Good government group lists legislative priorities

CAMDEN - Members of Southwest Arkansas Good Government, a group created to get more individuals involved in legislative issues, met recently to lay out its list of priorities, according to SEGG and Arkansas Public Policy Panel member Bernadette Devone. The group came up with "The 10 Priorities for a Better Arkansas."

Southwest Arkansas Good Government Commission is a "coalition of groups in southwest Arkansas that was formed to address social and economic issues that affect the minority community," Devone said.

The regional group has been together about seven years and has hosted candidate debates and other public forum meetings for residents of Ouachita, Union and Calhoun counties.

The meeting, held recently at Damascus Baptist Church in Camden, was focused on helping the grassroots organization develop a regional legislative agenda for 2009.

"Having citizens involved in the legislative process is critical to seeing positive changes in our communities," said the Rev. Mary Purifoy, SAGG president, during the meeting. "We are truly putting the "public" back into public policy."

On Thursday, members of SAGG joined individuals and grassroots organizations from across South Arkansas and the Delta in traveling to Little Rock to lobby legislators on the items they helped develop with the Arkansas Citizens First Congress: The "10 Priorities for a Better Arkansas."

Those 10 priorities are:

• Increased resources for rural and small business economic development,
• Closing the education achievement gap,
• Enacting the recommendations of the HIV/AIDS Task Force,
• Creating an Arkansas Civil Rights Commission,
• Enacting progressive tax reform to provide low and middle income tax relief while generating sufficient state revenue,
• Increasing penalties for and enforcement of wage theft,
• Enacting the recommendations of the Global Warming Commission,
• Enacting the Dream Act to make sure every student graduating from an Arkansas school has the opportunity to pay in-state college tuition,
• Creating a Task Force on Arkansas Water Resources, and
• Expanding state incentives for land conservation.

Devone told the Sunday News that SAGG is concentrating on the prevention, testing and treatment of HIV and AIDS in rural and minority communities because, according to information provided by the Citizens First Congress, Union County has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in Arkansas.

As far as closing the education achievement gap, the group hopes to spearhead reform so that there will be an improvement in teacher quality, charter schools focused on reducing the racial and socioeconomic achievement gap, reducing class size, and encouraging broader community and parental engagement in schools, Devone said.

She said members of SAGG will gather several more times in the coming weeks, including specialty lobby days such as one focusing on economic development on March 10, one focusing on youth on March 19 and one that will include the entire Citizens First Congress on March 24.

For more information on the South Arkansas Good Government Commission, contact Purifoy at 870-685-2319.