City, County & Local Affairs Committee- House
Video
Transcript
Bills discussed (12)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
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SB481
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “SB481 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING RETAIL WATER AND WASTE…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING RETAIL WATER PROVIDERS AND RELATED SERVICE. | A. Clark | Recommended for study in the Interim Committee on … |
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HB1025
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1025 Rye TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE NUMBER OF VOTING CENTER…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE NUMBER OF VOTING CENTERS IN A CITY OF THE … | Rye | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die Adjournment |
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HB1443
Act 830
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1443 Vaught TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING RURAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHOR…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING RURAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. | Vaught | Notification that HB1443 is now Act 830 |
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HB1614
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1614 Hawks TO CREATE A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR MUNICIPAL FIREFIGHTERS…”
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TO CREATE A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR MUNICIPAL FIREFIGHTERS. | Hawks | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die Adjournment |
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HB1735
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1735 A. Collins TO AMEND THE MUNICIPAL AID FUND; TO AMEND THE DI…”
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TO AMEND THE MUNICIPAL AID FUND; TO AMEND THE DISTRIBUTION OF REVENUES IN THE MUNICIPAL … | A. Collins | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die Adjournment |
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HB1766
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1766 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING MUNICIPAL SEWER SYST…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING MUNICIPAL SEWER SYSTEMS. | A. Collins | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die Adjournment |
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HB1926
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1926 Richey TO ALLOW A MUNICIPALITY TO AFFIX A SECURITY CAMERA T…”
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TO ALLOW A MUNICIPALITY TO AFFIX A SECURITY CAMERA TO A UTILITY POLE LOCATED WITHIN … | Richey | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die Adjournment |
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SB180
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB180 M. Johnson CONCERNING NOMINATING PETITIONS FOR MUNICIPAL EL…”
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CONCERNING NOMINATING PETITIONS FOR MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. | M. Johnson | [No text provided] |
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SB277
Act 880
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB277 Hill TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING SURPLUS COUNTY PROPERTY AN…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING SURPLUS COUNTY PROPERTY AND INTERNET SALES. | Hill | Notification that SB277 is now Act 880 |
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SB4881
· 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…of the most valuable aspects a few points I want to make on Senate bill 4881 before I leave you is as a general matter it does reflect t…”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB554
· 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…n the Senate, and then this one here in the House. you know SB 554 is a bill that that requires us to serve citizens outside t…”
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TO REQUIRE WATER PROVIDERS TO EXTEND WATER SERVICE TO NONRESIDENT CONSUMERS AND PROPERTY OWNERS. | A. Clark | Sine Die adjournment |
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SB599
Act 891
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB599 Flippo TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING THE ISSUANCE OF A BOND BY…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING THE ISSUANCE OF A BOND BY A REGIONAL SOLID WASTE … | Flippo | Notification that SB599 is now Act 891 |
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Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
0:18
It exempts multi-state water districts.
Speaker 15
2:00
I'm the city manager for the city of Hot Springs, and, you know, as we look at some of the bills that have been established, there are actually two bills that have been presented. One is still in the Senate, and then this one here in the House. you know SB 554 is a bill that that requires us to serve citizens outside the city limits but yet
this bill before you today would penalize cities for doing just that by taking our utility away from our elected officials and creating a commission some of which if you exceed 20 outside your your service area we'd actually have a county judge that would appoint people to that same commission the task force i attended many of those meetings and they worked hard and there were some good things that came out in this bill mainly those that focused on the fiscal
responsibility we certainly have have no issues with that the city of hot springs we're in we're a healthy system and we heard earlier where many have to go to anrc or go to the state to be bailed out we actually have the state coming to us to be that want to be part of our financing we're in the process of building a new plan it's 110 million dollars we've already bonded 20 million and we'll soon be going out for another 90 so we're we're a very healthy system finally the the task force
report as we heard earlier each one of those words were gone around and made sure everybody was okay with it before it came out in the report but the report it has statements such as encouraged may could but yet the bill says shall and will and those are inconsistencies between the report and what we see in this bill there's been a lot of changes a lot of groups that have been carved out of this particular bill and that that carving just gets that point a little bit sharper pointed
that spear at the City of Hot Springs and we just oppose this
Speaker 18
4:24
bill. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any questions? If not, I appreciate your testimony. Speaking for is Barry Haas, please identify yourself for the record if you
Speaker 22
4:46
would. thank you chairman fight members of the committee i had the privilege to serve as the consumer
