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Political Issues and Controversies
Entries - Entry Category: Political Issues and Controversies
aka: Communist Registration Act
Also called the Communist Registration Act, Act 401 was approved in March 1951 during the tenure of the Fifty-eighth Arkansas General Assembly. It was subtitled "An Act to Require Members of Certain Organizations Advocating the Unconstitutional Overthrow of the United States or of the State of Arkansas to Register With the State Police." Ostensibly directed against members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and affiliated organizations, Act 401 was passed in the context of the Second Red Scare following World War II. Act 401 did not emerge in a political vacuum, nor was this law unprecedented in Arkansas history. Act 401 was consistent with federal, state, and local legislation against "subversive organizations." The law joined a long line of federal …
aka: Transformation and Efficiencies Act of 2019
Act 910 of 2019 was a piece of signature legislation for Governor Asa Hutchinson, who sought to reduce the size of Arkansas state government and the number of agency heads reporting directly to the governor. In state government, an agency designated as a "department" is typically headed by a secretary who is appointed by the governor as part of the cabinet. Many of the changes brought about by Act 910 involved departments becoming "divisions," such as the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) becoming the Division of Environmental Quality within the new Department of Energy and Environment. Hutchinson looked to Act 38 of 1971, the last large-scale reorganization of Arkansas state government, which consolidated sixty state government agencies into thirteen. …
The experimental Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was the cornerstone farm legislation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal agenda and was steered through the U.S. Senate by Joe T. Robinson, Arkansas's senior senator. In Arkansas, farm landowners reaped subsidy benefits from the measure through decreased cotton production. Arkansas sharecroppers and tenant farmers did not fare as well, bringing about the establishment of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU). Upon taking office in 1933—during the fourth year of the Great Depression, on the heels of the Drought of 1930–1931, and amid the full force of the Dust Bowl—Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American people" centered on "relief, recovery, and reform." Counseled by advisors dubbed the "brain trust," Roosevelt fashioned …
Amendments 19 and 20
aka: Futrell Amendments
Amendments 19 and 20 to the Arkansas Constitution, which are commonly referred to as the Futrell Amendments, sharply restricted the ability of the legislature to levy taxes, spend the funds, and incur debt. Ratified in the general election in 1934, the amendments went beyond the laws of any other state in limiting the fiscal powers of the legislature and were supposed to guarantee austere and limited government for posterity. The restrictions on borrowing stated in Amendment 20, which required a statewide popular vote before the state could borrow money for public improvements, were loosened in 1986 by Amendment 65, after the Arkansas Supreme Court handed down a strict interpretation that seemed to outlaw what were known as "revenue bonds," which the …
Anthony, Joseph J.
Joseph J. Anthony, a soldier, politician, and Arkansas pioneer, fell victim to one of the most extraordinary and bizarre events in Arkansas political history. He became the only sitting member of the state legislature to be killed during a debate in the Arkansas House of Representatives. J. J. Anthony, born possibly as early as 1780, was a native of Virginia and the son of the Reverend Joseph Anthony, a Baptist minister, and his wife, Jane Ferris. The family moved to middle Tennessee shortly after 1800, and, by 1808, Anthony was living in Smith County. On the eve of the War of 1812, he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Twenty-fourth United States Infantry. After the outbreak of hostilities, he …
Arkansas Freedom of Information Act
aka: Freedom of Information Act
aka: FOIA
The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), signed into law by Governor Winthrop Rockefeller on February 14, 1967, is generally considered one of the strongest and best models for open government by investigative reporters and others who research public records for various purposes. The intent of the FOIA is to keep government business and government records open and accessible to the people of Arkansas. The Arkansas FOIA has been called "the people's law" in that it provides the citizens of Arkansas open access to the conduct of the public's business at every level of government, as well as ready access to public records on file with a host of custodians for those records in county courthouses, city halls, public schools, …
Arkansas Loan and Thrift
Arkansas Loan and Thrift Corporation (AL&T) was a hybrid bank that operated for three years outside state banking laws with the help of political connections in the 1960s before coming to a scandalous end. A U.S. district judge halted the operations and placed the company in receivership in March 1968, and a federal grand jury indicted three officers of the company, as well as a former Arkansas attorney general. AL&T became a symbol of the corruption and lethargy that were the products of Governor Orval Faubus's twelve-year control of the statehouse and, in the opinion of Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, the Democratic Party's unfettered reign in government since Reconstruction. It was jokingly called "Arkansas Loan and Theft." The grand jury indictment …
Arkansas Peace Society
The Arkansas Peace Society was a loose affiliation of local anti-Confederate groups that formed in response to Arkansas's secession from the Union. These groups operated like secret societies in several north Arkansas counties until late in 1861, when local militias and the Confederate government of the state began carrying out large-scale arrests of perceived traitors in the region. The Arkansas Peace Society was quickly broken up, though north Arkansas contributed approximately ninety percent of soldiers from the state who fought for the Union, while jayhawkers and bushwhackers also roamed the area with some intensity. The upland counties of northern Arkansas, where slavery was not a major component of the local economy, contained a large number of people opposed to the …
Arkansas Plan
The 1976 proposal known as the "Arkansas Plan" represented an important innovation in the relationship between the state and its localities, and its defeat became one of the greatest policy failures for Governor David Pryor. At its core, the plan would have greatly expanded local control over important public policies as well as taxing authority, shifting such decision making from the state level. When the plan was introduced in October 1976, Pryor was in the midst of an easy reelection campaign. The energy that Pryor invested over the months following in a failed effort to get the plan passed became a major distraction from other aspects of his political agenda. Pryor's Arkansas Plan was a follow-up to a 1974 amendment …
Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L)
The Arkansas Power and Light Company (AP&L) was the primary electrical utility company for much of Arkansas from 1913 to 1989. It was the predecessor to Entergy Corporation, the electrical company now serving much of the state in the twenty-first century. The company was founded in 1913 as the Arkansas Power Company by Harvey Crowley Couch, a native of Columbia County and a successful railroad and telephone utility entrepreneur. In 1914, Couch bought the power plants at Arkadelphia (Clark County) and Malvern (Hot Spring County) and then built a twenty-two-mile electrical transmission line running between them. The system had problems with electrical supply and ran exclusively at night, but it served as the only electrical transmission line in the state. …
Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal
The Arkansas prison blood scandal resulted from the state's selling plasma extracted from prisoners at the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC). Corruption among the administrators of the prison blood program and poor supervision resulted in disease-tainted blood, often carrying hepatitis or HIV, knowingly being shipped to blood brokers, who in turn shipped it to Canada, Europe, and Asia. Revelation of the misdeeds and the healthcare crisis it created in Canada nearly brought down the Liberal Party government in 1997. In 1994, Arkansas became the last state to stop selling plasma extracted from prisoners. Arkansas's prison blood program began in 1964 as a way for both prisoners and the prison system to make money. (Arkansas law forbids …
Arkansas Project
The Arkansas Project was a reporting venture in the mid-1990s undertaken with the aim of discrediting President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Writers and investigators—who were paid from a fund of more than $2 million provided by Richard Mellon Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and billionaire heir to the Mellon fortune—delved into matters such as the Whitewater land deal in the Arkansas Ozarks, the suicide of Vincent W. Foster Jr., mysterious deaths and drug schemes in Arkansas, and Governor Clinton's alleged 1991 tryst with state employee Paula Jones. Much of the work was later discredited or else repudiated by the authors and others involved, including Scaife, who years later became an admirer of the former president and …
Arkansas Real Estate Bank
In 1836, the establishment of the Real Estate Bank of Arkansas became the initial act to pass the first state legislature. Momentum for a state-sponsored bank began during the territorial phase when planters and other lowland agricultural interests sought ways to enhance the availability of capital. The bank's charter required the state to issue $2 million in five-percent bonds, the proceeds from which would serve as the bank's capital. But the state held no authority for immediate supervision of the bank's operations other than the appointment of a minority of the bank's directors. From 1836 to 1855, when the state took over control, the Real Estate Bank proved to be a source of political corruption, financial mismanagement, and intense sectional …
Arkansas Scholarship Lottery
The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery is a system of games of chance, implemented to generate revenue to fund the state's Academic Challenge Scholarship program for qualified high school graduates. The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery was made possible by the 2008 passage of Proposed Constitutional Amendment No. 3, which amended the state constitution to make a statewide lottery program legal. By fall 2016, more than 200,000 students had received an Academic Challenge Scholarship to attend a two-year or four-year institution of higher education in the state of Arkansas. Although it was not until 2008 that Arkansas voters passed a constitutional amendment to allow the creation of a lottery, the topic had been debated in the state for a number of years. In 1990, …
Arkansas State Bank
The Arkansas State Bank (1836–1843) was one of two banks created by the newly formed Arkansas state legislature. It provided some funding for commercial projects, though most of its funds facilitated land sales. Its greatest legacy, however, was saddling the new state government with a burdensome debt and instigating several accounts of political corruption. In the end, the bank's failure jeopardized both public and private banking in Arkansas due to the public outcry against its operation. Banking was one of the most prominent political issues of the early nineteenth century. Waves of banking mania spread across the country as advocates sang the praises of increasing available currency and spurring on economic development. On the western frontier, demands for banks ran …
Arkansas State Boundaries
Arkansas's boundaries have been the subject of international treaties, treaties with Native American tribes, acts of Congress, and a multitude of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Generally, Arkansas is bordered on the north by Missouri; on the east by Tennessee and Mississippi; on the south by Louisiana; and on the west by Texas and Oklahoma, but that is not entirely correct. Arkansas is also bordered on the east by Missouri and the south by Texas, but parts of the state are also north of Missouri, east of Mississippi, north of Oklahoma and west of Texas. Tennessee-Mississippi BoundaryAs early as the Treaty of Paris of 1763 ending the French and Indian War, the middle of the Mississippi River was established …
Back-to-Africa Movement
The Back-to-Africa Movement mobilized thousands of African-American Arkansans who wished to leave the state for the Republic of Liberia in the late 1800s. Approximately 650 emigrants left from Arkansas, more than from any other American state, in the 1880s and 1890s, the last phase of organized group migration of black Americans to Liberia. As early as 1820, black Americans had begun to return to their ancestral homeland through the auspices of the American Colonization Society (ACS), an organization headquartered in Washington DC, which arranged transportation and settlement. The ACS founded the Republic of Liberia in 1847, with its flag and constitution emulating American models, and nearly 13,000 redeemed slaves and free blacks had settled there before the Civil War. With …
