Other days
100 YEARS AGO
Feb. 21, 1921
HOPE — J.F. Smallwood, in charge of the Arkansas-Texas company’s test at McKamie, announced last night that effort will be made tomorrow to drill in that well if the storage tanks are up. The company is constructing tanks with a storage capacity of 3,300 barrels in anticipation of real production when the well is brought in. It is Mr. Smallwood’s purpose to go only a few feet into the sand before a test is made to see what the well will produce.
50 YEARS AGO
Feb. 21, 1971
■ “Municipal improvement” may very well be the next big push of civil rights advocates. This is an effort to guarantee through the courts that municipalities will spend a proportionate amount of money for streets, streetlights, sewers and other improvements in poor neighborhoods. The approach was given a major boost recently when the three judge United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans ordered the town of Shaw, Miss., whose population of 2,500 includes 1,500 blacks, to provide municipal services on a racially non-discriminatory basis.
25 YEARS AGO
Feb. 21, 1996
■ The Little Rock Board of Directors tossed out Municipal Judge Bill Watt’s retirement package Tuesday. Acting on City Attorney Tom Carpenter’s recommendation and Watt’s concurrence, the board repealed the 1993 city ordinance setting up retirement benefits for the traffic judge. The ordinance was based on a 1993 state law that did not apply to Little Rock judges although everyone, including legislators, thought otherwise at the time. “Obviously, we made a mistake, and we’re correcting it tonight,” Mayor Jim Dailey said. The board pledged to go to the next session Legislature to secure a law that would apply to anyone serving as a municipal judge and allow some credit for previous public service in qualifying for retirement benefits.
10 YEARS AGO
Feb. 21, 2011
■ The Pulaski County Quorum Court is set to vote Tuesday on a proposed ordinance that would establish a mobile spay and neuter clinic that can provide low-cost procedures for pet owners in unincorporated areas. The proposal comes on the heels of an ordinance that was scrapped by the County Services Committee which would’ve created a differential licensing program in the county as a way to encourage people to spay and neuter their animals and reduce the number of strays. County Comptroller Mike Hutchens suggested the mobile clinic as an option after County Judge Buddy Villines told the committee the licensing program would need a budget of at least $300,000 to be properly enforced.