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Delta Authority conference set for Little Rock Monday, Apr 3, 2006 By Wesley Brown Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - While lawmakers try to iron out problems with education funding at the state Capitol starting Monday, the Delta Regional Authority will meet a few blocks away to discuss such issues as a healthy work force, better broadband access and improving the Delta's economic standing. The federal-state agency, which was created by Congress to shepherd economic development to the impoverished Delta region, will kick off its three-day annual conference here Monday with a reception at the Clinton Presidential Library. On Tuesday morning, Gov. Mike Huckabee will provide the conference's keynote address and welcome. Then panel discussions will be held over the next two days to discuss ways to improve economic development, health care and technology in the nations' most impoverished region. Rex Nelson, a former Huckabee aide and now co-chair of the eight-state agency, said up to 200 people are expected to attend the event. Even though the meeting is being held at the same time as the special session, Nelson said it will not lessen the conference's importance. "I know it will probably affect some of the Arkansas attendance, but we are never going to find a date where there are not some political conflicts or other conflicts from people that are coming in from the eight states," Nelson said. The authority's second annual conference already had been postponed because of the Gulf Coast hurricanes. It was scheduled for October 18-20, but DRA officials pushed back the original date to spring. The Biloxi, Miss-based authority serves a 240-county area that includes Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and parts of Alabama. In August, Huckabee named Nelson as the alternate federal co-chairman of the agency. Governors of eight states, including Arkansas, make up the authority's board. Nelson said governors from all eight states had been invited to the conference but all had scheduling conflicts except Huckabee. Still, delegates attending the conference will attend panel discussions to collaborate on ideas to improve the region's transportation infrastructure, combat diabetes and bringing broadband access to the Delta. "We will have panel discussions each day on those three topics," he said. In March, DRA federal Co-Chairman Pete Johnson announced that the authority had set aside $1 million in federal grants to help extend Interstate 530 from Pine Bluff south to the future Interstate 69, a road improvement seen as a key to development in the area. The proposed project, which will cost at least $300 million, would extend I-530 by 40 miles from the Pine Bluff bypass south to U.S. 278 near Wilmar where it would meet the future I-69. I-530 currently runs from Little Rock to Pine Bluff. In all, the agency has set aside $7.8 million in federal grants this year to spend on transportation infrastructure, combating diabetes and obesity, faith-based programs and other projects. Of that amount, $1.2 million, or $15.3 percent, will be dedicated to Arkansas, the second-largest amount after Louisiana, which will get $1.4 million, or 17.3 percent. President Bush has proposed $5.94 million for the Delta Regional Authority in his fiscal 2007 budget blueprint. But Congress has boosted the president's proposed allocation in previous years. Last year, Congress approved $12 million for the authority. |
