An Arkansas House committee's resistance to legislation granting greater water access outside the city has county officials considering a new course for securing water connections for unincorporated development.
Possible paths to that end will be explored during the Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee meeting Monday at 5 p.m. in Room 200 of the Garland County Court House. Water is the lone agenda item following Wednesday's vote that failed to advance the bill out of the City, County and Local Affairs Committee of the House.
A March 20 vote on Senate Bill 762 also failed, causing its sponsor, Sen. Alan Clark, R-District 13, to forgo trying to get it back on the committee's agenda. A 22-10 vote in the Senate earlier this month sent the bill to the House, where it was stymied by city opposition reinforced from resistance exerted by the Arkansas Municipal League and northwest Arkansas-based water utilities.
County Attorney Ralph Ohm will present justices of the peace with options for another solution Monday night. He said he was still researching the county's options on Friday.
The city's water policy restricts access outside its municipal boundaries. A compromise proposal endorsed by the Hot Springs Board of Directors would extend access into the planning area for non-retail development after the city has secured a water source to supplement what is provided by its withdrawal agreement with Entergy Arkansas Inc. on upper Lake Hamilton, and three private lakes in northern Hot Springs.
The concession is tied to the county supporting the city's plan for developing DeGray Lake as a water source and enforcing conservation measures and water-theft laws in unincorporated areas.
City Manager David Watkins said the city needs the county's help to impose the more stringent requirements it plans to implement this summer, explaining that the city doesn't have the authority to enforce the conservation policy outside the city limits.
Watkins also said the compromise proposal includes extending water to economic development projects anywhere in the county, provided the project creates new jobs and doesn't adversely affect other groups requesting additional water. He said he's had discussions with Wal-Mart representatives to bring a location to the planning area, which extends up to 1 mile outside the city.
Clark's bill came to the fore as it became apparent the Community Water Committee formed by the city and county at the request of The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and Fifty for the Future was at an impasse, unable to merge the two parties' proposals into a mutually acceptable plan.
County representatives didn't attend the March 18 meeting Chairman Larry Stephens said was likely to be the panel's last gathering, preventing the memorandum of understanding and position paper adopted by the quorum court from being formally presented.
County Judge Rick Davis said the group had strayed from its organizing principle, calling the bilateral parley that included directors on the city board and justices of the peace unproductive. The meeting earlier this month was the only one since the initial sessions convened last fall.
"Policy was the whole reason why it was formed," Davis said. "It got off on everything but policy, and we didn't accomplish anything. You agreed to service an area. Now you're saying you're not going to. You're going to stop development and any business beyond a certain limit."
Davis and other county officials contend the city is obligated to serve areas where residents' property tax assessments have built infrastructure connecting them to the city water system. Clark's bill intended to compel municipal water systems to service such areas without requiring them to come under city authority.
He and other supporters of the legislation said infrastructure was conveyed to the city on the understanding that water access wouldn't be restricted or conditioned on annexation.
Watkins said approving unlimited connections wasn't a condition of the transfer.
The county maintains the rationale used by the city to justify its policy has veered from supply concerns to an economic motive bent on keeping sales tax receipts inside its taxing authority.
"You're saying it's a water emergency on one hand, but your policy is saying something different," Davis said. "That tells me it's not about water. It's about money."
Watkins allowed that providing water extensions for new businesses outside the city isn't a priority but said the sales tax issue is secondary to supply concerns, which he said are substantiated by a water supply study commissioned 10 years ago.
"We have a shortage," he said, citing the more than 50 instances in 2012 when the city said demand reached 80 percent of the system's treatment capacity, drawing concerns from the Arkansas Department of Health. "It's a crisis we have to deal with. We have a fiduciary responsibility to 35,000 customers, half of which live outside the city, not the 3 percent that get denied."
County officials have challenged the 3-percent figure, saying the policy dissuades people from submitting requests and doesn't accurately reflect its hindrance on unincorporated development.
Watkins said determining the policy's affect on the rate of requests would be conjecture.
"I deal in facts," he said. "I'm not going to speculate on who might not have done something. I'm not going to proof a phantom number."
Watkins said reluctance to use the water system, an asset he explained was originally built and paid for by city residents, to further development outside the municipal area isn't exclusive to Hot Springs. It's a reservation that almost invariably informs other cities' connection policies, he said, adding that the county's half-cent sales tax gets collected inside and outside the city while transactions occurring outside the city limits don't accrue to Hot Springs' General Fund.
Davis and other county officials have said the city needs to promote the benefits of annexation, such as lower insurance rates and improved law enforcement and fire protection response times, instead of relying exclusively on water access to bring areas into its orbit.
"Hot Springs is a great city, but it's not going to grow unless you make people interested in being a part of it," Davis said. "I want to see Hot Springs grow and be profitable, because it's what makes our community grow."
Watkins said Davis has been uncooperative in approving voluntary annexation requests, noting that Davis opposed several annexation proposals during a meeting last fall. State law gives county judges authority over voluntary requests.
The memorandum of understanding the quorum court adopted offered to approve voluntary annexation proposals in return for the city loosening restrictions on water, limitations Watkins said partially proceed from the more than 1,000 undeveloped lots inside and outside the city that have already been approved for water.
"I work for the city board, so I obviously have a bias," Watkins said. "But I think the city has bent over backward trying to work our way through this."
The water issue notwithstanding, Davis said there are many services the county and city collaborate on effectively, such as district court, animal control and road maintenance.
"We don't have any problems in those areas," he said. "There's a whole lot of things we do really well together."
The disagreements over policy haven't soured relationships at the department level, Watkins said, explaining that combined services are delivered with a spirit of cooperation and that services the county contracts from the city, such as information technology, haven't been affected.
"On an employee-to-employee level, the relationship has never been better," Watkins said.
He said the city continues to honor cost-sharing agreements to fund agencies such as the county departments of health and emergency management despite the county stripping approximately $350,000 from the city's 2015 street budget and opposing its plan to develop DeGray Lake as a water source.
Local on 03/28/2015