

DREAM DIES: Idea for a culinary school, at right across from Arkansas Rep, was declined Tuesday.

The Pulaski Tech Board of Trustees decided today they couldn’t make the numbers work to locate a new facility for its growing culinary and hotel management curriculum downtown, rather than on its South campus as originally planned.

The vote was 5-2 for the South campus, with Diane Bray and Ronald Dedman favoring downtown. The others are John Suskie, John Barnes, Mary Jane Rebick, William Page and James Herzfeld. Page lives in Maumelle and Herzfeld in Benton. The rest live in Little Rock. Page and Herzfeld were absent from the meeting, but they cast their votes ahead of time with Chairman Suskie. CORRECTION: We incorrectly said earlier that Dedman, who’s been on the board five years, was a relatively new board member.

The Board looked again at a proposal from Mayor Mark Stodola that suggested the school could make a facility work at Sixth and Main, on a current parking lot, within the $15 million the school has raised through a bond issue to build on the campus on Interstate 30 near the Saline County line in Southwest Little Rock.


But a budget to make the building work would have removed most public spaces and constricted so-called “gross” space, such as hallways and other circulation areas.

Stodola took exception to school figures. He provided his own. He also said in an e-mail to the Times, “It appears many had their minds made up long ago. Their facts and figures were different again today, but the issue is over. … They could have had all the space they wanted with a minor variance in the gross up factor. Dividing up the culinary school in the future doesn’t seem very prudent or realistic, as [trustee John] Barnes has said, considering the unique equipment costs involved in outfitting a culinary school.”