A new telephone poll this week is asking North Little Rock voters if they would support a city sales-tax increase to relocate the Arkansas Arts Center from Little Rock to North Little Rock's downtown.
It's the second time a telephone poll has gauged a sampling of the city's voters about a sales-tax increase for the Arts Center. The poll is being done through the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation, instead of the city, North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith said Thursday.
The Arts Center Foundation is a nonprofit that owns the center's artwork and oversees an endowment that is to provide $1.6 million this year to the Arts Center, located at 501 E. Ninth St. in Little Rock. The Arts Center building is owned by Little Rock.
Smith said earlier this week that no decision had been made based on the results of the first poll, also conducted by the Arts Center Foundation, whether to call a special election to ask city voters for a tax increase.
"They changed some of the questions," Smith said of the new poll. "The main question is would you support it. It mentions the relocation or something about the Arkansas Arts Center moving to downtown North Little Rock. That was their big change."
Smith sent a letter April 21 to Bobby Tucker, the foundation's chairman, pledging to sponsor legislation to the City Council to call a special election for the tax increase if the foundation "continues to show a commitment to a North Little Rock location for a new Arts Center campus."
In a prepared statement Thursday, Tucker said that the foundation has been conducting research for several months as "part of a long-term strategic process."
"This research includes polling on current program offerings as well as current and future site consideration," Tucker wrote.
The first poll, conducted in January, only referred to a 1 percent city tax increase to be for "an arts center or museum project." Half of the revenue would be earmarked for police and fire needs.
During that first polling period, Smith confirmed, but didn't give specifics, that the city had been in talks about an arts center-museum project, after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette asked about voters receiving calls. It wasn't until the following week that the Arkansas Arts Center's name was revealed.
This week's polling, Smith said, is a follow-up to confirm the earlier poll numbers.
"I guess they just want to feel a little bit more comfortable that the numbers they got in the first poll were right," Smith said. "They might well be finished by [today]. Maybe we'll know something about what the board is looking at then."
Metro on 05/22/2015