Monticello Live

As mentioned last week, this is the second part of a brief summary of the major work of the 89th General Assembly of Arkansas. Along with the private option health care plan, we also passed a substantial tax cut package. In fact the projected savings, or tax cuts, to Arkansans should total over $100 million. These tax cuts have been projected to reduce state general revenue by roughly $10 million in fiscal 2014, nearly $84 million in fiscal 2015 and nearly $140 million in fiscal 2016.

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As I promised last week, this is the first part of a summary of the legislation agreed upon relating to, perhaps, the key issues handled by the 89th General Assembly. I would not call these efforts “bipartisan cooperation” as much as “bipartisan compromise”. I’m sure no one is perfectly happy, but we did as much of what we deemed best as possible under trying circumstances. We also left ourselves room to “modify and adjust” as needed.

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The 89th General Assembly has now recessed after one of the longest sessions on record, and I hope at least a part of the work that has been accomplished in the last 100 days will result in a “better Arkansas” for all of us.

This session 2,492 bills were introduced and 1,520 of these passed. That means 61% of those introduced made it to the Governor’s desk and have now become law. I trust we have “done no – or little – harm”.

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Greetings! The Arkansas 89th General Assembly is finally winding down! Friday we completed our 14th week and have only two more items to attend on Monday and Tuesday before we recess until mid-May for “sine die”. A friend once told me the medical profession has an oath, “First, do no harm.” I will be relieved if history can say that about this session.

Last week was a barnburner, to say the least. Monday and Tuesday were spent in various committee meetings supposedly “vetting” a hodgepodge of bills and in session hearing, debating and adopting a great many bills, including the Health Care independence Act of 2013.

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Greetings! This is State Representative Sheilla Lampkin summarizing the activities and antics from the 13th week of the 89th General Assembly. Hopefully, but less likely, next week will be the final week of the session lest we lose our educational system and indeed our society as we know it. I would not be surprised at anything next week, including a Rumpelstiltskin-like tantrum.

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This report summarizes a long six-day week in which the Arkansas House addressed the good, the bad, the ugly, the profound and the not-so-profound issues. Time will divulge which is which. Nearly three months ago, all 100 of us from different geographic regions across our state gathered for the first time with a single purpose – supposedly to make Arkansas a better place to work and live.

We may have many different ideas on how that is best accomplished, but as we are now in the final weeks the focus of the session narrows. Healthcare and education are a part of that narrowing focus and continued purpose.

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Greetings from the 89th General Assembly!! Job creation and tax reform were two of the bigger issues before us this week as we inch closer to adjourning for the session.

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Greetings from the House of Representatives of your Arkansas 89th General Assembly! We have completed our tenth week and still have many major issues to address. I feel we may not be able to work through nearly all of the bills filed and there is good and bad to be said for that.

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Greetings! We have finished the ninth week of the regular session and, in a way, it has been a “barnburner”!! Governor Beebe has signed a total of 427 bills into law and, thankfully, Monday was the last day to file new bills. On that day alone well over 500 bills were filed!

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I hope you are enjoying our little tour of the Drew County Museum and will come take a look for yourself soon!! We’ll begin our journey this week in the room that now serves as the museum’s office. Along the north and east walls of that first-floor room four unique oil paintings are hanging. The first is an aesthetic rendition of the old Selma United Methodist Church. The church is one of the most recognized sites in Drew County, is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been lovingly restored in recent years. The soft, yet bright colors in the painting give the scene a pastoral quality. The painting is the work of Jerry Swope, an art teacher at Monticello High School in the 1970’s. Mr. Swope has since moved from Monticello, but left fond memories with his many friends, and this beautiful piece of art in the museum.

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Greetings! By the end of our 8th week close to 900 bills have been filed in the House and just over 300 were passed. So far, that is substantially less than last session, and Monday is the last day to file a bill. However, a large number of new filings are predicted for Monday so we may still have a long way to go in completing our work.

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On our museum tour this week we will again begin at the front door. As noted earlier, the door itself has beveled glass panes highlighted by a magnificent fanlight at the top and gorgeous sidelights. When Mr. Cavaness was building the house, he traveled to the Crescent City where he found the gorgeous door with its fanlight and sidelights, purchased them and brought the entire set to Monticello to serve as the main entry to his home.