representative with water knowledge on the task force and i appreciate the job that senator clark and representative love did this morning uh in in really doing an excellent job in my opinion of explaining what the bill's all about is as the chairman asked i'm not going to rehash some of things they said but there there are a lot of important elements in the bill some of them are mandates some of them are what i call aspirational they're they're things we're encouraging water utilities do for example to have at least some members of water boards or commissions to have
uh some level of training so that they can have a higher probability of being successful in managing their utilities what i want to concentrate on is the rate study part because that was discussed somewhat this morning the rate study as was said earlier uh utilities can get a free rate study from an agency here in the state but the rate study is every five years at a minimum and the bill staggers the application of the rate study the very smallest utility water utilities
in the state would have to do a rate study i believe it's by jan july 1st of 2022 the medium size water utilities it would be a year later july 1st of 2023 and the largest water utilities it would be a year later which is july 1st of 2024 so that means none of the water utilities would have to complete a rate study the earliest would be what three years and two months from now then four years and two months five years so this gives we we intentionally wanted to give the water
utilities around the state plenty of time if they're not already doing a rate study to do a rate study that i want to make sure you understand that uh and as was said this morning that can be done free now i'm i'm most familiar with central arkansas water uh having worked for 14 years to protect lake maumelle i attend many of their commission meetings so i'm familiar with what they do they do a rate study every three years and they implement those rates as i see it the importance of this rate study you all have two options before you today you can
not pass this bill which means it'll be a minimum of two years before the water utilities around the state and i'm talking not about the big ones that that are doing just fine i'm not talking about central arkansas water beaver water district or springdale the big ones i'm talking about the smaller utilities we heard as was said at our 22 meetings we heard from many many mayors water departments ceos etc from around the state and heard some dire stories about what's going on
this is an infrastructure deficiency is what it is and i want you to think of it as an infrastructure deficiency and so you either can say we're not going to do anything for two years which means for the next two years all of these water utilities that are already in deep trouble are going to get in deeper and deeper trouble or you can adopt this bill which representative love said this morning is is not perfect but will at least start moving you in the right direction
and again it's over time because the very first rate study is not mandated to be mandated to be completed for a little over three years it'll start moving things in the right direction to where you can start getting a handle on whether or not water utilities and how many of them are underpricing the cost of water and the cost of water is not just the day-to-day expense it's all of the uh infrastructure needs that they have to plan out into the future i know
again central arkansas water puts money in their rates every year to replace a certain so many thousand linear feet of pipe and they take the oldest leakiest pipes that their maintenance crews have to work on all the time so they have a very good plan and it's expensive but that's built into their rates most water utilities around the state are not doing that they're looking at day to day costs and leakage if they have pipes that are leaking 50 percent of the water between the
treatment facility and the tap when people their customers turn it on that that just that's wasted money so i want you to think of the rate part of this really and this is my opinion as one task force member is really the most important element although there are other important elements in here and so i would encourage you to approve this bill and start moving us at least in the right direction and this is not going to start solving things for several years now so you could argue
that you can come back two years from now in the legislative session and tweak this some more if you want because the very first rate study is not due until july 1st of 2022 so you still have time as a legislative body if you see further tweaks or massages to this legislation that you think are needed and it will not be too late to do that but it in a sense what you're doing is saying we think we need to start moving in the right direction and helping these water utilities around the state that are in trouble and going to get in worse and worse trouble as the months pass
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
10:12
thank you thank you mr haas okay uh speaking against it uh
Speaker 26
10:19
you know excuse me if i mess your name up today. Tim Nander. Please identify
Speaker 18
10:26
yourself and pronounce your name properly. Thank
Speaker 28
10:31
you. Tim Nyander, Utilities Director for the City of Fayetteville. There has been a lot of hard work on this bill by the task force and by Senator Clark. We do still have some concerns. I would like to say we are totally for working with the distressed
providers. When Ryan talks about a small system not be able to afford a $3,000 valve, we totally get that. In fact, we're working on the wastewater side of taking in a community that has a similar situation, taking in their collection and treating the wastewater at our plants. But I'd like to say that Fayetteville is not distressed, and we never plan on being distressed. if we ever did get that way you know we would want some help for sure but we're not planning
going that direction we try to do all the right things we have our CIP plans we do our water master plans and have a fund balance for reserves and we feel like that we are doing it right the the thing is is the possibility of going into a governing board we are getting close to the 20 percent we're getting close to that and it's accountability for us because several years ago the the city of Fayetteville did get away from the city manager
form of government and went to a strong mayoral form of government for the main reason that the elected officials are accountable to the citizens therefore the citizens judge their performance by their votes. If you go to a governing board that's appointed, then that's not going to be the case. And the citizens of Fayetteville are really into water supply and water quality very much. They do want their voices to be counted. So we do have concerns over going to a governing board of getting away from eight elected officials and going to five or six appointed officials.