Benson, George Stuart
George Stuart Benson was the second president of Harding College (now Harding University) in Searcy (White County), but he is most remembered as a crusader against communism. He founded the National Education Program (NEP) at Harding to advocate for American values and the free enterprise system. George Benson, son of Stuart Felix Benson and Erma Rogers Benson, was born on his parents' small Oklahoma farm in Dewey County on September 26, 1898. He attended several elementary and secondary schools in the area and then attended classes at Oklahoma A&M until transferring to Harper College in Harper, Kansas. In 1924, Harper College merged with Arkansas Christian College in Morrilton (Conway County) to form Harding College, a private school associated with the …
Big Lake Wars
Competition and contention over an abundant (and unregulated) storehouse of northeastern Arkansas wildlife from the mid-1870s until 1915 led to violence and controversy known as the Big Lake Wars. Big Lake refers to a section of western Mississippi County created by the massive New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812. "War" may be a misleading description of the events because there were no formalities, declarations, truces, or settlements. However, the conflict had a lasting impact on the state and even on the nation. The Big Lake Wars pitted local residents, who were mostly poor, against affluent northerners, chiefly from St. Louis, Missouri. Early Arkansas maps labeled the sparsely populated area between Crowley's Ridge and the Mississippi River as "the Great Swamp." After …
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) worker Willie Ricks coined the "black power" slogan in June 1966 during the March Against Fear in Mississippi. The term was subsequently popularized by national SNCC chair Stokely Carmichael. Those who used the slogan often left its precise meaning deliberately ambiguous. In general terms, the black power movement is usually taken to mark a shift in emphasis from the earlier civil rights movement by advocating black separatism and black nationalism over inter-racialism and racial integration, and by advocating armed black self-defense over a strict adherence to nonviolence. More recently, historians have questioned just how dramatic a break the black power era represented from the civil rights era. Instead, they have noted that many of the …
Blue Laws
Arkansas's first blue laws, also called Sunday-closing laws, were enacted in 1837, only a year after Arkansas's statehood. Though no blue laws have been in effect since 1982, they influenced the state's culture and commerce for nearly a century and a half. Blue laws have been part of American history since people began emigrating from Europe, where the laws were common. Virginia established the first blue law in the American colonies in 1610. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbidding the establishment of religion may have called into question the legality of Sunday-closing laws, but it did not stop nearly all states from adopting them. Historically, courts have ruled that state legislatures could proclaim a weekly day of rest …
Boodle Prosecutions
aka: Boodle Scandal of 1905–1908
The Boodle Scandal of 1905–1908 dealt with pervasive bribery ("boodle" is a slang term for bribe money) in the 1905 Arkansas General Assembly uncovered by Lewis Rhoton, prosecuting attorney for the Sixth Judicial District (Pulaski and Perry counties). Rhoton's unmasking of legislators' corruption in Arkansas in these years advanced the rise of Progressivism as a political force. When President Theodore Roosevelt visited Little Rock (Pulaski County) on October 25, 1905, he praised Rhoton's effort to hold public officials to account. The president also decried difficulties in prosecuting the wealthy or influential, including difficulties created by the legal system itself. Problems with Arkansas's law and judicial procedures were partly at fault for Rhoton's lack of widespread success in proceeding against boodlers. …
Bracero Program
To ensure that U.S. farmers had sufficient labor, the U.S. State Department and the Mexican Foreign Affairs Department signed a bilateral agreement to create the Bracero Program in August 1942. Preceded by the similar Emergency Farm Labor Program, it aimed to supply landowners with laborers so they could meet increased wartime demand for their crops. Under the terms of the agreement, workers were contracted for a period of no more than ninety days, and they could reenlist in the program each year. The program was administered by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and hiring agents in cities such as Tijuana, Guadalajara, Chihuahua, Monterrey, and Mexico City. The majority of braceros worked in the West—primarily California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Texas, and …
Brooks-Baxter War
The Brooks-Baxter War, which occurred during April and May 1874, was an armed conflict between the supporters of two rivals for the governorship—Joseph Brooks and Elisha Baxter. The violence spilled out of Little Rock (Pulaski County) into much of the state and was resolved only when the federal government intervened. The result of the war, recognition of Elisha Baxter as the governor, brought a practical end to Republican rule in the state and thus ended the era of Reconstruction. Questions concerning the results of the state's 1872 gubernatorial election brought about the Brooks-Baxter War. In that election, Joseph Brooks—a carpetbagger with a radical reputation and the leader of the party faction known as the "Brindletails"—ran as a Reform Republican, supporting …
California Gold Rush, Effect of the
The California gold rush did not have the positive impact on Arkansas envisioned by its promoters, who hoped for Fort Smith (Sebastian County) to become the hub of westward migration. It did force Arkansas out of its frontier status as people went farther west to California. It also shifted population. John L. Ferguson wrote that, following 1850, Arkansans searching out new opportunity were continuing to move westward; by 1860, some 2,000 Arkansans lived in California, while another 11,000 had emigrated to Texas. The Arkansas Gazette of May 14, 1852, noted that "it is calculated that out of every 100 persons who have gone to California, fifty have been ruined, forty no better than they would have been had they stayed …
aka: Death Penalty
The death penalty was practiced in Arkansas even before the state was admitted to the Union in 1836. According to the Arkansas News, "during the American Revolution several members of the garrison at Arkansas Post were convicted of having plotted on behalf of the English to massacre all the soldiers at the Post. They were executed by a firing squad in New Orleans." These executions mark the first recorded death sentences for crimes committed in Arkansas. The Arkansas criminal code provides for the death penalty or life without parole upon conviction of capital murder or treason. Those convicted of rape were also subject to the death penalty until January 1, 1976, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Coker …
Carpetbaggers and Scalawags
"Carpetbaggers" is a slang term denoting men who adhered to the newly formed Republican Party, which followed the demise of the Whig Party, and gained control of Arkansas politics and government after the end of Civil War. Many of these men were former Union soldiers. The correct term is Radical Republicans. Southerners coined the pejorative term carpetbaggers and claimed that these men came into the state with only what could be packed in a suitcase made from carpet scraps. The belief was that these men were uneducated opportunists who came to Arkansas only to plunder and take advantage of the bankrupt, defeated, and humiliated people of the state. Noted carpetbaggers included Thomas Meade Bowen, a lawyer, and Powell Clayton, an …
Chicot County Race War of 1871
aka: Chicot County Massacre
In late 1871, Chicot County was taken over by several hundred African Americans, led by state legislator and county judge James W. Mason. The murder of African-American lawyer Wathal (sometimes spelled as Walthall) Wynn prompted the area's black citizens to kill the men jailed for their role in the murder and take over the area. Many white residents fled, escaping by steamboat to Memphis, Tennessee, and other nearby river towns. Like the Black Hawk War that occurred in Mississippi County the following year, the situation arose, in part, from the radical wing of the Republican Party exercising its power in choosing local officials. Both Mississippi and Chicot counties' populations were primarily black, with blacks outnumbering whites four to one in Chicot County. …
Civil Rights Movement (Twentieth Century)
The 1957 desegregation crisis at Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County) is often viewed as the most significant development in the civil rights struggle in Arkansas. However, this event is just one part of a struggle for African-American freedom and equality that both predates and outlasts the twentieth century. African Americans in Arkansas at the turn of the twentieth century were in an embattled state, as they were across the rest of the South. They were politically disfranchised and increasingly segregated in most areas of public life. In the Arkansas Delta, where the vast majority of Arkansas's black population was concentrated throughout the twentieth century, blacks were often bound to the land by exploitative peonage contracts with white …
Cleburne County Draft War
The Cleburne County Draft War was one of three violent encounters in World War I–era Arkansas that occurred in the spring and summer of 1918 between local officials determined to enforce the Selective Service Act of 1917 and citizens who resisted conscription. In this episode, those resisting the draft were Jehovah's Witnesses, then known as Russellites, who were widely viewed with suspicion and hatred because of their refusal to take part in civic and military affairs. The Cleburne County Draft War began before sunrise on Sunday, July 7, 1918, when Sheriff Jasper Duke led four men into an area of the county between Rosebud (White County) and Pearson (Cleburne County) in search of delinquents who had not registered for the …
Clinton Chronicles, The
The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton is a 1994 video produced by Patrick Matrisciana that accuses former president Bill Clinton of crimes in Arkansas. The video, which has been called a propaganda piece, put forward a conspiracy theory, the "Clinton Body Count," regarding individuals whom Clinton was alleged to have had killed. The Clinton Chronicles was produced by a group called Citizens for Honest Government of Westminster, California. Partially funded by Arkansan Larry Nichols, its parent organization was Creative Ministries, Inc. According to the New York Times, Nichols had been hired in the 1980s by Governor Clinton as marketing director for the Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA). In 1988, Nichols was fired by …
Commonwealth College
Arkansas's most famous attempt at radical labor education was the accidental by-product of natural beauty, cheap land, and desperation. Commonwealth College was established in 1923 at Newllano Cooperative Colony near Leesville, Louisiana. Its founders were Kate Richards O'Hare, her husband Frank, and William E. Zeuch, all socialists and lifelong adherents of the principles established by Eugene V. Debs. Drawing on their mutual experience at Ruskin College in Florida, where they had been impressed with the possibility of higher education combined with cooperative community, the O'Hares and Zeuch decided to create a college specifically aimed at the leadership of what they designated as a new social class, the industrial worker. As an established cooperative community, Newllano appeared to be the ideal …
Convict Lease System
The convict lease system was a way of operating state prisons adopted by Arkansas in the mid-nineteenth century. The Arkansas system mirrored that of other Southern states during this period and reflected the desire to reduce the cost and administrative problems of the state's prisons. While the system achieved its economic goals, it was typified by corruption and the abuse of prisoners, problems that ultimately brought about its abolition. In Arkansas, the convict lease system originated during the Reconstruction era when, in 1867, the state contracted with the firm of Hodges, Peay, and Ayliff to provide work for prisoners in the penitentiary at Little Rock (Pulaski County). The state agreed to pay the company thirty-five cents a day for the …
Conway-Crittenden Duel
aka: Crittenden-Conway Duel
In 1827, Henry Wharton Conway and Robert Crittenden, both important figures in territorial Arkansas, fought a duel that had profound implications for the course of Arkansas history. Conway, a former naval officer and governmental employee originally from Tennessee, had relocated to Arkansas for a governmental post and eventually sought political office in Arkansas. Crittenden, originally from Kentucky, also served in the armed forces and later held political positions in Arkansas; he was originally a political supporter of Conway. Both were young, professional, and successful in their own right, but a conflict ensued between the two during an Arkansas election campaign, leading Crittenden to challenge Conway to a duel. Conway and Crittenden were friends and had worked together in an official …