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Greetings from the Arkansas House of Representatives! What a week!! This week has progressed much like the others so far – slowly – and I fear that pace will continue. We have now spent 7 weeks on two issues and I sense that the tone has been set for the rest of the already-extended session.

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This March, 2013, offering will begin a series that will give you a room-by-room tour of our own Drew County Historical Museum. I hope you will enjoy these entries and will stop by the museum yourself to peruse its treasures face-to-face.

The museum itself was formerly known as the Cavaness house for those of you who never knew, or have forgotten, its beginnings. Newlyweds Garvin W. Cavaness and his wife, Pattie Phenton Wells, began construction of their home in 1906.

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At the end of the 6th week over 450 bills have been filed in the House and Governor Beebe has signed 76 of those bills into law. This number seems down from 2011 and that may be a good thing. However it seems to me that the body is concentrating far more on social issues and less on governmental ones. The session has already been extended and still has a long way to go. It may be time to “buckle down”. The House is working 5 days a week and even worked through the bad weather in central and north Arkansas last week.

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We have now concluded five weeks of the regular session of the Arkansas General Assembly and we seem to have a long way to go in addressing major issues before us. In fact, we have voted to extend the session until May 17th, if necessary. We plan to recess on April 19th and then return on May 17th to consider any vetoes, correct any errors and complete any unfinished business. As of now, May 17th is the official last day.

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Greetings from the Arkansas House of Representatives!! The pace at the legislature is picking up – and you could likely cut the tension with a knife at times. I trust we will soon tackle more proactive and positive issues as opposed to so many reactive ones.

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Greetings from the State Capitol and the 89th General Assembly! I want to take this opportunity to update you on House activities during our third week of the regular legislative session. The House has had over 240 bills filed by the end of the week.

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We completed our second week of the 89th General Assembly on Thursday. Coupled with the new rule change in the House that determined a bill approved in House committees would sit two days before coming to the Floor and the slowness of bills being filed, there was little to formally handle Friday so the Speaker determined we would not meet on Friday, January 25, but would reconvene Monday, January 28, and tend to our district work on Friday. He assured us bill considerations would increase then.

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Greetings from the 89th General Assembly of Arkansas! I will be sending reports of the legislative activities every other week to our local media in District 9 as I have observed them.

The legislature officially opened Monday by affirming the election of the honorable Davey Carter of Cabot as the House Speaker. From there speaker Carter announced committee assignments. I had selected my A and B committees and will be a member of the House Education Committee, the House Agri, Forestry and Economic Development Committee, the Advanced Technology and Communications Committee and the Liaison Committee to the Senate, thus far.

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A noted man is often quoted as saying, “Anyone can achieve greatness because greatness is not measured by wealth or fame, but by service to others”. I believe that is a true statement. However, it is disheartening to see many service organizations fading away in America because of a lack of interest in service – helping your fellow man without any anticipation of personal compensation – to others. It is undoubtedly difficult for an “It’s all about me” generation to spend much time and energy truly serving others. (We see it on TV with these “feed the hungry” Thanksgiving and/or Christmas meals, but what about the other 364 days of the year?)

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This will be my last legislative report from District 10 because redistricting placed me further south into District 9. Although I campaigned hard and won the District 9 seat, I want to share with all those folks in District 10 that I really hate to lose you! I wish I could keep both groups! I will miss all the great constituents I met in Lincoln and Cleveland counties (and many of my Drew County people too), but we will forever be friends. I just wanted you to know that I truly will miss those of you who were taken from my district. God bless you and, if I can ever help, call.

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As reported earlier, we are very busy at your state Capitol tying up interim committee meetings and reports in anticipation of the 89th General Assembly that convenes January 14.

I shared with you last summer my appointment to the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) as a member of their legislative council. Founded in 1948, SREB is a consortium/think tank group comprised of members representing 15 “southern” states who have many important roles, but a primary function of the SREB staff is the research and collection of data concerning trends, best practices, commonalities and such of educational programs in the 15 southern states.

