Go Forward PB, what’s the rush?

Did the mayor say the quiet part out loud?

Two items on the Pine Bluff City Council agenda were pulled after being hastily put there. We say hastily because having met defeat at the polls in May, Go Forward Pine Bluff hurriedly delivered to its council minions a redo ballot proposal that voters will likely see in yet another special election in November. Sprinkled across the two sales tax proposals were the equivalent of deer corn – bait to lure in the unsuspecting voter – and placed there without talking to some of those involved.

Step right up, says the Go Forward barker. With your yes vote we will build a city owned movie theater the likes of which you have never seen even though Pine Bluff can’t seem to fix the streets so we’re not sure how all that government-owned cinema stuff will actually work. And that thing Jimmy Cunningham keeps yakking about, that Delta Cultural whatever. Yep, we’re going to fund that, too. Don’t be concerned that we haven’t spoken to Jimmy about this or the fact that he still doesn’t want the tax to pass. Nope, don’t think about that at all. Just pull the lever for us, and we’ll take care of all the rest.

And then poof, the proposed ordinances were pulled from the council menu. Just a “legality” thing, said Go Forward CEO Ryan Watley.

Or maybe it was something a bit more.

Said Mayor Shirley Washington: “There was some wording with those legislations that might be problematic later down the road, so we decided to pull it to review that to make sure everything was in order.”

Here’s the good part: “You can’t list certain things that are going to be done if you’re not guaranteed that you’re going to do them,” Washington said.

Interesting.

So Go Forward tailors the ordinances to its liking, rushes them to the council, which, for practical purposes has ceased to be a stand-alone decision-making body, and the items are read for the first time and then suddenly pulled because why? Because then Go Forward would be forced to spend the tax proceeds – sorry, be forced to tell the city council to spend the tax proceeds – on the bait put in the ballot language? Does that not suggest a less-than-sincere interest in actually funding those projects? Otherwise, why remove the items from consideration. And who put that special language in the proposed ordinances? Go Forward isn’t saying.

At the very least, it has become a messy and embarrassing proposition. Messy because when something as important as a sales tax proposal – two, in fact, and both were pulled – reach the council and are already being read, surely they have been thoroughly vetted and are ready to go. Except when Go Forward is doing the vetting. And embarrassing because it is the council that has egg on its face for taking the proposals and, without questioning them, accepts them at face value and starts reading them because who are they to question what Go Forward has wrought? Oops.

Remind us again why we need this bloated nonprofit.