Herman said he was excited about the new opportunity and bragged on the AAC's "very, very good" collection. "My history is in drawings and there are few institutions that concentrate on drawings, this being one of them. So this was a good opportunity for me to go back to my roots," Herman said.

When asked about the fairly bumpy road traveled by the Arts Center over the past year, Herman said it will be important to have the right people in the right places.

"To move forward with any kind of agenda, key people have to be in key positions and we have to all understand what our goals are," Herman said. "That’s probably first on the agenda: getting to know the staff and marrying staff, skill and position. I would say that because there is more press here than I expected to be here that there is interest among the community about what’s happening at the Arkansas Arts Center and that’s a positive. It would be much worse if nobody was here and nobody cared what happened. The fact that this is a news story tells me there is interest in the community and people know the Arts Center and want to know what’s happening there."

Press release here.

• HOUSE SITE: Abdul Kareem Hasan and his wife, Helen Hasan, look at the site where their new home is going up.

A dozen-plus Muslim Arkansans gathered today at the site of the New Africa development, on a no longer vacant block at 40th and Potter in the John Barrow neighborhood, to celebrate the completion of three houses and the construction of a fourth. Among them were Imam Abdul Kareem Hasan and his wife, Helen Hasan, who are building a home in the development, a private effort of the Islamic Center for Excellence. Helen Hasan said the couple has been making the hour-long drive up from Malvern to worship at the decades-old Islamic Center at 1717 Wright Ave. for years; when their house and the masjid (mosque) the Center plans for New Africa is complete, all she’ll have to do to go to worship is just walk out her door, she said; her husband said he felt like “a kid waiting on Christmas.”

Islamic Center Imam Aquil Hamidullah said he’d been asking himself, in light of U.S. Rep. Peter King’s hearings in D.C. about Muslim influence, “What is radical Islam?” It is not real Islam, he said; Islam is about peace, and he hoped New Africa, which will one day included 22 houses, the masjid and a community center, and the Islamic Center’s interfaith efforts would make that clear to all.

New Africa won’t be exclusively Islamic; two of the three houses now there are owned by Christians. Hamidullah’s wife, Najiyyah, a pediatric nurse at Arkansas Children’s Hospital for more than 30 years, said the New Africa development got past neighborhood objections when it first began four years ago. There were, at that time, folks who said they didn’t want Muslims living next door to them, she said. “We already live next door to you,” she said.

— Leslie Newell Peacock

Yesterday’s news that St. Vincent Health will build St. Vincent West on 37 acres next to the Promenade at Chenal, an outpatient facility that will cost $18 million in its first two phases, reminded us that UAMS has bought land at Rodney Parham and Cantrell for future expansion, at a price of $3.65 million. And that made us wonder — when will UAMS fork over the $1 million-plus it has offered to pay the city for its portion of Ray Winder Field?

Soon, says Assistant City Manager Bryan Day. Director Brad Cazort inquired about the status of the deal during Tuesday’s board meeting; City Attorney Tom Carpenter said he’s still dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Day anticipates the agreement will still need some adjustments when it comes before the board, but that the city is getting close to getting a check.

The final price has apparently been agreed on — Mayor Mark Stodola was holding out for more than the initial $1.1 million offer — but we are still trying to find out what that number is.

— Leslie Peacock

The Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhood's city board candidate forum will be broadcast twice a day, pending LRTV confirmation, every day between now and the Nov. 2 election.

The first showing was this morning between 9 a.m. and noon on the public access channel (cable channel 11 for Comcast customers, channel 99 for AT&T U-Verse customers) and the second will be tonight at 8 p.m. Those broadcast times should stand.

Questions put to the candidates for mayor and the city board included how they would rejuvenate neighborhoods east of University and south of I-630, create a healthier bus system, pay for sprawl, control crime and, last but not least, should the city keep paying the LR Chamber of Commerce $200,000 given the chamber's anti-minimum wage and other economic policies?

The forum starts with the ward candidates and ends with the mayoral candidates if you're not interested in watching all three hours.

Former City Director Larry Lichty told me earlier this week that he was committed to filing for the Ward 3 seat on the Little Rock City Board currently held by Stacy Hurst. (I haven't heard yet if she'll be running again.)

