Louisiana Tech professor to discuss the struggle for the solar future Saturday afternoon at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.

Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

Louisiana Tech professor to discuss the struggle for the solar future Saturday afternoon at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.

Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

City 16 schedule April 19-25 includes Ward One, Town Branch neighborhood meeting with developer of proposed BIG apartments by cemetery at 9 a.m. today

Brown thrashers among the many species to be seen on World Peace Wetland Prairie during Sunday's Earth Day celebration

Please click on image to Enlarge view of one of the many species of birds feeding and picking nesting sites on World Peace Wetland Prairie on April 17, 2009. The elusive brown thrasher is often able to slip into the thickets before a camera can capture its image. But the attraction of scattered brush piles and the excitement of mating season can make them a bit careless.

Sale barn or 500-student apartment complex next to National Cemetery?

Ward One meeting held a week ago in the Town Branch Neighborhood is to be shown on Cox cable channel 16 at 11 a.m today and again at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.
City16 Government Channel schedule available online.

Apartment-builders' plan for the sale-barn property is presented during that meeting and several people who live in the neighborhood comment on the idea and even suggest alternatives.

Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's green-infrastructure project report online

Green-infrastructure report from Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association project

Aerial view of Town Branch Neighborhood from the northeast looking southwest shows sale barn, cemetery and Hill Place project site at right in 2005

Please click on image to ENLARGE 2005 view of the Fayetteville National Cemetery next to the Washington County Auction Barn. The bare ground at right is the former Aspen Ridge site where student apartments for more than 800 students are nearly completion now.


Monthly business meetings of the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation are at 10:30 a.m. on the second Saturday of the month at the American Legion Post No. 27, 1195 S.Curtis Avenue, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The group meets at 10:30 a.m. April 11, 2009, TOMORROW. Visitors are welcome to attend to discuss the proposed Live-stock-auction land sale to allow student apartments to be built adjacent to the east side of the national cemetery.
For information, please call President Roger McClain at 479-306-6459 or visit the group's Web site at http://www.geocities.com/regncic/

The Morning News of April 7, 2009, reports Town Branch neighborhood meeting to discuss student-apartment project proposed for sale-barn site

Please click on image to Enlarge view of clipping from The Morning News of April 7, 2009.

Earth Day celebration on April 19, 2009, at World Peace Wetland Prairie

Please click on image to ENLARGE to read details of the poster.

Bird-watchers welcome every day from dawn to dusk!

Zoom lens shows proximity of proposed and newly built multifamily housing in Town Branch neighborhood

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of the Washington County Sale Barn from the west balcony of the Fayetteville Senior Center on South College Avenue in Walker Park.

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of the top of the Washington County Sale Barn and, a few blocks further west, the top of newly built student apartments west of Hill Avenue and, beyond that across the railroad, the east slope of Rochier Hill, which also is slated for multifamily residential development. The white roof in the foreground is that of a business on South School Avenue.

Ward One of south Fayetteville meets developers to discuss proposal to build student apartments on Washington County Sale Barn land

Please click on images to enlarge view of some of the people attending the meeting in the top two photos and a view east on Eleventh Street on Tuesday morning showing the National Cemetery in the background and the part of the sale barn at right.



Ward One residents shared their impressions and commented on a proposal presented by Bob Estes for rezoning the Washington County Sale Barn property in the Town Branch neighborhood to allow building an apartment complex that would provide rooms for 500 college students on the east side of Government Avenue and Dunn Avenue between 7th Street and 11th Street. The national cemetery is on the west side of those avenues.
Fayetteville residents expressed concern about the proposed four-story buildings overshadowing the historical cemetery for war veterans and their spouses. They expressed concern about the traffic of 500 students using the adjacent streets. They expressed concern about the noise of 500 students living adjacent to the cemetery.
They asserted that the city has more apartments than needed already, including the soon-to-be completed Hill Place project that will provide more than 800 bedrooms for UA students only three blocks to the northwest this fall.
Mayor Lioneld Jordan and the two City Council members from Ward One, Adella Gray and Brenda Thiel, attended the meeting.

Would student apartments be more appropriate than a livestock auction barn next to National Cemetery for veterans? Not likely

Everyone is welcom at today's 5:30 p.m. meeting of Ward One residents and the Town Branch Neighborhood at the S. Hill Avenue Church of Christ near the intersection of 11th Street and S. Hill Avenue to hear and discuss a proposal to rezone the Washington County Livestock Auction Barn for student apartments. The area is shown on Google Maps below.

View Larger Map

The sale barn in the view below is at right and the national cemetery is at left. WOULD STUDENT APARTMENTS be any more appropriate next to the National Cemetery than a sale barn? The cemetery was created in 1867 and the sale barn in 1937.

