How the people in the small Salem Arkansas community convinced the City of Benton Arkansas (a city with more than 20 times the population) to give up their annexation attempt of August 12th.

• We held 2 community meetings on consecutive Saturdays. The press including the Benton Cable local access channel was invited to attend. The cable company sent a videographer who taped the entire meetings, and they aired on the Benton local access channel several times. At those meetings we;
  • learned about the annexation proposal and discussed our reasons for being against it

  • took up a collection to pay for advertising, postage expenses for bulk mailings, and yard signs

  • passed out yard signs, and told people how to get more yard signs

  • passed out printed handbills stating reasons for people in the annexation area to vote against annexation, and reasons that city citizens should also consider voting against the annexation

  • assigned neighborhoods for volunteers to go door to door talking to people and leaving them handbills

  • assigned phone lists for volunteers to call and ask people to vote against the annexation

• We attended a City of Benton public hearing and stated our objections to the annexation. We asked hard questions about the annexation. We threatened to vote against any incumbent city official at election time, and furthermore threatened to try to inform and convince other citizens that they should also vote out the aldermen representing their wards.
  The Benton Cable company covered the meeting live, and also replayed the tape several times. As a result of the cable coverage, many Benton residents were able to see and hear our side of the issue for themselves. The local paper ran stories about every meeting.

• We set up web pages and a discussion group (forum) to inform people via the internet and allow anyone to join us in discussing the issue.

• We called and Emailed all city council members and told them why we did not want to be a part of the city. We again asked hard questions. We received a favorable response from an alderman and published it on the web pages.

• We attended a regular city council meeting where we had a chance to talk to council members after the meeting.

• Hold a meeting in the city and invite citizens to discuss the issue and learn why we think annexation would be bad for the city and for us.

• Anti Annexation committee stays together and becomes a "political force" in the city council elections for Bryant and Benton. I suggest a committee interviewing potential candidates for both councils and "endorsing" candidates that are "friendly" to the anti-annexation mindset.
  Johnny McMahan

• Your idea goes here __________

The City of Benton issued a press release announcing the August election being called off. Some of it might come back to haunt the city and Mayor Holland who is quoted as saying;

"...we care about what people in the Salem community think. We would prefer not to force anyone to come into Benton."