[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hi, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. I'm Rex Nelson, Democrat Gazette senior editor, and I have turned the tables here. Let me tell you what I did.
I get a contact and they said, we want you as a guest with Andy McNeill and Matt Duffield of Russellville on their free Arkansas Podcast.
And I thought, well, I've got my own podcast. And I learned a little more. And Matt and I had already gotten to know each other.
Andy and I have met through the years, and I thought, nah, I'd rather do in their show. I want them on my show. And they were nice enough to fall for that, even though they first invited me. So, guys, welcome. Thank you.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you very much. We're glad to be here, Rex. Look forward to talking.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Andy, I want to start with you.
We've been talking before we started recording here, but I want to go back a little bit for our listeners, you know, and Matt and I have had lunch several times, and he knows how strongly I feel about the need for better dialogue in Arkansas. We unfortunately have allowed, I think, our politics certainly, to become nationalized, meaning we're opposing camps. We don't talk to each other, we don't visit with each other, we don't compromise.
And that's. That was. That was why I was so interested in this whole idea of Free Arkansas and what you're trying to do. So explain your journey a little bit now, how you've come to this point and what you're trying to accomplish with this right now. Sure.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Well, let me just start with what I want to accomplish. You know, I think. And it's really pretty simple. Free Arkansas is really about the free expression of ideas.
And part of that is challenging, status quo. Part of that is critical thinking and look at things critically and trying to unlock some of the problems of the state and set a course through dialogue for a better Arkansas. For a better Arkansas.
So anyway, that's how I got started and what we are trying to do within it. If you went to our website and looked at free arkansas.com, what you would see is a handful of list. It's more than a handful. All sorts of lists where Arkansas is ranked against other states.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: And we break that down by various sectors. So it's, you know, whether it's crime or health, whatever. And then we want to just ask people, okay, what would be some of the ideas if we were to get off the bottom of, let's say, the things that are good and top of the things that are bad, what does that look like? You know? And so Matt and I invite people on and we just talk about that, and usually we lean into things in areas where they've got some sort of expertise or interest, you know, so.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Matt, what would you add to that?
[00:03:09] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Well, Rex, thanks for having me on.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: The Southern Fried podcast is fitting because, like I said, when I travel the state, you're the man that I contact. Where can I get some soul food here?
[00:03:20] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: But not to get too, too far off, but. So, you know, Andy was kind enough to ask me to co host this podcast with him.
I mean, ideas start with conversations.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: And challenges are overcome through that. If we don't talk about problems, we're never going to solve them. So that's simply why we're here. You know, I have some legislators that. Come on. Dr. Elise, Matt is.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: I should have said in the introduction, Matt is a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, so.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Yes. And I hope I'm not in the Know nothing.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: No, no, you're not.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: You're not.
I loved. I love. I love. Every time I read your articles and I see that, I chuckle, you know, but no, that's what we're here.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Great position. I can say exactly what I think now. So I name names, and you're not in there, I can assure you.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: Well, I appreciate that. I hope. I hope I'm never on that list, but if you think I am, you tell me. But Free Arkansas has been a great experience so far. We had Dr. Lee Johnson on just the other day to talk about the healthcare issues with the state of Arkansas. We know that's when. You know this. Rex, too. We have. There's all these categories of issues in the state of Arkansas with any state. There are. And so what we're doing with Free Arkansas and Andy and I talk about it, we take it kind of a category at a time and have these guests on to try to discuss this. From everything. You know, we had. We had a gentleman on that talked about the. The. The nature trail development and the bike trail development.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Gary Berman.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: Gary. Gary.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Up in Northwest, I write about outdoor recreation a lot, too. It's a big part of the future of our state.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: But that's what we're here. And I say this a lot, we're here to help solve problems and not further create them.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think it's wonderful. The more dialogue we can get, the. The better. Andy, you're not. You're not from Arkansas originally. You're An Atlanta native. How did you get here?
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Well, by the way, a lot of people get places.
By your spouse.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: I met this really pretty girl when I was 22 years old up in Fayetteville, and. And that really cemented it, you know, so we lived in other places for a little while, but have made Arkansas our home. And the thing that's sort of interesting about that is, you know, a lot. You know, you can't help where you're born, but you have this decision about where you live and wherever I go, I actually normally don't say that I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. I just say I'm from Arkansas. You know, it's so. Because that's how I really feel. And, you know, and I can. I express that in a lot of different ways in terms of how I do things from business perspective, et cetera.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And you are.
