LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — In August, voters in Little Rock will have a chance to vote on whether or not some major improvements around the city should be made.
Some of those improvements would include changes being made at the Southwest Community Center in Little Rock.
The facility's director, Lee Couch III said the bonds would help the center with some things that have needed to be fixed for a while.
"For the ones the use the community center, it will definitely be benefited," Couch said.
He also mentioned that the center was built in 1990 and hasn't been renovated since.
"Our gym floors have cracks and we can hardly bounce a ball," Couch said. "Our pool, our splash pad needs to be updated."
He added that the children's pool has a leak and the water oftentimes needs to be drained and filled back up.
Inside the community center, he'd love to see a new entertainment room for kids and a renovated banquet room.
Little Rock Fire Chief, Delphone Hubbard said when their new trucks break down, firefighters have had to rely on the older trucks.
"As it stands now, over 35% of our inventory is beyond 26 years of age," Hubbard said.
He added that one of the firetrucks is 32 years old and has nearly 250,000 miles.
"Many manufacturers don't even make parts for some of these older fire trucks," Hubbard said.
Hubbard said the special election will be able to give LRFD the opportunity to replace over 40% of their fleet inventory.
Currently, they have eight reserve trucks which they use when front-line vehicles are being repaired, and six of them are extremely old.
Having an older fleet has created concerns for the responders.
"It's an even greater concern when we put our firefighters at risk of injury due to equipment or the lack of equipment that we have for them to operate effectively and their job functions," Hubbard said.
In a special election on August 9, voters will be able to weigh in on improvement bonds such as street, drainage, fire apparatus, park and recreational, district court facility, and port industrial.
At least $12 million could go to the Little Rock Zoo to help with outdated infrastructure, guest facilities, and animal habitats.
If passed, that money would come from the parks and recs bond.
City director, Joan Adcock said that Little Rock would greatly benefit from this money.
"We are going to get $154 million," Adcock said. "There's no new tax [and] there is nothing added to anything. It's just the same amount that we are paying now."
She added that the money would be evenly distributed to its respective category and wanted to be clear that any leftover money from the bond would not be able to go towards another one.
Couch said he's hopeful that Little Rock voters will go out to cast their ballot on August 9, because the kids in the local community deserve the best.
"[It] will help get some of those things update, where our kids in this community can really benefit from it," Couch said.
Early voting is set to begin on August 2nd and to learn more about the proposed improvement bonds, please click here.