Virgil Miller
Little Rock City Board
Virgil Miller, Jr. has a long track-record of integrity and hard work across multiple banks, including Worthen Bank, Bank of America, Metropolitan National Bank, and more. As of 2024, Miller fills the role of Community Reinvestment Officer for Arvest Bank, where he works to meet the credit needs of low-income communities.
Virgil's career in the banking industry dovetails well with his long-time commitment to community service that began as far back as 1981, when he was a Rally team member for the Boy Scouts of America.
Since then, Mr. Miller has served on no less than 35 boards ranging from President of the Kawanis club to Daisy Bates Trustee; Bill & Hillary Clinton Airport commissioner to present day Director of Ward 1 for the City of Little Rock.
Listen to Learn:
- How banking has changed in the last 40 years
- What the City Board does to tackle local issues
- About the Mayor's "Master Plan" to revitalize downtown Little Rock, and more...
Podcast Links
TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 424
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08] GM: Welcome to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Through storytelling, conversational interviews, and Kerry's natural curiosity, this weekly radio show and podcast offers listeners an insider's view into the commonalities of entrepreneurs, athletes, medical professionals, politicians, and other successful people. All sharing their stories of success and the ups and downs of risk-taking. Connect with Kerry through her candid, funny, informative, and always-encouraging weekly blog. And now it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:40] KM: My guest today is the longtime Little Rock, Arkansas banker and current city board member representing Ward 1, Mr. Virgil Miller. As a banker, Mr. Miller has seen his share of changes in the industry. See if you can remember any of these previous banks that once held from Little Rock and that Virgil once worked for. Worthen Bank, Savers Federal Savings and Loan, Metropolitan National Bank, Boatmen's Bank, Nations Bank, Bank of America. And, today, Mr. Miller is the Community Reinvestment Officer for Arvest Bank, whose job is to oversee the Community Reinvestment Act, the CRA. A federal and state law that encourages banks to help meet the credit needs of low to moderate-income communities.
Virgil's banking career as a Community Reinvestment Officer dovetails well with his longtime commitment to community service that began as far back as 1981 when he was the rally team member for the Boy Scouts of America. Since then, Mr. Miller has served on no less than 35 boards. Ranging from past president of the Kiwanis Club, to Daisy Bates trustee, and Bill and Hillary Clinton Airport commissioner. Today, he's limited his community involvement to 100 Black Men of Greater Little Rock; board member. Arkansas Capital Corporation; board member. City of Little Rock Ward 1 Director.
It is with a great pleasure that I welcome to the table the 2014 Humanitarian of the Year City Board Director for Ward 1 and banker extraordinaire, Mr. Virgil Miller.
[0:02:26] VM: Kerry, thank you very much. I'm going to have to take you with me to introduce me around –
[0:02:33] KM: I'll do it.
[0:02:33] VM: – whenever I have some events to go to. I think all that makes people know that I'm old and I've been around. Because my banking career started with Pulaski Federal Savings and Loan in 1977 as a management trainee. I've been around. My whole career has been in downtown Little Rock. I've never left. And so, I developed obviously a deep, deep love for this community and for Little Rock. And, certainly, with all the events, all the organizations I've been involved with. It has really been a labor love.
[0:03:20] KM: It really is. You can tell. I watch you on the city board and you can tell he takes his city board position very seriously. He reads it well. He questions all the topics that come up really well. But let's not talk about that first. Let's talk about Arkansas Tech. When you went to Arkansas Tech, did you know you were going to be a banker?
[0:03:40] VM: I had no idea of what I was getting into. I didn't know I was going to go to school.
[0:03:46] KM: What do you mean?
[0:03:47] VM: I didn't have any aspirations of going to college at the time. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. When I graduated in 1971 from high school, I was running track. And we had a very good track team. We had some athletes on that team.
[0:04:07] KM: What school was that?
[0:04:07] VM: It was Wilbur D. Mills High School in 1971. And so, I was playing football. I ran track. I was an athlete. And Arkansas Tech's track coach, Dr. John Montgomery, came to several of our meets. He saw us run. He came down from the stand and he said, "I want you, you, and you." He pointed to Larry Harris, Grover Lawson, and me, Virgil Miller. He said, "I want you, you, and you to be Wonder Boys." I didn't even know what a Wonder Boy was. But that is the Arkansas Tech mascot, Wonder Boy. And he wanted us to run track. And I got a track scholarship. And that's how I ended up at Tech. I didn't have any idea of what I wanted to do.
And come my junior year, I had to declare a major. And I thought, "Well, business. Let me declare business." It'd be business administration. And that's what I majored in. And so, that's how this came about. It wasn't something that I said, "Oh, man. I want to be a banker. I don't want to go to school for this. I want to go school for that." It wasn't like that at all.
[0:05:23] KM: How'd you end up in banking? Where did you first apply for a job out of school? Was it a bank?
[0:05:28] VM: No. I came from a very humble background. And so, I really didn't have any suits to interview with. When recruiters came to Tech my senior year junior year, I never talked to anybody because I didn't have a suit and tie to go and talk to folks. And so, when I graduated with my degree in business, I went to Siemens Alice. They made electric motors out on Highway 365. Well, 145th Street in Southeast Pulaski County. Because I worked there during the summer a couple of times.
And I interviewed with guy that had a suit, and shirt, tie and thought I was doing a good interview and the guy kept looking at my feet. Kept looking at my feet. I got a little uncomfortable. When he walked me out, he was looking at my feet. And so, I realized when I got in my car that maybe wearing these platform shoes wasn't a real good idea. I mean, they were high, you guys. They were 3, 4 inches. I was thinking, "Man –" but those were the only shoes I had.