You are an entrepreneur.
You have started some companies.
A lot of people know of Denali Water Solutions, which is a big one now, but involved in a lot of things. But I guess it would be safe to call you a serial entrepreneur, would it not?
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Well, it's really addicting, you know, and so, you know, it takes.
It's all about, let's say, calculated risks, but it's not a single journey. It's not just about me. It's about this. Different teams that we do. And what I would say as it relates to Arkansas anyway, is that I feel like we do our share in terms of buying different businesses and, and then relocating parts of those back offices or the executive teams here to Arkansas. It's been a pattern that we've repeated over and over, you know, in the state.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: All right, two part question.
A, why would you say Arkansas is a good place to do business?
Obviously, you've been here for over two decades now, so you consider it a good place to do business.
But B, what's holding us back and what kind of things would make it an even better place to do business? Let's start. Why it's a good place to do business.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: All right, I'll give an answer to that. And then, Matt, why don't you just chime in with what your thoughts. So let me start on the downside first. You know, I think that, you know, if you meet someone casually in a different state and you say, let's just make this up, and everybody has their own opinion about the places they like, but if you said, hey, I'm from Austin, right. Generally, that might receive a positive response. You know, oftentimes when I say Arkansas, a Lot of people have never been to Arkansas. Right, right. And so they have these. These perceptions about what Arkansas is like, and. And that works against us, you know, so there's a number of things that work against us, I think, broadly, and these aren't the only things. But if we were to look at, say, health care, we don't rank high in health care. There's a lot of reasons for that. We rank high in crime. It's, of course, it's isolated. It's in a few places. And we can also pick that apart.
We don't rate as high on education.
So when you put all those things together and you start talking to people about where they want to move, you know, that's sometimes an obstacle. So let me give you an example for that. So as we built out different companies, we had a view that everybody had to work in the headquarters. And so I would try to move people to Russellville. Right.
Very, very difficult thing to do, you know, and so I came to a point where that, you know, I. I was okay if I had the right talent to let them live where they needed to live, maybe move to northwest Arkansas, maybe live in another state. But I think those are just some of the things that are difficult. But on the positive side, you know, it's. It's a very friendly place. The taxes are low. The regulations are relatively low compared to other places. It's. It's a low cost of living place, so you can afford a home in the state of Arkansas. So there's all these positives. We just also have negatives as well.
[00:08:45] Speaker D: Decisions made in Washington affect folks in Arkansas. I'm Alex Thomas, the Washington correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. I'm keeping a close eye on what happens in the nation's capital and how decisions and decision makers impact our state. Take, for instance, the next farm bill. We're connecting you with the policymakers drafting this legislation, as well as the Arkansas farmers vital to this state's economy. I know how much these decisions matter to everyday Arkansans, which is why I'm here in Washington making sure you stay informed. This kind of coverage is only possible through your support, so consider
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[00:09:30] Speaker A: There are some negatives. Matt, what. What do we need to do, seeing that you are a member of the legislature, from a public policy standpoint, to make this a better state for entrepreneurs like Andy?
[00:09:44] Speaker C: Well, I think, Rex, you know, Andy brought up regulation, and I think we should always work with businesses and not against them. And, you know, in My past life, you know, I promoted events. We dealt with some of these state commissions and some of these commissions that were in place. You get these egos involved and they'll come and just try to put the thumb on you. And we should be helping businesses not hurt them. So I think anything we can do policy wise to help local businesses or businesses that come here from a tax perspective and not hinder them from wanting to come here, that's a good thing. Which I know at the state level, there's only so much we can do because I know from entrepreneurs that I've spoken to, some of the challenges they encounter are more at the city level, around the state. I'm sure you've heard those stories develop that.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. You know, one of the things that I preach around the state as I, as I speak to groups is a bit of an indictment against the business community. And that is the business community basically stepped to the sideline when it came to elective offices in the state. And basically, you know, in a lot of places said, the politics is dirty, that's for somebody else.