I think in this case, you know, if there's going to be any more amendments made to this bill, maybe amending out the healthy water providers would be something to consider. It's just a situation where I don't think that the one-size-fits-all for the state. Thank you. Okay. Thank
Speaker 18
12:44
you. Appreciate your testimony. Speaking for the bill, Gerald Black. Good evening, committee. My name is Gerald Black.
Gerald Black
Unverified
12:59
I'm a justice of the peace in Hot Spring County
Speaker 31
13:02
representing District 7. I'm here in support of the bill. One of what we have heard from the opposition is in support of the municipalities. My support of the bill is really more specific to the users themselves. This morning when we heard from Senator Clark, he referred to this as a consumer protection bill. I agree with this. This is not a bill to create more government, which I would be wholly against, but this is a bill to promote good government when a municipality
has overreached or failed its financial responsibilities. One of the things that we certainly hear in the news plenty often is the overreach of the federal government. However, it seems to be a faux pas for us to criticize a local government if they have overreached as well, but in this case, this is what this bill would be addressing. Throughout the state, we do have a lot of healthy water systems. That's certainly the case, so this bill would really be a moot point
for those. When we heard this morning about 85 percent being underwater, remember, this is not 85 percent of the population being served by these underwater companies, but 85 percent of those utilities. And let's not forget, we live in Arkansas, which is a rural state, and most of our cities are small cities. So we hear from these large communities that are doing things well, and that's
great, but most of what we have in the state of Arkansas are going to be these smaller underserved communities that are struggling. One, I have two examples to make in our local community or my local community out of Hot Spring County. Malvern recently, the city of Malvern in 2017 passed a sales tax to offset where they have fallen behind on water infrastructure improvements. Had this
bill been put in place, which would have forced them into a rate study, they would have seen well ahead of time that they were not charging enough for their water delivery as well as the water maintenance. Let's be honest, if Intergy were to approach the state of Arkansas with a justification for raising rates, you wouldn't satisfy it by increasing a sales tax. No, you would then allow InterG to raise rates in order to offset that cost. The city of Malvern was so far behind
in getting their costs up to where they need to be, the only way they could solve the issue was a sales tax, which isn't necessarily the best way to do some things. Also in Hot Spring County, we have the city of Perla, and this bill will address this issue quite directly. The city of Perla is roughly a community of 250 people. They have their own water system. Going back to the early 80s, they started to extend their water system into the county, and they extended and
extended and extended and now 80 percent of their users don't live within the city of Perla they live within the county those county residents not having any voice not having any influence not having any opportunity to determine how that water is being delivered to them the city of Perla has failed to make their own rate study and they have fallen horribly behind in maintaining the system, and these county residents are now just being left to have to
pick up the pieces. One of the other conversations that happened this morning was the intermingling of funds, which is something that we see with some of these smaller underserved systems, whereas the city of Perla was not setting aside those funds specifically to cover the cost of the water system and water maintenance, they are intermingling those funds to help prop up the city itself. And again, what we've seen is now the falling apart of that system. So again, this bill
would have and will address two very specific issues that we have going on in Hot Spring County. One, it would have held the city of Melbourne accountable to their rates being grossly far from where they should be, and they'd be holding the city of Perla accountable to where they should be. Ideally, what we'd like to see is more of the rural water associations. And as Senator Clark mentioned this morning, water associations do allow for representation
from all of the people that are being served for it. What this bill addresses is those municipalities that have extended themselves beyond their corporate limits, which the Arkansas Code does allow for. There's nothing illegal about it. But once they start to extend too far and too far and too far, there's got to be some accountability to how far they can go without offering some consumer protection rights for those members that fall within the community, within the county community. I say again, this
is a consumer protection bill. It's not meant to hold back any of these municipalities that are doing a great job of delivering water. And I know there's a lot of them, but again, we live in a rural state, most of our cities are small, and roughly 85 percent of them have water systems that are far behind. You would never tell a gas station you're not allowed to raise the cost of gas because our community members can't afford to do it. The cost of delivery is the cost of
delivery, period. We are seeing water again or water being used as that political leverage as a reason not to vote for somebody or a reason to vote for somebody. Don't vote for this person because they plan on raising water rates, which we know needs to happen, or do vote for this person because they've promised to cut water rates, which doesn't need to happen. This is a basic utility and it's turning into a health and public safety issue
because now these small rural communities that are already struggling without cell phone and internet service, now you add this on, or literally the water issue kind of came first, already struggling for some of these basic infrastructure needs. And if this house does not pass this, you are essentially condoning the already fragile infrastructure that we have here in the state of Arkansas.
