The Saline County Waterworks and Sanitary Sewer Public Facilities Board (SCWWSS) has sent a partial response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request sent in May by the City of Alexander. The FOIA request was prompted by the facility board's refusal to repair non-functioning fire hydrants and the sudden cutting off of new water and sewer connections in South Alexander.
Since the FOIA request was sent the SCWWSS has decided to continue approving new connections until it receives a report from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. The reason for the suspension of new connections was the expectation that the sewer plant has reached maximum capacity.
The FOIA request was introduced to the council at the May 20 meeting by Council Member Juanita Wilson. The main goal of the request is to determine how a bond, issued 10 to 20 years ago to upgrade the sewer plant, was used and why the sewer plant is now, allegedly, at capacity. The FOIA request also asks for financial information to determine revenue and spending practices.
SCWWSS provides water and sewer service to South Alexander; formerly known as Woodland Hills prior to its annexation into Alexander in 2006. Besides the possibility of stunting the growth of South Alexander, due to an over-burdened sewer plant, for several years city officials have been having a tug-of-war over who is responsible for the maintenance of fire hydrants.
Wilson explained what Alexander's previous fire chief (Mark Ridgeway) was told when he wanted to test the fire hydrants.
"Our former fire chief tried time after time to get them (SCWWSS) to let him inspect them" (fire hydrants), Wilson said. "They never would because they said they belonged to this water department. Now they're saying they go up to the city."
According to Fire Chief Ryan McCormick, of the 107 fire hydrants in South Alexander, "Ten do not work" and "[T]hirty-four have zero (water) pressure."
Access to working fire hydrants is one piece of the calculation used to determine the fire department's ISO rating. The ISO rating is used to set home insurance rates.
A written summary, based on the FOIA information received, was provided to council members by Wilson and Planning Commission Chairman Michael Huck. Information and documents requested by the FOIA request includes names of board members and board officers, board meeting schedule, annual budgets for the fiscal years 2020 to 2024, end-of-the-year bank statements for the calendar years 2020 to 2023 and the most recent available bank statement for 2024, signed minutes of all regular and special meetings held in calendar years 2020 to 2024. Last minutes provided were for the June 17, 2023 meeting. This leaves minutes between August, 2023 to at least February, 2024.
Two sentences in the February 11, 2023 meeting minutes provides a different spin on who should maintain the fire hydrants. "There is $8000 in the Construction account set aside for fire plugs. It was money left over from the 2012 bond construction project." Huck speculated that 12 years ago the board at the time seemed to be taking responsibility for the fire hydrants.
One set of documents requested was, "Copies of all documentation concerning all bond issues or loans." While these documents weren't provided, copies of the budgets from 2020 to 2024 show an annual six-figure payment being made on an Arkansas Natural Resources Commission loan. What it was used for is currently unknown.
The first question in the FOIA request was for the, "Names of board members." The response included the names of four current board members, two board members who resigned for health reasons and one vacancy. Question two asked for, "the names of board officers."
Board members include Faye McKeon (Chair), William (Bill) Reagan (Vice-Chair) and Andrea Bearden is listed as both Secretary and Treasurer. The fourth board member is Tim Coots. According to the response this leaves three vacant seats.
"So the current person who's in charge is the widow of the last person that was in charge," Council Member Joy Gray said. "They have been absolutely egregious in their behavior for the last, however many years, absolutely unhinged at a few different points. They have not ever been cooperative or even basically decent. But why are we worried about it now? Like they've been horrible for 20 years. Why is it a problem?"
"Well, because they're trying to stunt our growth for starters," Huck said.
The response from SCWWSS included the expiration of term dates. One of the vacant positions' term expired January 1, 2024. The board seat held by Tim Coots expires February 1, 2025. The seat held by William (Bill) Reagan expires January 1, 2026. Positions held by Faye McKeon, Andrea Bearden and one vacant seat expire February 1, 2027. Finally, the term for the third vacant seat expires December 1, 2027.
