Bus shelters and signs began going up last week in Helena-West Helena in preparation for the start-up of CitiLink – a new fixed-route bus service for residents of the east Arkansas town.

HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. – Even among the dilapidated houses and ghostly storefronts in Helena-West Helena, it’s easy to believe the young Michael Boone when he says his beaten-down hometown will shake off its blues.

Interstate 30, the railroad and the airport were named Clark County’s top strengths during a survey of county residents, said members of the economic development subcommittee of the county’s Strategic Planning Committee.

Members of the Arkadelphia Planning Commission approved preliminary plans for a retirement community being developed by a local builder after no one objected during a public hearing Thursday afternoon.

Billy Bunn of Bunn Builders presented plans for The Gardens, a planned unit development to be occupied by persons over 55. The unit will be constructed on land that connects 26th Street to Walnut Street.

The year 2006 began in Clark County with a burn ban and sales tax refunds and ended with a cooperative effort of county residents to plan for growth and development.

Even a year later, the name Helena-West Helena doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

LITTLE ROCK – Bringing its system for taxing natural gas production into line with the times could put $4.5 billion to $7.5 billion into Arkansas coffers over the next 30 years, according to a report released Thursday by a nonprofit group.

LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families and Southern Good Faith Fund’s Public Policy Program released two reports Thursday on policy opportunities related to Arkansas’ severance tax on natural gas in the wake of development of the Fayetteville Shale Play.

HELENA-WEST HELENA – Phillips County is Arkansas’ poorest. But in the last two years, residents, local leaders and business owners have worked with Southern Bancorp to begin turning the economy around. The rural development bank-holding company says in a new report that the effort so far has brought almost 24 (m) million dollars into the eastern Arkansas county of 24-thousand people.

Delta Southern Bank has awarded three more grants worth $221,963 to Drew Enterprises, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, to renovate three buildings in Drew, Miss.