My name is Louise Mann. I’ve created this website to provide a little insight as the Fayetteville, AR City Council campaign season gets underway. Hopefully readers will be inspired to run for office, serve on a committee, write letters to the editor, or simply ask more questions about how our tax dollars are being allocated. Thanks for giving the website a gander.
A retired waste reduction educator, I’ve lived in Fayetteville since 1993. I returned to my home state after Arkansas colleagues suggested that I should duplicate the successful waste reduction/recycling program that I’d coordinated in Tennessee. I’ve worked on waste reduction projects at the federal, state, and local levels. To learn more about that, you can visit my (outdated) website at https://www.WasteReductionResources.com
Lioneld Jordan was my wonderful, loyal to his constituents, Ward 4 alderman for several years. When he decided to run for mayor I was happy to help. Volunteering many, many hours to his first mayoral race in 2008 I coordinated the postcard committee where we hand wrote around 6,000 postcards. I walked neighborhoods, made phone calls, donated money, stood on street corners holding signs, put together snack sacks for volunteers who stood outside the polls, gave up Sunday afternoons (for months) to attend his campaign meetings. I even opened my home to strangers as I helped with Lioneld’s first successful run for mayor.
Unfortunately, by 2012 I’d become disillusioned with the way the city was being managed. For more than a decade as I’ve watched how decisions were made and implemented, my faith in Fayetteville city government has diminished. Lioneld has a big heart. I didn’t realize his campaign manager in 2008 had big debts. That debtor went on to become our city manager.
The city manager runs the day to day operations of Fayetteville, and thus has tremendous influence on how dollars are spent, how staff behaves, how decisions are made, and the overall culture of our city administration.
Again, I’ve developed this website, simply to give a little insight, not to argue. Thank you for caring enough to explore it