Huck explained to council members that the board was established with five seats, not seven. In 1987 the Saline County Quorum Court passed an ordinance establishing the SCWWSS and appointing, "The initial members of the Board, each of whom is a qualified elector residing in the County." The ordinance then names five local residents and assigns each a starting term of one to five years. That established a cycle of having a new five-year term beginning each year.
Gray said, "I don't think it's illegal to have more. I think you can't have less."
City Attorney Chris Madison said, "But we'll look into that."
There are three major questions in the FOIA request that have not been answered. They are, "Copies of all documentation concerning all bond issues or loans used to improve, repair, or upgrade the water system, the underground sewer system, or the sewage processing plant located at 16750 Brookwood Road, Copies of the schedule of all fees charged by SCWWSS including permits, new connections, re-connection, and water and sewer rates," and "Records reflecting the addresses of all properties owned, or used by, Saline County Water Works Sanitary Sewer Public Utilities."
The Public Facility Board meetings are every two months, the third Saturday of the month at 10:00 am in the office at 15250 Hwy 111, Alexander. The meetings are held in February, April, June, August, October, and December.
Department Reports
Police Department
Calls down, Citations up
"[T]hat was actually down, by a couple of hundreds, actually," Burnett said. "[P]robably due to all the rain we've had in the last couple of weeks, months. Normally, we run about 900 calls a month."
Citations, on the other and, were up for May.
"It was ... 409 for last month," Burnett said. "[T]hat's actually up quite a bit."
"[W]e have a couple of the active shooter training at Bauxite Elementary School," Burnett continued. "They do, we train with all the different agencies over there. So, we can ... cross train with them."
Cameras and a free truck
"We did get the first grant ... which is the local law enforcement block grant," Assistant Police Chief Burnett said. "It was for $7,400."
"The first one will be a combo camera, which is a live view", she said. "We will put that at the park and it is a 360 degree pan tilt zoom. We can pull video and still photos from that."
Assistant Police Chief Burnett said the second camera is stationary and will be mounted at, "East Azalea and Highway 111 because that's where a lot of our traffic comes in from outside the city. And that will read license plates."
"It will give the officers on duty live alerts if it comes across a solo vehicle, a solo license plate, a vehicle attached to a wanted person, anything to that nature," she said. "And then the officers can also put (out) an alert saying we have a hit and run and we have a partial flight and we know a vehicle description."
In 2018, 2020 and 2022 the same individual was arrested during traffic stops, instigated by the Alexander Police Department, and then arrested on drug related charges. According to Assistant Police Chief Burnett each time he negotiated a guilty plea in exchange for the loss of the vehicle involved in the traffic stop.
During the 2022 stop he was driving a 2019 Ford F-350 pickup truck. Through the prosecutor's office the truck was awarded to the police department which at the time of seizure, according to Burnett, was valued at $90,000.
"So we will need to keep that for police use for the chief's vehicle," she told council members. "So that saved us $55,000 on the cost of a new Tahoe along with the $80,000 current appraisal (of the 2019 Ford F-350). It was a total of $145,000 in savings and investment for the police department."
Fire Department
Testing, Training, Teaching and Hiring
"So we have been busy over the past month along with a lot of training," McCormick said. "Hose testing ..., over 12,000 feet of hose testing to comply with ISO. That all passed. We didn't have anything that failed."
"ISO is our insurance rating for the city," continued McCormick. "They are coming to town at the end of the month (June) for our new update, going through our policies to make sure we keep an ISO 2."
An ISO 1 is the highest score.
"And then the water system is still going to be a part of that problem," he said. "My goal is that we keep an ISO 2."
The water system in question is the Saline County Water Works Sanitary Sewer (SCWWSS) Public Facilities Board, which serves the Saline County portion of Alexander (excluding the St. Joseph's Glen and Meadow's Edge subdivisions). At the May council meeting McCormick reported that 10 fire hydrants are not working and several more have very low water pressure.
