Fayetteville sued over Swarm Aero NDA
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Swarm Aero's Fayetteville facility. Photo: Worth Sparkman/Axios
A Fayetteville resident is asking a judge to force the city to look harder for a missing nondisclosure agreement tied to drone maker Swarm Aero.
Why it matters: The lawsuit raises questions about whether the city has fully disclosed records tied to a major economic development project with a defense contractor dating back to November 2023.
- It's the latest grassroots move by residents who first learned of the company's plans in February, shifting the fight from Swarm's product to questioning the city's accountability.
Catch up quick: Swarm announced its 80,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing center adjacent to Drake Field and said its Arkansas operations could produce thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles and create hundreds of aerospace jobs over the next decade.
- City councilmembers and people who live in nearby neighborhoods were caught off guard.
- A resident challenged the company's land-use classification in April, but the City Council voted in May to allow operations to continue.
State of play: Ted Swedenburg's lawsuit against the city of Fayetteville, economic vitality director Devin Howland and senior deputy city attorney Blake Pennington says the city violated the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act after his February request for records related to Swarm.
- Fayetteville's FOIA page says the city responds to requests in accordance with state law and provides public information in accessible formats.
- The lawsuit says the city produced emails referencing "NDAs for Devin and Jared [Rabren]" but not the NDA itself.
- One email attached to the lawsuit shows Howland wrote that "Blake has given us the good to go," and another shows Howland telling a Swarm representative that he and Rabren planned to sign the NDAs in person.
Swedenburg asks the court to order a search of all city servers, backups and IT archives, production of the draft NDA, retrieval of the fully executed NDA from Swarm Aero, a finding that the city violated FOIA, and costs and attorney's fees.
The intrigue: In March, Axios received more than 60 documents from the city through an FOI request related to Swarm Aero. The request also did not yield the NDA and a city spokesperson told Axios at the time the documents were "not retained."
What they're saying: Gracie Ziegler, Fayetteville's chief communications officer, referred Axios' inquiry about the lawsuit to the city attorney's office, which did not immediately respond.
What's next: The city is expected to respond in future court filings.