Crawford, Maud Robinson
Maud Robinson Crawford, a lawyer with the Gaughan, McClellan and Laney law firm in Camden (Ouachita County), mysteriously disappeared from her stately Colonial home on Saturday night, March 2, 1957, at age sixty-five. U.S. Senator John L. McClellan, a former partner in the law firm, was at the time of her disappearance the chairman of a high-profile Senate investigation into alleged mob ties to organized labor. The disappearance of Sen. McClellan's former associate was international news, a first assumption being that she had been kidnapped by the Mafia to intimidate the senator. When no ransom note appeared, however, the theory was rejected by law enforcement. No body was ever found, and the case was never solved. Maud Robinson was born …
Cuban Refugee Crisis
Arkansas played a part in the international drama of 1980, when 125,000 Cubans left their homeland for a new life in the United States. Roughly 25,000 of these Cuban refugees—called Marielitos because they had departed Cuba from the port of Mariel—were housed for a time at Fort Chaffee in Sebastian County. Their presence in Arkansas created social and political tension widely thought to have had an impact on the Arkansas governor's race of 1980. Cuba and the Boatlift The crisis of 1980 began April 11 of that year, when Hector Sanyustiz, accompanied by five friends, drove a Havana city bus through a gate onto the grounds of the Peruvian Embassy to Cuba. The six intended to seek political asylum. By …
Democratic Party Caucuses of 1984
On March 17, 1984, the state Democratic Party initiated the formal process of delegate selection to the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Participatory caucuses convened in the state's 767 precincts with the expectation that thirty-five of the forty-two delegates chosen would reflect, proportionally, the participants' candidate preferences. Seven slots were reserved for super-delegates, elected officials, and party organization leaders. The state party organization had traditionally taken responsibility for convention delegate selection, but national party reforms had substantially altered delegate selection processes in the states by making them more open to participation by the party rank-and-file. In this spirit, the Arkansas Democratic Party conducted presidential preferential primaries in 1976 and 1980. Those contests attracted some 500,000 and 440,000 voters, respectively. In 1983, …
Dueling was a popular means of settling disputes among the well-bred, higher-class population on the Arkansas frontier, and though it was considered part of the code of honor for a Southern gentleman, its popularity added to Arkansas's reputation for violence that remained until well after the Civil War. An insult, real or imagined, likely would bring a challenge from the injured party. Duels traditionally took place at dawn to avoid interruptions, and the two parties usually met somewhere just outside the territory to get around the laws against dueling that were passed as early as the 1820s. Friends would accompany the combatants, acting as "seconds," to see that things were carried out fairly. Seconds had to be of equal social …
DuMond, Wayne Eugene
aka: Wayne Dumond Affair
Wayne Eugene DuMond was a serial rapist and killer whose crimes and efforts to gain his freedom from prison vexed the political careers of three Arkansas governors: Bill Clinton, Jim Guy Tucker, and Mike Huckabee. Suspecting that DuMond might have been framed for the rape of a Forrest City (St. Francis County) woman because DuMond's accuser was a distant cousin of Clinton, who was by then president of the United States, Governor Huckabee arranged his parole to Missouri in 1999. DuMond was convicted soon thereafter of the rape and murder of a Missouri woman and was suspected of raping and killing another woman. When Huckabee ran for president in 2007–08, DuMond's parole and subsequent crimes became a major detriment because …
Elaine Massacre of 1919
aka: Elaine Race Riot of 1919
aka: Elaine Race Massacre
The Elaine Massacre was by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States. While its deepest roots lay in the state's commitment to white supremacy, the events in Elaine (Phillips County) stemmed from tense race relations and growing concerns about labor unions. A shooting incident that occurred at a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union escalated into mob violence on the part of the white people in Elaine and surrounding areas. Although the exact number is unknown, estimates of the number of African Americans killed by whites range into the hundreds; five white people lost their lives. The conflict began on the night of September 30, 1919, …
Questionable balloting procedures and fraudulent vote counts began early in Arkansas's political history and were a regular component of the state's politics, especially in rural areas, until about 1970. The state's tradition of one-party rule in which consequential elections were decided in party primaries, the absence of unbiased political information in the form of independent newspapers, and a traditionalistic political culture in which the activities of the ruling elite were generally unquestioned by the masses all contributed to an environment in which fraud—fundamentally problematic for a representative democracy—could persist. Such fraudulent behavior in Arkansas had its roots in the politics of "The Family," the Democratic regime that controlled the state's politics in the period following statehood. This Johnson-Conway-Sevier-Rector cousinhood accumulated …
Election Law of 1891
The passage of the Election Law of 1891 was essential to the solidification of power in the state for Democrats during the post-Reconstruction era and was the first step in making Arkansas a one-party state. In conjunction with the subsequent Poll Tax Amendment, controversially passed during the 1892 general election, the Election Law of 1891 effectively disfranchised African Americans in Arkansas and legally suppressed Republican and third-party political opposition. By 1888, Democratic Party officials in Arkansas were expressing concern about perceived election fraud in the state and the threat of federal oversight of state elections. Evidence of widespread election fraud and the highly publicized murder of Republican candidate John M. Clayton brought about mounting calls for election reform legislation. After much …
By 1860, about twenty-five percent of Arkansas's population was enslaved, amounting to more than 111,000 people. The emancipation of these people in Arkansas took place as a result of the American Civil War, their freedom achieved due to the decisions made by Union military leaders, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and the actions of the slaves themselves. Slavery's abolishment meant more than simply the loss of human property and the end of a labor system—it ended a social relationship that had defined the state's early development. The process of emancipation in Arkansas began before Lincoln's formal Emancipation Proclamation. Finding that Confederates had used slave labor to create physical obstacles in his path across Arkansas in 1862, Union general Samuel R. …
The Arkansas and U.S. Constitutions permit the process of eminent domain, which is the taking of private property for public purposes as long as there is just compensation paid to the owner, legal authorization for the taking, and an observance of procedural due process. Eminent domain can be used to obtain property for public purposes such as improvement districts, electric power lines, natural-gas pipelines, irrigation and drainage companies, cemeteries, roadways, bridges, dams, and state colleges and universities. Interpretation of the term "public purpose" has produced much of the case law on eminent domain, including Pfeifer v. City of Little Rock, a 2001 Arkansas case, and Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case; these cases …
England Food Riot of 1931
The England Food Riot of 1931 occurred after the drought of 1930 caused major crop failure across the region, leaving many farmers unable to feed their families. The Depression was occurring across America, and the majority of people in England (Lonoke County) and the surrounding area were destitute and desperate. As a result, approximately fifty angry farmers converged on the town of England, demanding food to feed to the starving members of their community. The crowd grew to include hundreds once in town, and the merchants, with assurances of repayment by the Red Cross, agreed to open their doors and offer all they had to avert any violence from the mob. The crowd dispersed peacefully, but the incident created a …
Factory System
aka: Indian Trading Posts
aka: Indian Factory System
The Indian factory system was a system of trading posts created by an act of Congress in 1795 with the express intention of developing and maintaining Native American friendship and allegiance through government control of trade on the frontiers of the new nation. Within the present borders of the state of Arkansas, three factories were established for this purpose: Arkansas Post (1805–1810), Spadra Bayou (1817–1822), and Sulphur Fork (1818–1822). The United States took formal possession of Arkansas Post (Arkansas County) from Spanish authorities on March 23, 1804. An Indian factory (or trading post) was established in October 1805 with James B. Treat as factor (or chief trader). Most of the trade was directed to the local Quapaw. However, prior to the establishment …
Featherstone v. Cate
In the Arkansas election of 1888, Agricultural Wheel members and other groups formed the Union Labor Party and allied with the Republicans to offer a serious challenge to the Democrats. In 1889, the Featherstone v. Cate congressional hearings resulted from allegations of election fraud in the race for U.S. representative from Arkansas's First Congressional District, a district comprising seventeen eastern counties including Craighead, Crittenden, Cross, Lee, Phillips, and St. Francis. In 1888, the race for first district representative pitted Independent candidate Lewis P. Featherstone of Forrest City (St. Francis County) against Democratic judge William Henderson Cate of Jonesboro (Craighead County). Initially, the election results showed Cate the winner with 15,576 votes to Featherstone's 14,238. In late November 1888, Featherstone, alleging fraud in Crittenden, Cross, Lee, …
Fort Smith Conference (1865)
As a diplomatic assembly of Native American delegates and U.S. government officials, the Fort Smith Conference of 1865 was designed to reestablish relations between the federal government and Native American tribes of Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) who had allied themselves with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Talks, which stretched from September 8 to September 23, 1865, informed tribal delegates that all pre-war treaty rights were forfeited upon taking up arms against the Union and that new treaties with the United States had to be negotiated. The Fort Smith Conference ultimately failed to achieve new treaties, as Native American delegates refused to consent to strict treaty stipulations and because factional squabbling between loyalist and secessionist Native Americans hampered negotiations. At …
GI Revolt
The political reform movement known as the GI Revolt emerged during the county political campaigns of 1946. Typically associated with World War II veterans eager to bring change to their hometowns and the state of Arkansas, the movement actually was broader than just military service veterans and had a limited statewide impact. The term "GI" was shorthand for "Government Improvement" (a play on the term GI—General Issue, i.e., enlisted men—because many involved in the movement were returning GIs and officers), which had an identifiable organization in six counties: Cleveland, Crittenden, Garland, Montgomery, Pope, and Yell, as well as the city of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). While government improvement citizen groups had organized before and continue to appear until the present, …
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Grand Gulf Nuclear Generating Station is the name of a nuclear-powered electricity-generating station at Port Gibson on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River downstream from Vicksburg, Mississippi. Issues surrounding the financing of this station convulsed politics in Arkansas for the last two decades of the twentieth century. Between 1985, when the power station began producing electricity, and 2012, customers of Entergy Arkansas, Inc., and its predecessor, Arkansas Power and Light (AP&L), had to pay $4.5 billion—about $6,500 per customer—to operate the Mississippi plant and subsidize Louisiana ratepayers under the terms of old agreements among the four utilities in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana owned by Middle South Utilities, a holding company based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The prospect of Arkansas's …


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ECC Media Release | City Council Scoops Environment Award
Posted on March 23, 2016 March 23, 2016 by paul4cowick
City Council Scoops Environment Award
A green-thinking council has won recognition at the highest level for its efforts to become an energy-neutral authority.
