Briarwood Area
Neighborhood Association
~ Since 1997 ~
Little Rock's Second Safest Neighborhood
The Briarwood Area Neighborhood Association covers a number of subdivisions. It is planned to recognize two subdivisions in 2004, Briarwood and Cardinal Heights, by erecting signs.
it
How the Briarwood Area Neighborhood Association Started
by Jerry Larkowski
Our neighborhood organization was started in the fall of 1997 by Dana Deree. He made phone calls to various people around the neighborhood, and by late fall we held our first meeting at Christ Lutheran Church on Hughes Street. At the first neighborhood meeting, held at the Christ Lutheran Church on September 30, 1997, a board of 12 directors was elected. Dana served as our first president and Jerry Larkowski was our first vice president. Click here to see an early BANA newsletter from 1998.
We registered the Briarwood Area Neighborhood Association with the City of Little Rock as the official neighborhood association for the area west of University Avenue, south of Markham, north of I-630, and east of S. Rodney Parham Road. A later neighborhood study commissioned by the City at the end of the 1990's included area as far west as John Barrow Road and we welcomed any residents from that area who wished to join us at our next meeting.
Then, in 2000, Dana stepped down as president to run for state representative and Jerry Larkowski served as association president until 2003. First, Mary Lou May and then, Kimberly Collins served as vice presidents during those years.
Since 1997, we have held from two to four neighborhood meetings a year. In addition to discussing neighborhood concerns, at some meetings, we’ve heard political speeches from candidates for local office. Once we sponsored an ice cream social on Tomahawk Drive.
Our association was instrumental in getting the city to install 4-way stop signs at Hughes and Sandpiper and placing speed bumps on other roads to slow through traffic. We also negotiated with Central Arkansas Transit to move the bus routes off our more private streets. We now appear to have won the battle to get a stop light at Markham and Hughes.
Our president since the fall of 2003 has been Nell Mathews Mock. Under her leadership, trees have been planted along I-630 and two attractive entry signs have been scheduled to be erected in 2004, one at Ouachita and Mississippi for the Briarwood Subdivision and the second at Hughes and Sandpiper for the Cardinal Heights Subdivision.
BANA, the Briarwood Area Neighborhood Association, is headed into the 21st century to make the area around Briarwood one of the quietest and safest places to live in Little Rock.