[0:06:32] KM: You looked fly. That's what we us to say back then.
[0:06:35] VM: I don't know what he was thinking. But I knew I just wore what I had. And then I realized that if I'm going to interview for some jobs, then I probably need to get the right attire. And so, I needed to get some money. And I was staying at home. I got a job at Rapes Lumberyard in East Little Rock making $3 and something an hour. I'm a college grad. Because I wanted to get some money. And so, I worked there a few weeks.
Somebody came from Jones Truck Line and said – he just looked at me. I didn't know this guy from Adam. And he said, "Man, you look like somebody we could use at Jones Truck Line." He was delivering some freight there. And I took him at his word. I went up and interviewed with Jones Truck Line. They hired me. And I thought I was in heaven because they were paying $7.50 an hour. I mean, it was just outstanding wage. It was a union shop. It was double what I was making. Man, I was in heaven.
And so, with Jones, if you worked at 30 days, you became part of the union and you had union protection. And I was very comfortable. I was making this good money. And I got very comfortable. Very, very comfortable. And I remember in the break room once I was talking to the fellas and I said, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I graduated from Arkansas Tech." It got silent. People were looking. Management heard me, "This guy graduated from college. He has a degree in business." It made them uncomfortable. And so, on the 28th day, they let me go.
[0:08:19] KM: That's weird.
[0:08:19] VM: I got fired.
[0:08:20] KM: No. Really?
[0:08:21] VM: Yes, I got fired.
[0:08:22] KM: And what was their reasoning for firing you?
[0:08:24] VM: You don't have to have a reason.
[0:08:26] KM: You're just overeducated.
[0:08:27] VM: Well, you didn't have to have a reason. Because during the first 30 days is probation. And so, if you made 30 days, you were in the union, you had union protection. And I just knew that's where I was going to end.
[0:08:41] GM: But you think you blew it because you mentioned you went to college.
[0:08:44] VM: I think I blew it. I think I made management very uncomfortable with that. And so, they let me go. I was devastated. And I had locked up and got a job at the Wrightsville Unit for Boys. A state employee job. I'm from Wrightsville. And so, I got a job –
[0:09:01] KM: Are those bad children? Or delinquent children? Juveniles?
[0:09:03] VM: Well, that was a juvenile jail at the time. Now it's a full-blown unit of the Arkansas Department of Corrections. But then, it just housed juveniles. And so, I got a job there pretty quickly. And I became part of the state. I was a state employee. Now I saw jobs that were opening up at the state. And I saw a job open up with the Department of Local Services, which was the forerunner of Department of Human Services. And I got a job working for the Arkansas Manpower Council, which was part of the old Comprehensive Employment Training Act, or CETA. The CETA Program. And my boss, the head of the CETA program was a guy by the name of Buddy Villines. That name may sound familiar to some of your listeners because he was certainly on the Little Rock City Board. He became mayor. And he was a longtime county judge.
And I got that job. I was working as an administrator in the old CETA Program. And one of my co-workers who I'd work with who went on to go to Pulaski Federal Savings & Loan called me up one day. His name was Terry [Path inaudible 0:10:18]. And Terry called me up and he said, "Virgil, I believe you could have a good opportunity and get a job at Pulaski Federal Savings & Loan." Now this is in 1977.
And I went and interviewed with them. And they made a decision to hire Virgil Miller. And they said, "Look, Virgil, you're making $900 an hour." I mean, $900 a month rather.
[0:10:45] KM: Yeah. I was about to say, "Where do I sign up?"
[0:10:48] VM: Oh, yeah. And they said, "We'll hire you. But we'll pay you $850. $850 a month." And so, I'm thinking, "Man, this is not how this works. You're supposed to get an increase."
[0:10:58] GM: Yeah. Go up.
[0:10:59] VM: But I wanted to get away from the state. And so, I took the job. And I became the first black employee to go through their management training program and they called me their Jackie Robinson. And so, that's how I got involved in banking in March of 1977 working for Pulaski Federal Savings & Loan, which would go on and change its name to be Savers. And I was trained as a mortgage loan officer. I made mortgage loans. And I was good at it. I had a following of real estate agents that brought their businesses to me.
And as we evolved as an organization, a lot of the people that I trained – and I became a trainer. I trained other management trainees in lending. And when we reclassified jobs, I found out that these retail jobs, these branch management jobs were higher than a loan officer. And so, I got out of lending and I got into the retail side of the business. I became a branch manager and then I became a regional branch manager over branches over in Central Arkansas. And then when we start having some of our issues, the whole savings and loan industry back in the 80s –
[0:12:22] KM: Deregulation.
[0:12:23] VM: Oh, gosh. And we thought we were commercial bankers and we were making loans. We were just making loans for people to buy houses. Then we started making commercial loans. We didn't know what we were doing. And the whole industry got in trouble. And so, I did that.
And then I got into compliance as we started going down. I got in community reinvestment. And as we began to go down and we were getting ready to – we were going down. We were being solvent. And we had a workout person come. And then a gentleman by the name of Curt Bradberry – people know Curt. He's at Stephens now. He was working at Worthen at the time. Worthen had its issues. And he went over there to straighten that out.
I called him up and said, "I'm interested in looking for some other opportunities." Because the bank was going down. It was just a matter of time before we closed the doors. And I said, "I'm looking into community development. And so, if any opportunities, please let me know about them." And much to my surprise, he said, "I'd love to talk to you. What about 3:00 today?" After that, we worked out. And a few months later, I got over there to help them with their compliance issue with community reinvestment or CRA. They let me write my job description.