The greatest generation came back from World War II and built up this beautiful state. My parents' generation failed to maintain it, and now my generation's having to clean it up. This bill will help put some things in place. Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony.
Speaker 32
20:32
Speaking against the bill, Gene Huffman, Gilderree. okay you
Speaker 18
20:37
can straighten it out when you get up here okay please identify yourself for the record absolutely good evening i'm janae huffman
Speaker 34
20:49
gilreith so you were pretty close jean's my mom okay um thank you chairman fight for inviting us here um again this evening after being here this morning um i'm with rogers water utilities i'm our shared services manager and i sat on our commission for about eight years prior to joining the commission or prior to joining the utility as an employee so i can speak on both sides of the matter um but today i'm speaking on behalf of our utility um this matter is so important that several of us here have traveled you know a full day um friday when it was taken off and then again
today um for us to speak on behalf of this rogers water utilities opposes this bill um regarding water and wastewater retail provisions and now it's just water since wastewater was removed earlier The gravity of this bill and the proposed operation is not one to be taken lightly. The cost of upgrading water treatment plants and sewage treatment facilities is paid for by the ratepayers, as we're discussing here today, regardless of the citizen's income or net worth. I understand that Senator Clark has taken steps to allow this bill to be amended, but further work needs to be done.
And I would highly recommend, as we've stated here earlier, there are some great provisions within this bill. but the bill as it is written is extremely onerous on utilities that are performing well and that do rate studies and um and i don't see this as only a consumer protection bill um some of the provisions that are in it would actually harm or could harm some of our rate payers that are within our utility system um and put us at a disadvantage one thing that i think a lot of and i didn't realize i'm a reformed banker um before i came into the utility um
And a lot of people don't realize that utilities, a lot of us do rate studies rather regularly, but we don't always implement them because a lot of the rate studies are done looking at future plans and future expansion and what-ifs, what-if scenarios. And if we look at how the plan or the act is stated or the bill is stated, there's concern that if we do some of these what-if scenarios and rate studies that when we are given three different rate proposals which one is going to be mandated and is it going
to be mandated upon us to take to accept those rates when we may look at stair-stepping those in or we may want to put those on a back burner because the the projects that we look at are not necessary at the time Rogers is a performing utility we are not in financial distress we do not plan on being in financial distress and have taken great measures to remain fiscally healthy I actually manage our capital improvement budget and we spend $35 million a year. We are extremely
lucky to be able to do that. ANRC, when they spoke earlier, it sounded as if all utilities utilize the funds from ANRC. Rogers Water Utilities bonds out and so we go to bond companies and look at them, not just ANRC. Those bond companies also look at the financial stability of the organization having been a banker it's like looking at a financial uh your net worth and your financial statement before approving a loan they want to know that we have the reserves that are able to to handle our operating budgets for the years that we're going
to be um using those bonds for capital improvement funds so we are looked at there is a lot of scrutiny that goes into um looking at utilities for expansion and there are utilities who are in great distress and Rogers alone has enough water and publicly owned this is not the service lines this is publicly owned water and sewer pipe and you guys know where Rogers is we're way up in the northwest corner if you laid it end to end it would go from Rogers to New Orleans and we have to maintain that and that's one city alone so I do understand the infrastructure is a huge need
within the state but this bill needs to be unwrapped in my opinion and the good pieces of legislation sent through on their own, on their own merit, and we could stand behind that. But areas where it's extremely onerous to utilities that are in good financial standing, we cannot support. I'll leave you with a quote from Justice Brandeis. This was written in 1915 in True Americanism. He stated, no law, written or unwritten, can be understood without a full knowledge of the facts out of which it arises and to which it is to be applied. I think we need to
understand all of the facts and understand how it will affect every citizen within the state. I ask and urge you, esteemed representatives, not to pass this bill
Speaker 36
25:25
as presented. Thank you again, Chairman Feit and representatives. Thank
Speaker 26
25:29
you for your testimony. Speaking for the bill is Justin Allen.