Exeter City Council beat off tough competition from dozens of other local authorities to win the Environment Award at last night's Local Government Chronicle Awards in London.
Judges described Exeter's submission as an "Excellent project, well-funded and supported and able to demonstrate achievements."
The reward recognises the City Council's work over recent years to reduce its carbon footprint and encourage others to do the same. By bringing in environmentally-friendly initiatives like solar panels and energy efficient lighting, the Council is able to save money and protect the environment at the same time.
The City Council is striving to become an energy neutral council by 2050.
Cllr Rachel Sutton, Lead Councillor for City Development, said: "I am delighted that the LGC has recognised the work we are doing at the City Council. Thanks to a whole host of green-thinking initiatives we will see a massive 37% reduction in energy consumption here at the Civic Centre and throughout our other buildings."
The delivery of a vast programme of energy efficiency and solar PV projects, including some ground-breaking initiatives over the last year will bring about savings and a gross income of over £500,000 per annum. This is of huge benefit to the Council, reducing budgets and protecting Council services, as well as supporting the community and businesses.
Pioneering Solar PV canopies – the first of their kind in the UK – have been placed on two city centre car parks, and the latest installation is a 1.5MW array at the Council's Livestock Centre. This is believed to be the largest roof top solar array in the South West, with 5,246 panels.
The PV array completed in December, follows the installation of a new roof on the building, funded by the savings and income generated by the solar panels. The array will produce 1,404mwh of energy a year, enough to power 335 homes and save 790 tonnes of carbon a year.
The Council also recently completed a solar PV installation at the former Electricity Building – now the Quay Climbing Centre – which enables the Council to sell renewable energy generated at a discounted price to the leaseholder. A second scheme of this type has also benefited the Exeter CVS at Wat Tyler House.
Other highlights have seen the City Council install Park & Plug car charging points in car parks around the City and the local authority's involvement in the setting up of district heating networks like the one at Exeter Skypark and in the near future at the Monkerton housing development.
Posted in Becoming an Energy Neutral Council, ECC, LGC AwardsTagged Becoming an Energy Neutral Council, Cllr Rachel Sutton, Jo Pearce, LGC, LGC Awards 2016, Solar PV, Solar PV panelsLeave a comment
#LGCawards | Becoming an Energy Neutral Council
Posted on March 16, 2016 November 22, 2016 by paul4cowick
Exeter City Council has been nominated for two awards in the LGA Awards 2016
Environment Award [sponsored by Repic]
This award is awarded to mark excellence in any aspect of councils' work in environmental services, including sustainability, recycling, refuse collection, and street cleaning. Entries will be judged on the innovation of their submissions and the extent to which it has improved the environment in their area and/or the efficiency of service delivery.
Submissions should focus on:
A full description of the project and its aims;
A detailed explanation of costs, how it was funded and where the expertise for it came from;
The impact of the council's work on the lives of local people, for instance by showing how their concerns led to a positive response;
Evidence that the project has met its goals.
Award entries will be judged upon:
The extent to which the council's work was an innovative response to a significant concern and potentially can be replicated in other areas;
The quality of the outcomes obtained from the project, for instance in improved or more efficient services;
Evidence of buy-in to the project or its goals from members of the local community or external organisations.
Shortlist:
Cambridgeshire County Council
Lincolnshire County Council/Keep Britain Tidy
London Borough of Lambeth
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Public Power Solutions, a Wholly Owned Company of Swindon Borough Council
Staffordshire County Council
Efficiency [sponsored by National Audit Office]
Councils face continued pressure to reduce costs and increase their efficiency. Many have now reached the point at which further efficiency can be achieved only by innovative approaches and new relations with citizens and partner organisations. The focus is on how to secure "better for less". This award is intended to highlight how the most imaginative councils are facing this challenge.
Outlining your savings and efficiency targets for 2013-14, 2014-15 and beyond, the extent to which you achieved those targets and the evidence you use to both set targets and measure performance against them;
How you have used the pressure to cuts costs to prompt organisational change and secure improved outcomes;
The main drivers of and barriers to securing efficiencies;
How you have engaged local citizens, service users and partner organisations in this work.
Award entries will be judged on:
The scale of the council's ambition and the extent to which it has succeeded in achieving it;
Whether securing savings and efficiencies has driven service improvements;
The process the council adopted, including stakeholder engagement;
The quality and use of the evidence base available to the council.
ENGIE & North Tyneside Council
Hampshire County Council and Argenti Teleheathcare
London Borough of Ealing
London Borough of Newham
Peterborough City Council
South London SEN Commissioning Programme
The submissions for both categories were based on this document
Exeter City Council is a cost efficient, forward thinking Council, working to reduce its carbon footprint and encouraging others to do the same. A new commitment to make real change and deliver Exeter's aspiration to become a lead sustainable authority has been embarked on. The goal is to deliver long term financial and carbon savings as Exeter strives to become an energy neutral council. This ambition is supported by an innovative programme of energy efficient and renewable initiatives, financially supported and already producing substantial savings.
The City Council's target is to reduce its base load energy consumption, deliver financial savings and cut carbon emissions to support Council services as well as supporting the community and business.
Building a Sustainable Council
Consumption across all council assets increased in 2012/13 at a rate of 19%. This pattern of energy consumption was unsustainable and presented a real threat to the ability of Exeter City Council to continue to provide quality services. As a result a new fully enabled commercially driven Energy Team was established in Corporate Property Assets to drive forward a Renewables and Energy Efficiency Programme. The team laid down an ambitious programme to achieve energy reduction, to generate renewable energy, to be an energy neutral Council. In addition, the programme would tackle carbon produced (4500 tonnes in 2012/13) with a 20% reduction achievable by year 3.
The Renewables and Energy Efficiency Programme
Solar PV installed in early 2013 to four main Council facilities proved far reaching and demonstrated the value of renewable technology. To date the PV array's at the Council's Civic Centre, Oakwood House Office, Materials Recycling Facility, and Museum Store has exceeded the Government's performance data by 32%; subsequently the project is predicted to break even within 5 years and will provide an index linked income stream for a further 15 years. During the first full year of operation, the 180kW PV array delivered an income of nearly £48,000 and saved 82 tonnes of carbon.
Exeter Citizen, Winter 2013
The innovative Renewables and Energy Efficiency Programme included further PV installations to Council buildings, including a pioneering Solar Canopy Car Park project (PV arrays to the top deck of 2No.city car parks), an installation on the Grade II listed Royal Albert Memorial Museum, City Climb Centre and a 1.5MW array to the Council's Livestock Centre. In addition, the Climb Centre, Car Park Arrays and Livestock Centre all provide energy to other organisations. Using a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) the Council has become an energy provider, selling discounted renewable energy to its leaseholders, supporting local business and the voluntary sector with cheaper energy bills.
3D image of Livestock Centre 1.5MW array (installed December 2015)
Real Innovation – Solar Canopy Arrays on Multi-story Car Parks
The Solar Canopy arrays are installed on two of our largest City Centre Car Parks, our most complex solar project to date. The solar Car Park project has broken new ground, not only in the South West, but also nationally and represents innovation that can be shared. The PV arrays will provide an income of over £50,000 per annum over 25years, generating 285,227 kwh per year of renewable energy, and saving 150 tonnes of CO2 per year. They present:
Zero Carbon. Linked to low energy lighting installed, a zero carbon parking service is achieved.