[0:13:50] KM: Love it.
[0:13:51] VM: And so, when I got there, they sandbag some stuff on me. And when I got there on the first day, Curt came by. Shook my hand. Said, "Here you go. Thanks. Here's a copy of our latest examination." They didn't do very well on their CRA compliance. And they said, "Here you go. Fix it." And so, that's how I got into banking. I'd worked with Curt Bradberry. I worked from Savers from 1977 to '89.
[0:14:19] KM: That's a long time.
[0:14:19] VM: And then I got –
[0:14:22] KM: And then the banks keep getting sold, and sold, and sold. You end up at another bank. Loosening the restrictions on the banks was a freefall for a lot of banks. I don't know if people realize this either, that banks used to be small. We’re not able to go out of their city to stop monopolies, which we have now. Banking monopolies. They would not let banks go outside of their city.
[0:14:47] VM: Yes, that's true.
[0:14:48] KM: If you were in North Little Rock, you couldn't go into Little Rock. So do you think that deregulation was a good idea?
[0:14:56] VM: Well, at the time, it was. But we thought it was. And certainly, getting a chance to serve the whole market. Getting a chance to branch outside of our areas giving the consumer choices, which was part of what all deregulation was all about. Letting the savings and loan industry play in the sandbox of the commercial bankers. Now, looking back on that, that might not have been a good idea. Because, again, we were trained as savings and loan. We made home loans. And then now, all of a sudden, we were making commercial loans.
I think it was good for the consumer. Certainly, it was good for developers. But we had a lot of developers that just took advantage of all this money out there, all the sources of capital now. And sophisticated developers and builders that would be making uh applications and getting funds from different financial institutions.
And when financial institutions, a lot certainly in the savings and loan, woke up and said, "Well, let's go take a look at this project that we funded in Florida, or in Texas, or in Hawaii." And they get there, they've loaned all the money. And it was just a piece of dirt. I mean, they never inspected the – I mean, it was just a mess, you guys. And so, in some cases, deregulation was great. But in other cases, it was the Wild Wild West. And it didn't serve the industry well.
[0:16:34] KM: As they thought it might be. I was going to ask you one of my questions was why are you successful? But we already know that. It's because you never stopped. You keep putting one foot in front of the other. You don't let your ego get in the way. And you work hard at whatever job you're doing. Those are the keys to your success. What did your parents do? And why do you have this work ethic?
[0:16:54] VM: Well, my father – I was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. My father was in the 101st. He was an army paratrooper. He jumped out of planes. And so, I was born in Fort Bragg. Which after the murder of George Floyd, was renamed the Fort Liberty. After 60-plus years, I had to get used to saying I was born in Fort Liberty, North Carolina.
And so, my father was from Jefferson, Arkansas, which is where Pine Bluff is located. Jefferson County. A city called Jefferson. My mother's from Wrightsville, Arkansas. And so, they met on Highway 365 South. The old Pine Bluff highway from – if you leave Lilttle Rock going south before the freeway, you would have to go Highway 365 to go to Pine Bluff.
[0:17:44] KM: Why? They had a car wreck? Run into each other? What happened? You're an army brat.
[0:17:49] VM: I am.
[0:17:49] KM: No wonder you're so personable. Now we know. That's why he likes to schmooze with everybody.
[0:17:55] VM: I do that. And my parents decided to move to Berkeley. And so, we moved to Berkeley in 1959, '60, during that time.
[0:18:07] KM: All right. This is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Arvest Bank's Community Reinvestment Officer, Mr. Virgil Miller, who also just happens to be Little Rock, Arkansas's Ward 1 City Director. We'll be right back.
[BREAK]
[0:18:22] GM: You're listening to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. In 1975 with only $400, Kerry founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. Since then, the business has grown and changed along with Kerry's experience and leadership knowledge.
In 1995, she embraced the internet and rebranded her company as simply flagandbanner.com. In 2004, she became an early blogger. Since then, she has founded the nonprofit Friends of Dreamland Ballroom. Began publishing her magazine, Brave. And in 2016, branched out into this very radio show, YouTube channel, and podcast.
In 2020, Kerry McCoy Enterprises acquired ourcornermarket.com, an online company specializing in American-made plaques, signage, and memorials. In 2021, Flag and Banner expanded to a satellite office in Miami, Florida where first-generation immigrants keep the art of sewing alive and flags made in America.
Telling American-made stories, selling American-made flags, the flagandbanner.com. Back to you Kerry.
[0:19:26] KM: Thank you, Gray. We're speaking today with Little Rock, Arkansas's Ward 1 City Director, Mr. Virgil Miller, who by the day is Arvest Bank's Community Reinvestment Officer that works to meet the credit needs of low to moderate-income communities while still maintaining safe and sound banking practices. Who's eligible for that?
[0:19:45] VM: Well, people that – let me start first by saying banks are heavily regulated.
[0:19:51] KM: Yes.
[0:19:52] VM: As well they should be. Because they take people's money and they're entrusted with that. And so, bankers have not always been – and made capital accessible to the whole community.
[0:20:06] KM: Yeah. Because they don't want to take the risk.
[0:20:08] VM: Well, there were a lot of discriminatory practices. You've heard the term red lining.
[0:20:12] KM: Oh, yeah.
