GAC September 4, 2015 Reports
Chair—Jerry Yeric
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Jessieville School District Election—September 15, 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Early voting September
8-11, and September 14.
Please mark your calendar for Thursday, September 17th for a Town Meeting to be held at 3:00
p.m. at the Coronado Center on Entergy’s proposed rate increase of 13.5 percent. Mr. John
Bethel, Executive Director of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, will be the featured
speaker. Please plan on attending this event if possible.
We received some good news regarding SH 5. After a meeting with the Highway Commission the
commission has made some modifications of their original plan. While many people have been
involved in this project through the years, no one has been more involved and helpful that Paul
Pool. His understanding of highway issues has been invaluable to HSV. In addition to Paul’s
guidance, the roles of Senator Bill Sample, and Judge Jeff Arey cannot and should not be under
estimated. Our JP Jim Zahnd has also played a critical role in the entire process. We thank them
for their support.
Retirement/Relocation—Jim Harlow
David Twiggs and Jim Harlow met with the Executive Team of the Arkansas Economic
Development Commission on Wednesday, Aug. 26 at the Capitol. Those present were,
Mike Preston, Exec. Director; Danny Games, Deputy Director: and Matt Twyford, Regional
Mgr. Community Development Div.
I gave the RR presentation and David and I discussed various Retiree Relocation options
with the Team. Mike Preston is a former Deputy Dir. for Florida so he is well aware of the
impact RR can have on a state's economy.
Various ideas that were discussed were:
1. Finalizing just where best RR should be housed i.e. Parks & Tourism or Economic
Development, etc.
2. Looking for adequate funding alternatives
3. Possibly forming a small taskforce of stakeholders to look at best practices, and
strategies on what and how to market RR.
4. Looking at legislation that needs to be changed in order to make relocation to
Arkansas more enticing.
5. Conditioning key legislators, business leaders, and other key leaders on the importance
of this initiative.
6. Developing a proper Branding philosophy/strategy.
A lot of these ideas are ones that we have been advocating for the past two ye ars, but
this new Econ. Dev. Team is younger, more in tune with current relocation trends, more
savvy about the need for various Econ. Dev. tools to attract relocators, and are more
aggressive in their approach. Also they have the Governor as a supporter and potential
$$ funding source. We will see what happens
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Hot Springs—Cindy Calhoun
 City of Hot Springs:
o In memoriam:
David Watkins, City Manager of Hot Springs, passed away August 17 as the result of an
accident in his home. His untimely death was a shock to Hot Springs, the surrounding area,
and across the state. Mr. Watkins was passionate about Hot Springs and believed in the
potential of Hot Springs to be an exceptional community. He was a visionary and worked
tirelessly and faithfully to ensure Hot Springs’ future. Some of the key areas that Mr.
Watkins accomplished in his short three years as City Manager were: created the Thermal
Basin Fire District to bring safety in the downtown area; worked tirelessly to get the
wreckage of the Majestic Hotel cleaned up; understood the need for abundant and safe
water supply and worked with the Hot Springs Board of Directors in obtaining two new
water sources for Hot Springs; and championed downtown and the surrounding
neighborhoods. He will be remembered as the one who lead the way and set the course for
an improved Hot Springs. The legacy that David Watkins leaves will live on and bring an
extraordinary future for Hot Springs.
o
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Deputy City Manager, Bill Burroughs, was appointed as the interim city manager to fill the
vacancy. Burrough said “We have a lot of irons in the fire and we’re going to continue to
progress and move those forward.”
Water:
o A plan to reallocate more than 17 million gallons of water a day from Lake Ouachita to the
City of Hot Springs is now under review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Washington DC
office, the Vicksburg District commander said on August 28. This is an important
movement, the 6th step, in the flow chart of the 7- step process. It has taken two years to
get to this point and it will continue take time to get to Step 7 but at least we know where it
is in the process says Interim City Manager Bill Burrough.
o
U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark, said on August 28 that the citizens of Hot Springs could be
sure that Arkansas’ congressional delegation will continue to watch out for the city’s
interest in obtaining an additional source of raw water.
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Downtown Revitalization:
o Hot Springs Fire Chief Ed Davis said on August 26 that a majority of the owners of downtown
buildings that are declared unsafe have complied with the requirements of the Thermal
Basin Fire District. There are only four buildings that aren’t making progress besides the
Majestic Hotel.
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The Majestic Hotel:
o The City of Hot Springs purchased the Majestic Hotel complex on August 25th for
$672,782.90 and started formulating the plan for the cleanup of the “yellow brick” building
the next day.
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The city has a plan for the “red brick” building in the complex, but the focus for now is
getting the rubble cleaned up.
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Mid-America Science Museum:
o The Bob Wheeler Science Skywalk at the Mid-America Science Museum is among the 32
contenders for the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture’s inaugural
People’s Choice Award. Visit Hot Springs, CEO Steve Arrison said that this was very
important to Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission, which sponsored the
exhibit.