Dual Benefit. The Car Park Canopy structures provided undercover parking, providing for more attractive parking, happier customers and increased parking revenue.
Technical Innovation. The Solar canopy project is a UK first and provides a workable structural and parking solution.
Solar EV Charging. Car Park Users will be able to charge Electric Vehicles for free using renewable energy.
Community Benefit. Local installer, local design and engineering, visible profile promoting the benefits of solar PV, and sale of energy to local voluntary group based in a building next to Car Park.
John Lewis Car Park Canopy 150kw array, under construction
Mary Arches Car Park 150kw Canopy array in operation
Other energy efficiency measures in buildings
It can be seen that renewable technology provides for enormous cost savings and delivers long term income. By the same token, key energy saving projects are vital if Exeter is to reduce consumption and to make for a sustainable property asset.
An LED lighting replacement project at the Council's main offices has proved a huge success reducing consumption by 60%, demonstrating significant long term energy and cost savings of £32,000 per annum. Additional benefits include reduced maintenance and improved lighting which has made for better working environment.
LED lighting has also been effectively installed in city centre car parks, again reducing electricity consumption, in some cases up to 65% (see snapshot below- Harlequins Car Park). As well as reduced maintenance/ administration costs the lighting is significantly improved, making for well lit and safer car parking.
The success of the LED project is shared with residents to promote the benefits of LED, featuring in the Council's quarterly newspaper delivered to every home in the City.
Exeter Citizen, Spring 2014
Further energy efficiency schemes include removing paper towels and installation of low energy hand driers, water saving devices which have delivered savings of over £20,000 per annum since installation in 2013, and replacement of the incumbent oil fired boilers that heat the Civic Offices with gas boilers..
The new efficient boilers allow for a saving of over £28,000 per annum and the removal of oil provides a significant carbon saving. The space left as a result of the clearing the existing oil tanks provides a new bike store for staff, encouraging green travel.
Future energy saving measures planned include staff engagement projects to reduce consumption further, to tackle the unoccupied base load of the Civic Offices, utilising low energy kitchen facilities. This will not only deliver a financial return, but make for an improved and more creative working environment.
All in all the Civic Centre has been transformed into an energy efficient building, benefiting from significant cost and carbon savings, as well setting an example of best practice. This is clearly demonstrated by the energy consumption graph below.
Civic Centre energy consumption (kWh)
The Council's aspiration for Energy Neutrality, through self financed investment in renewables and other energy saving schemes, forms an essential cornerstone to achieving a 20% reduction in carbon emissions, whilst essentially safeguarding public services through income generation.
A strategy to deliver an Energy Neutral Council is one built on:
Maximising our Commercial Business Opportunities. All projects are delivered on the basis of a robust business case. The income and savings delivered create new income streams which support key Council services.
Leadership. Exeter has been able to share its expertise and influence local residents and business as well as influencing the national energy agenda.
Wellbeing. Energy projects can help to improve wellbeing and supporting community energy schemes, and to assist in reducing fuel poverty.
 Sustainable Economic Development. Energy projects present an opportunity to stimulate growth by generation of local jobs.
Energy Security. A consistent, reliable and affordable energy supply providing greater sustainability, energy security and protection against environmental and carbon taxes.
Carbon Reduction. Lover environmental impact, improved well being for the people of Exeter. A low carbon City.
Real Savings
To date the savings are clear, with energy consumption of the Council's total estate cut by 2.5milllion kwh. Based on projects completed up to December 2015 a reduction of 15.25% is achieved in 2015/16 and a gross income of £319,000. Moreover projects recently completed, all within year 2 of the programme will provide for considerable decline in consumption, a reduction of 37% in 2016/17 and a gross income of £522,000, with a carbon saving of 24%.
ECC – Total energy use
The above is the work of a dedicated and enthusiastic Energy Team of two people, that in itself demonstrates real achievement. The projects realised are substantial and already provide real and significant savings, demonstrating leadership for community benefit. The Energy Team's individual expertise has gained support from elected members, enabling all projects to be self financed by the Council. Future projects planned and future development of the Renewables and Energy Saving Programme will ensure Exeter continues to reduce energy consumed, increase renewable energy generated and achieve its aspiration to be an Energy Neutral Council.
Other Projects and Collaboration
The following projects demonstrate Exeter is fast becoming a lead authority, one that is collectively making ground breaking steps to be a truly low carbon City, and one that sets a standard for all.
Last year, the Council underwent a fleet review by the Energy Saving Trust. This indicated that savings could be generated by the replacement of life-expired vehiclesby electric rather than petrol or diesel versions. Generally our vehicles do not travel beyond our compact administrative area, so the limited range of such vehicles is not an issue. The first phase of a new electric vehicle fleet is underway with electric pool cars and small operational vans already in service.
Exeter Citizen, Summer 2014
The above acquisition was made possible by our success with a bid to OLEV in 2013, which has provided for seven twin charging points. The chargepoints are called 'Plug and Park' Stations and the design is a highly visible one promoting Electric Vehicle use. The chargepoints are situated in key city locations, including car parks where they are available for public use. Drivers pay the normal parking charge but do not have to pay for charging.
Low Carbon Task Force
The Council is an active member of the Exeter and Heart of Devon Low Carbon Task Force, an association of public and private sector organisations reporting to the Growth Board for the area, including local authorities, Chamber of Commerce, Eon, the University of Exeter, and the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (RDE).
The Task Force drives the delivery of a low carbon economy, working to:  Develop low carbon heating and power solutions in the Exeter and East
Devon Growth Point.  Explore opportunities to develop a city centre heat network.  Help local businesses to save energy and adopt new technologies.  Develop Eco opportunities to eco-refurbish homes.
District Heat Networks
The Council is working with key stakeholder and the Low Carbon Task Force to develop goals listed above, including two district heat networks in Exeter. Such a system is already operating in Cranbrook, this takes heat from a CHP plant to dwellings in the town and the Skypark employment area.
A similar scheme is underway for Monkerton, a strategic development area in the east of the city, with a site available for a CHP plant to which major landowners have signed up. A further scheme, as part of a city centre regeneration project on thecurrent Exeter bus station site, includes retrofitting some existing large premises such as the RDE, and linking to a new Energy from Waste Plant at Marsh Barton. The Council is working with partners on a delivery model, including an Energy Supply Company with public sector involvement to deliver the city centre scheme.
The Council has used planning conditions and section 106 obligations to ensure that new development in the relevant areas is designed to be compatible with a district heating network, and to connect to such a network when it becomes available. Section 106 obligations have also secured essential financial contributions.
Low Emissions Strategy
In 2013/14 the Council was awarded Air Quality Grant funding by DEFRA to develop a Low Emissions Strategy for Exeter. This is important because the city was designated an Air Quality Management Area where nitrogen dioxide concentrations exceed objectives because of traffic emissions. The strategy will deliver innovative and sustainable ways to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions, working with key stakeholders to ensure that carbon and air quality policy are mutually beneficial, and improve the health of those living close to the busiest roads.
The Green Accord is a proven environmental accreditation scheme developed by Exeter City Council, Global Action Plan and key local businesses. It has received national acclaim (see national award recognition below), endorsement from the audit commission and is a standard used by other public bodies such as Exeter University and the MET Offce.
The Green Accord is an accreditation that drives sustainability and addresses the environmental responsibilities facing those who procure. It demonstrates best practice and the reduction of environmental impact through the whole supply chain, by demanding practical actions and the instigation of alternative working practices. To date the scheme has helped hundreds of businesses to make efficiencies, improve working practices and reduce operational costs, not only providing for environmental savings but also improved business worth.
Exeter City Council was announced WINNER of the Environment category at the LGC Awards 2016 ceremony on the evening of 16 March 2016.
My Storify feed: 16/03/16 | @LGCawards #LGCawards
ImagePosted in Energy-Neutral Council, LGC AwardsTagged Becoming an Energy Neutral Council, ECC, Efficiency Award, Electric vehicles, Environment Award, Exeter City Council, Green Accord, John Lewis Car Park, LGC, Livestock Centre, Low Carbon Task Force, Low Emissions Strategy, Mary Arches Car Park, Solar PVLeave a comment
Extraordinary Meeting of @ExeterCouncil to set 2016-17 Budget
Posted on February 23, 2016 February 24, 2016 by paul4cowick
Earlier tonight, Exeter City Council met in the Guildhall to set the Council's budget for 2016-17.
There has been a series of meeting that contributed towards the setting of the Budget since the Government announced the provisional Local Government Settlement on 17 December 2015. The Council is to receive £5.802 million in 2016/17, which is £110,000 lower than predicted within the Medium Term Financial Plan. However, it was decided NOT to revisit the budgets as the shortfall could be managed within the budget.
The Local Government Finance Settlement also set the referendum level for District Councils in the lowest quartile of Council Tax rates at no more than £5 rather than 1.99%. Exeter falls into this category and therefore has the opportunity to increase its Council Tax by £5 (3.7%). Along with the increase in the taxbase this will raise an additional £269,000.
It should be noted that in the Government spending calculations, they have assumed that all authorities in the lower quartile will raise their Council Tax by £5 and have set the spending reductions accordingly.
The Council's revenue estimates for next year were considered during thecycle of Scrutiny Committee meetings and the final budget report was discussed at the Executive meeting on 9 February 2016.
Regulations dictates the Council holds an Extraordinary Meeting of the Council when setting its budget
The agenda can be found here.
In the absence of Leader Cllr Pete Edwards [LAB, Whipton Barton], the Budget speech was delivered by his Deputy, Cllr Rachel Sutton [LAB, Exwick].
