The tug will attract many a visitor! Been to the Maritime Museum many times; never been on the Queen. Good bye river boat; hello USS Hoga!

North Little Rock is living up to that "Dog Town" reputation

This really upsets me. I've been on the Arkansas Queen Multiple times and have thoroughly enjoyed the trip up the Arkansas River. I am disappointed in the Mayor's of LR and NLR, they should of taken care of this sooner and been able to keep the Arkansas Queen. NLR has been slowly making their downtown, the Argenta Area, better; however the Little Rock downtown is falling apart. The downtown of LR needs to clean up the criminal grime and introduce a downtown street as an the urban shopping area. Call in some well known stores like Gucci, Prada, H&M, Vera Bradley, and Urban Outfitters to name a variety of a few stores. This would keep people heading downtown and support the restaurants and bars as well.

Well as always the city [NLR] didn't care about the barge are they would have replace it,but they spend several thousand to rid the goff park of poop,millions on bike ways and bridges over the river for bikes,someone with with the city sat on their can and let this boat get away,I am sure Little rock and Pul co ,with NLR could have got togather and come up with something on this,thanks ex Mayor Hayes[and Mayor Smith as you said you ran the city for 22 years] for this and we too remember Little Rock thanks you for the Bass Pro shop.

It's hard to understand why between Little Rock and North Little Rock they don't see the true value of the river front. The Salty Parrot was, during peak season, always busy and even during winter was able to entice people to it. Let's buy a tug boat in California pay a huge cost to get it to Arkansas but do nothing to really try to create tourist traffic on the river.

I'm a retired towboat captain. Whoever was in charge of caring for the barge is in fault. It is general practice to check the tunnel tanks for water, if water is seen you pump it out. The city is lucky the EPA isn't envolved. The EPA and coastguard will be watching the boat and barge very close. I'd pull out too to avoid a fine from the coast guard.

It's apparent the folks running the city don't know a thing about it . Crime is high , the bad neighborhoods have encroached on the good , lots of upscale businesses are now gone, and they want to stop the State named river boat by not replacing something that was broken. I used to come to Little Rock three days a week from the bottom of the state and spend all day in the town over 15 yrs it has gone downhill to the point the only reason I want or need to go to Little Rock is health care . A good concert cant even entice me to come . There is nothing to do except the zoo, the sub tour and then there was the Arkansas Queen and some good restaurants. My advice get on the phone with someone in Louisiana and find a dang barge and replace the old one . Geeze,stop worrying over birds on a golf course and try to fix your city.

While it is expensive you would think they would replace it anyway. It is a tourist attraction that was making money for them. Too bad it couldn't work out.