Kenyon Lowe, chairman of the board of Little Rock's federally funded public housing authority, plans to run for the Ward 1 seat on the Little Rock Board of Directors, he announced in a news release Sunday.
Reached by phone Monday, Lowe said the ward faces problems and he did not see solutions emerging.
Lowe, 62, said his "main impetus" for running was to serve as a conduit for residents of the ward and solve problems. He called out the number of murders in the ward.
In addition to any other prospective Ward 1 contenders, during the November election Lowe will presumably face incumbent City Director Virgil L. Miller Jr., whom city board members appointed to the seat last fall to replace Erma Hendrix.
Hendrix, a longtime Ward 1 representative, died in office Sept. 8 at age 91.
Shortly after he was appointed, Miller, 69, said he intended to run for a full term during the coming election.
Ward 1 is one of the seven districts that elect a representative to the city board. The ward representatives serve alongside three at-large board members who are elected by the city's entire pool of voters.
The boundaries of Ward 1 encompass Little Rock's downtown business and entertainment corridor, areas surrounding the airport and various residential neighborhoods.
Lowe has served on the Little Rock public housing authority's five-member board since 2012. Commissioners serve five-year terms.
Known as the Metropolitan Housing Alliance, the housing authority has cycled through six different people serving as executive director either on a permanent, interim or acting basis since November 2018.
Former executive director Nadine Jarmon was fired last year.
Two months before the board voted to terminate her, Jarmon had filed a complaint with the mayor's office and the Little Rock field office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that alleged board misconduct.
Additionally, Marshall Nash, who served as interim executive director from November 2018 to April 2019, has sought millions of dollars in damages with a 2020 lawsuit against the board that claims slander, libel and defamation, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported earlier this month.
The latest person to hold the position of executive director is Ericka Benedicto, a former Little Rock racial and cultural diversity manager.
Benedicto had served as interim executive director after Jarmon's ouster and the resignation of former financial director Andy Delaney, who stepped down as acting director in September.
Asked about the turnover at the top of the housing authority, Lowe suggested only one of the individuals had been terminated.
"It's one thing to complain. It's another to make a claim," Lowe said in an interview Monday.
Anthony Snell, who preceded Jarmon and resigned in June 2020, has sought three years' pay via a constructive-discharge claim to the housing authority's insurance provider, the Democrat-Gazette reported this month.
Constructive discharge refers to a forced resignation tied to intolerable working conditions.
Lowe on Monday said that "nowhere in [Snell's] writings has he defined what a hostile work environment is. If a hostile work environment is requiring you to do your job, and to be here on site, then so be it, OK?"
He pushed back at the idea that there was dysfunction at the housing authority.
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. in 2020 said he would move to dissolve the housing authority's board after an inquiry from the Housing and Urban Development field office indicated "serious concerns" about the board.
An anonymous letter that Metropolitan Housing Alliance employees sent around the same time requested Scott to remove the board.
However, the mayor ultimately did not take action. Scott later told the newspaper that the federal housing department had oversight over the local housing authority, not the city.
Asked for his thoughts on Miller, Lowe said he knows him -- he called Miller "a nice guy" -- but added "I'm not running against Virgil. I'm running for something, OK? I'm running for the citizens of Ward 1 to have input in the issues that affect them, such as crime, housing, governance, economics. That's what I'm running for -- not running against anybody."
Lowe has run for local office on a number of occasions over the past several decades. They include repeated attempts to win a position on the board of the Little Rock School District.
Additionally, Lowe mounted a bid for the Little Rock city board before withdrawing in 1992, according to newspaper coverage at the time.
In 2002, Lowe ran unsuccessfully for the Ward 1 seat on the city board, losing to incumbent Johnnie Pugh.