Thank you Lord Mayor.
I would like to start off by paying thanks to the Officers, especially Mark Parkinson, Dave Hodgson and his team, for their help in preparing these figures, and indeed for their work throughout the year.
I would like to set the context for this year's budget by reminding everyone – members, officers and the wider public – that the reductions in funding received by local authorities like Exeter over the last few years from central government are amongst the most severe cuts we have faced in living memory.
This Council has had a 12.6% reduction in Government Formula Grant for the year 2016/17 on top of equally drastic cuts in previous years. Last year it was a cut of 15.6%.
Between 2010 & 2015 Exeter's government grant has dropped from £12m to £7.7m but Exeter, unlike some local authorities has not been sleep walking towards oblivion, we have been working hard to make the necessary changes and plans for a future when the money we get from central government will have been cut to a fraction of what it was if indeed it doesn't disappear completely.
In the financial year 2014/15 we made £1.5m in savings, and we continue to streamline and modernise the services we offer to residents and businesses by finding smarter and more efficient ways of working like setting up Strata with our neighbouring councils to deliver IT services across three local authorities and gain financial savings of 7m over the next 10 years.
We are working with our partners in the NHS, the voluntary sector and at Devon County Council to offer the Integrated Care for Exeter [ICE] project that will deliver better services that meet the needs of our citizens and which will save money and resources across all the partner organisations.
But in setting the budget for 2016-17, I am proposing a balanced budget with much of the lost formula grant replaced by additional income streams guaranteed long into the future. These include the guaranteed income from the Feed In Tariff payments on solar panels fitted on the rooves of two of our Car Parks, the Museum, the Quay Climbing Centre, The Phoenix and the largest solar array in Exeter at over 7,000 panels at the Livestock Centre, which on its own will generate over £160,000 a year in income for the Council. And in addition to the financial savings we are reducing our carbon footprint .
In addition to these solar panels we have also replaced our inefficient boilers at the Civic Centre and installed LED lighting in our offices and car parks.
These projects have also delivered tangible savings without affecting front line service delivery.
Cllr Edwards joined the leaders of more than 50 Labour-run councils in pledging to make all our towns and cities across the UK 100% clean before 2050, in line with the commitments made nationally and internationally at the Paris Summit on Climate Change in December 2015.
Our new and emerging partnership with Exeter City Futures and our own ambitious plans to be an energy neutral council by 2020 will go a long way to deliver the Leader's Green Pledge.
We continue to deliver much needed housing:
In the last year we have built 26 brand new council houses for local families and we are about to begin work on providing an additional 26 new flats for older people next door to Rennes House
Since 01 April 2014, 64 affordable homes have been delivered with 235 further affordable homes consented and in the pipeline for national house builders.
In Exeter we have seen 3,468 new homes built since 2011-12 – more than any other district in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay – earning the Council £10.2m in New Homes Bonus with a significant proportion of these new homes suitable for wheelchair users.
However it must be pointed out that the Housing & Planning Bill currently going through parliament might put much of these plans in jeopardy threatening our ability to make decisions about how we run our Housing Revenue Account and plan for future building of council houses
We have provided new floodlights for the new and improved Flowerpots Skatepark so that the young people who use it can get the maximum benefit from the facilities
New businesses are now moving on the Exeter Science Park
Work is now progressing on a landmark building to house the Met Office's £97m High Performance Computer.
Job creation continues to increase with new businesses relocating to the city – our own team have helped create 476 jobs in the city.
We continue to be an ambitious Council and are determined to ensure that the City achieves its potential and our residents receive quality services. We continue to support the City ensuring it stays at the forefront of economic recovery and will support the delivery of:
• A new Leisure Complex built to Passivhaus standards that the City will be proud of
• A modernised Bus Station fit to meet the needs of travellers to and from the City for many years to come;
• Two major events in and around the City in 2016 have already been announced – the Radio 1 Big Weekend at Powderham Castle and the European Rugby sevens event at Sandy Park. The Rugby sevens event will be held at Sandy Park for the next three years and building on the success of the Rugby World Cup, last year will further enhance the reputation of the City.
And all this is without the need to increase our overall borrowing requirement.
As a Council we have also supported greater investment in the infrastructure of the City.
We have this year agreed to provide:
• £1.3 million towards the delivery of the new railway station at Marsh Barton;
• £1.025m towards the delivery of a fully operational junction at Sandy Park to enable further development in the area;
• Over £200,000 towards the improvement of our car parks and to provide a permanent electricity supply to Exeter Farmers market.
Finally, for next year's budget we have made further efficiency savings in the region of £1.1m.
We have again managed to achieve this without a reduction in front line services.
Lord Mayor, Councillors – the budget that I am proposing to you this evening aims to deliver a balanced budget that will protect and maintain the services which the citizens of Exeter need the most.
I therefore propose to you the recommendation set out in the papers before you in terms of the approval of both the revenue estimates and capital programme for the year 2016/17 and which will result in the setting of a District Council tax of £140.05 for a Band D property.
This is an increase of £5 a year for a Band D property less than 10p a week and still means that Exeter sets the 4th lowest Council Tax of any district.
I so move.
There was then a debate on the Budget.
The Leader of the Tory Group, Cllr Andrew Leadbetter [CON, St Loye ] agreed that central Government were cutting funding – but at the same time were enabling local authorities to find other ways to raise money to fund revenue budgets
However, he felt that his group would have to abstain because, although there were some good things in the Budget, there were other things in it that he and group couldn't support.
Cllr Phil Bialyk [LAB, Exwick]said that imaginative leadership is taking this Council forward. He was pleased that the Budget proposed by the Labour Group had no additional cuts to frontline Council services. He pointed out that there was all that extra investment – all for an extra fiver a year.
Cllr Rob Hannaford [LAB, St Thomas] pointed out that the Council were working to best practice. He thought that we are still leading the way in delivering an ambitious programme despite the risks in the future – reduced revenue support grant, challenges to the self-financing of Housing Revenue Account, welfare reform cuts, unexplained programme of business rate retention following a futrure NNDR revaluation, devolution, and more. He concluded that he would be supporting a good, balanced and robust Budget.
Cllr Rosie Denham [ LAB, Whipton Barton] looked at one element of the Budget – the role Exeter City Futures will make in the work of the Council and the impact that will have on all of us, and our residents. She was grateful for the cross-party support for the initiative and hopes that the project, by taking a strategic approach, would tackle concerns over traffic congestion, health and the environment. Rosie was adamant that we should always think carefully over proposed schemes, programmes and policies, and noted that we are in the incredibly lucky position to be able to come up with imaginative and creative ways to balance our Budget but we shouldn't take any of this for granted. She concluded that other local authorities were so fortunate and was frightened for the state of the roads, the schools, heath and social care elsewhere.
Cllr Stella Brock [LD, St David's] questioned the no cuts message of the Budget and questioned the spending on the Bus Station development site [having voted against it at the outline planning stage].
In reply, Cllr Sutton said that the changes to services highlighted by Cllr Brock were not cuts per se but changes to work in smarter and more efficient ways. Rachel also pointed out that without the planned interventions from ECC, the Bus Station development site wouldn't have levered in an investment of over £75m from the Crown Estate and TH Real Estate and would remain a blot on the landscape of the city centre.
In concluding the debate, Cllr Sutton said she was disappointed that NO alternative proposals were coming forward from the Conservative Group, describing it as lazy opposition. Indeed, she pointed out that we know what they are against, but they never state what they are for.
The meeting voted and RESOLVED:-
(1) That the following, as submitted in the Estimates Book, be approved:-
(a) the Revenue estimates for 2016-2017
(b) the Capital programme for 2016-2017;
(2) that it be noted that, at the meeting of the Executive on the 26 January 2016, the Council calculated the figure of 35,429, as its council tax base for the year 2016-2017 in accordance with the Local Authorities (Calculation of Council Tax Base) (England) Regulations 2012 made under Section 33(5) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992;
(3) that the following amounts be now calculated by the Council for the year 2016-2017 in accordance with Sections 31A of the Local Government and Finance Act 1992:-
(a) £103,925,695 being the aggregate of the amounts which the Council estimates for the items set out in Section 31A(2)(a) to (f) of the Act;
(b) £98,963,864 being the aggregate of the amounts which the Council estimates for the items set out in Section 31A(3)(a) to (d) of the Act;
(c) £4,961,831 being the amount by which the aggregate at (3)(a) above exceeds the aggregate at (3)(b) above, calculated by the Council, in accordance with Section 31A(4) of the Act, as its council tax requirement for the year;
(d) £140.05 being the amount at (3)(c) above divided by the amount at 2 above, calculated by the Council, in accordance with Section 31B(1) of the Act, as the basic amount of its council tax for the year;
(e) Valuation Bands
(4) That it will be noted that, for the year 2016-2017, Devon County Council, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall and the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority have stated the following amounts on precepts issued to the Council, in accordance with Section 83 of the Local Government Act 2003, for each of the categories of the dwellings shown below:-Being the amount given by multiplying the amount at (3)(d) above by the number which, in the proportion set out in Section 5(1) of the Act, is applicable to dwellings listed in a particular valuation band divided by the number which in that proportion is applicable to dwellings listed in valuation band D, calculated by the Council, in accordance with Section 36(1) of the Act, as the amounts to be taken into account for the year in respect of categories of dwellings listed in different valuation bands.
