OPINION: UA Feels The 'Heat' Over A Land Deal In Eastern Arkansas

It's not every day one sees the state's senior U.S. Senator agree with a state Senator from eastern Arkansas against the University's flagship campus on a murky land sale deal.

But it happened this week.

A land purchase of 6,300 acres of what was once a federal project – the Pine Tree Experiment Station – in the swampy delta of eastern Arkansas – now owned by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture of the flagship campus – is desired by a mysterious Memphis coalition of rich businessmen and other professionals, known only by the moniker Lobo Farms.

The messiness of the deal has been slow to come to the light of public accountability during this last year.

All the efforts of a quiet, yet effective, state Sen. Ronald Caldwell, R-Wynne, to understand the backroom dealing of the UofA and this mysterious sale of 6,300 acres of pristine hunting and fishing land, with some of it available for agricultural purposes, has been met with stonewalling, and outright mistruths, by the UA, according to a knock-down legislative hearing in Little Rock this past week.,

Caldwell, a real estate developer and former owner of a lumber company in Wynne, is a businessman and a well-liked, middle-of-the-road state senator.

He knows a bad land deal when he sees one.

And he and others in the state Senate see this deal as a "sweetheart" deal.

Not only do Caldwell and others not like the deal, the senators are hearing from their constituents, you know those with one shotgun and two Zebco rod-and-reel sets who pay their hunting and fishing licenses each year from their lower-to-middle-income wages. They don't like this deal at all.

These constituents don't duck hunt at some fancy club. They fish out of a 12-foot aluminum boat – not a $50,000 bass boat – for their mess of crappie.

These folks are the losers if this UA deal goes through.

The hunting and fishing public of eastern Arkansas has for the last several decades enjoyed the public lands for hunting and fishing.

All of that is set to change if the deal with Lobo Farms goes through.

Caldwell does not want the public to lose those lands for public use.

It seems the deal struck by the UA is a bad financial deal as well. The 6,300 acres is valued at $17.6 million with a carrot of a $1 million dollar endowment to the UA Agriculture Department. Some say it is worth more – much more.

Lawmakers, like Caldwell, fed up with few, if any answers on the proposed sale deal, took it into their own legislative hands in the 93rd General Assembly to outlaw the deal.

A bill to prohibit the sale to a private entity was approved 88-1 in the Arkansas House and 31-3 in the state Senate.

And hedging their bets, the state lawmakers, approved another bill 30-5 in the state senate and 88-0 in the House to prohibit the UA by special language in the Agriculture Division's budget.

Seems to me like the legislature doesn't like this deal at all.

So why hold the legislative hearing on this matter? It all became evident pretty quickly.

So did the excuses from the UA and the frustration from lawmakers.

"We are not trying to pull a fast one," said one UA official to the statewide newspaper.

Those senators in attendance shot back.

"It blows my mind why ya'll (UA) continue to go on and stick your finger in the eye of the legislature."

Wow.

Since the federal government has to give its approval for the sale, Boozman all but stopped that last week, saying, "I share the concerns of the outdoor enthusiasts about the loss of public lands for recreational usage so I will not support a waiver for the sale of the research station (lands)."

Enough said for me. What about the stubborn UA Agri Division?

--Maylon Rice is a former journalist who worked for several northwest Arkansas publications. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.