Since the annexation of what was Woodland Hills, now all of South Alexander, in 2006 SCWWSS management would not allow the fire department to test the fire hydrants as part of the ISO requirements. Now that fire hydrants are either not working at all, or are causing a reduction in water pressure, SCWWSS expects Alexander to pay for the repairs.
Central Arkansas Water (CAW) serves the Pulaski County portion of Alexander. Even though CAW maintains its fire hydrants McCormick told council members the city receives only one ISO rating. Decisions made by SCWWSS affects the entire city when it comes to determining the ISO rating.
"We also spent over 400 hours this past month in just training," McCormick said. "We've had four guys, actually two guys that just did a, it's called a certification for, natural certification for core rescue."
"It's a part of the USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) team that we have, that we have involved in state activation," McCormick continued. "It also has training that we do in-house that helps us to be more advanced in our skills for rope rescues, technical rescues, confined space, ditches, those kind of things, trenches."
McCormick has taken on the role of teacher to continue additional training and certification, without the added cost.
"I'm teaching our department two different national certifications," McCormick said. "It's called Instructor 1 and Officer 1, Officer Development Program. It's a 40 hour class for Instructor 1 and 40 hour class for Officer 1. And that helps them (fire fighters) for their professional development and also for their continuing education."
"I'm excited that we have one opening, the opening for firefighter for our department, McCormick said. "And it's the first time we've ever put applications out and did it, actually going through a true hiring process."
McCormick told council members 24 applicants responded. They were given a 100 question test and he expected to select someone before the end of June.
Code Enforcement/Animal Control
Residents complying with cleanup
"I've started a long, slow, grueling process of talking to as many people as I can in the city, letting them know that there's a lot of violations going on," Wyatt said during the June 17 council meeting. "There's a lot of progress on some of these vacant buildings. I've had, I think, six or seven people completely remove a building or remove a trailer that's been vacant for, you know, 10 years."
"Not a whole lot of problems," Wyatt continued. "Everyone's been pretty cordial. So, super happy to see, because I'm just willing to work with people. It's gonna take a lot of time for them to fix some of these properties."
Wyatt explained how residents can now go to the Alexander website to review ordinances and report violations. (Click HERE.)
"You can click on code enforcement and it'll have a little website where you can, residents can report violations on whatever in the city," Wyatt said. "And I've put on there ordinances that are most, you know, relevant right now."
Animal Control takes time to build
"With the help of the streets department, we have (been) trying to get a building cleaned up behind the development center that we're trying to save a lot of money and kind of trying to make that into a little shelter so that we can actually start housing some animals that need to be picked up," he said.
Wyatt said the best he can do for now is to try and locate the owner of any stray dogs. A new animal control ordinance was to be introduced at the June council meeting but it wasn't ready.
Mayor's Report
Grant update and Food Pantry
Earlier this year, at the April 15 council meeting, Herrmann announced the city has qualified to apply for a Brownfield Grant. The EPA funded grant will be used to remove hazardous contamination, mostly asbestos, from the former tuberculosis hospital allowing it to be demolished safely. The hospital building is located on the grounds of the former State-run and owned Alexander Human Development Center along Hwy. 111.
But now, Alexander is required to demonstrate how the State of Arkansas transferred ownership of the 65.69-acre property to the City. During its February 2018 meeting the council approved an ordinance accepting the state’s offer to take ownership of the Human Development Center. The former hospital and property were abandoned after Arkansas moved clients to a more homelike environment.
While the city has all the documentation needed to prove the property belongs to Alexander, according to Herrmann the EPA wants more.
"Originally, we thought, well, we just qualify," Herrmann said. "But they (EPA) wanted specific governmental functions from the state to the city. I can only supply what the city side of things."
"But I think we also have to do some research on the state side," she continued. "So we're just trying to clarify our eligibility."
The Indian Springs Baptist Church is operating a food pantry out of the Alexander Community Center #2. It's located on the grounds of the former Alexander Human Development Center.
"They do a large food pantry," Mayor Herrmann said. "They came over this past month (May). The next six months, they're going to have a food pantry at the large community center the last Tuesday of every month."
Next Meeting
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