Good afternoon.
A section of Arch Street near Little Rock City Hall has been renamed "Bruce T. Moore Way" in honor of the late city manager.
Members of the Little Rock Board of Directors approved the name change on Tuesday during their first board meeting of 2024.
Moore died in October at age 57. He had served as city manager since 2002, longer than anyone before him.
"[V]irtually every employee, Board Member and visitor in City Hall for as long as it stands at the corner of Broadway Street and West Markham Street will travel a portion of Arch Street [on a] daily basis, which makes renaming this particular street in his honor appropriate," the resolution said.
The attorney representing two former housing commissioners in a lawsuit over their ouster from the housing authority's board has asked to withdraw from the litigation.
In a court filing, attorney Sylvester Smith said he has "a clear conflict" because he has provided legal services to both the housing authority and its nonprofit development entity.
Their interests are at odds in the lawsuit, Smith said. In late November, the judge overseeing the case allowed the nonprofit to intervene in the litigation.
Smith's request to withdraw came two days after the judge, citing the plaintiffs' failure to submit a post-hearing brief as requested, denied H. Lee Lindsey and Leta Anthony's request for preliminary injunctive relief and said she would lift a temporary restraining order barring the city from replacing them on the panel.
Finally, a slew of upgrades to the Statehouse Convention Center are expected to be completed by the summer of 2025.
The nearly $9 million work represents the first comprehensive renovation to the convention center since its 1999 expansion, Aaron Gettinger reported.
"Tourism and the convention-sales business is a competitive business," said Gina Gemberling, the president and chief executive officer of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We are competing against cities all across the United States daily as we compete to bring meetings and conventions into Little Rock. That's what our sales team does day in, day out."
That's all for this week. Some more local stories are below.