Devon County Council
Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority
(5) That, having calculated the aggregate in each case of the amounts at (3)(e) and (4) above, the Council, in accordance with Section 30(2) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, hereby set the following amounts as the amounts of council tax for the year 2016-2017 for each of the categories of dwellings shown below:-
The Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 amended the similarly named 2001 regulations (which were themselves previously amended in 2012) in order to require local authorities to undertake recorded named votes when setting the annual budget and council tax, this to include substantive motions and any amendments
Although the amended legislation came into force on 25 February 2014. there was anexpectation of the Government that authoritiesholding their annual budget meeting before this date will adopt the new ruling when setting their annual budget and council tax. ECC used a named vote at their budget setting meeting in 2015.
For [24]:
Cllr Bialyk, Cllr Branston, Cllr Brimble, Cllr Bull, Cllr Buswell, Cllr Choules, Cllr Denham, Cllr George, Cllr Hannaford, Cllr Hannan, Cllr Laws, Cllr Lyons, Cllr Morse, Cllr Owen, Cllr Packham, Cllr Pearson, Cllr Raybould, the Deputy Lord Mayor [Cllr Robson], Cllr Sheldon, Cllr Spackman, Cllr Sutton, Cllr Wardle, Cllr Vizard and Cllr Williams
Against [01]:
Cllr Brock
Abstain [10]:
Cllr Baldwin, the Lord Mayor [Cllr Foggin], Cllr Harvey, Cllr Holland, Cllr Leadbetter, Cllr Mottram, Cllr Newby, Cllr Prowse, Cllr Shiel and Cllr Thompson
Absent [04]:
Cllr Crew, Cllr Edwards, Cllr Henson, and Cllr Morris
Fees and Charges 2016-17
Posted in UncategorizedTagged #GreenPledge, Cllr Andrew Leadbetter, Cllr Pete Edwards, Cllr Phil Bialyk, Cllr Rachel Sutton, Cllr Stella Brock, COP21, DCC, Devon County Council, Exeter City Futures, Exeter Science Park, Feed-In Tariff, FIT, Flowerpots Skatepark, Government Formula Grant, High Performance Computer, Housing & Planning Bill, Housing Revenue Account, ICE, Integrated Care for Exeter, Met Office, New Homes Bonus, NHB, NHS, Solar PV, Solar PV panels, StrataLeave a comment
An election elevator pitch for a floating voter
Posted on January 26, 2015 February 21, 2015 by paul4cowick
It's election countdown time – so time to prepare an elevator pitch for a floating voter!
"You're a floating voter, you say. Over the next one hundred days or so, you're going to be bombarded with facts and figures by all parties to try and convince you to vote for them.
And I'm going to be no different!
I'm proud of what Exeter Labour have done for the city.
Council Tax in the city is one of the lowest in the country, but by using our assets – our car parks and property portfolio – we've managed to avoid the worst ravages of auterity cuts imposed by the Tory-led Coalition Government. [1]
Exeter's track record of increasing productivity has been highlighted as one of the best in the UK, second only to oil-rich Aberdeen. [2]
As a result, Exeter has a thriving economy – with vacant shops in the city at half the national average.
We see culture is an economic driver of the city – and Exeter is only 1 of 3 local authorities that spends 50p per week per person on arts, culture and heritage.
As a council, we aspire to be energy neutral by the year 2020 – already an award-winning programme [3]
We already have solar PV panels on the roofs of many of our civic buildings, and now we're planning to install them on the top decks of some of our car parks.
We've invested in electric vehicles and with Government grants have installed electric charging points around the city
We're converting our office lighting to LED and will use motion sensors to switch them off when not needs.
So by voting for Exeter Labour, as well as RED you get GREEN."
[1] Exeter Citizen [Spring 2014]
[2] The State of The North ed: Ed Cox and Luke Raikes [IPPR North, November 2014]
[3] Exeter City Council – Becoming an Energy Neutral Council in PSS Magazine [ November 2014] – Winner Best Energy Management in Public Sector Sustainability Awards 2014
Posted in #ECC2015Tagged #REDandGreen, Culture, Solar PVLeave a comment
Solar PV panels on Exeter's city council car parks
It's always risky claiming to be the first…with 14 men and 13 women as part of the ruling Exeter Labour Group on the 40 member Exeter City, Council, I believe that we are one of the first to come close to 50:50 parity. Each and every time, I take care to qualify this claim.
So when I read on the website of Association of Green Councillors:
Green councillor wins £200k for Britain's first solar car park
alarm bells start ringing.
I started to read the article and notice Green councillor Simon Grover on St Albans Council is a little more cautious in describing his victory at the annual budget setting meeting on 03 December 2014 , where he as 1 of 29 who voted through an amendment that approved £200,000 investment in solar PV units for council-owned open air car parks (with a majority of one).
Simon said: "I am not aware of any other UK council car parks that use these, though there will be privately-run ones."
And he went on to say that this would be "subject to all the usual planning and costing checks, but work should start..next year."
But I KNOW that St Alban isn't the first local authority to place solar PV panels on the top decks of their car parks.
Exeter City Council started to install solar PV panels on the roofs of Council building in March 2013, and by April 2013 Exeter Labour Party were already considering schemes for placing solar panels on other buildings including building canopies above the top deck of car parks.
I sit on Exeter City Council's Scrutiny Committee: Resources which considered at it's meeting on 19 March 2014 a reported entitled "An Energy Neutral Council – A Renewables and Energy Efficient Programme"
The purpose of the report was "To support a programme of renewable and energy saving initiatives that will assist in the delivery of corporate priorities around improving the environment and maintaining the assets of the city as well as providing essential income and long term savings to the Council."
The Resources Committee agreed to the recommendations and the report moved on to be considered at the Executive meeting of 01 April 2014.
They RESOLVED that:
(1) progress made to date in delivering renewable and energy efficient initiatives be noted;
(2) proposed new initiatives, included in Phase I and II as set out in the report be endorsed;
(3) the Corporate Manager Property, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder Enabling Services, Deputy Chief Executive and Assistant Director Finance be authorised to approve delivery of further energy saving projects within the Capital Programme funding allocation; and
(4) progress and outcomes of the programme be reported to Scrutiny Committee – Resources on a regular basis.
One of the first ideas to be explored was to progress the earlier plans to install solar PV panels on the City Council's car parks.
The plans were reported in the E&E – City Council plans to fit solar panels to Exeter car parks (27 March 2014)
The plans were outlined in an article in E&E in Council plans more than 1000 solar panels over Exeter's car parks in 'ground breaking project' (04 November 2014).
The Planning Committee held on 08 December 2014 considered 2 applications:
14/4623/16: Installation of photovoltaic solar panels on the top deck of John Lewis multi-storey car park.
14/4624/16: Installation of photovoltaic solar panels on the top deck of Mary Arches multi-storey car park.
and both were approved.
So I'm not going to claim that Exeter City Council will be the first local authority to install solar PV panels in our owns car parks – but we are certainly in their with the vanguard with our ground breaking plans.
Posted in #REDnotGreenTagged #CowickPNSL, Association of Green Councillors, Exeter City Council, Exeter Labour Party, Renewable Energy, Solar PVLeave a comment
Changes to Fit -in Tariffs casts shadow on solar PV industry
Posted on December 13, 2011 February 21, 2016 by paul4cowick
Earlier this evening I seconded a motion, proposed by Cllr Catherine Dawson of Mincinglake condeming the Conservative/LibDem coalition governments sham consultatioj over the rushed plans to change the level of Feed-In Tariff payment to those installing solar PV panels on their roofs.
Announced at the end of October, the changes came into effect yesterday, 10 days before the end of a consultation on the matter.
The motion:
This Council calls on the Government to reverse its cruel cuts to the tariff which will harm a lot of residents in Exeter.
They are planning to cut the tariff for solar PV installations with a capacity of 4KW or less by more than 50% from 43p/kWh to 21p/kWh. For multiple installations the rate falls to 16.8p/kWh.
Their rushed cuts to the Feed in tariff for solar PV goes too far, too fast, hits families trying to protect themselves from soaring energy bills, put thousands of jobs and businesses in the solar industry in jeopardy and give lie to the government's promise to be the "greenest government ever"
My speech seconding the motion:
My Lord Mayor
As a long-time supporter of Green causes, it gives me great pleasure to second this resolution.
And I'm pleased that this is on a day when there are protests outside Parliament asking the Government to Cut Not Kill the solar power industry and two days before a legal challenge to the changes
But first I must declare a couple of interests.
Earlier in the year, SunGift Solar installed a Solar PV system on our roof and it's currently generating electricity.
I'd like to thank Sungift Solar for honouring their pledge to put up Exeter's Christmas lights for free.
The change in payments under the FiT scheme has meant they've been extremely busy, trying to install 6 months' worth of orders [some 50 systems or so] in 6 weeks.
I am also a member of the Labour Party – the Party that in April 2010 introduced the Feed-In Tariff scheme [which is commonly shortened to FiT]
The FiT scheme is a process used by over 40 countries around the world that pays people to generate electricity from solar photovoltaic [PV] panels funded by a small levy on all energy bills
When the FiT was introduced by Labour in April last year, the Uk belatedly joined the party in one of the fastest growing markets of any kind globally.
The Feed-in Tariff certainly isn't perfect, but it's been incredibly successful at getting panels on roofs.
This doesn't just help people reduce their electricity bills and carbon emissions – there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that seeing the panels in action (and reaping the rewards) can change the way people think about energy.
They then are more likely to make climate-friendly choices in other areas of their lives.
Yet back it when it was announced back in April 2010 it was criticised by the Conservative opposition.
Heavily criticised.
Greg Clark, then Shadow Energy Secretary said:
"FITs are essential to allow decentralised energy to play a major role in our energy mix, but Labour's proposals today lack ambition.
"Ministers should have been bolder with this scheme so more jobs could have been created and greater reductions in emissions could have been achieved."
But even before that, back in 2007, David Cameron welcomed FiT schemes when spoke [on video] to a Greenpeace conference.
