Skaggs offers a good fit for Bentonville mayor

In Bentonville, it seems just about everyone this year waited anxiously to see if Troy Galloway, the longtime city community and economic development director and a brigadier general in the National Guard, would run for mayor. The conventional wisdom was it was his office for the asking. He didn’t ask.

That opened the candidate floodgate, giving Bentonville voters five candidates to replace the retiring Bob McCaslin, mayor for the last 12 years. Hoping to fill McCaslin’s shoes are Stephanie Orman, Terry Shannon, John Skaggs, Charlie Turner and Jim Webb.

Bentonville has an interesting political dynamic going on, a small town transformed by the world’s largest retailer and a world-class art museum made possible by the retailer’s unimaginable success. Bentonville’s struggle is to preserve the small-town qualities that Sam Walton and others loved so much while embracing a changing population and landscape. In that mix, there’s a tension between the new and the existing and how they’ll co-exist. The day will come for a mayor from a new generation, but this year, we endorse John Skaggs to serve as the next mayor. Skaggs, who served 26 years as district judge and also served on the City Council, is knowledgeable about Bentonville’s past and prepared to navigate the challenges of its future. He’s cognizant of a need for change while appreciating there are certain parts of town central to its character. He’s interested in opening government to more public involvement by looking for and eliminating barriers to it. Bentonville, he said, has become efficient at taking people’s money but not listening to them.

Skaggs knows Bentonville needs the “creative energy,” as he put it, of all its people.

At this juncture, Skaggs will bring needed wisdom to the leadership post of mayor, working with the City Council members of many backgrounds to deliver a responsive city government that maintains its strong financial position and grows cooperation with other Northwest Arkansas communities.