By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — President Obama has been too slow in appointing leaders of the Delta Regional Authority, raising questions about his interest in helping the region, advocates for economic development in the Delta said Thursday.

“Obama has been in office six months now, and we still don’t have a DRA federal co-chair, we still don’t have an alternate federal co-chair,” said Lee Powell, director of the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus. “This delay is very unfortunate, and it sends the message, intended or not, that Obama doesn’t seem to think the Delta is all that high on his list of priorities.”

Caucus members said they have generally held a positive view of Obama, but the delay in making appointments is too serious to ignore.

The position of alternate federal co-chair has been vacant since Arkansan Rex Nelson, a George W. Bush appointee, left in May to take a job with a public relations firm in Little Rock. Pete Johnson, also a Bush appointee, still holds the position of federal co-chair but is “a lame duck,” Powell said.

Desha County Judge Mark McElroy said the DRA is “in limbo” while it waits for Obama to name his picks.

“Right now is a very important time because the stimulus money is coming in, and it’s coming fast and furious,” McElroy said. “We’d really like to have someone in place where we can sit down and talk with them and tell them what we think the needs are in the Delta.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

Caucus members also said they hope the DRA will correct what they consider flaws in its regional strategic plan for the next four years. Powell said the plan contains much that is good, but it uses too much bureaucratic jargon and inappropriately compares the Delta to the northern Great Plains.

“If we’re going to compare the Delta to other regions, we need to compare it to regions like the Southwest border or the Southeast Crescent from Georgia up to the south side of the Virginia area, because these are regions with high levels of poverty and very diverse regions,” Powell said.

Caucus members also said they take exception to recent comments by Nelson to the news media that the government is “sustaining misery” by propping up small communities that no longer have a reason to exist.

“We’re not going to all just leave and move to a bigger town,” McElroy said. “That’s just not going to happen. That’s kind of like telling the people in Las Vegas, ‘Nah, we don’t need a Hoover Dam. Just move to where the water is.’”

Nelson said Thursday he never proposed that everyone living in a small town move to a bigger town.

“I think we ought to work to make every rural community as good as it can be … but the fact is, there has been a demographic shift that has been going on for 60 years now,” Nelson said. “I was talking about our government doing a better job of focusing the money it spends.”

Nelson also said no one from the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus has contacted him since his remarks were reported.

“I find it interesting they would discuss my comments without ever contacting me, because it’s a very complex, obviously, issue,” he said.