Justin Allen
Unverified
25:47
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Justin Allen. I'm an attorney here in Little Rock and I'm here speaking
today on behalf of my client, Central Arkansas Water. I do want to make clear, perhaps I wasn't clear on the sign-in sheet, Central Arkansas Water is officially neutral on this bill but has played a large role in this process and felt that it was important to come and speak to the committee today about the process and about the bill as Central Arkansas Water did last week when the bill was run in the Senate Committee. I will be brief, but quick background. Central arkansas water is the only entity in the state so far that has been was created under the
consolidated waterworks act in 2003 it's a cooperation cooperative effort by the cities of little rock in north little rock it serves those cities as well as sherwood momel and some other areas here in pulaski county and has well over 100 000 customers today so caw being one of if not the largest providers in this providers in the state probably has a little bit unique perspective on some of these issues and certainly don't speak on behalf of all the various water and utility providers in the state and you have heard from some of them and you will hear from some more
of them I'm sure. CAW did have an appointment to the task force a gentleman named Dale Kimbrough who serves as the manager of planning regionalism and future water source was an active participant in the senators and the representatives task force and attended every meeting and again he spoke on Senate bill 481 last week unfortunately he couldn't be here today so I got the short straw as indicated the task force did meet over a long period of time it discussed a lot of issues related to the provision of water and wastewater in
Arkansas and interestingly many of the issues and problems that were discussed were known and there were a lot of them that were unknown and that came to the attention of those involved in the task force for the first time which is one of the most valuable aspects a few points I want to make on Senate bill 4881 before I leave you is as a general matter it does reflect the work of the task force now that doesn't mean that everyone involved agrees at the point of the drafting of the bill of the report or now again you've heard
many that don't but it does reflect the work of the task force also the requirement of a rate study is something that did originate from water providers on the task force and as you've already heard from testimony here today it is something that caw does every three years also the concept of training was something that was recommended by the providers and the task force and again is something that caw has experience with and then finally let me address the issue of representation beyond the the city limits i think senator clark spoke to this this morning but there was early
discussion during the task force about perhaps providing right payers who feel like they are grieved some sort of consumer protection recourse or regulatory recourse and and there were concerns with that concept which led to the current mechanism in the bill of providing for representation outside of the city limits that has been the source of much heartburn by many of the providers and candidly especially during the task force that was something that caw had concerns with and did raise however as the bill was originally filed and now as amended it's even better in that
respect and caw is more comfortable with the concept of the out of the city limits representation again that's caw's feeling about it cw is neutral on it and certainly understands that other providers sit in various positions
and look at the uh these issues differently thank you mr chairman thank you committee you're quite welcome
Speaker 26
29:30
and to your defense there was no place for neutral to sign in okay
Speaker 18
29:38
okay uh speaking against mark hayes
please identify yourself with the record
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
29:51
you mr chairman uh mark hayes with the Municipal League. I will be very, very quick. The League is absolutely 100 percent behind the concept of getting rate structures and rate studies done for those that need them, and they are 100 percent behind additional training. Those are all great things. I think the real tell of the tale here, and for those of you who've been on this committee for
several years or several sessions, this is the third time you've heard a water bill coming front of you uh maybe the fourth i think the third though if you really want to understand what's happening here i always think it's good to see who's been taken out of the bill because when you start talking about good policy good policy means it should be good for everybody if you're if it's a good policy then it should be good for those cities with electric utilities
they're amended out it ought to be good for those water providers that are under the psc they're amended out it ought to be good for regional providers they're amended out it ought to be good for wastewater providers here's why that's critical in the city in the city sense of the equation water and wastewater at a city level are inextricably intertwined so by removing wastewater from this equation, you've essentially taken 50 percent of what's significant
in the rate making and structural process. That doesn't make a lot of sense, frankly. In addition, today we learned that Texarkana just a few minutes ago, or essentially multi-state providers, are out. And then natural resources suddenly has been amended out of the bill as well. And so I think when you start really realizing how much has been taken out, it tells you that the policies are not sound, and it tells you that the concept of having an additional layer