[0:20:13] VM: That was a term that bankers used. When they would be on a chalkboard, they take a red pen. They draw on a map and say we're not going to lend in this area. Then the government decided to do something about it. We need to stop this." And so, there was a series of laws that came about. One was the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act that said we're going to track who gets loans. Where they get loans? We're going to measure that. We're going to look at declination rates. Why is this person or this group being declined more than this group of people? And so, they began to take a look at that. And a series of fair lending laws began to come on the books.
And then in 1977, a companion regulation with this was a Community Reinvestment Act that said that banks have to meet – banks have to meet the credit needs of their entire community, including the low and moderate-income community.
[0:21:16] KM: Did they give them quotas?
[0:21:17] VM: No. No. Because, again, this was done with sound banking practices. CRA is an economic issue. It's not a fair lending issue. We don't look at race and protected class when it comes to CRA. CRA deals with low and moderate-income people, low and moderate-income geographies.
And so, in Harrison, Arkansas, you have low and moderate-income areas. You have low and moderate-income individuals. And so, the bank has to try to meet those needs of low and moderate-income areas. And, of course, if a community or area doesn't have access to capital, then it affects their ability to grow.
[0:22:01] KM: Right.
[0:22:02] VM: A lot of areas just weren't getting loans.
[0:22:05] KM: Do you work with Arlo Washington at People's Trust Fund
[0:22:08] VM: That's a separate financial institution. CDFI, Community Developer –
[0:22:11] KM: Do you ever send people over to him? We've interviewed him. He's wonderful at trying to help low-income people get money. And he does have federal backing. And he has backing from the Rockefeller Winrock group.
[0:22:20] VM: He has a Community Development Financial Institution. There are different types of financial institution. He has a CDFI. And so, banks are encouraged – a conventional bank like ours, we're encouraged to work with CDFIs. Either make deposits in CDFIs. We take our money, we can make a deposit in a CDFI. The CDFI then can take our money and then loan that out. We get CRA consideration through that. We can partner with the CDFI if it's a loan participation where we make part of the loan, they can make part of the loan. We would get CRA credit for that.
And so, there are a number of different things that we can do to work with CDFIs like People Trust and Arlo Washington. There are a number of different ways that we can get CRA consideration. Because we get that for lending. We get that for services. And we get that for investments.
[0:23:17] KM: You were appointed – to change subjects now. You were appointed to fill a vacancy at the city board for Ward 1 in October of 2021. What is the story about that?
[0:23:27] VM: Well, the late great Erma Hendrix, who was the Ward 1 representative for the City of Little Rock for years passed away in October of '21. And the remaining – we have a 10-member city council. 10 members and a mayor. And so, the nine remaining members of the city council would have to select her replacement to serve out her remaining term. And so, her term was going to end in December of 2022. And so, 21 people applied for that job. And the nine members of the board end up selecting me.
[0:24:14] KM: You applied for the job.
[0:24:15] VM: I applied for the job. Something I said I would never do. I didn't want to be in politics. I'm Virgil Miller. Everybody knows me. Everybody likes me. Why should I put myself into that? And I won the office. I'm currently in the second year of a four-year term.
[0:24:32] KM: What's the biggest problem facing Ward 1? Your Ward.
[0:24:36] VM: Well, it's the oldest infrastructure, housing, weed lots, vacant houses, dilapidated housing. We have infrastructure needs. Those are certainly some of the things that –
[0:24:55] KM: Homelessness?
[0:24:58] VM: Unsheltered people. Definitely so. Definitely so. We have most of the shelters here. And when you're downtown, that's where unsheltered people want to be. They want to be downtown.
[0:25:09] KM: Yeah.
[0:25:11] GM: The infrastructure makes no sense. Yeah.
[0:25:13] VM: Yeah. Where people are.
[0:25:14] KM: How about crime in Ward 1? Is it bad? Who's got the biggest crime?
[0:25:19] VM: Well, it's all over the city. And so, when people ask me, "Virgil, what's your top things that you talk about that you think is important?" I say, "Well, public safety, public safety, and public safety." If we provide public safety – and public safety is much more than just police officers. It is affordable housing. It's job opportunities. It's youth programs. That's what makes a city safe. When you can give idle minds something to do. When you can have opportunities for people. That is what we're trying to do. When we can have more mental health professionals. I don't want to call a patrol officer if somebody's walking down the street having a mental episode talking to themselves."
[0:26:02] KM: But that's the only person you can call right now.
[0:26:03] VM: Well, right now we have about four people on our mental health team. We have social workers. And, of course, if we can get sales tax passed then we will have 15 community officers. We believe in foot patrols, bicycle patrols. We need more community-oriented policing. And we need more social workers. And we'll put together these social work teams. We'll have those. And that's what we're trying to do.
[0:26:33] KM: You brought up sales tax. Our sales tax in Little Rock, Arkansas is 9%. That's almost 10%. That's a big sales tax compared to a lot of other cities, specially a poor city like ours.
[0:26:46] VM: I mean, when you look at portion of sales tax, I'm not exactly sure that percentage, I think it's a little bit different from that. But Little Rock only gets a smaller percentage of that.
[0:26:57] KM: Yeah. But let's talk about 9%. The sales tax is 9% of sales. Being a businesswoman, and you're being a banker, it's a percentage. We are in the middle of inflation. Let's say before Covid, something cost $100. You made $9. The city and county made $9 in sales tax. Now we've got inflation. It's up to – let's say that same $100 purchase is now $150 purchase. It's a percentage. Now the city is making $15 instead of $9. I don't know why. Because it's a percentage. That as inflation rises, the money to our city doesn't rise. It seems like they should go together. Are you just –
[0:27:48] VM: From a banking standpoint, it certainly doesn't work that way.
[0:27:52] KM: Why? Percentage is percentage.
