Steuart Walton, who is leading the governor's task force on reopening businesses, speaks at a Wednesday news conference.
Steuart Walton, Sam Walton’s grandson and head of the Arkansas Economic Recovery Task Force, said Tuesday that Arkansas and Little Rock are poised to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic stronger and should focus on attracting “lifestyle” residents.
The task force is shifting from managing in the pandemic to emerging from it, he told the Little Rock Rotary Club at its weekly Zoom meeting. It aims to wrap up its work by the end of the year or early next. He said it’s looking to make recommendations to the governor in two areas.
The first is making permanent or extending changes to laws to help businesses as they emerge from the pandemic.
Walton didn’t provide details about what the group might suggest, but among its recommendations earlier this year was that lawmakers protect businesses and employees from lawsuits over COVID-19 exposure. Working with legislators, the governor eventually signed two executive orders to extend new protections.
The task force also suggested continued investment in workforce training and expanding broadband access.
The second area is how the state can capitalize on reputational goodwill and increased interest in outdoor recreation caused by the pandemic. Arkansas has an abundance of natural resources, he said.
“When it comes to leisure, you’ve seen just tremendous demand for anything outdoors. And that’s been a terrific [pandemic] tailwind for some of the projects that we’ve been working on around mountain biking, access to the outdoors. Green space, generally, is just seeing a terrific revived interest,” he said.
Walton is a mountain biking enthusiast and director of Rapha Racing Limited, a cycling apparel business. The Walton Family Foundation has also been a driving force behind trail building projects in northwest Arkansas.
“But I also think it bodes well for the state because, you know, the state just has such a terrific resource in terms of its population centers being, generally speaking, close to phenomenal outdoor recreation opportunities,” he said.
Walton said it’s important that Arkansas, Little Rock and other cities around the state strive to attract people based on the lifestyles they offer, rather than the jobs.
“When you have people that are starting to move to your place for a job, that’s one thing, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “But when you have people starting to move to your town for a lifestyle and just say, ‘You know what, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do when I get there,’ that’s a completely different sort of decision.”
Walton said people who choose a city or region because of the lifestyle it offers — a lifestyle that includes economic opportunities, outdoor recreation, good infrastructure and good government — are a desirable group.
“… [Q]uite frankly, at least from my point of view, it’s the kind of person that you really want, because it’s the kind of people that are on this call,” he said. “It’s the kind of people that care about community. It’s the kind of people that are going to give back to the community in different ways.”
Walton also cited Walmart as a company that’s made important gains during the pandemic — and said Arkansas could grow in similar ways. Walton said Walmart tracks the percentage of the population that doesn’t shop at its stores. During the pandemic, it’s seen that percentage drop from around 24% to 10%, he said.
“Largely, I think, that was due to Walmart’s ability to provide people basic goods, essential services, food, consumables, things like that. And it totally changed people’s perspective of the company in a material way. We could have spent three decades making that kind of progress,” he said.
“And so I do think that there might be an opportunity for the state of Arkansas, in this case, to make progress in a similar way, in terms of people that might consider moving here. I think that — if Arkansas emerges from this pandemic stronger, [is] seen as a sensible place, as a place with tremendous opportunity, but also tremendous amenities strategically positioned, conveniently located and all the great things that I think everybody on this call knows about Arkansas — then there is really opportunity to kind of make hay out of an otherwise pretty difficult situation.”
Sign up for Daily E-news
