Times' July 15 headline two weeks premature; it may be accurate if published on July 22, 2009

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of a couple from West Palm Beach, Florida, at the Fayetteville National Cemetery on July 14, 2009. They were on a self-guided tour of Civil War battlefields and National Cemeteries and such. Many people choose to vacation in cities that have significant historic sites.

The July 15 headline below may be accurate if published again on July 22.
"Rezoning of sale barn property postponed
BY ROBIN MERO Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Wednesday, July 15, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/78148/
"Consideration of a rezoning request for the Washington County Livestock Auction property will wait until the Aug. 4 meeting of the Fayetteville City Council.
"Developer Campus Crest LLC wants two more weeks to develop a bill of assurance for the request, which will be presented to the council with the aim of making the zoning request more palatable.
"The developer is asking that nine acres be rezoned to downtown general from heavy commercial/light industrial and seeks to build apartments for University of Arkansas students."

The headline and the two graphs above were written after an agenda-setting meeting of the Fayetteville City Council. It may turn out to be accurate if the council tables the issue during the July 21 meeting. No action is taken at agenda sessions beyond setting the agenda for the official council meeting. If the developers actually do ask that it be tabled at the July 21 meeting, then the a member of the council could make a motion to table and, if that were seconded, then they could vote to table or not. If the council approves tabling, then it might not be further discussed.
If the tabling fails, then a motion could be made to vote on the issue of rezoning, which would require allowing developers to present and the public to speak. So there is no guarantee that the issue will not come to a vote at this meeting, but it does appear likely that it will be delayed until the first August meeting.
It would be an embarrassment to the city if apartments were allowed next to the national cemetery. This isn't about property rights. The lack of need for apartments for university students at this time has been well-documented. The obvious need in Fayetteville is for affordable housing such as the single-family homes in the neighborhood nearest the former sale barn and the National Cemetery.

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of representatives of the VA and contractors on July 14, 2009, discussing plans to prepare property to be added to the Fayetteville National Cemetery.

On Tuesday, federal officials and engineers and others with experience in cemetery design walked the cemetery and some adjacent land to the west that already has been bought by the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation and donated to the VA for cemetery expansion. That land will be prepared after careful study of that land to become part of the burial ground. But it will not meet the projected need for more space for much more than a decade.
The sale-barn ground also would require careful planning and much work if it is added later. But the people on hand yesterday are well-trained and able to do it properly. It will be needed and is in the natural spot to be added to the existing cemetery that was created in 1867, soon after the civil war ended.
Maybe some people would not see the inappropriateness of putting apartments there unless it were allowed and then they actually experienced what it would be like.
Just imagine.

Quoting the NWAT article further: "The council by law is to consider only whether the zoning requested is compatible with the neighborhood.
"Alderman Sarah Lewis asked how the developer can present information about the project when the council is not to consider a specific project.
" 'I don't understand; we're not allowed to talk about the project, but they're allowed to bring a bill of assurance," Lewis said.
"City Attorney Kit Williams said a bill of assurance doesn't describe a project, only limits the range of a zoning.
A bill of assurance places voluntary restrictions on a developer."
"Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com"

Regardless of the outcome of the effort to stop this rezoning, the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation will continue its fund-raising effort. There is no guarantee at this point that federal money will be provided to help expand the cemetery even though Senator Blanche Lincoln told me in person that she will work toward that end and even though Congressman John Boozeman told me and several other people recently that he will work to earmark a bill in the House of Representatives to provide money through the Department of Veterans Affairs to purchase the sale-barn property to add to protect the future cemetery and the thousands of veterans are eligible for burial there already.
Please make donations payable to the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation and mail to P.O. Box 4221, Fayetteville, AR 72702.
For more information, please go to the RNCIC's Web site at http://regncic.tripod.com
Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation's Web site

Lauren Hawkins asks City Council to protect neighborhood and Fayetteville National Cemetery

Dear members of the Fayetteville City Council:

I am a homeowner on the south side of Fayetteville — a field away from Pinnacle Foods, the train track, a neighborhood vest-pocket park and with the sale barn.

