Loretta Hendrix, daughter of late Little Rock Ward 1 city director, says she plans to run for mayor

She’s 4th announced hopeful

Loretta Hendrix (left) and her mother, Little Rock Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix, speak with Debbie Priebe during an event at the Hinton Resource Center in Little Rock in this June 8, 2013, file photo. Erma Hendrix died in September 2021. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette file photo)
Loretta Hendrix (left) and her mother, Little Rock Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix, speak with Debbie Priebe during an event at the Hinton Resource Center in Little Rock in this June 8, 2013, file photo. Erma Hendrix died in September 2021. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette file photo)


Loretta Hendrix, daughter of the late Little Rock Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix, on Wednesday said she plans to run for mayor of Little Rock later this year.

In a phone interview, Hendrix said she has long intended to seek the mayor's office.

"I want to make sure that the people of Little Rock get a chance to express their views," she said. "That is my main reason for running -- that the people are more involved, that they have more input, that their ideas are well worth City Hall considering."

Hendrix joins three other declared challengers in the race to unseat Mayor Frank Scott Jr., who will presumably run for a second term, though he has yet to make a formal campaign announcement.

Food blogger Greg Henderson, auto dealer Steve Landers and nonprofit founder Pamela Whitaker have all said they intend to run.

The formal filing period for the mayoral race has yet to open. The election will take place Nov. 8.

If no mayoral candidate secures 40% of the vote, it will trigger a Dec. 6 runoff election between the top two contenders.

City races are officially nonpartisan.

Erma Hendrix died in office Sept. 8 at age 91 after representing the Ward 1 district, which includes downtown Little Rock, on the city board for well over a decade. She left behind six adult children, according to her obituary.

Members of the city board passed over Loretta Hendrix, 73, last year during the selection process for an individual to fill her mother's vacant seat on the board.

Hendrix was not named one of the board's eight finalists from the field of 20 applicants.

City directors ultimately appointed Virgil L. Miller Jr., the group Community Reinvestment Act director for Arvest Bank Operations, to the Ward 1 seat in October.

Asked about the board's decision, Hendrix said her intention to run for mayor "had nothing to do with those directors down there, not one thing. I came home to do this."

Scott, 38, became the city's first popularly elected Black mayor after defeating lawyer Baker Kurrus in the December 2018 runoff election to succeed the outgoing mayor, Mark Stodola.

Asked how she would assess Scott's first term, Hendrix declined to comment specifically on the mayor but said she gets upset when she reads negative articles about Arkansas, referring to the state's low ranking in terms of education.

She said she wanted to address those issues with the people's assistance, adding that "it's going to take all the people of this city working together."

In 2011, Hendrix ran as an unsuccessful write-in candidate in the Zone 1 race for the Little Rock School Board against Norma Johnson.

In an interview last fall during her bid for her mother's city board seat, Hendrix cited several different work experiences.

They included time spent as a real-estate broker, the managing director of a nonprofit and lobbying.

In 2013, the Arkansas Ethics Commission filed a complaint against Hendrix in Pulaski County Circuit Court for failing to pay $130 of a $150 fine associated with a consent order.

The fine and a public letter of caution issued to Hendrix were the result of her failure to file lobbying activity reports in February and March the year before, nor a quarterly report for the first quarter of 2012, according to court documents.

In a judgment entered in September 2013, the court ordered Hendrix to pay the fine's outstanding balance of $65. An attorney for the Ethics Commission later confirmed in a court filing that the judgment had been paid in full.

Asked about the episode Wednesday, Hendrix attributed it to a system malfunction and said she did not fail to report.

CORRECTION: Loretta Hendrix is one of four people who have announced plans to run for mayor of Little Rock later this year. A headline in an earlier version of this story misstated the number of people who have announced plans to seek the position.

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