Libraries waiving fines for donations
From Monday through Sunday, anyone with a Central Arkansas Library System fine can settle it with a food donation.
Patrons can donate nonperishable food items when returning overdue materials to erase the fine. Each food item represents $1. A person can donate up to 10 items to cancel up to $10 in fines.
The donations cannot be used to waive charges for items lost.
Food collected will be donated to the Arkansas Foodbank and Rice Depot.
The library system also is accepting food donations during a screening of the documentary A Place at the Table at the Ron Robinson Theater at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
“The film investigates incidents of hunger experienced by millions of Americans and proposes solutions to the problem,” according to a news release.
Tech park’s leader to speak in series
Executive Director Brent Birch will discuss the Little Rock Technology Park at a lecture Tuesday.
The 6 p.m. event is at the Arkansas Arts Center lecture hall.
“This is an opportunity for the general public to learn more about Little Rock’s investment to make the region competitive economically by enabling technology-based businesses to succeed and advance in a dynamic and supportive environment,” a new release said. “The tech park will be weeks away from opening, making this an amazing chance to get a sneak peak of the finished spaces, the overall design process from start to finish and the tenants who will occupy the space.”
The free event is part of the Architecture and Design Network’s lecture series. A reception will precede it at 5:30 p.m.
Lit wreaths send message of safety
When a green light turns to red on holiday wreaths hung at City Hall and several Little Rock fire stations, it means a residential fire just left a home uninhabitable.
The wreaths are an effort by the Little Rock Fire Department to promote fire prevention and make residents aware of fire safety tips they can follow at home.
“Home fires during the holiday season often involve cooking, Christmas trees, candles and decorations,” a city news release said. “Unattended cooking is the leading cause of U.S. home fires and home fire injuries, with most cooking fires involving the stove top. In 2014, Thanksgiving was the leading date for home structure fires caused by cooking, followed by Christmas Day and Christmas Eve.”
The green-lit wreaths can be seen in person or on the Fire Department’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
2 new exhibits set
for Butler Center
Live music and two new art exhibits are planned for Friday, the monthly Second Friday Art Night.
From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., The Butler Center Galleries at 401 President Clinton Ave. will host the opening reception of “Richard Leo Johnson: Once Was Lost,” a photo exhibit that features images of Johnson’s friends and family, landscapes and people in North Louisiana and South Arkansas in the 1970s and 1980s.
The exhibit will be on display through March.
Johnson, an El Dorado native and self-taught acoustic guitarist, will then give a free performance at 8 p.m. at the Ron Robinson Theater at 100 River Market Ave. He will perform original music “in his unorthodox, new age style,” according to a news release.
Also at 5 p.m. Friday, the opening reception for “Art from the Row” will start at the Cox Creative Center at 120 River Market Ave.
“A unique look at capital punishment from behind bars, Art from the Row includes arts, crafts, and poetry created by persons currently living on death row in Arkansas. It also includes works by persons formerly on death row who have been executed,” a news release said.
The exhibit will be on display through Dec. 19.
Audible crosswalk
buttons to debut
A 5-year-old boy recently wrote a letter to city directors asking Little Rock to replace small crosswalk buttons with larger ones that have voice commands.
“The little buttons are not good because they do not say ‘WAIT!’ when a blind person pushes them, and knows not to go right when they push the button. The little buttons don’t have a red light, and are too old and not easy for blind people to find. I’ll feel happy if you fix this because it will be better for blind people,” wrote Kevin Mainard O’Connell, 5, via his mother Marie’s email account.
O’Connell isn’t blind, his mother explained, he just really loves the big sidewalk buttons and was recently learning about street-crossing safety.
At the request of directors, City Manager Bruce Moore responded to the child’s request.
The city has 335 traffic signals, about 60 percent of which have pedestrian signals with push buttons. As new traffic signals are installed, the audible crosswalk buttons are included.
When routine maintenance is needed on older-style buttons, they are typically updated to the larger buttons, but not to audible ones because the cost for those is about $10,000 for a typical intersection, Moore said.
“While it is not feasible to upgrade all pedestrian signals to have audible signals, the city has been proactive to upgrade intersections to include audible signals in areas of high pedestrian activity such as downtown, around [the University of Arkansas at Little Rock], and other areas that have higher expected pedestrian volumes,” he said.
Williams Library c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ reopens after* repairs
The Williams Library branch at 1800 Chester Street will re-open today.
It had been temporarily closed for repairs.
The library is part of the Central Arkansas Library System.
Columnist, author lectures at theater
Julie Reed, a Wall Street Journal food columnist, will give the J.N. Heiskell Distinguished Lecture on Thursday.
Reed is also a contributing editor of Elle Decor and Garden & Gun. For 20 years she was a contributing editor at Vogue. Her profile subjects there included Oscar de la Renta, Robert De Niro, George and Laura Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, according to a news release.
Reed is also the author of six books. She grew up in the Mississippi Delta and began her career at Newsweek magazine’s Washington bureau.
Her lecture will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Ave., with a reception at 6 p.m.
The lecture is part of the Central Arkansas Library System’s lecture series.
*CORRECTION: Williams Library reopened after being temporarily closed for repairs on Dec. 5. A headline incorrectly said the library was closing.