[0:27:55] VM: Say if you go over North Little Rock and they have a higher sales tax –
[0:27:59] KM: What is theirs over there?
[0:28:01] VM: I don't know right off hand. But I can tell you, when I go over there, I go to McCain Mall and I buy a shirt. I buy a white shirt over there. But something's wrong with it. it doesn't fit. I take it back to Dillard's in Little Rock. They give me a refund. They give me a refund. Because the sales tax over North Little Rock is higher than one in Little Rock. And so, the communities around us that have a higher sales tax in Little Rock is North Little Rock, Ben, Brad, Conway. All these communities –
[0:28:29] KM: They all have a 10% sales tax.
[0:28:31] VM: Well, it's not 10%. I don't know exactly what it is. But it's higher than Little Rock.
[0:28:37] KM: Are you talking about fractions?
[0:28:39] VM: Yes, percentages.
[0:28:39] KM: That's not even worth talking about.
[0:28:41] VM: Well, it does. When it adds up, it's millions.
[0:28:43] KM: When you get that many paper, it adds up. You sound like my mother. Count your pennies. The mayor's in charge of the police and the fire, the utilities, the roads and services, and the budgets. How does the board play into the hierarchy of all this?
[0:28:58] VM: Well, we have a hybrid form of government here in Little Rock. And I don't think it serves the community very well at all quite frankly.
[0:29:10] KM: Tell our listeners what's happened.
[0:29:12] VM: In 2007, the City of Little Rock put before the voters an ordinance to change or amend parts of the former government. And that is to have the mayor work full-time. They have the mayor work. Get a full-time salary. And to give the mayor certain powers that they didn't have before like making appointments on commissions and boards. And having the city manager act somewhat like a chief operating officer in that situation. Because we have – the former government we have in Little Rock right now is city administrator, city council. That's the form of government we have. We don't have a strong mayor form of government. Not like North Little Rock. We have a city manager and we have a city council.
[0:30:06] KM: But the mayor used to be even weaker.
[0:30:08] VM: Absolutely. But in 2007, they took one of the city council people positions and say we're going to make this the mayor position. We're going to make it full-time. We're going give you a full-time salary. We're going to give you certain powers. But it didn't change the fundamental structure of the government.
And so, in 2018 when Frank Scott was elected mayor, he says, "I'm going to exercise these powers. I'm going to exercise these powers." And so, that's what you just made reference to. That the mayor says, "Well, right now, as of today, these departments are going to report to the mayor. These other departments are going to report to the city manager." The city manager and the city attorney are evaluated by the city council. They –
[0:30:58] KM: Are you calling the council and the board the same thing?
[0:31:01] VM: Yes. Yeah, the city board. And so, it's this hybrid form of government.
[0:31:08] KM: It seems like that should work good. Now the mayor's got all the power. He ought to be able to go in and do anything.
[0:31:11] VM: Mayor doesn't have all of the power. We still have a city manager. And we still have a city board.
[0:31:18] KM: Now, is it a battle of the egos?
[0:31:19] VM: Well, it is certainly a battle of who has powers as it's spelled out in the form of government.
[0:31:30] KM: Okay. The answer to that was yes. What do you think the mayor's biggest strength is? And where could the board improve itself?
[0:31:39] VM: Well, when you have a mayor, you sort of have the face of the community. Because, again, the mayor's working full-time. The city council made up of 10 people. Some of these people have jobs. It really is a situation that lends itself to older people to be on the board. Because when I got on the board, it only paid $18,000 a year.
[0:32:06] KM: And took up how much time a week?
[0:32:08] VM: Well, we meet every Tuesday.
[0:32:10] KM: Every Tuesday. For how long?
[0:32:11] VM: Well, agenda meetings start at 4pm. They can last however long it takes –
[0:32:17] KM: An hour and a half the, the one I watched. But is that every week or just once a month?
[0:32:20] VM: No. It's every week.
[0:32:23] KM: The agenda meeting is every week?
[0:32:24] VM: The agenda meeting is second and fourth Tuesday. The board meetings are first and third Tuesday.
[0:32:29] KM: You do meet every week.
[0:32:30] VM: We meet every week.
[0:32:31] KM: Well, not all of them are online.
[0:32:33] VM: They should be. They should be. They should be. All those should be online and streaming live.
[0:32:39] KM: And, again, someone's dropped the ball. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
[0:32:43] VM: And so, that is a situation where the mayor being full-time now can go to all the ribbon cuttings, can go to all the events.
[0:32:54] KM: That's what the mayor did when I was first become an entrepreneur in Little Rock, is the mayor did all the ribbon cutting. And the city manager, Bruce Moore did all the grunt work.
[0:33:04] VM: The department's day-to-day operations. But the mayor now does that. And so, what you have now, you have six people, six out of 10 people on the city board are over 70 years old.
[0:33:15] KM: Is that good or bad to have that experience?
[0:33:18] VM: Experience is good. But, also, it's tough when you don't have anybody in their 20s. You don't have anybody in their 30s.
[0:33:27] GM: You don't have to be old to experience.
[0:33:29] KM: Yes, you do. You can't buy wisdom. You just can't buy it. You can't. I mean, if experience was transferable, everybody would be transferring it. One of the things I liked about you and the board though is because you did have experience. You've now been on since '21. When someone brought something to the board the other day, you said, "This looks like something that I vetoed once before. And I'm trying to remember why I vetoed it. Can anybody remember? I'll go back and look at my notes." I also saw old Joan Adcock saying, "We've had this problem before." And that's when I started to think – because I'm of the mindset you need young people. But when I started seeing old man Virgil, old man Joan Adcock, I was like, "Yeah. We need y'all's experiential wisdom."