Well, as you know, a vacuum is going to get filled and that vacuum has now been filled. And I get this wherever I travel in the state by, for lack of a better term, a lot of fringe characters. And I'm talking about school boards, I'm talking about county quorum courts, I'm talking about city councils, I'm talking about the legislature.
So I'm a little bit interested, Matt, in what led you to run for public office. While you said, I'm going to dive into this shark infested po. What called Arkansas politics.
[00:11:26] Speaker C: Well, the short answer is, and this sounds like a canned old political statement, but it's to help people. Honestly, that's why I was in there. You know, timing's everything.
The pandemic hit.
I was still promoting events. I was still selling sand and gravel. The promotional world, that was enough. I was 38 years old. I was tired of the pro wrestling business, which is what I did.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Getting older, my mind would tell me that, you know, my mind would tell my legs to jump. My jump. My legs said, not today. I'll get that out in a minute.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Understand?
[00:11:53] Speaker C: But it was just a timing thing for myself. And in Russellville, we had an open seat. Dr. Joe Cloud was our representative. He opted not to run again. And, you know, it was something I thought about for a while. I said, let's try it. It's a two year commitment. You know, it's a two year term in the state House And I said, let's try it. It's two years. Let's see what I can get done and what I think about it. And here I am now in the middle of my second term, and I've really enjoyed working for the people.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Andy, you're a prominent Arkansas businessman.
Am I fair in my indictment in saying that a lot of the business community tried, kind of stepped to the sideline and really needs to get more involved now and making sure we elect good people to public office?
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Well, I definitely think they need to be involved to make sure we get good people in public office. No doubt about it. I also think there are people that get in office with the hidden agenda of doing the one thing that whatever the axe they want to grind, and oftentimes those don't work in the broader public good.
And so I think that in this climate that we've got oftentimes dictated at a federal level, that behavior just trickles all the way down. I think that anytime that cooler heads can prevail and be involved in the process, the better. Now, I will say this. I think that if I were just speaking about it from a Russell perspective, I do feel like that there's a lot of us that are active.
We don't. We try to, you know, to pick the people that. We don't really pick them, but we try to back people that we think broadly serves, you know, everybody's interest in the best way, and we don't really worry about any particulars, and we don't try to dictate anything. We just try to support people in the best way so they can make good decisions and essentially have our support if they need it.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, and we talk about this at the legislative level, Matt, but it has trickled down to the local level from there. And. And that is what. What I call, for lack of a better term, maybe I call them know nothings in the legislature but fringe characters.
As a young reporter, I covered my share of school board meetings. I covered my share of quorum court meetings. I understand how that works. Used to you'd go to a school board meeting and they deal with school bus business.
Let's bid on some new buses.
Let's give the coach a brace. Let's deal with these disciplinary issues of certain students.
Now you're likely to go and some member of the board drones on for an hour about critical race theory or vaccination mandates or something that really is not going to be settled at the local level ever.
Matt. And I do consider that an increasing Problem. And it's not just Arkansas, it's all over the country, but certainly an increasing problem here in Arkansas where we're wasting time on issues that aren't going to be decided at our level.
[00:14:55] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I think to your point, and I can speak for the state legislature, we need to get back to the basics of Arkansas.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:03] Speaker C: And that would be. And in my case and in Andy's case, business owners, we are budget guys. We look at the budgets. Here's the expenses, here's the bottom line, what's best for Arkansas. And in speaking with some of the veteran legislators down there that I don't think are on your know nothing list, in conversations with them, they said at one time the number one priority in the state legislature was the state budget.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: That was, it was the budget.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: And you and I discussed that the first time we went to lunch. Matt was nice enough to invite me to lunch, if my advice is any good. It's not. But I said, you know, when I worked in the governor's office, the way I looked at it is the main reason for a legislative session was to pass a budget. And working for a Republican governor as a fiscal conservative, we needed to make that budget as efficient as possible, as fair as possible, make sure our tax code was also fair. But that was what it was all about.
