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OTHER COMMENTS:
Bar curfew: The 11 p.m. closing time will expire tomorrow. Hutchinson said the decline in cases and being past the holiday periods allows an end to the early closing time for retail drink permits. It will not be extended beyond Feb. 3 (Wednesday).
Revenue report: Governor Hutchinson lauded the $400 million surpluses. He said it signaled a strong economy. He used it as an argument for compromise on the proposed $1.9 trillion aid package from congressional Democrats. He says the economy’s improvement reduces the need. He said Congress shouldn’t “go big, but go reasonable.”
Pandemic unemployment assistance: Commerce Secretary
Leadership from the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce on state efforts to stifle academic freedom
What a delight to get this news release from the
North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce:
On Tuesday, February 2, 2021, the North Little Rock Chamber Executive
Committee of the Board of Directors met and passed a resolution in opposition to Arkansas House Bills 1218 and 1231 introduced by Representative Mark Lowery.
The Chamber said the bills to limit teaching about social justice issues from kindergarten through college and to punish any school that used the New York Times project on slavery in classes would portray the state in a negative light nationally
February 3, 202110:23 am
Rep. Frances Cavenaugh (R-Walnut Ridge) couldn’t get a do-pass motion today for her HB 1189 that would have effectively ended the
regular bonuses Commerce Secretary Mike Preston gets from the Arkansas Economic Development Foundation.
Her bill would prohibit cabinet secretaries from taking money from outside sources for doing their state jobs. They could still work in their professions in unrelated side jobs.
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Preston is paid $182,000. But he’s been bonused by the private foundation every year for five years, $54,800 most recently, on approval by the governor. Cavenaugh said there’s no public accountability for that money and the Foundation wouldn’t tell her the source of the money, which also pays to upgrade Preston’s air travel to business class and for other expenses. She said people deserve to know if a cabinet secretary is working only for the state in their jobs or for someone else.
Commerce Secretary Mike Preston and
Workforce Services Director Charisse Childersannounced with great fanfare yesterday that the state was at last ready to process pandemic unemployment assistance payments through a long-delayed website. They bragged this was coming a week earlier than originally predicted.
But, they also said:
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A claim filed yesterday would first have to be reviewed for eligibility and it would be at least a week before payment.
People entitled to payments have to re-submit ID verification.
Arkansas is among the last states to get new federally financed assistance checks for more than 50,000 small business people and gig workers who don’t qualify for conventional unemployment assistance or have timed out on the state’s meager regular benefits (among the worst in the country).