[0:34:20] VM: If you're 25 years old, and you have a family, and you have an obligation to meet every Tuesday, and if you don't have a job that gives you that kind of flexibility because – I would say you're not going to be able to raise a family on $25,000 a year. And at first, it was just $18,000. And put in the type of time the city board –
[0:34:43] KM: $25,000 for one night a week.
[0:34:46] VM: No, it's not. Joan Adcock works 60 hours a week.
[0:34:51] KM: How come?
[0:34:51] VM: Because that's what she likes to do.
[0:34:53] KM: She drives around and looks at everything?
[0:34:54] VM: She does that. I mean, she gets up and goes bed working for the city.
[0:34:59] KM: Do you have to – outside of the board meetings, how many hours would you say a week that you have to go to ribbon – community service things? Or do you have to read all that legal ease that you have to read before the board starts?
[0:35:15] VM: You certainly do. I mean, if you're going to be an effective board member, you're going to read what's on the agenda.
[0:35:19] KM: How many pages are those agendas?
[0:35:21] VM: Sometimes they can be several pages. But that also includes when you then drill down into it, what's the write up from the board? What's the survey look like? What's the zoning look like on that? What's the discussion with the staff on that look like?
[0:35:36] KM: How many items do you think there are each week that you have to read through?
[0:35:42] VM: We have ordinances. We have resolutions. It could vary anywhere from 15 to 30 items. And, of course, when you are the director of a Ward, and my phone number is public, I get a lot of phone calls.
[0:36:03] KM: How many do you get a day?
[0:36:05] VM: Sometimes I can get anywhere from a half dozen to a dozen phone calls from people.
[0:36:10] KM: A day.
[0:36:12] VM: Yes. A day. And then the evenings too.
[0:36:13] KM: You treat them the way that – you treat the people that come to the board and that come to the podium at the board members. Because this is the way that – is it effective to come to the podium? Because I watch these poor people come to the podium. It breaks my heart to see this man come up there and say, "This is my third time to be here. I can't get the trash picked up. They've blocked my driveway. I can't get into my house." Or another guy comes up there and says, "I'm trying to get to work. The bus has not been running when it's supposed to." Another guy comes up there and says, "The drainage is ruining my property. What do I do?" And it's just most dismissive answers you've ever heard. It says, "Thank you Mr. so and so. We'll look into that. Somebody make a note."
[0:36:55] VM: Yeah, that's what happens. When you have every first and third – when we have Tuesday, when we have board meetings, there's a place on the agenda for citizen communications. And anyone can come before the board. Come early. 50 minutes early or so. Fill out a card. And you get to speak to the board up to three minutes on anything you want to speak about.
[0:37:19] KM: Oh, I saw one guy was mad about gay pride flags during Pride Week downtown. And I was like, "All right. Dismiss that guy." I was like, "Really? Is this a city board issue?"
[0:37:27] VM: But you can speak about whatever you want to. Now we don't engage that person in communication. They get to say whatever's on their minds. And then, of course, after that, maybe a staff person can follow back up with them about their particular issue. But we're not going to be engaging with someone who comes up to the mic and wants to question us. Look, that's not what this is for. This is for you to – whatever your three minutes you want to talk about, you do it.
[0:37:56] KM: Why do these guys to keep coming back and talking about basic management and maintenance?
[0:38:03] VM: I think people have passion about what they want –
[0:38:05] KM: But why are we not picking up these people's trash? And why is there drainage problems? And how are we going to vote for another 1% sales tax when we haven't executed the things that happened in 2011?
[0:38:16] VM: Well, that's some good questions. Obviously, city our size in Little Rock, we have probably over a billion dollars of infrastructure needs. A billion. That's with a B.
[0:38:27] KM: The mayor said 5 billion when I was watching him the other day.
[0:38:31] VM: Well, I mean we have a lot of infrastructure needs.
[0:38:33] KM: I travel a lot. Our city's one of the dirtiest cities I've ever seen it. It did not used to be this way. I'm embarrassed to drive down 630 freeway. And I know that's a highway issue. But why isn't the city calling the dang highway department every day and saying, "Hey, get your guys over and clean up?"
[0:38:49] VM: We have a lot of efforts as it relates to litter and trash. And keep Arkansas beautiful. And keep city beautiful. And director – I'll give a shout-out to Director Capi Peck, who has now labored herself the Litter Queen of the city.
[0:39:03] KM: I love it.
[0:39:04] GM: I love that.
[0:39:06] VM: And she is taken upon herself to really try to get our city clean. But I see people riding down the street and throw something out of their car.
[0:39:15] KM: You used to not see that.
[0:39:16] VM: Well, that's people. That's not the city. And so, when I see that and they throw something out of their car and I see it and I'm thinking, "Boy, somebody's going to say the city needs to be ashamed of themselves." That is the person. There is some civic resident responsibility when they throwing trash out – I mean, we can clean up trash.
[0:39:36] KM: Well, that brings up another issue. How do you train people to be good citizens of Little Rock?
[0:39:43] VM: That's a good question.
[0:39:44] KM: That is a lot of every big city's problem is home training. I mean, my parents taught me you don't throw litter out. Plus, when they first started the litter bug, Don't Be a Litter Bug campaign, there were cops going around writing you $100 fines if they saw that. We don't do that anymore. We don't write fines for expired tags. We don't write fines for littering. I don't know if it's because we don't have enough police force. Again, it's back to not minding our house. It's kind of like a parent that doesn't discipline their child.
