Photo: Harrison Daily Times
Diamond City’s municipal government continues to fascinate, as much for what doesn’t happen as for what actually does happen.
The Harrison Daily Times reports the July meeting was no exception.
These things didn’t happen.
Mayor Jan Hudson did not return to chair the council meeting. The mayor has been on the sidelines for the past several weeks. She has been dealing with medical setbacks, competing in fishing tournaments, and an Arkansas State Police investigation.
Observers who came to witness the mayors re-emergence were disappointed.
The demonstration planned and ballyhooed by Diamond City patriots did happen, but only in a manner of speaking. The protest was so peaceful as to be theoretical.
At one point it amounted to half a dozen people moping around by the front door of city hall in a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, unwilling to answer a question from the press about whether they were in fact a demonstration.
A few minutes later the demonstration was a pair of slogan signs propped in a lawn chair.
Acting mayor Jim Wisniewski did not lose his temper or composure in the face of persistent, mostly good-natured heckling by the assembled citizens.
In fairness to the hecklers, Wisniewski continued his practice of running meetings as if he had never witnessed one, and most of the citizen suggestions appeared to have been made with helpful intent.
Significant things did happen at the meeting.
Ademar Nuessner, representing the Good Neighbor Food Cupboard (GNFC) of Diamond City, again asked the city for help with the building housing the cupboard.
Nuessner explained the GNFCs mission and shared a glimpse of it’s operation.
It was created from a cooperative effort by local churches to distribute food to people in need. The GNFC is supported entirely by donation, and volunteers do all its work.
The pantry distributes more than 50,000 pounds of food annually to about 120 needy local families. Most of the families come to the pantry twice a month for help.
GNFC pays the city a dollar a year to rent its building on Grand Street.
Nuessner has asked the city to give GNFC the building, or sell it for a token amount.
GNFC handles a lot of food. They need good storage facilities, and they have a chance for a grant to buy a large freezer. The problem is neither GNFC nor the grantor want to spend a large amount of money improving someone else’s building.
Discussion of GNFCs request led through Wisniewski’s interpretation of recommendations from Arkansas Municipal League, the cost of getting any service from the city’s newly-hired attorney, and Wisniewski’s thought that an attorney would have to be paid to draft a resolution to allow the city to give or sell the property.
Councilman Rick Van Dyke offered to submit a resolution draft to the city’s attorney within 24 hours for review and suggested the council hold a special meeting to vote on the resolution as soon as it has been reviewed.
Prompt action would allow timely submission of GNFC’s grant request, which will allow them to improve and expand services to needy people in Diamond City.
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