And now we tend to get off track and spend days on libraries and what books they have. I could go on and on with other issues. And Matt, I know you, you deal with that when you're in session on a daily basis of getting off course, if you will.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. Well, Rex, I'll say this. One thing I've noticed in the past two sessions is unfortunately there are emotional based decisions made. So what we'll have is we'll have an elected official get. Go down there. They'll get, they'll go down to the well and they'll present, they'll present legislation that pulls on the heartstrings to help XYZ children, help this, help that, and no doubt, I mean, it's a sad, it can be a sad situation, but at the same time, we've got to look at the budgetary concerns as well. What's the bottom line? At the end of the day, this state is run on our tax dollars and we need to manage those. And so I think that as legislators, if there was one thing I could change, it would be, let's really sit down. Let's look at this from a common sense perspective. Let's look at the facts, let's not worry about what a lobbyist said in the elevator. Let's. Let's put our emotions aside and say what is best for the state of Arkansas.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting, like on some of the things you pointed out, I realize there's these issues that from a feeling perspective are very real to people. Critical race theory, dei, all sorts of stuff. And it goes from both sides of the aisle. Right. You know, and so. But I, you know, I don't know if this is your opinion, but I think a lot of this stuff doesn't really serve us in the broad sense.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: It does not.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: You know, and a framing about what we want to do here, one way to sort of think about it would say, what if all of us collectively, let's just say we could live from this moment, you know, out for a couple decades and we just sort of focus in on how the state performed against, measuring against other states. What I would say is if we could objectively look back, let's say we do that a thousand times, we could objectively pull back from that and look at it. Imagine there's times we're going to say, hey, wow, we really got it right there. And my guess is, is, is that we probably would have, you know, in iterations where we do the right things, we're going to have. We're going to have regulations where we need them, but not unnecessary regulations, not things that just create friction and cost and serve no purpose. We'll have broad freedoms, not limited freedoms based on one person's particular, you know, proclivities towards whatever their issue is, you know, would have, you know, probably lower taxes. We'd have a lot of things to go do. There's all sorts of things that I think that would be a part of that. And a lot of these things aren't easy to solve when we get into issues like healthcare or crime. But by having a dialogue about them, maybe perhaps we contribute a little bit into better decision making. And if we can do that, that's a noble pursuit.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Absolutely.
In my speaking across the state, I often give a broad overview of what's going on now. And I want to get, Andy, your perspective as a business leader, Matt, your perspective as a public official.
But I look at Arkansas from that 30,000 foot level and I think, my God, if I look at what's going on right now, and I've got plenty to write about, because we could be on the verge, I think, of a real economic golden era.
Northwest Arkansas. You look at the recent population trends, we've been writing about that boom for 40 years. It's getting even bigger. I mean, it's speeding up. If anything else, you've got that there. You come south here to central Arkansas and you're quickly seeing this. With Amazon's decision to make this a regional hub now employing more than 4,000 people in Central Arkansas, about to add another thousand.
All the other related companies coming in, a logistical hub here. You look up at northeast Arkansas, where Mississippi county has now become the leading steel producing county in America. Who of us that grew up in Arkansas, Matt, could have ever dreamed that Arkansas would be the heart of American steel making? And yet we are.
You look at Fort Smith, what I've been writing about in recent weeks, where we're about to train every basically fighter pilot around the world from American allies that are going to come there that's going to have over a $1 billion economic impact annually on west Arkansas. I go to south Arkansas and the lithium boom is about to take off in southwest Arkansas. The defense industry is booming outside of Camden right now. So it's every part of the state, Andy. But as you know, you've heard me give this. I also give a speech called A State of Disasters. You know, for 200 years, when it seemed we were on the verge of something big, we would screw it up. So how do we harness all of these things that are happening in multiple parts of the state and really make this an economic golden era and finally, after all these decades, truly move the needle on per capita income in Arkansas?
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[00:21:40] Speaker B: Which, by the way, the GDP, if we just start there, the GDP ranked against other states is we're in the highest 30s.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: You know, and if you break it on a per capita basis, we're almost lost. Yeah, right. And so, you know, part of what we've got to do is lift as many, you know, lift as many people as we possibly can. You, of course, listed all these things that are great and there's other things too, that you didn't talk about. Timber resources Just, just natural resources. Just, just from hunting, fishing, bike riding, rafting. All these things I think are also hidden treasures and just the beauty of things place.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: You know, so I think that for us, you know, as Arkansans, I think that having a world class infrastructure is super important. I think that, you know, smart taxation is really important.