[0:40:15] VM: It's a tough situation when we are asking. That's like with school teachers. We ask school teachers to do a lot.
[0:40:23] KM: Oh. Ridiculous amounts.
[0:40:24] VM: I have family members that are teachers. And back in the good old days, it was reading, writing arithmetic. Now we want the teacher to be a nurse. We want the teacher to be a social worker. We want the teacher to – I mean, we're asking a lot for people to do. And we ask police officers to do a lot, too, when an officer signs up to serve and protect. I obviously want the right type of people. Everybody doesn't need to be carrying a gun. That's not a good job for everybody.
[0:40:58] KM: No.
[0:40:58] VM: We want police officers that don't want to draw their weapons.
[0:41:01] KM: Yeah. We're speaking today with the community-minded and longtime reputable banker, Mr. Virgil Miller, whose daytime job as Community Reinvestment Officer for Arvest Bank dovetails tells well with his elected position as the Little Rock Arkansas's Ward 1 City Director. And now we're going to talk about the master plan for Little Rock.
[0:41:21] VM: Downtown master plan.
[0:41:23] KM: Why would the whole city want to give a 1% sales tax if it's only for the downtown master plan?
[0:41:29] VM: Well, it's not. There are a number of items that deal with public safety, that deals with parks, that deals with public infrastructure, and deals with Porter economic development. The downtown master plan was just a small part of what we really did outside of the efforts on the sales tax itself. We took approximately $750,000 of American rescue plan money to put together a comprehensive plan for our downtown. Something that's never been done before.
And one of the things that we found out from these national planners that we'd hired that we have approximately 45,000 people or so that work in downtown Little Rock from 8 to 5. At 5:00, the people that live in downtown Little Rock about 45,000.
[0:42:29] KM: Say those numbers again.
[0:42:31] KM: Right about 45,000 that work downtown from 8am to 5pm. Then after 5pm, the people that live downtown is about 4,500, 44 to 4,500.
[0:42:42] KM: Goes thousands of less people.
[0:42:45] VM: And so, what this plan has showed us is that we need more housing downtown. We need to get more people to live downtown.
[0:42:55] KM: Or it just show you that people don't want to live in Little Rock?
[0:42:58] VM: Well, we've got to give them some choices. We got to give them some options.
[0:43:05] GM: I know that nobody likes to commute, you know?
[0:43:07] VM: Yeah. I mean, I live downtown. I can be home in five minutes. I love it. And I guarantee you that a lot of people would love to walk. That's what you have in bigger cities. That's what we're trying to create. We're trying to create what they call a 24/7 city. It makes your city safer. When you have people that live, work, and play downtown, you'll be more inclined to walk down the street because you see other people walking down the street.
[0:43:36] KM: You're not alone on a dark alley.
[0:43:38] VM: Exactly. And so, we need that. We need to have more people living downtown. We have a lot of people that work downtown. We won't have a lot of people that live downtown. And so, that's one of the things that this master plan talks about. How do we do that? How do we encourage that? How do we incentivize developers? How do we use our river?
We have a tremendous asset, it's called the Arkansas River, that we have not utilized much in the past. Cities would die to have a river front. And so, when we were developing – you take a look and see what's going on. The buildings that were built in Little Rock, they face south. They don't face north to the river. And so, what you see being developed over North Little Rock now, over in Rock Creek or so, they developed the best view of Little Rock from North Little Rock.
One of the big things that's in the sales tax that's being contemplated is an outdoor sports arena. That would go over by the old Bass Pro Shop over in Southwest Little Rock. We have so many families. And I know when my daughters were younger and we go to softball tournaments, we go to a regional tournament maybe in Conway or Cabin. We didn't have facilities here in Little Rock. And so, the outdoor sports arena would now give us the capability to have that.
Can you see a busload of people coming in from Little Rock coming to our outlet mall? Spending the weekend there. Going to the movie. We have a movie theater there. We have apartments there. We have several restaurants there. Then we have a ball field. They can spend the whole weekend there in that whole Bass Pro Shop area.
[0:45:22] KM: And they have an electric car vehicle charger. Because sometimes I have to go there.
[0:45:26] GM: Yeah.
[0:45:27] KM: We need more of those in the City of Little Rock.
[0:45:29] VM: Yeah. We're working on that too. We're trying to, again, make our city attractive where people want to live, want to work, want to play, and come down. And so, that is –
[0:45:42] KM: The mayor actually said in the board meeting when one of the board members said, "Our city is not as attractive as it used to be." And she said, "I don't like to bring people into the city." He said, "People don't look at that when they come to the city. They come here for jobs or they come for something." He does not buy into what you just said.
[0:45:59] VM: Well, I believe that the mayor embraces all of those things. He wants the city to be attractive. Believe me, he does.
[0:46:09] KM: He said it didn't matter. Literally said it does not matter to people moving here to buy a house.
[0:46:13] VM: Yeah. I don't know the context of that. And I certainly want don't want to speak for the mayor. But I can certainly speak for myself that you have to have a quality of life that people want. And so, when we are tracking all these industries here and our port is growing – because we are just about centrally located in the whole country. We have river. We have rail. We have air. We have highway.
[0:46:43] KM: Highway. Freeway.
[0:46:44] VM: We are extremely attractive. And we beat out a lot of other cities for companies to relocate here in Little Rock. And now we have a thousand-acre supersite that we are working on –
[0:46:56] KM: Where's that?
[0:46:57] VM: It's in the port. It's in the port. The Port of Little Rock has this thousand-acres, ready to be developed. And if we can get that, we're talking about – get a company to come here. Whether it's a car manufacturer or whatever. We're talking about tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.
