Church set to host weekly talk series
First United Methodist Church will begin its "What's Hot in the Rock" weekly discussion series Wednesday.
To coincide with Lent, the church will host conversations about issues that affect people who live or work in downtown Little Rock every Wednesday at noon in the Cokesbury Center at the corner of Center and Seventh streets.
Brown-bag lunches will be provided.
This week's talk is titled "Crime: Downtown versus ..." and will be led by Little Rock Police Department Capt. Mike Davis.
"From safety to construction to revitalization and more, we invite you to hear speakers familiar with the unique needs of our downtown community in an informal and comfortable setting," a news release said.
The March 4 conversation is on construction, and on March 11 community leaders will talk about revitalization and gentrification. Other topics include real estate, homelessness and "Is Little Rock a hot spot?" The series ends April 1.
Water plant to get security upgrade
Little Rock Wastewater will spend $120,000 to replace the software that runs its secure entry system.
The utility's administration office and treatment facilities have electronic access entries and doors that require a key card.
The security system -- which controls seven entrance gates and 121 doors -- is almost 10 years old and is starting to fail, Chief Administration Officer John Jarratt said.
"It took me about 30 minutes the other day to get into my office," he said.
The Sanitary Sewer Committee, which oversees certain finances and operations of the utility, approved the purchase last week. The software the system runs on now is being discontinued by Microsoft this summer and will no longer be supported.
Chief Executive Officer Greg Ramon said the system hasn't failed completely, but there have been failures in some areas.
State hall of famer to lecture on race
The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center will host a discussion Friday on the state of race relations in America led by psychologist, educator, author and community activist Robert Williams.
Williams, an inductee of the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, will give a lecture about police violence and black men, black-on-black violence, social issues confronting the black community and solutions to challenges faced by young people today.
Williams is a professor emeritus of psychology and African and Afro-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
A "stalwart critic of racial and cultural biases in IQ testing, Williams is known for developing the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity and coining the term 'ebonics' in 1973," according to a news release. "He was a founding member of the Association of Black Psychologists and served as its second president."
Williams' speech will start at 9:30 a.m. Friday at the cultural center at 501 W. Ninth St. The event is free and open to the public.
LR housing appeal officers requested
The Metropolitan Housing Alliance in Little Rock is searching for neutral appeal officers to place on a rotating on-call list.
The public housing authority uses hearing officers during the employee grievance process and also during appeal hearings for tenants who protest decisions made related to their federal Section 8 Choice Housing Voucher.
U.S. Housing and Urban Development requirements allow the housing alliance's employees to serve as appeal officers, and that is what has been done in recent years.
Executive Director Rodney Forte said the agency is searching for outside hearing officers so there will be a list of available individuals at all times. Last year, there were issues with an in-house appeal officer being on leave when he was needed, Forte said.
He said the agency hasn't determined whether it will use a mix of in-house officers along with contracted appeal officers, or if it will strictly use contracted officers that respond to the agency's request for proposals and enter into an on-call contract.
The firms or individuals who are selected from the proposals will be placed on a rotating list, the request document states. Responses must be submitted to the agency by March 3.
In November, a Section 8 tenant sued the agency, alleging that she was wrongly evicted and that there were several issues with the agency's appeal hearing process. The agency ended up reinstating the woman's benefits and the suit was dropped.
Metro on 02/22/2015