I think that, you know, I think having good schools and the good, you know, good, good health care and we actually just need a lot more people too. You know, one of the things, I.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Could not agree more.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, we don't need to be kicking people out, we need to bring.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Them in here, need to be welcomed.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: Let me just give you one example. So if you were to look at healthcare in the state, we've got, we've got a lack of primary care physicians throughout the whole state. 70% of our counties are, you know, have a scarcity of that. Right. And you know, there's a limit to how many people get turned out of medical school. So you know, it's incumbent on us to find other ways. You know, some of those ways are letting people from other countries in to do that. Others are rethinking how we teach people. Right. But none of those, you know, for example, as we is medical profession gets more specialized, there's an area, let's say at the bottom of the period where maybe they don't have to go to as long as residency, as long as school, but they could do primary things right for us, all those things are gonna take time, you know, and so we need to be working on all them simultaneously in a really good way. And when we turn our focus to things that don't really move the needle, right. So if you say that you wanna burn books, I wanna ban a bunch of books, and you say, well, how is that in the service of, you know, of prosperity, quality of life, standard of living, improving the taxation, you know, improving regulations, it doesn't serve any of those purposes. You know, what it, what it serves to do is promote whoever is doing the promoting, you know, because in the end it doesn't have a lot of teeth in the whole thing, you know. And so anyway, that's what I would.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Say that makes perfect sense from a public policy standpoint. Man.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: Well, let me say this, Andy, Andy hit on this about the books and whatnot. It's, it's all about efficiency of time, I think.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:18] Speaker C: And I think at the state level, and there was some different, some different rule changes that Representative Jack Ladyman had presented, had some unique ideas. Not saying for Sure. I agree with them or not, but they were some interesting discussions. And I think at the state level, we really need to look at efficiency of time. We need to run this as a business, that if, hey, if we're not making the bottom line, we're going to close the doors. And that's the bottom line with that. But you hit on something. Rex, I'd like to talk about. Talk about people coming here and bringing more people here. You know, one concern that I have heard from, I guess people more on the Republican right side is we don't want these Californians to come here and bring their radical ideas here. Yeah, well, my experience has been the opposite. So when I ran my first campaign and I was out knocking doors and just out meeting people, I met a lot of people in Pope county that had moved to Arkansas from California.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:25:08] Speaker C: Well, their attitude was the opposite. I mean, I had. I remember one specific thing, and you remember this. I'm sure when you worked on campaigns, there was always one thing that kind of stuck out.
And I was over there by our smoke shop in town in Russellville, and I was out there, we were putting up a sign, and this guy stopped his car and saw the sign, came up to me and introduced himself. He had just moved here from California, and he was so excited to be in the state of Arkansas. He said, I'm sick and I'm tired of California, and we want to come here not just for the cost of living, which I think is an advantage to being here, but the ideology that he saw that was here, more traditional values and things of that nature. So the people from California that I have met that have moved here, they aren't bringing the, quote, far left ideology here with them. They're coming here because they want to be a part of what they see Arkansas is. And that's good old school family, traditional values, lower crime, cost of living and things of that nature. And, you know, that was just a really neat experience. The guy ended up giving me a hug and actually started crying.
Yeah.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: You know, though I hear that anecdotally. Anecdotally. All over the state, and I travel all 75 counties. But I hear it. I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago, I spoke to the annual banquet right across the river from you of the Dardanelle Chamber of Commerce, and I was sitting by the Yale county judge, and he said, you know, I just make it a habit. Anytime a new family moves to the county, I go and visit them. That's good politics. Right? And he said, you'd be amazed the number of people from California and from other states who are buying pieces of land sight unseen on the Internet. They're not even coming because of the low cost of living and that are moving here.
And back to what you said, Andy, of bringing new people here, I think we have a tremendous opportunity in a post pandemic world, because if the pandemic taught us anything, it was that a lot of people discovered they don't need to be in that big tower in downtown Atlanta or Dallas or Chicago anymore. They can be somewhere where there's abundant outdoor recreational opportunities, where the cost of living is lower, where crime's lower, where they're not sitting in traffic every hour. If, and this is another show, but if they have good broadband Internet, which is essential for rural Arkansas.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Correct. You got to have that. And if we were to look at all the awesome things that have happened up in Bentonville, right. You know, all of the trails, the, the art, the, you know, just moving something this simple, right. If you, you're up in Bentonville, in a lot of the places, they've moved a lot of the power lines below ground, Right. Just something small like that just adds beautification.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: It really does.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: It's. Now what else needs to happen? As an example of what you asked before.