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Things have been a tad quieter at the legislature the past couple of weeks due in part to campaigns being waged for the General Election. However, budget hearings have still been the main topics of business. You may have read that most of our institutions of higher learning have made their requests for their budgets for 2013-2014. Naturally all want more and more funding. Hopefully each will get their needs met. The same is true for multiple state agencies. (It rather reminds me of a Rolling Stones song. You all know the one – “You don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”)

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Many topics are being discussed at the legislature now in preparation for the upcoming 89th General Assembly. Health care is one major issue – if not the major issue at hand. One aspect of that topic not widely known is a proposed partnership between UAMS and the St. Vincent Health Systems.

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Some of the more challenging legislative matters that have been under scrutiny the last couple of weeks involve children’s issues and have been both heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching. First, there has been a review of the No Kid Hungry campaign undertaken by a group called Share Our Strength. The group’s goal is ending childhood hunger in America by ensuring all children get the food they need every day through the use of public-private partnerships to provide innovative hunger solutions in local communities. These partnerships will ideally help access existing food sources and also help teach families how to cook healthy, affordable meals.

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September is fleeting and many subjects are being discussed and debated at the Capitol. I will just share a few with you that relate more directly to folks in southeast Arkansas.

The state’s lottery scholarship program is having problems partially due to decreased lottery ticket sales that may create a projected shortfall in the lottery scholarship program. At the present rate scholarship awards for this year are projected to exceed lottery revenues. Unspent lottery funds will take care of this year, but there is no plan in place for deal with future deficits.

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Greetings from the Arkansas Legislature! The diversity of issues the legislature must investigate in such a short time span is mindboggling! Yet there is still so much to accomplish!

This reporting period we received an interesting and yet disheartening report about hunger and its effect on our school population. According to the report, seven out of ten Arkansas teachers (73%) say too many school-age children come to school hungry regularly because they aren’t getting enough food to eat at home, regardless of the cause. Kids are the innocent “victims” here.

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Greetings! The first two weeks in August brought some very stress-filled debates to the legislature. In spite of several other noteworthy issues under study, it is highly evident that the two most important issues now, and in 2013, are health care and education. However, I am reminded that this is, and rightly should be, an annual trend. What issues are more important than our health and our children? The real problem lies in how to best serve both.

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While many younger folks mistakenly think of the Extension Homemakers Clubs as a group of “little old ladies who meet, eat, sew, swap recipes and make crafts”, they are sadly misinformed. EHC has an educational program that coves a gauntlet of topics from child care issues to healthy eating, to financial advice, to exercise programs and a myriad of other notable subjects to meet someone’s needs.

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This week’s column is the eighth in a series about the history of the present Extension Homemakers Clubs operating in Drew County. This week we’ll take a quick look at the Plantogo Club in northwestern Drew County.

In the early 1960s there were two separate EHC clubs in the northwestern part of Drew County. They were known as the Plantersville EHC Club and the Montongo EHC Club. During those years the two groups decided to merge and the new and larger club became the Plantogo Club. Their primary purpose was to educate housewives in new ways to do their jobs as wives and mothers.

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Greetings from the Arkansas legislature! While the first week in July was rather slow due to the 4th of July, matters have heated up faster than the weather since then. I assume that nearly everyone knows that health care is the hottest topic at the Capitol as well as the nation. While there seems to be little interest in compromise, only time and clear heads can produce any real solution/resolution to a legitimate problem. (Incidentally, I am not referring to the Affordable Health Care Act, familiarly known as “Obamacare”, but to the state efforts to make Medicaid payments more cost efficient. Unbeknownst to some, the two topics are different subjects.)

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This is the next article in a series about the history of the Extension Homemakers Clubs in Drew County as the statewide EHC organization celebrates its 100th birthday throughout 2012.

Born out of a desire and necessity to improve rural community life, the clubs of today have grown and changed to become more service-oriented. Still many of the newer clubs have been founded by ladies sharing a certain “special interest” rather than necessarily geographic proximities. One such club is known as the Town and Country Quilters Extension Homemakers Club.

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Greetings from the Arkansas Legislature! With health care issues, educational issues, lottery issues and game and fish issues, things have also been “heated” at recent legislative meetings!

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