The blocks that separate me from the sale barn are mostly in the Fayetteville National Cemetery. The cemetery is one of only a few hundred across the country. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and now recognized as a National Shrine.
Many homes in this neighborhood were here when the sale barn was built. The cemetery was. My house was. Two close neighbor's houses were, though one was moved about 200 feet east by mules about the time sale barn was built. A house or two up the road were here to see the Butterfield stagecoach deliver mail. The rest of the neighborhood has grown up with the sale barn as its neighbor.

It is a quiet single-family neighborhood primarily, with a mix of light-industrial, agricultural, a few duplexes and a 12-unit single-story apartment building. The population includes a mix of young families, middle-aged and older folks living here.

This unique neighborhood is one that deserves to be preserved, as we see new developments attempt to emulate much of what we have.

The sale barn has met a few battles as Fayetteville grew up around it, I gather. Established use and preservation of a way of life have won its favor many a time.

The only thing that makes a bit of sense is to rezone the whole area to neighborhood conservation. Period.

The proposal to rezone the parcel to allow such things as rent-by-the-room student apartments is simply incompatible with the surroundings. We owe our veterans' final resting place as much.

Present estimates of the Fayetteville National Cemetery are for capacity to meet demand for the next decade. Will we have our troops out of harm's way by then?

I urge the Fayetteville City Council to be good stewards and take the opportunity to rezone to neighborhood conservation and nothing less.

Lauren Hawkins

Blanche Lincoln learns about the National Cemetery expansion effort

Honeybee on butterfly milkweed on June 30, 2009

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of honeybee on milkweed on June 30, 2009, at World Peace Wetland Prairie.

Robert Williams of Hill Ave says more apartments could kill Town Branch Neighborhood

Robert Williams of Hill Ave says wait for Hill Place apartments to operate a year before allowing more apartments in Town Branch Neighborhood

Northwest Arkansas Times cartoon cites alternative to student apartments

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of June 28, 2009, cartoon from the Northwest Arkansas Times

Hill Place contractor's machine compacting street base, water added, water carries limestone silt into Town Branch of Beaver Lake Watershed

Please click on image to see where limestone-dust siltation orginates and where it is going.

Issac Caudle, prisoner of war in Germany during WWII, wants cemetery expanded across sale-barn property

Veterans seek one year to raise funds
BY ROBIN MERO Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Thursday, June 25, 2009
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/77634/
State Sen. Sue Madison joined military veterans Wednesday at the Fayetteville National Cemetery to implore the public to attend a July 7 City Council meeting and object to nearby property being rezoned for apartment development.
"Anyone who has been to a service here was deeply moved by the sanctity of the place. This is a quiet, tranquil part of town, and I think that atmosphere needs to be preserved. A multistory apartment complex would be very incompatible - and tragic. We have enough apartments in Fayetteville already," Madison said. Her father is a retired lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army, she said.
Madison said she spoke to the veterans affairs liaison for U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln about finding stimulus funds for the purchase.
"He was very receptive to the idea," she said.
Veterans said they need one year to raise at least $2 million - preferably $4 million - to purchase the 9 acres that comprise the old Washington County Sale Barn property. After more than 70 years selling livestock, the barn's final sale is today, and owner Billy Joe Bartholomew said he will close the business. He has a contract with Campus Crest LLC of North Carolina to buy the land and build apartments geared toward university students.
The argument of neighbors and veterans is twofold: The land is needed for cemetery expansion, and apartments are a bad idea.
"Students are the worst kind of neighbor you can have," said Jim Buckner, senior vice commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart in Arkansas. "In 2023, this cemetery will be filled, and the only way we can expand enough to take us up to the end of this century is to acquire this property."
Buckner said he's guessing at the sale price being around $2 million, since neither Bartholomew or Campus Crest have revealed the contract price.
Veterans have raised $2,475 in private donations toward the purchase, Ron Butler of the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation said. The RNCIC has nonprofit status to collect and hold the funds.
The morning press conference was held outside cemetery property to avoid the appearance of cemetery officials taking a position, and Cemetery Director Gloria Bailey was not present.
The city's Planning Commission recommended the rezoning be approved. The City Council tabled the request June 16, and it was moved to the July 7 agenda. The rezoning request, Downtown General, is a downzoning from the current heavy commercial/light industrial zoning. The land is located south of Martin Luther King Boulevard and west of School Avenue, directly across Government Avenue from the cemetery.
Andy Aldridge, Campus Crest representative, said Wednesday that the company made an offer to the Bartholomew family to purchase the sale barn property, which is now a binding contract between a buyer and a seller contingent upon approval of the rezoning.
"Campus Crest does not enter lightly into a contract such as this and fully plans to honor its commitment to the Bartholomew family and the community of Fayetteville," Aldridge said. "Throughout this process, Campus Crest has worked very hard to listen and understand the concerns of the neighbors in the area. And, we plan to continue the same level of community involvement and awareness."
Bartholomew has said veterans never approached him about buying the land until after the contract was entered. He said wishes he could afford to give the land to the cemetery but he needs to sell, he told the Planning Commission in May.
The July 7 City Council meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the City Administration Building, Room 219, 113 W. Mountain St.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com