So you take something like as simple as your waste, right. You know, just your trash. So in the United States, we have landfill scarcity, about 1200 landfills left. Okay. So landfill prices will continue to rise. And if we just look in northwest Arkansas, you've got the Waste Management landfill in Taneytown. Right. Eco Vista landfill. And you know, that gets a lot of news and a lot of play.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: As we tape it was in this morning's paper. Yeah.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Now, now we could decide to close that down. Right. There's a lot of reasons, probably a lot of people that live close to it that wouldn't want anything better than to close it down. But we don't have great backups.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: You know, the next closest landfill is either going to go to Fort Smith or over, over in Oklahoma.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: And so when you talk about infrast, one of the things that I think that we can do is, and this is something that ADEQ or whether it's legislator, that can make it easier to do things like, okay, we might need another landfill or we need to expand our recycling or whatever the answer is, but we're going to have more trash, not less trash.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: And that's true with water and with power. And so those things are really important. I mean, I don't know if you've seen the statistics around the U.S. but the quantity of power that's been invested in the United States isn't that big compared against like China.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: They're putting in like, I don't know the exact numbers, but dozens of Denver's every single year, you know, the equivalent of what the power is in debt. And I think that's another place we can win here in Arkansas. Cheap power that also will attract people. And we want to be part of certain trends. Like, I don't know exactly where AI will really go, but it doesn't take someone who uses ChatGPT that long. And I don't know if you guys use it very much, but once you use it quite a bit, you realize like, oh yeah, this is going to be a thing. And, and so we want to be part of that. We don't, you know, you know, we, that, that, that creates growth and growth is good.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah, your growth is good. But.
And again we. Andy, you and I were talking before we began taping.
I spent four years with the Delta Regional Authority and we were in parts of eight states. So I got to know a lot of new towns.
And I would go to a town before I had a speaking engagement about an hour early typically, and drive around. And it's amazing how much you can get a feel in just an hour of driving around a town of whether it's got it going on or not. Of course. And so we've got to realize the old model of economic development being just smokestack chasing, if you will, to bring in the next plant has now gone to community development. Development. We've got to build places where people want to live. And I know from that standpoint there in Russellville, you've been very active in downtown redevelopment and cleaning up the city.
Talk about those efforts and why they're important.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Yeah, and I've also been part of the economic development efforts there in the River Valley. And you're right, the historical way of thinking about it was let's go buy some property. We'll then put up a sign that.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Says County Industrial park, run some water and sewer lines and attract 600 jobs. All of a sudden.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: That's exactly right.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: That's what you tried shot for.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: And it really is.
It doesn't really pay off like you think it's going to. I'm not saying it never happens, but it doesn't happen very often. But what we can do is we can build things around our city that will make people want to Spend more time there and make it more attractive. And there's a lot of things that I would say go into that. So one is, is that you want to make the place look good, right? So what we do is some of the things we do in Russellville is invest in some of the downtown business. And there's a lot of people that have done this. So it's not just, not just me and my partner, but a lot of us work on that. And we want to make it where people want to come to downtown. But it's also things like street lights that are consistent, moving power lines below ground, sidewalks that connect.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Amen. Amen. Amen.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Connecting the parks. And then, you know, we've got to support our school systems, you know, and so it's important the schools do well. And so all of those things matter for us. And in a small town. Let me add one more thing. In a small town like Russellville, one of the things that's really interesting about it is, you know, the poorest kid and the richest kid all go to the same school. You know, everybody's there rowing the boat in the same direction. So it makes it really feel like a community.
And everybody sort of supports most all of the goals. I don't know if you'd agree with that or not, Matt, but yeah.
[00:32:22] Speaker C: Well, I think, Rex, on that note, I'll speak for Russellville. We have a really interesting synergy there that we have not had in a long time. You know, I was back in 1983, so I've been around a while seeing different leadership changes.
