The above quote is from the http://friendsoflibbey.com website. Friends of Libbey is the group forming to fight to keep their bath house alive. This, from their "news" section: This section will be devoted to reporting on the meetings and activities of the FOL group. We will also include interviews with people of interest during the process of this negotiation. Remember that if you have ideas or data of interest regarding this matter, please contact the board of directors. It isn't enough to post it on the site's blog alone. This is the site launch posting - stand-by for breaking news! NEWS: We are in contact with Randy Groden in Hawaii. He is the artist who took a year out of his life to paint the beautiful murals in the lobby of the Libbey. He is in full support of us and may give an interview which shall be presented here. You can see some of the pictures from the painting process here. We are thinking about doing an event! No ideas about what yet, but we are cooking it up! Please email me if you have any ideas on this topic. (street protest / march - mock funeral - burning effigies..etc) We should have much more info by Friday (the 14th) evening, as Pam Crow has contacted us wanting to talk. It Starts: Today (the 12th) Channel 7 TV news came out to do an interview with Bob Nagy (me) and it was part of a "package" which told the story of the Libby's closing on the 10:00 pm news. It was a usual sound-byte 1.5 minute local news feature. My 90 or so seconds of crafted verbiage landed up being one sentence (and the one in which I stuttered!) Luckily, the story represented the issue fairly accurately. We are grateful for station's interest in this story and encourage any of the others in the state that we've contacted (All of them) - to come by. (I've gotten call-backs from several stations already) WOW- I got news from Lauren Impson (of Exceptional Massage) that the Libbey Closing AND the Friends of Libbey were talked about on National Public Radio!!! This is the kind of national coverage that will bring this issue the kind of exposure it deserves. Lets get this snowball rolling! FLASH- At last night's City Council meeting, I connected with the leaders of the Romanian church, from which come at least half of the "regulars" at Libbey. They said "We have 200 families who came here for the thermal waters, and we don't want to loose them". We talked over strategies for saving the Libbey. He said he could get 1000 signatures for the petition! Josie Fernandez is aware of this group and has been in contact with them to try and allay their fears. They invited her to their church to talk about the issue. I will go down soon and talk to them all about what we can do. These folks all love the Libbey...and I am thrilled to get them on-board in our fight to keep our bathhouse open! NOTE: I have been told that ALL the blank petition pages have been filled at Libbey! I'll be delivering more this morning...... Well Then: Let me say welcome to the Park Service employees who read our fine site! Howdy Ya'all! How do I know they read us? Well, the girls at the Libbey got a call today from Dale Moss at the National Park Service and were told to remove our petition from the front desk. I got there right after the call with fresh blank petitions and saw that the girls were upset. Luckily I was able to get the nearly 200 signatures collected so far and will post them RIGHT NOW. I called Dale immediately and asked if this was a regulation they could show me on paper...the answer- yes. They also said that the Park Service controls the entire street that the Libbey is on. This just didn't sound right, so we put in a call to an officer at the state police, and he told us that is was under the city's control. Seems right, because if you have an accident on Reserve, it's the city cops that come. In any case, it seems that patrons are beginning to rally around us. There is a palpable feeling of concern and willingness to fight....a glimmer in folks eyes. I had several wonderful people thanking me for trying to keep our beloved Libbey alive today. They were so sincere. It really gave me hope against hope that no amount of regulations or laws or dispassionate bureaucrats can prevail against a truly righteous and decent cause. The right of access to water, which is exactly what this is about, is a primal right. If you close a library, you will not stop us from reading. If you take away our access to this cherished resource, it threatens us on a gut level. The damage to so many people's quality of life (to say nothing of the loss tourism income) is a cost which is not measurable in dollars. We love the Libbey...just the way it is...and you'll be amazed at what we will do to save it. (PS: I heard today that John Kerry said to a campaign worker "The Bush administration's end goal is to privatize the National Park System". (Oooo - look up -is that a comet coming?) NY Times Mindfully.org National Parks Conservation Org OneWorld.net Mackinac Center for Public Policy Sierra Club Correction: I just received a call from Dale Moss and there seemed to be a mis-communication in our telephone call as reported above. He said that the park service indeed only controls the circle of land that the Libbey is on, and not the street as well. This includes the sidewalk in front. Although I clearly heard the statement as mentioned above, this correction corroborates our research with the state police. Good News! - Our Assistant Director Zachary Smith was able to have a personal visit and discussion with State Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln today. She was advised about our position and the situation in general. She seemed receptive and cordial. It seems that she was aware, but not fully up to date on the issue. We