Undeterred by tactics

I write as mayor of Clarendon to respond to the op-ed by Mikki White in the Democrat-Gazette Monday. A citizens group, Friends of the Historic White River Bridge at Clarendon, has been working for four years to save the 1931 Clarendon Bridge and convert it to a hiking and biking trail. Ms. White opposes the effort to save the old bridge. In her first paragraph, she writes that the Friends have been “wrongly convinced by outside influences that the old bridge is the one and only key to economic rebirth in Clarendon.”

“Outside influences”? Who are these outside influences? The group has eight board members, seven of whom are Monroe County people. The Friends commissioned a tourism development plan done by a resident of Birdeye. For those who don’t know, that’s “outside” Wynne.

Instead of spending $11.3 million to demolish the bridge, the Friends will use $5 million from the same source to repurpose the bridge for tourism. And that is a complete renovation based on a study by a national engineering firm hired to study the costs of repurposing the bridge. When renovation is done, the bridge will be turned over to Clarendon. Reimbursement for the $5 million expenditure will be paid after each expenditure as we go along in the renovation, not one lump sum at the end, as Ms. White implies.

Ms. White poses the question, ‘‘Will visitors to the bridge want the refuge area around the old bridge/ highway closed to hunting and shooting?” Hunters, sport shooters and fisherman won’t buy that kind of a scare tactic. All of us hunt and fish. We will never allow hunting, shooting and fishing to be compromised by anything.

Ms. White’s op-ed seeks to alarm. Instead of innuendo, give readers the facts of your opposition to saving the bridge as we have done advocating its reuse. We in Clarendon are ready to accommodate new visitors who will come to hike, bike, picnic, and view wildlife on the bridge. We can’t let scare tactics deter us. Straight ahead, Arkansas. JIM STINSON III Clarendon