View Larger Map

Please share information about the 5:30 p.m. April 5 (TODAY) meeting of Ward One residents at the Church of Christ on South Hill Avenue in Fayetteville.
Attorney Bob Estes is to present a proposal to have the Washington County Sale Barn rezoned so that student apartments may be built on the land in the Town Branch Neighborhood. If the rezoning is accepted, then a North Carolina company will buy the land and build the apartments.
The cattle-auction facility was constructed in 1937 by the grandfather of the current owner.
Cattle are brought in early each week and auctioned on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. There is no permanent housing of a large group of animals.
Because of the north slope's being well vegetated, stormwater runoff to streams in each direction is relatively clean, much cleaner than the runoff from the Hill Place Apartment complex being constructed three blocks to the west.
Closing the sale barn in south Fayetteville would greatly inconvenience ranchers and farmers in south Washington County. In fact, having to travel to Springdale to buy and sell cattle could be final factor in some landowners deciding to sell out and stop farming.
All this would come at a time when encouraging local production of food and protecting the rich soil on the prairies in the river valleys is high on the agenda of many people and many conservation organizations.
Closing the sale barn could affect the local farm economy and several other businesses in south Fayetteville that rely on local farming. It would encourage more unneeded housing to be built in rural areas while allowing more unneeded apartments to be built in a city where empty apartments and condominiums are plentiful.
Anything that damages the agricultural economy of Northwest Arkansas will reduce the effectiveness of such ongoing efforts as the FNHA's green-infrastructure project, the Beaver Lake and Illinois River watershed-protection efforts and the efforts of OMNI Center, the Sierra Club, Audubon Arkansas, the League of Women voters, the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited and many other conservation organizations to protect and improve our environment and counter the threat of global climate change.

Town Branch Neighborhood Association meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday April 6, 2009

Ward One City Council members, members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the public will hear a presentation from a developer seeking to rezone the Washington County Sale Barn property to allow construction of student apartments. Everyone is welcome to the meeting in the church at 1136 S Ellis Avenue south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 6.
For details, please call 479-444-6072 or visit http://townbranchneighborhood.blogspot.com

Ward One council members, residents of south Fayetteville to meet to discuss proposal to build student apartments on Washington County Sale Barn land

Town Branch Neighborhood Association meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday April 6, 2009

Ward One City Council members, members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the public will hear a presentation from a developer seeking to rezone the Washington County Sale Barn property to allow construction of student apartments. Everyone is welcome to the meeting in the church at 1136 S Ellis Avenue south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 6.
For details, please call 479-444-6072 or visit http://townbranchneighborhood.blogspot.com

The construction phase of this proposed project would send silty runoff to both Tanglewood Branch and the main Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River because it sits on the ridge between the two. Current runoff from that sale-barn area actually is very minimal because of the vegetated pasture land protected there for a few cattle to graze on for only two days a week.

Earth Day at World Peace Wetland Prairie from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday April 19, 2009

Members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology present the fifth-annual Earth Day celebration with activities for kids and adults. Wildflowers will be planted in the butterfly garden and peace-circle garden on the east portion of the city-owned nature park by children and adult volunteers. Ice-storm damaged limbs will be removed by those who wish to help. Volunteers may dig out fescue grass or remove Japanese honeysuckle that is suppressing native plants in parts of the western 2 acres.
Musicians and poets will be invited to play, sing or read in a pleasant outdoor setting.
Still on the Hill and Emily Kaitz are the headliners.
Several activities for youngsters will be provided by volunteers.
Parking is free from 1 to 5 p.m. at the the Hill Avenue Church of Christ south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street, and street parking is legal in much of the neighborhood.
Everyone is welcome. For details, call 444-6072
or visit http://worldpeacewetlandprairie.blogspot.com
World Peace Wetland Prairie is at 1121 South Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Reagan family farm north of Arkansas 16 exemplifies the kind of land that must be protected in the cities of Northwest Arkansas to save Beaver Lake

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Bill Reagan pointing to the line of trees along the fence on the south edge of his family farm along the north edge of East Fifteenth Street.


The Reagan family has owned the land for many years and Bill said that he has bought it from his mother and will keep it in the family. The farm is prairie that has been used for cattle grazing and other agriculture over the decades. It is an example of a heritage farm of the sort identified in the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's Green Infrastructure plan. Its rich soil captures water where falls and does not cause flooding downstream with its limited stormwater runoff entering the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River without causing siltation or pollution. See Google map with view of Fifteenth Street area in a preceding post on this subject.
Democrat-Gazette on widening of Arkansas 16