The Jonesboro bicycle path saga just gets more and more interesting. Suffice it to say, Secure Arkansas official Debbie Pelley wasn’t happy with me posting video of the last meeting up that had all the ranting about compounds and children freezing to death in the snow, much less video that showed her little band outnumbered three to one. So she put out an interesting little email about the piece. I thought that I would have to copy and paste my copy of the email that landed in my inbox, but, turns out, Mrs. Pelley apparently posted the same email on a right wing blog:
I hope this blog article below by the liberals will make you understand the need to take one minute of your time and send a quick email to the MPO and voice your opposition to the government controlled bikeways in Jonesboro area. One sentence would be enough. At the last meeting December 14, the bikers outnumbered us probably four to one. The Chair of the committee wanted to see a show of hands as to how many opposed the bikeways and how many supported them as if that was a way to determine their decision. We really need your help in doing this, even if you are not in Jonesboro. The article below on the web appears to come from Wynne (see end of this email) which is not even a part of the Jonesboro MPO so there were probably a number of people there from other areas. A number of the people there were from ASU. They could come at 10:30 a.m. when most people are working.
Emphasis mine. Now remember, the folks that are opposing this were all about how this ought to be a local plan and a local decision. It is-two years have been put into this by the MPO with consultation from local folks of all walks of life. Now, when it’s almost finished, the opposition suddenly has time to care about it. Where were they for two years? But I digress. The point is that these folks who are saying the problem is that this isn’t a local plan, that they want decisions to be made at the local level by folks from the town itself, are calling on folks from out of town to help them because they’re outnumbered and outgunned here. This is called being a hypocrite.
On top of that, they just can’t resist the instinct to try to pit different segments of the community against one another. I know that a huge number of conservatives think that they’re the sole representatives of their communities and the nation as a whole and those of us that don’t fit into their perfect little world view are just the heathens here to make life difficult for them, but seriously? ASU students? You know, college kids that attend a college in Jonesboro? Who live in Jonesboro? Who spend money in Jonesboro? Who use Jonesboro’s facilities? These are the “alien other” they’re choosing for this round of whatever bashing? Oh, and for the record, while a couple of folks there attended classes at ASU there were a ton of people from neighborhood associations, medical professionals, teachers, a guy from the chamber of commerce, and so many other different folks there fighting for this plan. But when you can’t win on the merits, I guess you just have to lie and target people.
Oh and by the way…Mrs. Pelley made a rather clumsy attempt to find out just who runs Blue Arkansas. Now, a reasonable person could have just gone and gotten my email address from the site and gone from there, but she had to do a little more digging than that. What she found was the address of the company that we used to set the site up, Datasmart Software in Wynne, which is owned by my tech guy’s mom, who I should point out has been like a second mother to me. Mrs. Pelley then went about distributing her name, business numbers, and post office box not only in the email sitting in my inbox but also on the web. Keep in mind, the business woman in question has been in no way involved in Blue Arkansas or our activities in any way, shape, or form, other than owning the business we went to in order to start this thing. (And of course giving birth to my tech guy nearly twenty-five years ago.) Anyway, I’ve given her a heads up about this crap and told her that if she gets any kind of harassment out of this I’ll be happy to recommend a few good lawyers. And for the record, I would recommend the services of Data Smart Software to anyone interested in setting up a website.
Oh and by the way, I and a lot of other people are going to make sure that the local officials in Jonesboro see what the opposition is up to here. I’m sure they’ll appreciate getting a heads up on how the opposition to the plan feels they have to operate in order to win this thing at the eleventh hour.
All of this over…bike paths? I mean, if Jonesboro was going to institute a city-wide income tax or something, yeah, but – bike paths?? Really? Don’t we have bigger issues somewhere? This is craziness.
Next thing you know, they’ll be at the quorum court meeting opposing the county treasurer’s ordinance to purchase a new copier. Goodness.