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The Mid-America Museum has partnered with the National Products Discovery group to
promote a Citizen Science Soil Collection project that will eventually lead to the creation of
new medicines.
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Oaklawn Park:
o Reader’s of a Group Tours magazine recently voted Oaklawn Park Best Casino in the South,
an addition to the accolades Oaklawn has received since opening its 58,000-square-foot,
$20 million expansion on Jan.9.
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National Park College:
o National Park College is in the process of applying for two grants to develop and implement
a new Innovative Technologies Center of Excellence. The targeted programs are meant to
offer short-term career and technical training and programs that produce certificates of
proficiency, technical certificates, Associate of Applied Science degrees and Bachelor of
Applied Science degrees or similarly designed bachelor’s degrees.
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Henderson State University—Hot Springs:
o Henderson State University—Hot Springs reached a record of 180 students on August 21.
The campus has exceeded expectations last fall and this spring in Henderson’s first full year
with new degreed programs offered locally. The 11-day count last fall saw 169 students
enrolled in Hot Springs classes.
Benton Chamber—Paul Day
 Robert McGowen is the new Director of Saline County’s Office of Emergency Management. He
has 4 shifts of operators with 3 working each shift. They provide help in disasters like tornados,
flooding, hazardous material problems, and all 911 calls in the smaller communities in Saline
County. The interface with 10 police departments and 24 fire districts and are the vital link to
people getting help in emergency situations.
 Have you ever wanted to map out Saline County’s subdivisions, land parcels, fire districts, flood
zones, and/or school districts? You now can by going to a new Saline County on line mapping
system called EDGE at web site www.efsedge.com/saline.
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Do you need to get your passport renewed? If so go to Crows Station on Highway 5 starting
September 2 from 10 am to 2 pm. The Circuit Clerk’s staff will be there to process your passport
on the first and third Wednesdays of every month.
Website Site – Clara Nicolosi and Dollar
 We are on track and making great progress towards completing the website. This month you will
see the paper version of the mock up and here is where we need your help. We are almost
limitless as to what we can do or add to the site - so please look through the other attachment
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and share with us what we are missing. Kudos to Michael Dollar - he completed this layout and
design and I think it looks great!
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URL or domain name selection is also on our to do list for this month. We will need to work
with the POA for funding and setup fees to get the website up and fully functional.
Water—George Bollier
 Work is continuing on the long range master plans for the water and wastewater systems.
 Average water consumption for July was 2.67 mgd, with two days over 3 mgd. The trend is going
up with the dry weather.
 Lake Lago is down 68 inches. Other lake levels and Secchi disk reading are shown in table below.
Lake
Balboa
Coronado
Cortez
DeSoto
Pineda
Granada
Sophia
Maria
Isabella
Estrella
Segovia
Lake Information
8/17/2015
Water Level
(in. Below Spillway)
-7.50
-8.75
-6.25
-4.00
-2.75
-12.25
-12.00
-9.75
-16.00
-9.75
Below Spillway. No
staff plate.
Secchi Disc
(Inches)
149
101
124
109
59
104
37
54
33
174
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Village Demographics – Lu Otto
Additional Village demographic analysis is underway in support of the IMPACT ’15 project.
IMPACT ‘15
Our July report provided a detailed outline of our project structure, primary work-group
members, manuscript drafting responsibilities, work flow, and timetables.
More recently we added Susan Elderton who, with her husband Bill, operate Advertising Design
Services here in the Village. Susan brings layout and design experience and expertise to the project and
we are pleased to add her to our primary work group.
Other members of our primary work group are Tom Leming, Dave Whitlow, Jim Zahnd, Wayne
Miller, Jerry Yeric and myself who are charged with writing responsibilities, and Frank Leeming who has
signed on as Editor of the document. Primary work group members will be supplemented as
requirements dictate.
We held an organization meeting of our primary work group on June 29.
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Our first writing deadline was Aug 24, at which time we reviewed first drafts of material for
Parts I and II of the document.
Our second deadline is scheduled for Tuesday, August 31, at which time updated drafts of Part I
material will be circulated within the primary work group for further review.
Our next deadline is Sept 14 at which time we will review additional draft materials of Parts I
and II of the working outline.
On October 12 the work group is scheduled to review updated drafts in anticipation of soliciting
reviews from reviewers outside the primary work group. In addition, we hope to have preliminary drafts
of material based on analysis by Wayne Miller.
We will fix later calendar dates as our work proceeds.
In conclusion, the two most important things we have to report are:
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We are underway and on schedule with drafting the early sections of IMPACT ’15.
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The IMPACT ’15 publication date is February 2016.
As the project moves forward, our activity level will increase, as will our needs including drafting
specific materials, proof reading, critically reviewing specific topic areas, and working on associated shortterm focused projects.
Members of GAC and others have assisted us thus far in matters large and small. For example,
earlier we indicated a pressing need to locate a person(s) skilled in manuscript layout and design, and
the Susan Elderton suggestion and eventual addition to our primary work came from GAC. Know that we
are grateful.
Moving forward, we will need your continuing input. We will keep you informed.
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