The weekly Little Rock Board of Directors agenda includes this: An ordinance to allow transportation companies using executive sedans, extended vans, luxury vehicles (not limos) and SUVs for hire to keep them in service for 10 years rather than eight.
Explained a memo:
Over the past several years, poor economic conditions have financially affected some ground transportation service operators’ ability to replace their ground transportation service vehicles after the 8th model year, as required by the current Transportation Code. In some cases, the vehicle had reached the removal point; however, the vehicle was in excellent condition.
What, you might ask, is an executive sedan?
Executive sedan shall mean a sedan vehicle that has a manufacturer’s suggested base retail selling price of not less than that of a Cadillac Sedan de Ville, Lincoln Town Car sedan or similar vehicle, excluding the cost of any manufacturer installed options or of any modifications or conversions that were made by other persons following the original assembly of the vehicle by the manufacturer.
I don’t know why this intrigued me so. Maybe because Memorial Day is the “birthdate” of my own SUV, which turns 11 Monday.
Also on the board agenda this week: Issuing $73 million in bonds backed by the hamburger tax to renovate Robinson Auditorium.
Not yet on the Board agenda: Review of the Planning Commission’s inexplicable decision to approve a convenience store at Third and Broadway, already a sometimes horrendous intersection for traffic. As other officials have also said, this governmental and visitor corridor is hardly in need of the ugly nuisance of a Mapco convenience store/gasup. Reminder: under the city’s semi-strong mayor system, Mayor Mark Stodola is responsible for appointments to boards such as the Planning Commission. Commissioners, of course, should act independently. But a strongish mayor might have been able to get across the point what a bad idea this is, for wholly objective and rational reasons.