OPINION

REX NELSON: Checking in on Buddy

Everybody who walks by, it seems, has a word for Floyd G. "Buddy" Villines. We're sitting at the table next to the front door of Doe's Eat Place in downtown Little Rock as we visit over lunch.

"How are you doing, Judge? What are you up to these days?"

"What's happening, Buddy? It's good to see you."

Villines, who will turn 71 later this month, was the Pulaski County judge for 24 years. He has been out of office since the end of 2014, but it's evident he still knows the movers and shakers who show up at Doe's for cheeseburgers or tamales at lunch. And he still has strong feelings about the direction of central Arkansas. For instance, Villines agrees with me that it's time to scrap Little Rock's city manager form of government, which has been around since 1957. Villines, who served on the Little Rock Board of Directors from 1985 until he became county judge (including a stint as vice mayor in 1987-88 and as mayor in 1989-90), began talking about such a change as early as his 1984 campaign for the city board.

"The real question is whether the people of Little Rock want strong leadership," Villines says. "You just can't have that type of leadership by committee, and that's what we're trying to do in Little Rock. Something needs to change. As county judge, I was in a position where I could be held accountable. That's not the case in Little Rock with both a full-time mayor and a full-time city manager."

The more I've studied Villines' career through the years, the more I've come to appreciate him. He brought together two longtime mayors--Jim Dailey of Little Rock and Pat Hays of North Little Rock--for projects that helped the economy of the entire region. Someone had to be the middleman, and Villines didn't mind playing that role as county judge. In fact, he redefined the job. We used to think of county judges as being primarily responsible for roads and bridges in unincorporated parts of a county. Villines focused instead on quality-of-life issues such as arenas, trails and parks. Pulaski County has been hurt by half a century of litigation involving its public schools. Thousands of families have fled to places such as Cabot, Benton, Bryant and Conway. Without the initiatives Villines championed, I have no doubt the exodus would have been greater.

"The mayors in the county had their own constituencies to deal with," Villines says. "As county judge, I represented all of their constituencies. I made it clear that I wasn't here just to help people living in the unincorporated areas. I served people who lived in the cities, too. I felt a responsibility to get folks to the table and then convince them to pull in the same direction. It didn't matter to me if it was a project in the city limits or not. If we had a chance to help, we would step up and help, especially when it came to finding the funds needed to match federal grants."

Villines became a master at combining federal, state, county and municipal funds to achieve common goals. Witness Verizon Arena in downtown North Little Rock. Witness the pedestrian bridges across the Arkansas River--the Big Dam Bridge, the Junction Bridge, the Clinton Center Bridge. Witness the Two Rivers Bridge and Two Rivers Park. Witness the Statehouse Convention Center in downtown Little Rock. County money was even involved when the Central Arkansas Library System decided to redo the old Fones Brothers hardware warehouse in the middle of what's now Little Rock's River Market District.

Villines likes to watch the crowds on the trails on either side of the Big Dam Bridge.

"You see mothers with babies in strollers," he says. "You see people pulling older children in wagons. You see young adults and retired folks. It's all people--all ages, all races. And to think that they were going to put a wastewater treatment plant where we now have Two Rivers Park. These are what I like to call 100-year projects, and they need to be done correctly the first time. It's all about building livable cities. To attract the work force needed for knowledge-based industries, you must be able to offer the kinds of amenities that the people who work at these companies expect. There aren't any quick fixes."

One of Villines' last major projects as county judge was convincing the Pulaski County Quorum Court to set aside $20 million in county funds to ensure that the Broadway Bridge wouldn't just be a standard bridge connecting Little Rock and North Little Rock. Instead, it's an architectural delight.

"The replacement of the Broadway Bridge is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enhance the economic well-being of this community," he told Quorum Court members back in January 2013. "Pulaski County is in a position to provide a 25 percent match for the construction of a significant structure that will stand for 100 years or more. ... We can meet this obligation without jeopardizing our priority, which is maintaining the roads and bridges in the unincorporated areas."

Villines says now: "The state will only pay for a basic structure. That's the rule, and I understand it. But this needed to be one of the landmark bridges in the state. So we stepped up as a county."

Villines stays busy these days donating his time to Habitat for Humanity and United Methodist Church disaster relief efforts. He travels, reads a book a week and serves on the boards that govern Verizon Arena and Philander Smith College. He has no plans to run for office again but says he has one regret: "We didn't build as good of a mass transit system as we should have."

------------v------------

Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 06/06/2018

Upcoming Events