Feb. 18-24, 2009
It was a GOOD week for …
ARKANSAS PRESBYTERIANS. They voted to allow non-celibate single people be ministers and hold church office. This means gay people can participate fully in church life.
ARKANSAS BAPTIST COLLEGE. It bought and refurbished a previously crime-plagued business on Wright Avenue to make it a carwash, Auto Baptism, and business-training site for students.
UALR. The men’s basketball team clinched a conference championship and the women’s team is still in the running. The less said about UA basketball the better.
The OXFORD AMERICAN. An anonymous donor, an alum of magazine host UCA, mailed in $100,000 to get the literary magazine out of trouble with the IRS, seeking back tax bills created by an embezzling bookkeeper.
It was a BAD week for …
The UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS. Interim President Tom Courtway, already dealt a bad hand in righting the financially ailing campus, has further misplayed it. He continues to stonewall efforts to find out which students benefited from presidential discretionary scholarships. No legal authority but himself thinks he can legally keep the information secret.
NORTH LITTLE ROCK. Its city attorney, Jason Carter, argued that, since Mayor Pat Hays had triumphed politically in establishing a gerrymandered improvement district to annex school taxes for his own purposes, a lawsuit challenging the plan should be dismissed because it raised “technical” flaws. Technical flaws are otherwise known as violations of the law, apparently a trivial concern in Boss Hays’ NLR.
STATE ACCOUNTING PROCEDURES. An audit showed a license plate clerk made off with $362,000 in stolen money before she was caught. What’s worse, another employee tried to tip authorities years ago, but the warning went unheeded.