Yes he was green. He was extremely green.
He was green with envy of the generous FiT scheme in Germany.
He saw how it was taking British-made technology and putting it on German roofs.
He wanted – and I quote –
"The right plans and the right political will to drive through a mass market for micro-generation"
So here's a phrase I thought I'd never utter –
I AGREE WITH DAVID
In Opposition, both the Lib-Dems and Tories dismissed the Labour initiative as pitifully unambitious.
In Government, they pledged to do much more.
The Coalition Agreement even pledged to make FiT the centrepiece of their commitment to 'community owned renewable energy generation'.
But you would never guess it now.
So what went wrong?
Were they got at by the Big 6 Energy Companies – and their paid lobbyists?
Did they listen to the Nuclear Industry – and their paid lobbyists?
All I know is that the solar energy industry was too busy putting solar PV panels on people roofs to have time to pay for lobbyists.
I'm proud of my green credentials to add to my socialist beliefs. I'm a Green Red
David seems to have taken his green thoughts, mixed them with his true blue blood and turned yellow.
I'm not criticising him for changing his mind –
I'm criticising him for changing his mind from being so right to being so wrong.
Let's look at some figures:
 The UK solar energy industry employs 25,000 professionals compared with just 3,000 in 2010
 The number of solar businesses has increased from 450 in 2010 to over 3,000 today
 Since the introduction of tariffs in 2010 a total of 87,769 solar installations have been completed in the UK
All of which could help the Tory Government meet its claim of being the greenest government yet – and at the same help the private sector create new jobs.
There are even more figures being bandied around about the cost of the FiT scheme.
I believe that might cost each household about £1.50 each year.
Ofgem, the energy regulator, confirms this estimate.
But is only might because other studies say the Treasury gets more back in tax and NI (from the jobs created) than it costs to run the scheme.
Either way, it is not a sum around which the economy will crumble
Greg Barker, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, isn't sure what it will cost.
Each and every announcement seems to put the cost higher –
First £26,
Then £28 but its assumed that was a slip of the tongue
Then it went up to £55 and now rests around £80.
However, a figure that can't be disputed is the one for decommissioning nuclear power stations.
The UK tax payer pays hundreds of times more than this towards the cost of decommissioning nuclear power stations and looking after the nuclear waste they generate.
According to the Government's own figures, £6.93bn of taxpayers' money was given to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in 2010-2011.
That figure equates to £260 per household.
We talk about micro-generation but it can generate a lot of electricity
 the energy generation of solar power now exceeds the 225 megawatts maximu operating capacity of the Oldbury nuclear power plant
The cuts to the Feed-In Tariff will deprive the UK of a booming green industry that is driving jobs growth and providing an environmentally sustainable and long-term alternative to other fossil-fuel dependent methods of electricity.
Already leading solar firm Carillion has confirmed that some 4,500 jobs are now under threat due to the planned cut to the subsidy.
Indeed the firm that put solar panels on the Kensington roof of the Prime Minister have already laid off 2 workers.
So rashly withdrawing support from this burgeoning industry will be disastrous for both our economy and the environment.
What might not be known is that from the start it was always planned that Feed-in Tariffs were supposed to decrease annually, as the price of technology falls.
Unlike nuclear, solar does not need subsidising forever.
That was part of attraction.
There would be staged reductions in in the tariff, down to zero within the decade.
These reductions in tariff were to have been there to fairly reflect falling solar prices, and were planned so as to be not be too deep to stall the development of a domestic UK solar industry.
Cutting so far and so fast as this Government has done will put thousands of solar workers out of a job and pull the rug out from under small community groups that have already poured time and effort into their projects, but don't stand a chance of meeting the new deadline.
Take Brighton Energy Cooperative, which was due to start selling shares but has been forced to put the entire project on hold until further notice.
Reading Council announced that they'd be drastically scaling back their school solar programme.
Even this Council's own programme for solar PV panels on nearly 500 council homes was in doubt – but thanks to quick negotiations from our officers that one, at least, was rescued
Do these cuts need to happen at all?
Unlike other government programmes, the FiT scheme isn't funded from general taxation – the costs are covered by a levy on energy bills.
When the Labour government was designing the scheme, they came up with an estimate of how much it would cost, and planned to revisit this figure once they had some proper take-up data.
When the coalition came into power and kicked off the spending review, they took this estimate, cut it by 10% and set that as the overall budget for the whole programme.
It's not clear why the scheme was included in the spending review at all, since it isn't funded directly by the treasury and doesn't increase the deficit; but whatever the reason, it means that the whole idea of a Fit 'budget' is an invention of this government.
Decisions like this are really just a question of priorities – if a government really wants to do something it wil always find a way of financing it.
But in any case the impact of the Feed-in Tariff is tiny compared to spiraling gas prices and energy companies' profits
And even if we rule out any bill increases, there are plenty of other ways to meet the cost – from a direct levy on energy company profits, to reallocating money from other programmes that have underspent.
Yet it recently emerged that climate minister Chris Huhne never even asked the treasury whether they could provide emergency funding to allow the cuts to be phased in gradually.
The real measure of a government lies in the choices it makes when there's no easy option. Ministers need to ask themselves: when all is said and done, will these cuts bring us closer to a truly low-carbon economy, or will they push it further over the horizon?
Any government that wants to be remembered as the "greenest ever" must put this question at the heart of every decision, but especially over this particular decision.
I say "From the greenest government ever to the meanest government ever".
The co-coalition has done a huge U-turn and is now doing nothing less than demoralizing – and demonizing – the solar power industry as a matter of course.
Over the weekend I was speaking with Caroline Flint, Labour's Shadow Energy Secretary and we agreed that history will record that Labour began this growth industry and the Tories will all but kill it off in its infancy if these mindless changes to the FiT scheme are not reversed.
It gives me great pleasure to second the resolution
A lively debate followed with the motion falling to a Lib Dem amendment suggesting sending comments from the City Council to the very consultation I believe is a sham – only passed by local Tories and Lib Dems voting together and the casting vote of the Lord Mayor.
For me, the most pleasing comment came from Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group, who commended Labour "Central Office" for supporting us both with all the facts and figures.
No James, that was all our own intelligent factual research! We both hae enquiring minds that we like to put to good use.
Posted in #REDandGreen, Solar PV panelsTagged Cllr Catherine Dawson, Cut Not Kill, Feed-In Tariff, FIT, Solar PV, Solar PV panels, Sungift SolarLeave a comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Woodbridge International, a global mergers and acquisitions firm, is pleased to welcome M. Sean Quasem to its team of investment bankers. Based in the Los Angeles, Sean is an accomplished banker with decades of successful middle-market M&A experience. He will be heading up Woodbridge's new office in Southern California.
Prior to joining Woodbridge, Sean served as Partner and Director at several M&A advisory firms. In addition, he held a series of positions with increasing responsibilities at D.A. Davidson & Co./McGladrey where, most recently, he served as Vice President, Investment Banking. Sean has closed dozens of deals involving construction-related businesses, both domestic and cross-border and has also completed transactions in many other industries. Earlier in his career, Sean worked as a Senior Engineer at Earth Tech/AECOM, a large engineering and construction firm. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Arkansas and an MBA in Management and Finance from the University of California Irvine.


When Johnson Controls set out to launch its new Verasys building control system through a mobile marketing roadshow, it looked to C-22 for help in putting a look on the program. The C-22 creative team used what we learned from our design of the Verasys promotional kit for Europe to develop a tagline and graphic look for the roadshow, which travels the U.S. to introduce building managers, mechanical contractors and engineers to the new Verasys system.
The result was the marketing tagline "Turning up the Smart," which was given a dynamic graphic look that was applied to social media posts, direct-to-desktop promotion and roadshow components.


Country music superstar Brad Paisley is bringing his summer tour to Winnipeg this fall.
Tickets go on sale Friday, May 24 at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster for $30.50, $60.50 and $80.50.
Fans can download an interactive smartphone app to join in on the concert's light show and sync the colours of the arena's screens with Paisley's music as he performs. The app is free to download at lights.bradpaisley.com.


Lagos, Nigeria, 5 October 2017 – The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), Africa's largest philanthropy focused on supporting entrepreneurship, today announced that the 3rd annual TEF Entrepreneurship Forum – the most inclusive gathering of African SMEs – will take place on October 13-14 in Lagos.
This is the first year the invitation-only Forum is open to non-TEF entrepreneurs and will allow SMEs from across Africa to attend and form networks, share knowledge, connect with investors, link with corporate supply chains and influence policy makers and business leaders in attendance.
The two-day event features plenary panels, masterclasses, and sector specific networking opportunities as well as policy-led talks focused on improving the enabling environment for African businesses.
Speakers at the event include: Wale Ayeni, International Finance Corporation; Stephen Tio Kauma, Afrexim Bank; Andre Hue, African Development Bank; Stephen M. Haykin, USAID Nigeria; Heikke Reugger, European Investment Bank; Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, United Nations Development Programme.
Copyright © 2017 United Bank for Africa. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.


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FTI Cruises' Berlin made her maiden call in Amsterdam this week. Adriana an Oosten, head of Cruise Terminal Amsterdam, participated in the traditional plaque exchange with Captain Alberto Tarozzi.
The Berlin stayed in Amsterdam until about 6 pm, when she sailed for the island of Borkum, where she arrived the following day at noon, for another plaque exchange between Christian Klamt, director of health and tourism for the North Sea Spa of Borkum and Captain Tarozzi. Entertainment was provided by Albertus Akkerman, described as a genuine Borkumer, who came aboard with his accordion and sang sailor songs.
The Berlin is slated to call in Helgoland and Sylt before concluding the cruise in Bremerhaven on Sunday.