Forget Lichty. He wrote:

After additional thoughtful consideration prompted by several conversations with people whose judgment I value and trust, I have decided not to file for City Board as previously indicated. I sincerely regret that hasty and ill-advised reply to your initial inquiry on Monday, and there will no doubt be other ways in which I can render public service to Little Rock in the future .

UPDATE: I'm guessing the change of plans arises from news that Hurst will seek re-election. There had been widespread rumors that she would not.

We checked in again today with the Little Rock city clerk on who's been picking up petitions to file for City Board or mayor. Filing opens tomorrow and runs through Aug. 24.

Mayor Mark Stodola has picked up a petition, as expected. (He'll formally file tomorrow.)

The full rundown so far on the jump, but this was interesting:

Former City Director Larry Lichty has picked up petitions to run for the Ward 3 seat again and he tells me he is firmly committed to making the race. That seat is currently held by Director Stacy Hurst. She hasn't picked up petitions yet. We've tried to reach her about her plans, but no return call so far. James Dillon has also picked up petitions for Ward 3. You can check out Lichty's thinking at his weekly blog.

Environmental activist Barry Haas notes the lack of press coverage today of the "historic" vote by which the Quorum Court approved a watershed management plan for Lake Maumelle. The no-livestock-on-the-Big-Dam-Bridge ordinance took precedence.

Barry offers a report that summarizes the long fight to protect Central Arkansas's major water supply.

The city of Little Rock's budget woes are well-known. Dozens of staff positions are empty. The quality of code enforcement has long been suspect, sufficient money or no sufficient money.

But some priorities are not overlooked.

Like shutting down a West Little Rock farmers market as it opened for business Monday at Pulaski Academy, according to the GreenARbythe day blog. There will be no sales of vegetables without the requisite permits. If you want to sell vegetables, the city will be happy to accommodate you in its River Market, of course.

UPDATE: An inquiry of mine to GreenAR brought some more background on the farmer crackdown from blogger Nao Ueda:

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Bicycle believer Ken Gould has written Mayor Mark Stodola and other city officials about improving a stretch of road for bicyclists in the missing-link portion of the riverfront bike trail from Riverdale east. He specifically targets Gill Street, which runs beneath the Cantrell Road viaduct just west of Episcopal Collegiate School (shown in Google street view).

His pitch:

The Little Rock City Board yesterday declined, at least for the time being, to go along with Mayor Mark Stodola's proposal for a "no-knock" registry for door-to-door sales. I've already said this was somewhat low on my list of city priorities, but many people here liked the idea.

Is it a good one?

And what's with the mayor's failure to get much going on small bore proposals, never mind the city's general languishing state on account of tight money and a hybrid government that lacks unambiguous lines of authority.

So much for the strong mayor.

Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola had suggested that the Little Rock Zoo, since it sits in a city park, have a no smoking policy, just like other city parks. (That was fairly weak tea to begin with, in that the policy is only a policy, not an enforceable city law.)

The Democrat-Gazette reports today that the Board of the Little Rock Zoo gave the mayor a one-fingered salute yesterday. It will somewhat restrict smoking in the zoo, but to three designated smoking areas. In keeping with smoking areas everywhere, these will surely be delightful places for children and other living things to encounter. Not only did it tell the mayor to screw himself, the Zoo board also decreed on a 5-1 vote that the subject of cigarette smoking could not be discussed again for a year. (Might the Constitution have some say on prior speech restraint of this sort by a public body?)

Anyway. The D-G article left out a key piece of information. I had to laugh when I saw the "smokers rights" brigade on the Zoo board was led by none other than my old pal J.J. Vigneault, Republican political operator, former Mike Huckabee bag man and recently a powerful Alcoholic Beverage Control commissioner.

Vigneault, the champion of the right of smokers to inflict the unpleasant side effects of their habit on others at the Little Rock Zoo, has also made a significant amount of money over the years as a, drum roll, paid lobbyist for Big Tobacco. He helped funnel tobacco money to Huckabee through a political front group, Action America, back in the early days of Hucksterism. Telecom has been his bigger lobbying activity in recent years, but you do want to maintain your viability within the system. Once bought in the political game, it is considered fair play to stay bought.

Strong mayor is no match for R.J. Reynolds. The City Board could try to pass an ordinance enforcing a smoking ban in parks, including the Zoo, but I think we already know how that would turn out.