Little Rock, Arkansas – In the Southwest Little Rock community, which is home to the city’s newest school, local organizers are demanding reform.
The Marian G. Lacey Academy opened its doors in August, and they want it to be a secure learning environment.
“New school. higher taxes. A group chanted outside the school on Thursday night, “Same old problems.”
Locals gathered Thursday evening to demand that city officials solve a number of issues.
Despite claiming that their taxes were raised, they argue that local problems like crime, street racing, and violence still exist.
“The children who pass through are familiar to us. These children are familiar to us. We’ve witnessed them. We just want the neighborhood to be safer and cleaner for them since they live there,” Corderro Turner of Arkansas Community Organizations stated.
The stray dogs that occasionally wander about the school worry Turner.
He added that local landlords ought to be held responsible.
“A lot of them are simply trashed out. “We want those lots to be genuinely maintained by the landowners, the landlords,” Turner stated.
For instance, it appears dangerous at night since you may constantly hear gunfire. There are still gunshots in the area and the just constructed school, and they fire in that lot,” Turner claimed, despite the fact that there are no reports of anyone being shot or killed.
Another worried local, Clay Langston, claimed that he relocated to Little Rock in order to unwind and retire.
“I got down here and found out at that there are, and it is getting worse, people are street racing around using Independence and Republic Roads as their own personal racetracks,” Langston stated.
“There are small toddlers playing in the dangerous roads. It’s simply not safe,” Langston remarked.
Langston expressed his desire for the city to erect speed bumps in the vicinity.
“We want someone to understand that schools were constructed in the communities so that kids could travel safely. They used to avoid crossing these large roadways while they were in the neighborhoods, but now they do. The president of the Chicot Neighborhood Association, Tashan Oneal, stated, “I can only see it becoming a bigger problem with the increasing attendance and the bigger, bigger schools.”