[0:47:15] KM: Has anybody called Elon Musk?
[0:47:19] VM: I'm sure –
[0:47:21] KM: Austin's not that far. He can just drive up here and do –
[0:47:24] VM: We have a lot of efforts just going on. And so, when you see an announcement for a new business that's coming here or a ribbon cutting for a new business, whether it's Trex down in the port or whatever, that's probably been years in the making.
[0:47:38] KM: Yeah. Let's talk about homelessness. And I wish people weren't begging. But you explained to me why people are begging. And then we're going to wrap the show up. You explain to me why we cannot do anything about the homeless people begging on the corners. Tell our listeners it's their right. And why? And from the Supreme Court.
[0:47:55] VM: Well, certainly, there is is not a law against homelessness. And so, when you see people walking up and down the street on a public right of way, that's not against the law. And so, people want to know, "Well, what are you going to do with all these unsheltered people? What are you going to do about panhandling? What can you do about that?" Well, it's not against the law to do that. It is your choice whether you want to contribute to someone if someone's asking you for contribution. You have the right to say yes or no.
The Supreme Court also said that people have a right to be in public right of ways. And so, people said, "Virgil, what about all these people that are in intersections always asking for money?" Well, we tried to pass laws. City tried to pass laws to keep people from being in intersections. It went all the way up to the US Supreme Court that says that is a freedom of speech. Asking for money, panhandling is a freedom of speech. And so, that's something we just got to deal with. We got to live with that.
[0:49:07] KM: Mm-hmm. My daughter-in-law, she worked for Our House for a long time. And they do not want you giving money to these people on the street. They are very adamant. Yeah. It's not that simple.
[0:49:18] VM: It is not. Because you'll have somebody go to a restaurant down in SoMa and they'll bring in somebody and says, "I want to buy this person a hamburger." And then the management will say, "We banned that person from coming here." "Well, why did you ban this – I'm just trying to get him a hamburger." "See, you're not here every day. We deal with this person every day and even after hours when this person has broken into our shop. We banned them from being here." "Well, you're a bad person. Let me put you on Facebook Live." And they pull out their camera. And they're filming. And they're talking on this and saying, "This mean restaurant here won't even let me buy a hamburger." They don't understand.
[0:49:57] KM: No.
[0:49:58] VM: People want to do these good Samaritan deeds and then they get up and leave.
[0:50:02] KM: Yeah. They're not educated on that they're not helping the homeless.
[0:50:05] GM: Well, and it goes back to what you were saying about keeping people downtown. I live and work downtown as well. And I walk from here to SoMa and back twice a week. And the experience that you have with the people that I see regularly are – yeah, it's way more complicated than just buying them a hamburger, or giving them five bucks, or telling them to go or not go into a restaurant. Because one time I saw a guy take somebody's cane when she was dining outside. And somebody had to make sure that he didn't hurt anybody with it. And that guy has a problem that needs to be addressed. But letting him into that restaurant is like not going to solve that problem. Buying him a hamburger is not going to solve that problem. It's nuanced.
[0:50:48] KM: Yeah. I've enjoyed talking to you, Virgil. I always enjoyed talking to you.
[0:50:51] VM: Well, I appreciate that.
[0:50:51] KM: I want everybody to know you're single because you're really cute.
[0:50:56] VM: I'm through of that business. I'm out of that business.
[0:51:00] KM: That's why I brought it up –
[0:51:01] VM: I am out of that business.
[0:51:02] KM: I wanted to hear him say that.
[0:51:03] VM: I am out of that business.
[0:51:04] KM: I love it when he says that. All right. Before we go, what do you want our listeners to take away from this interview?
[0:51:09] VM: I want the listeners to know that you live in a great city if you live in Little Rock. We are a progressive city. We are a growing city. We have a river that we can develop. And so, you should be proud to be a resident of Little Rock. And if you want to get involved, do something. Don't complain. Get on some commission. Get on some board. Organize your neighborhood. Don't complain about the problem. Do something about the problem. And if you see some trash, organize some people, "Let's pick it up."
[0:51:41] KM: Thank you, Virgil. We've been speaking today with the civic-minded banker and city board member, Mr. Virgil Miller of Ward 1 in Little Rock, Arkansas. And whose day job is working at Arvest Bank as their Community Reinvestment Officer. Helping low to moderate-income persons qualify for loans while maintaining safe and sound banking practices. Thank you so much, Virgil. I've really enjoyed talking to you. And we have a desk set for you.
[0:52:05] VM: All right. thank you.
[0:52:06] KM: And we want to let you know that this show was recorded in the historic Taborian Hall in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas and made possible by the good works of flagandbanner.com; Mr. Tom Wood, our audio engineer; Mr. Jonathan Henkins, our videographer; daughter, Miss Meghan Pittman, production manager; and my co-host, Mr. Gray McCoy IV. AKA Son Gray.
To our listeners, we'd like to thank you for spending time with us. We hope you've heard or learned something that's been inspiring or enlightening. And that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. And I'm Kerry McCoy. And I'll see you next time on the radio with Up In Your Business. Until then, be brave. And keep it up.
[OUTRO]
[0:52:48] GM: You've been listening to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy. For links to resources you heard discussed on today's show, go to flagandbanner.com, select radio show and choose today's guest. All interviews are recorded and posted the following week. Stay informed of exciting upcoming guests by subscribing to our YouTube channel or podcast wherever you like to listen. Kerry's goal is simple, to help you live the American dream.
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