Fayetteville man urges all to donate to help expand the National Cemetery

http://www.geocities.com/regncic/
Future looks grim for cemetery
It's sad when a graveyard dies. You wouldn't think so, but it is. "But how does a graveyard die?' you ask. It dies when it runs out of room. And "how is that sad?" you might inquire further. It's sad because it's happening right now to our beloved Fayetteville National Cemetery, the final resting place for over 7,000 servicemen and women. Veterans who fought and died in the Civil War are buried there. Servicemen and women who'll fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan will be buried there. And, of course, veterans from all the wars in between have been laid to rest there. It's sad to think of the day when the cemetery has to start turning away those whose last wish was to lie for all eternity alongside their compatriots, their brethren. Who will be the last, I wonder. What will be his or her name?
Sadly, this is the fate of the Fayetteville National Cemetery unless it can procure more land. One of only three in the state, the FNC is already smaller than the other two in terms of size and burial capacity. The projected year during which our veteran's cemetery will reach full capacity, if no more land is secured, is 2023. Fourteen years, folks. Fourteen short years and we'll know their name.
But it doesn't have to happen this way, citizens of Northwest Arkansas. We have one chance, but one chance only, to save this cemetery. At present, eight acres of land adjacent to the east of the cemetery, where the "sale barn" sits now, has come up for sale, and the owner is on the verge of selling it to an out-of-state developer who intends to build more of the last thing Fayetteville needs - apartment buildings. The owner has stated that he would like to see the cemetery have the land, but they haven't made him an offer.
One might assume that all the cemetery has to do is ask the federal government for the money. One would be wrong. Under the responsibility of the Department of Veterans Affairs, veteran's cemeteries can only accept land through donations. That's where you come in, citizens of Northwest Arkansas. I would venture to guess that almost everyone reading this letter is either a veteran, is related to a veteran, or knows a veteran, and understands how important this is, and should be, to veterans. It's time to spread the word. And you must move fast. A viable solution as to how the land can be purchased must be underway before the next City Council meeting, or the aldermen might vote in favor of the rezoning, effectively killing the cemetery.
The property owner has yet to reveal his asking price, instead requiring the cemetery to "make an offer." If someone out there, or a consortium of individuals out there, would step up and make that offer, then there's hope for survival of the Fayetteville National Cemetery. Otherwise, it will die.
Brian Jackson


Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation
Attn: Sue Graham, Treasurer
P.O. Box 4221
Fayetteville, Arkansas 72702
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