The platform
The plan for Ward 1.
Four things. Here is what each one means and why I think it is worth your vote.
Plank one
Take the tax off groceries
On January 1 of this year, Arkansas ended the last of its state sales tax on food. Saline County charges nothing on groceries either. Benton's 2.5 percent did not go anywhere.
Which means that today, every cent of sales tax on a bag of groceries in Benton is city tax. Not the state's. Not the county's. Benton's own, and that is the seat I am running for.
I want it gone. Not trimmed, gone.
Here is why this one and not something else. A property tax cut helps people who own property. A fee reduction helps whoever pays that fee. The tax on food is the one thing that touches literally every household in Benton, including the renters and the seniors on fixed incomes who get skipped by most of what gets called tax relief. And it comes back to you weekly, at the register, instead of once a year on a form.
What that is worth
The USDA's thrifty grocery budget for a family of four runs a little under a thousand dollars a month. Two and a half percent of that is right at three hundred dollars a year. Smaller households save less, bigger grocery bills save more. That is where the range of $205 to $294 comes from, and it is an estimate, not a promise.
The honest part
An alderman cannot walk in and repeal a sales tax by himself, and there is a second complication I would rather explain than skip.
Arkansas does not let a city write its own list of what is taxed and what is not. A city's sales tax has to be applied to the same goods the state taxes, uniformly, across the board. And when the legislature took the state tax off food, it specifically left food subject to local sales tax. So Benton cannot simply lift its 2.5 percent off groceries and leave it on everything else. That door is closed at the state level, not the city level.
Which leaves two honest routes to the same place. The first is to put a rate question to Benton voters, because the city can lower its overall rate even though it cannot exempt one category. The second is to ask the General Assembly for the authority to exempt groceries locally. I intend to explore both, and I will tell you plainly which one is moving.
That is the actual mechanism, and I would rather tell you that up front than promise you something the job does not let me deliver.
What it does not do
It does not touch library funding. It does not gut street, water, or sewer money. Protecting those while taking the tax off food is the work.
Rates per the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration City and County Sales and Use Tax Rates table, July to September 2026. The state's remaining 0.125 percent tax on food ended January 1, 2026 under Act 1008 of 2025, which expressly left food and food ingredients subject to local sales and use tax. A city sales tax is levied on the items taxed under the Arkansas Gross Receipts Act of 1941, per Arkansas Code 26-75-207, which is why a city cannot exempt a single category on its own.
Plank two
Drainage and street repairs
When I was on the council I led the Drainage Committee, and we overhauled the city's storm water regulations. That was not glamorous work, and it is the kind of thing nobody notices until the water comes up in their yard.
Benton has grown a lot since then, and growth changes where water goes. New storm water problems have shown up. They need the same treatment the old ones got: someone who will actually chair the committee, read the regulations, and push it through.
Ward 1's streets need to move up the list.
Plank three
Curbside recycling, done right
Benton should have citywide curbside recycling. I pushed for it when I was on the council and I still think it is overdue.
The part I care about getting right: this town has independent haulers who have been serving these neighborhoods for years. A citywide contract that wipes them out is not a win. There is a version of this that gets recycling to every curb in Benton without running off the local businesses already doing the work, and that is the version I want on the table.
Plank four
I have done this job
Alderman for the City of Benton, 2006 to 2010. In four years: helped establish the Advertising and Promotions Commission, contributed to the planning and development of Riverside Park, led the Drainage Committee through a storm water overhaul, advocated for curbside recycling and utility rate reductions, and argued for balanced commercial development instead of taking whatever showed up.
Outside of city hall: thirty-five years in sales and management, twenty-five of them as a digital media sales executive and a web developer, including a run as a national sales director. An MBA and a bachelor's in liberal arts. Eagle Scout at fifteen. Class president, Benton High School Class of 1977. Lifetime resident.
I know how the agenda works, how the budget reads, and how long it takes to get something done. I am retired, which means I have time to do it properly.