But what we have now is we have this synergy. We have an excellent chamber of commerce there that is. Now there's a young lady named Megan Selman. She graduated from Russellville High School. We talked about the public schools and how important that was in Russellville and we went there. She's got that. I mean, she's rowing the boat. It's amazing things she's doing with that. We have Mayor Teague who I think did an excellent job. And he was similar to myself in that we both came in, we had no political experience, but just a desire to be involved and help.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:05] Speaker C: You know, I felt good. I had a three way race, won it without a runoff. He comes along, has a four way race with some former mayors in there, wins it without a runoff. And he's done an excellent job. And you talked about communication. He's done a great job of communicating with the public of what's going on. He does these sit downs with the mayor every Every now and then. But it's just. It's a team effort. You know, the chamber, the mayor, the council.
We've got some excellent new members coming onto our school board there, and we all just kind of work together and you see the fruits of the labor in Russellville, our downtown. And when's the last time you were there? But it's. Man, it's come a long way in the past 10 years.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: It really has.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: It's much better. Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree completely.
We're running out of time. I knew we would. This would go too fast. I'm going to have to get you both back. But to close out, Matt, you're in elected office now. You're in there where the sausage actually is being made. And seeing it being made.
Would you describe yourself generally as an optimist about the future of Arkansas?
[00:34:07] Speaker C: I think so. And I think, you know, I think, Rex, you care a lot. Andy, you care a lot. And I think it's important to see the growth and the positivity that we have here in the state of Arkansas. And one thing I have seen and now, you know, things cost a lot more now in general, nationally. And so people, when they plan their vacations, when I'm seeing the state of Arkansas, the airports, from my perspective, I don't travel like I did. They're not quite as busy, but they're going to Eureka Springs, Hot Springs, Bentville, for a concert. I was just in El Dorado. What an amazing downtown.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: I love downtown El Dorado.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's. We need to keep the foot on the gas, but I think at the same time, we need to look and see the accomplished accomplishments of the state of Arkansas. And I think that, as I said before, we need to get back to the basics. And I think we will.
I think that people, when I speak with people that are in other states, at one time, they kind of chuckled at the state of Arkansas.
I don't think that's the case nearly as much now. I think we're seeing not only is a good place to go duck hunting, but as we've seen and we talk about this outdoor, the hiking, the recreation.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Mountain climbing, bird watching, you name it, now.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: And that is the hip thing to do now. Yeah, it's a cool thing to do. And I think that Arkansas is really seen as a leader in the United States for that now.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: How about you, Andy?
[00:35:24] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I'm also very optimistic. One of the things I wanted to say about Matt, of course, Matt's done an excellent job. What do think you fail to tell you is he actually is also really good in pie eating contests. And so which I really had a big kick out of. I think you beat your competitor, right? Or do I have that right? Or tied?
[00:35:41] Speaker C: Hey, my memory serves me that, yes, I absolutely defeated Representative Trey Stymo. I didn't win the whole contest. There were three, as we would say, Rex, big old boys, and they finished the whole pie. But I couldn't do that.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: I want you to know it was the things I do for our readers. I want you to know it was a very tough spring for me. I was a judge at both the Arkansas Pie Festival in Cherokee Village and the World Championship Steak Cook off in Magnolia. Both events. I was a judge. So it was a rough spring. Man.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: I would say this about optimism. You know, we talked earlier about, you know, various things that the state has going for it. And so I think those are, those are a lot of reasons to be optimistic, even though we've got a lot of issues. The other thing, too, is in spite of the fact that we may have, let's just say, some focus on policies that don't really help us in the long run, at least I would advocate that they don't.
I will say this.
There's a lot of politicians that I know, a lot of them just from talking to them, but a lot of them I know personally, and what I would say that makes me feel optimistic is almost all of them are fine human beings. I mean, they really, they may get sucked into the whirlwind that is the political process at times, but I think they generally all want to do the right things, at least the ones that I'm friends with. And so that makes me feel good. And I think they're also really smart people. And so I think collectively, if we've got good leaders both in, you know, in the State House, and also good leaders running businesses, that is the place to be. And if we can, we can just have more businesses, we'll be better.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: All right, gentlemen, thank you. We are out of time, unfortunately.
Andy McNeil, State Representative Matt Duffill from Russellville, our guest today. Thank you for taking the time to be with me. Really enjoyed it. And thank you for listening to another edition of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette SA.