are pursuing face-to-face meetings with all of our elected Arkansas officials. We will keep you up to date on our progress in this area. We are very pleased with today's meeting! The paper reported that Josie and the Senator just took a tour of the bathhouses, including the Libbey, but the staff and Pam Crow said that nobody actually saw them enter the building that day. I'm sure that this is a damage control schmooze tour because of the current contention over the Libbey. Hello Pam ! - I had a good talk with Pam Crow yesterday at the Libbey and we went over the history of the Libbey's long fight to stay alive. The scope and length of the story is amazing. I won't go into it here, but you can expect to see video on this site from many of the people involved in the near future. Letter to the Editor: In the October 18th issue of the Sentential-Record , Dr. John R. Bomar wrote a letter to the editor about the Libbey closing which was absolutely eloquent. It will be re-printed here once we get it in hand. Pro-Activity: Word came from the Romanian church that another representative from the the national park service visited the church on Sunday. Obviously, they take it seriously that their 200 families will be left without a place to take a soak in 12 weeks. Assurances were made that within 3 years another place would be built. I wonder if they are referring to our friends at WIN who are trying to build an outdoor pool at transportation plaza? WIN is in about the same place as we are in knowing weather anything will happen. Placating our good friends from Romania won't work without some concrete documented plan of how the thousands of people denied access to OUR thermal waters are going to gain access. I spoke with several people who gave testimony to how they are only able to live without pain because they soak at the Libbey- people who were paralyzed and regained their mobility at the Libbey...on and on. So- At least three years of increased human suffering...are you listening? I am also in contact with local businesses who make a healthy percentage of their business from visitors to the Libbey. The Happy Hollow Motel is one of those businesses and stand to loose 25%+ of their customers who come from Chicago yearly to bathe at the Libbey. Several local motels house repeat visitors who have come for decades to visit the Libbey. They typically stay for weeks on their annual vacations. Romanians, Hungarians, Serbs and Russians are among the many nationalities who have thermal bath traditions. These people know what it is to suffer under inefficient bureaucracies - and you see how they dealt with them. They didn't fight their way to this country to have the blessings of their adopted land taken away by the orders of uniformed government bureaucrats. That is what they struggled to leave. As Americans in a democracy, we have to do better than that. To do anything less is disrespectful to the people who have given their lives in the last 229 years to make the USA the last great hope of the world. In this wealthy and blessed land, couldn't we take the time and interest to use what we have been given in order to make the lives of it's citizens (especially it's voluntary ones!) as good as they can be? NPS...when you tally up the sum total of your impact on the people you serve, I'm talking the bottom line of your life's work, will you be able to say you actually helped someone...that your decades of work actually made one person's life better? This is an opportunity to do just that. Not because you have to, but because it is the right thing to do. Because opportunities like this present themselves, and once not taken, the door closes. You have the power to do something really wonderful - will you choose to? FLASH: We received an encouraging letter from congressman Mike Ross' office today. As well, we have spoken to a media production house about producing three radio spots and two TV commercials on our issue. We were inspired after viewing other activist spots on Al Gore's new TV network www.current.tv .We will preview them for you here as soon as we have some in hand. We also spoke with several documentary producers at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival who were excited about doing feature docs on the Libbey's plight and story of our water resource. Last but not least, we have made contact with Save Our Springs, an Austin, Texas based environmental group that has waged a 20+ year fight to save Barton Springs in Austin. This incredibly talented and tenacious group has succeeded against all odds in saving one of the nation's most beautiful springs. They have done it all, and are a rich resource for us to learn from. http://www.sosalliance.org/ Thank you SOS! We can expect the watershed that feeds the thermal waters to be under challenge in the near future by developers as Hot Springs grows. Our city council will be blind-sided by aggressive out-of-town developers who's only goal will be to make millions off our city's gift, and then take the money back home with them (after trashing our waters). It will take vociferous and pre-emptive action to save our water from being ruined by "development" - and we have to do this NOW! Securing the recharge zone has to be priority one. Unless we do this, water from the downtown taps will contain everything that runs off from strip-mall parking lots, golf-course lawns and condominium sewage systems. Let me tell you, even the NPS is going to need help in this fight. Once the water is contaminated, there is no resource left to defend...it's over...so lets get pro-active! Happy Note: Looks like we are finally getting known! We had over 1000 website visits yesterday! This may be thanks to us finally getting on Google...with a #2 ranking!

