Rome in a day

In a recent editorial by the Northwest Arkansas Times, Greg Harton criticized me for not focusing on what's most important. You can read his editorial, titled Rookie Years, and my response below. (Note: Greg's editorial represents his personal opinion, not the Times' editorial board. I mistakenly attributed the article to the board, instead of to Greg himself. I apologize.)

Rome in One Day

I appreciated your recent editorial, Rookie Years. In fact, it echoed my own concerns: one of my first initiatives is about marijuana? Or Facebook and Twitter? If I weren't working on other things, I'd probably roll my eyes, too.

Everyone who knows me personally knows what I'm most passionate about. I've been working to build a green economy for years now, and it's what got me elected. Your editorial board even recognized my hard work and achievement in this area when you endorsed my opponent in last year's race.

I haven't lost that passion, and I'm working on something you should know about. It's called an Energy Alliance, and it's going to save Fayetteville homes and businesses an estimated $230 million a year. That's money that will stay in our local economy. And if it were implemented today, it could fix our tax base.

But unfortunately, it can't be implemented today. It's too complex. It requires too many partners and too much negotiation. I would have loved for the Energy Alliance to be my first initiative, before marijuana laws and Facebook ever entered into our conversation, but it didn't work out like that. It took less than an hour to draft those documents, but it's taking months just to figure out the financing structure for this Energy Alliance.

And even if fixing our economy, restoring purchasing power, and reducing carbon emissions are more important, fixing drug laws and engaging more citizens are not - by any means - unimportant.

So the next time you want to write an article criticizing me or another elected official for not focusing on what's most important, give us a call (or send us a Tweet) and find out what we're really spending our energy on. You owe it to your readers to do more than scratch the surface.