LR leaders push for millage vote next month

LITTLE ROCK, AR - Little Rock voters go to the polls in just under four weeks. At stake, more than $100 million dollars in taxpayer money to improve streets and drainage.

Little Rock voters said yes to a sales tax increase last fall.

This time, not a sales tax hike, but it's more funding mayor Mark Stodola says will go a long way to helping the city.

Reba Pettus loves to walk her West 65th Street neighborhood.

"I want to stay in shape, you know, especially when you get older," Pettus says.

But in her older neighborhood with no sidewalks, she'd like to see an improvement.

"Be nice to have better drainage, instead of having these holes in the ground," she says.

The city of Little Rock wants voters to say yes on September 11th to re-authorize a millage program to pay for over $100 in street & drainage improvements.

"I'm not crazy about having more taxes but we've got to improve it somehow," Little Rock.

Stodola says re-authorizing the millage at 3.0 versus 3.3 mills is tantamount to a tax cut for Little Rock residents while also providing needed services. .

"Every ward is not going to get all their answers met with the 105 million," Stodola says.

But he says it's a shot in the arm for all seven wards. Even though wards 1, 2, 6, 7 are considered the most in need.

Pettus, who lives in Ward 2, says she's ok with how the money is set to be distributed equally among all wards.

"It wouldn't make any difference to me as long as it its an improvement here, there or any place," Pettus says.

She's not willing to let the chance for neighborhood improvements to pass her by.

There will be opposition to the millage vote next month, from some who say if older areas don't get a lion share of the money, they can't support it.

The last time voters approved a city millage was in 2004. That approval paid for more $31 million in street and drainage improvements.