From the http://friendsoflibbey "history" page: The colorful history of the bathhouse located at the site of the Libbey Memorial Physical Medicine Center will be presented here as soon as we finish our research. We will also present the history of the present situation- and how we came to the juncture we are at today. We are currently obtaining lots of info on the Libbey - but to hold you over, take a look at what a bathhouse in a third-world country looks like.

From the http://friendsoflibbey.com activism page. You can become active in helping preserve this culturally rich facility by doing some of the following: A. Join our organization and attend events B. Participate in public activities as listed on this site C. Write your congressman / senator as listed below D. View our open letter to President Bill Clinton E. Pray in your own manner that the officials making decisions in this matter respond to the sincerity of our plea. Congressman Mike Ross Staff Phone Fax 300 Exchange Street Suite A Hot Springs, AR 71901 (501) 520-5892 (501) 520-5873 Arkansas Legislature Representative Bill Sample District: 30 County: Garland Address: 2340 North Hwy. 7 Hot Springs, AR 71909 Phone: 501-321-0040 Blanche Lambert Lincoln Democrat Senior Senator 355 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Telephone: 202-224-4843 Fax: 870-774-3106 Email: http://lincoln.senate.gov/html/webform.html Website: http://lincoln.senate.gov Full Name: Mark Pryor Party: Democrat Rank/District: Junior Senator Address: 257 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Telephone: 202-224-2353 Fax: 501-324-6336 Email: http://pryor.senate.gov/contact/ Website: http://pryor.senate.gov/

You can sign their petition here: http://friendsoflibbey.com/petition.htm

From the http://friendsoflibbey.com join up page. New members can join here and current members are listed here. This is where it gets exciting! Please consider joining us in this worthy cause. We want to use the best tools at our disposal to make sure that Hot Springs doesn't loose all of it's wonderful character due to the intended actions or un-intended repercussions of those given power over it's future. It's time to bring local activism to the streets in Hot Springs before everything we love about this place is is systematically destroyed under the guise of "progress" and "development". When we loose sight of the true nature of Hot Springs, our quality of life and our well-being will suffer. We must remind everyone that we, the citizens of Hot Springs, are the most important factor in any equation where decisions are made involving our city. Please join us in defending this very important asset to our community. Note: We are looking for people who have time to help in the areas of: Envelope stuffing / mail-outs Pro-bono legal counsel Internet blogging Manning petition tables Article writing - press releases - media liaison Fund raising coordinator Grassroots activism Geology / Hydrology Business / incorporation

And they have a sort of blog: http://friendsoflibbey.com/blog.htm

NPCA Press Releases - Release Details FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 1, 2005 CONTACT: Craig Obey, NPCA, cell: 202-669-9689 Congressional Hearing Reviews Park Management Policies Proposals Conservation Group Says New Process "is Flawed and Should be Abandoned" WASHINGTON, D.C. - The nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) today testified at a congressional hearing on the Department of Interior's revisions to the policies that govern management of the national parks, saying that the current process "is flawed and should be abandoned." Sen. Craig Thomas (R-WY) chaired the hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Subcommittee on National Parks. Former Deputy Director of the National Park Service Deny Galvin testified on behalf of NPCA as a member of the organization's Board of Trustees. "This generation owes it to the future to maintain the standards that have made it [the National Park System] great," Galvin said. NPCA's central question, which remains unanswered, is why the Department of Interior has chosen to pursue revising the policies at this time. No credible justification for the rewrite has been offered. "The 2005 draft does not meet the level of protection of its predecessors," Galvin told the committee today. "The 2001 document is better and should be retained." Preliminary assessment of the Department of Interior's proposed revisions to the existing (2001) Management Policies raises concerns that the overall impact of the language changes in the draft weaken protections for our national parklands, in particular, park air quality and wilderness, and could lead to increased use of Jet Skis, off-road vehicles, commercialization, and grazing at the cost of preservation. The draft also significantly reduces clarity provided to park managers in the current Management Policies about their overarching duty to conserve park resources. Last week, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and five other Republican senators sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, saying, "the primary mandate of the National Park Service to err on the side of preservation appears to be deemphasized in the draft. At best, this change appears to blur, not clarify, the Park Service's primary responsibility to keep the parks protected for the future." .... " continued at http://www.npca.org/media_center/PressReleaseDetail.asp?id=263