Little Rock’s Ward 3 runs the gamut. It encompasses part of the 12th Street corridor, sweeping through Capitol View/Stifft Station, rising up through Hillcrest and the Heights, and is bounded to the north by the Arkansas River. It’s diverse not only in topography, but in race and socioeconomic status.
Now, two very different candidates are seeking to represent the ward; the longtime incumbent City Director Kathy Webb, and her challenger, Lake Smith.
“It’s a wonderful ward, I grew up in the ward, I believe I know the residents of that ward well and love serving them,” Webb said.
“A lot of the time, people in a city, they don’t think anything is possible. And I was in that same boat too. And I saw that we didn’t have anyone running on what I wanted them to run on," Smith said. "We didn’t have any ‘DSA-lite’ candidates. We didn’t have anyone young, really, running.”
On paper, Webb and Smith are very different. The 77-year-old Webb’s a former state lawmaker, restaurateur, nonprofit leader, and has served on the City Board since 2015. Smith is 25 years old, a union organizer, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and works as a restaurant cook.
Their differences don’t end there. Webb is running as the seasoned incumbent, pointing to her years of service on the city board, and her ability to navigate the organs of city government effectively.
“You have different wards with different needs, and so sometimes, obviously, we have to compromise and get something that’s going to pass the board and then, hopefully, that the residents are going to respond to.”
Smith is challenging Webb from the left, with a laser-focus on housing, public transit and affordability. She’s also adopted a grassroots approach to campaigning – releasing a series of direct-to-camera videos seeking to demystify city government and some of Little Rock’s biggest issues on social media.
It’s drawn her comparisons to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who Smith cites as an inspiration.
“He kind of won on just being like, ‘Hey guys, this is what’s going on. Let me record this.’ So I think that’s a big strategy for me has just been to go to these people… go to the apartments, not just the Heights and Hillcrest.”
Smith’s campaign focuses on the issues she says are keeping residents from living their best lives, and being more involved in politics — like not being able to get where they need to go.
“The bus system, pre-COVID, was a lot more expansive. So increasing public transportation kind of goes hand-in-hand with that, we can increase density, we can increase housing, we can get people in the places they need to be, because right now we have a very disjointed city.”
Smith favors expanding the Rock Region Metro system, giving buses signal priority at red lights, and converting some one-way streets downtown into bus lanes. Webb also supports a more robust public transit system – she co-chaired an unsuccessful campaign for a sales tax increase to fund transit improvements in 2016. She says that experience highlighted the barriers to expanding transit access.
“Since COVID we have had more issues because we’ve lost a lot of drivers, and the public transit system in Little Rock is not just Little Rock’s transit system. We don’t make decisions about routes and route frequency just with Little Rock. We participate in this system with other cities and the county, and we don’t always get exactly what we want.”
Both candidates place public safety as a high priority – for Webb, it’s her number one issue. She says she attends quarterly meetings for both LRPD divisions in her ward.
“And the numbers that I see, generally, crime is going down. There often is a perception that it’s not, but on the data that I look at, I think we have made progress.”
Smith says, like with many other issues, she wishes the city would take a proactive, not reactive, approach to crime.
“Addressing the symptoms will start to reduce crime. We’ve seen this in New York with the markets they have and a lot of the programs they’re doing. Immediately, a drop in crime. It’s the lowest crime they’ve had in years. So I think we don’t need more people with guns, we need more people with food.”
Smith takes particular issue with the use of surveillance technology, like Flock automated license plate reader cameras, of which Little Rock has more than a hundred.
“The Flock cameras haven’t really been used for anything good. There’s a big problem, though, where we don’t know what they’re being used for. The city voted against a transparency thing recently to where police would have to say what they’re doing with Flock, how it’s being used. We don’t really know at this point. You have to go to the meetings, you have to FOIA, to really get the nitty-gritty of this kind of stuff.”
Webb last December voted against the transparency ordinance Smith mentions. She supports limits on Flock cameras, in particular ensuring they aren’t misused by law enforcement. But, she says she sees the pros and cons of the technology.
“I have a couple of neighborhoods in Ward 3 that have specifically said ‘We like those tools. Those are helpful in our ward.’ I have progressives saying ‘Get rid of those… those help prosecutors.’ Sometimes when something comes up for a vote, I don’t necessarily feel 100% good about either of my choices.”
Both candidates cite the need for infrastructure improvements in Ward 3. Webb says parks and streets need particular attention – Smith highlights pedestrian infrastructure and vacant houses, calling on the city to refurbish them and enact rent controls to provide more affordable housing.
But these policy goals come with the context of the city’s financial reality. Little Rock residents voted down two separate ballot measures to fund infrastructure improvements through sales taxes. Webb says a third attempt anytime soon would probably meet a similar fate, given voters’ focus on affordability.
“In Ward 3, we have right now over $104 million in infrastructure requests. We did pass a bond measure a few years ago that the residents voted on, but in the next cycle of bonds in Ward 3 we will have $5 million. That means telling a lot of people that we can’t do that request right now.”
Smith says she would take a hard look at the city’s budget priorities to free up extra cash for much-needed improvements.
“We have $300,000 that went to Flock to maintain our contract… $1.8 million that we’ve given to them. We have $180,000 for the AI chatbot on the Little Rock city website. I get the money, it’s a problem, but there’s also money to do all this other frivolous stuff that’s really just to maintain the surveillance state and to do all [these] really silly things that I don’t think we need.”
In the end, both candidates say they’re the best for the job – Webb says experience matters, and points to her record of service.
“I work well with all levels of government, and I think that’s been important to the things that I’ve been able to champion in Ward 3 over the last 12 years.”
Smith says it’s time for a change, and for a forward-looking approach to city government.
“The city, traditionally, they’re not thinking about these long-term kind of things… but we also need to be thinking 30 years, 50 years, 60 years in the future.”
Election Day is November 3rd.
