Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Grass-roots group considers taking State Archives changes to voters
As a last resort to liberate the State Archives from beneath the Department of Arkansas Heritage umbrella and to free employees from what some call an intolerable work environment, a grass-roots group is considering placing the issue before the voters.
More than a hundred people packed the Darragh Center in the Central Arkansas Library System’s Main Library in Little Rock on Saturday to help the Friends of the Arkansas State Archives brainstorm solutions to the myriad problems that have beset the State Archives in the past two years.
In 2016, the state Legislature, during a special session, transferred the State Archives — formerly known as the History Commission — from the Department of Parks and Tourism to the Department of Arkansas Heritage, which is overseen by Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s appointee Stacy Hurst.
An initiated act — a petition drive by citizens to put proposed legislation on the ballot — would restore the department to an independent agency and give power back to the seven-member History Commission, said Bobby Roberts, who headed the Central Arkansas Library System before retiring in 2016.
Fewer signatures are required for an initiated act than a proposed constitutional amendment.
“We’re probably too late to get it up in this cycle in 2018, but certainly there’s plenty of time to get it later,” Roberts said. “At least it would signify if they [the governor or Legislature] don’t do something about it, then the people can make the decision.”
Several longtime employees have fled the department, including director Lisa Speer, who resigned in January after nearly five years with the department, citing an “intolerable” work climate under Hurst’s leadership.
Missy McSwain, director of the state’s Historic Preservation Program, resigned last year and was quickly followed by Patricia Blick, McSwain’s deputy.
Salaries have been cut to the “poverty level,” positions eliminated, valued connections endangered and the voices of educated and experienced archivists and
commission members ignored, Speer told the group assembled Saturday.
She also cited broken communications between Hurst and archive staff members, saying it was from the media, not Hurst, that archive employees learned of the hiring of new director Wendy Richter of Donaldson. Richter previously served as director of the state archives when it was known as the Arkansas History Commission from 2005-12.
Hurst said in an email after the meeting that she had addressed many of the “vague and unsubstantiated accusations” in an opinion article that ran in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Friday. She also said she regrets that Speer left her position “in such an acrimonious way, but it was her decision.”
“I look forward to working with our new state historian, Dr. Wendy Richter, who is very excited to be returning to the Archives,” Hurst said. “She will be a strong addition to [the Department of Arkansas Heritage’s] team of management leaders, who are all committed to working together to offer services and programs that are protecting Arkansas’s natural and cultural heritage.”
Speer said the increasing turmoil at the agency puts the state’s priceless archives — which include thousands of Arkansas manuscripts, newspapers, genealogical documentation and black collections — in danger.
High turnover and low morale limits the access to archive materials for researchers when projects go unfinished because a staff member leaves and when priorities are shifted by a new administration, Speer said.
“Preservation may be impacted if prospective donors fall through the cracks or decide that an organization is too unstable to trust with their valuable records,” she said. “When hiring decisions are left to administrators who have little or no knowledge of division processes, personalities and needs, preservation is negatively impacted. As trained and competent staff leave, the institutional memory of the archives erodes.”
Speer said the beginning of the end for her was in December when she took issue with Hurst’s decision to eliminate the Black History Commission’s logo from marketing materials because Hurst said the department was “moving towards a cleaner aesthetic.”
“I expressed my opinion that was inappropriate, and it went downhill from there,” Speer said. “I ended up on 90-day probation.”
Hurst said Speer’s assertion is incorrect.
“There is no plan to eliminate the logo or its use,” she said.
Tom Dillard — treasurer of the Friends of the Arkansas State Archives and a former department director who writes a column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette — said it’s imperative that the group initiate solutions quickly to address the growing problems.
“We can’t wait forever. We are at a crucial stage,” said Dillard, who is the husband of History Commission member Mary Dillard. “Everybody in the department who is not resigning is counting the days to retirement. We cannot continue to lose these professionals who are fleeing the ship.”