By Scott Loftis

Eureka Springs Times-Echo

The Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission is once again looking for a new director, with a former director expressing interest in the position.
CAPC chair Chris Clifton and former CAPC director Mike Maloney confirmed Tuesday, Oct. 24, that Maloney is interested in returning to the position.
Maloney served as director of the CAPC for eight years before retiring in the spring of 2019. Since his departure, the commission has had three permanent directors and three interim directors including Scott Bardin, who was named interim director in February 2023 and hired on a permanent basis in April. Bardin informed Clifton last week of his intention to step down, with his last day in the role scheduled for Friday, Oct. 27.
On Tuesday, Clifton said he had not received any written notification regarding Bardin’s resignation.
Maloney had been a candidate for the job when Bardin was named the permanent director.
“Mike has been expressing interest in the position,” Clifton said Tuesday. “He was a candidate last time, and he’s said he was very interested in the position, to me. So I guess, we’ll see [Wednesday] night what the commission wants to do. I don’t get to make those calls.”
“I’m coming over [Wednesday], just to kind of listen to the agency presentations,” Maloney said. “… All I can tell you at this point is I’ve had a couple of calls saying, you know, ‘we’d love to see you over there,’ but at this point there’s nothing official. Let’s put it this way: I don’t have a job.”
After his retirement from the CAPC, Maloney ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Cave Springs in 2022. He had served as the city’s mayor from 1994-1998.
Maloney said he left the CAPC director’s job on good terms in 2019.
“We did some good work and I felt really good about everything that we’d done,” he said. “I think the only thing that I was sad about was the fact that after I left, things just sort of went weird. I don’t know exactly everything that went on. I didn’t keep up with a lot of it, but I know that there was some discontent and some personnel changes. I don’t think there was anything in my wheelhouse that contributed to that, but in the same token I understand, if you don’t have effective leadership then sometimes things don’t go the way they should.
“It wasn’t a situation where they said: ‘Hey, you’ve got to go,’ ” Maloney said. “It was just one of those things where I wanted to retire and do something a little different with my life. Anyway, that’s the way it goes. But point being is that, boy, I miss that town. I made some great friends there, and my wife and I both enjoyed Eureka so much.
“We’ll just see. I don’t know where it’s going to go. I have no idea, haven’t talked to the commission about it. I do plan to be there tomorrow to listen to the … agency presentations.”
The CAPC is scheduled to hear presentations from three advertising agencies Wednesday afternoon.
The commission’s regular October meeting is scheduled to follow the ad agency presentations, beginning at 6 p.m. The agenda for the regular meeting includes discussion of both the CAPC director’s position and an interim finance director.
In other developments regarding the CAPC, Clifton confirmed that Tommy Sisemore, executive director of Bikes, Blues and BBQ, will not be accepting a job as director of The Auditorium. Bardin had offered the position to Sisemore in July, with Sisemore accepting in an email. The CAPC met in executive session to discuss the hire at its July 26 meeting but did not publicly announce Sisemore’s name, with Clifton explaining that “this person is in a fairly public position.”
The Eureka Springs Times-Echo, using information obtained through a public records request, reported Sisemore’s hiring on Aug. 10, detailing communications between Bardin and Sisemore. Sisemore’s application for the Aud director position was dated July 12, the same day that Bardin announced a CAPC sponsorship agreement with Bikes, Blues and BBQ at a commission workshop. Bardin offered the Aud director job to Sisemore in a July 18 email, with Sisemore accepting in an email reply six days later.
Documents obtained by the Times-Echo indicated that there were 20 applicants for the Aud director position over the course of several months.
Sisemore never started work in Eureka Springs, Clifton said.
“I know that they had a medical emergency and then there was quite a blow-up, I think in your paper,” Clifton said. “I know he was pretty upset. I thought he was still going to come but then lost contact with him.”