. Just some mowing and clearing off of paths would help a lot.
But what we need most of all, is for someone to start a business of some sort, involved with the river. I would imagine a canoe business would do very well, or some sort of boat rides.
The music festival was a shot in that direction. I was hoping that people would get some ideas from that as far as using that area.
Our friends over at KACY radio wanted to hold concert there - so I thought we were headed in the right direction. The radio station jumped through all sorts of hoops. The only catch was they wanted a beer permit. The city denied the permit, which meant the sponsor - a major beer company - withdrew and the concert folded.
Also river access has been closed at the chestnut street bridge, and at that little cottonwood park out of Madison.
These are examples of where the city has not acted in a way that promoted river access and use. These are things the city could do that would not cost much at all.
People need to let commissioners know if they are concerned about this.