Our View

Our View

West Memphis needs to turn back to its brighter days

West Memphis politicians are facing the stark reality that has been staring them in the face now for a long time and that is that their city isn’t what it once was, nor is it experiencing necessary growth that is essential to its future prosperity.

Prominent families that once played an integral part in making West Memphis what it once was have left, their children have grown and no longer live here, and there are no indications of attracting the type of young people and leaders that can take their places within the community.

City leaders concerned about the city’s declining population need to ask themselves how many among them live in West Memphis, how many of them have a financial investment in West Memphis, how many of them have children who plan on remaining here, run a business and carry on where there parents left off?

These very same city leaders worried about federal turnback money based on census figures need to ask themselves what they are doing to attract the kind of newcomers that will make a positive difference as this city’s future leaders.

Instead, Councilman James Pulliaum’s solution to the city’s declining population issue is to simply do a better job at counting residents during the upcoming federal census count in the 2020 national census.

So then, Pulliaum was happy to announce a census bureau training workshop conducted by U.S. Census Data Specialist Toni Pitchford. This workshop will allow local officials the opportunity to comment on the census bureau residential address list for the next census.

Seems as if Pulliaum’s interest in grabbing a portion of the $400 billion that is distributed each year, in the form of what is called turn-back money, based on a city’s population.

Both Pulliaum and Mayor Bill Johnson made their point of saying how important it was that there is an accurate census count and said based on the 2010 count the city was shorted, resulting in West Memphis not getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in turn-back money over the decade.

The 2010 census figures seemed to bewilder City Treasurer Frank Martin who made the observation that based on the number of utility meters in West Memphis there is no way the census figures were accurate.

Well, Mr. Martin, the federal census bureau bases its figures on real live and breathing people not utility meters.

There is certainly no doubt these politicians have something to worry about in light of the fact that a census is done only once every decade and those numbers will be the basis for how much West Memphis gets over that period.

Even back in 2010 the federal census showed the city in population decline, a concern that is clearly evident today, which Pulliaum is of the opinion that doing “a compete count” of both federal government geo-coded and uncoded addressees will prove West Memphis is booming with all sorts of people.

Based on current and obvious situations that exists in West Memphis it doesn’t appear much has changed to the positive as far as population is concerned even though Martin thinks his population numbers ought to be based on utility meters.

Pulliaum and Martin need to understand that for West Memphis to grow in population there needs to be some very serious changes made that will attract the kind of people that can make a positive difference similar to what West Memphis was decades ago. The kind of people this city is attracting now are not the ones that can bring back “the good ol’ days.”