of government, particularly this required commission, is flawed at its core. The Municipal League stands opposed to it. That's on behalf of the 500 cities and towns in the state. Mr. Hayes, I
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
32:06
think we have a question here Yes, sir Okay, no, we do not
Representative Monte Hodges
Unverified
32:11
I was going to have a motion for media consideration The team is getting straightened out over here Okay Go ahead
Speaker 26
32:23
All right Okay, now speaking for the bill is Chris Thornton please identify yourself for the record
Chair
Unverified
32:40
if you would thank you mr chairman uh chris thornton from conway uh mr chairman and uh representatives here i first of all thank you for your service i know this is a you're up here after hours missing dinner doing difficult work and you
don't get a lot of thanks, and I appreciate you working hard on this issue. This is not an easy job before you today. I have stood before the flag and raised my hand and made an oath in the past three times, once in service of the U.S. military, once in service of law enforcement, and once in service of the city of Conway as an alderman on the city council. And I was naive when I
took the last oath as to how difficult that would be. I didn't realize that things weren't going to be easy all the time. Things looked easy from home. I didn't expect 200 people to show up vehemently pushing for something and my colleagues and I would remind ourselves at times that you know what there are 200 people here being really tough on this issue and there are 49,800
people at home eating dinner trusting us to do the right thing and so that's what's happening today and i thank y'all for being up here missing your dinner to take care of those people uh you've got a you've got a a strong presence behind me against this but there's also a strong presence for it uh the senate committee has passed it and the senate floor has passed it for a reason there's an injustice going on that i want you to be aware of
i thought that taxation without representation ended 200 years ago when people who founded this country fought and died to protect that concept it's alive and well in arkansas right now my family and lots of families we're just one of hundreds thousands of families who've purchased land in garland county arkansas with the rights to water and sewer services we our land paid
not just in improvement district funds we paid taxes for a regional water and sewer system it was regional at the start and it's regional now it exists outside of the city and that is our lifeblood water is lifeblood to land without it it has an unbelievable impact on the value and the functionality of that land and when a municipality seizes control of what is a regional
system and uses it as a leverage tool to force annexation into their municipality that's wrong and that's happening with my land and my neighbors in garland county arkansas and we have no one to appeal to the very people who seize control of this water unfairly are the people to appeal to so we're here appealing to you you're our representatives
we're being taxed we've paid the tax we need someone to be a part of the process so that we can point out at least we can have our day of voicing our concerns about a system that has plenty of water and sewer for the people inside of the city limits and has no water other than a drip. My land is multifamily land. It's apartment land.
I have a resolution from the city of Hot Springs granting me entitlement to water and sewer for that 17 acres. It is not with a sunset. It does not have conditions. it should be valid today and they will not give me water and sewer because i'm not in the city i was told that there is plenty of water and sewer if i will be annexed but now that i can't be annexed i tried to annex i need water at all costs
i volunteered to to annex i was the only one out of 15 people who agreed to be annexed into the city they my neighbors did not want that i have no place to go i have no one to hear my case i'm here before you asking please correct this injustice these the my neighbors and i paid for a regional system it's paid for with state federal local and and improvement district funds
and we're being differentiated against we're not being given the water that people in the city get but we help pay for it so i ask you for relief thank
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
38:21
you thank you i appreciate your testimony okay
Representative Monte Hodges
Unverified
38:29
speak oh representative hodges can we ask questions to the uh yes your testimony just said I mean, it sounds like that grounds, I mean, I'm not an attorney, but could that not be taken up legally as opposed to policy-wise, the issue that you're having?
Chair
Unverified
38:47
Yes, sir, it could, at probably a cost of somewhere around $100,000, $50,000 to get us to court and $50,000 to try it, At which time my family, as a mom, a dad, and two girls, is fighting against this array behind me, the powerful government interests. I can't sue a city and expect to do very well in that.
They have resources beyond my ability. I need somebody to be able to call and say, hey, this isn't fair. This is a systemic problem. and I need someone. I'm not in the city limits. The people on the city council of Hot Springs are not elected to serve me, and they have taken our water, and they won't give it to us. They promised it to us, and they will not give it to us. They're healthy. They said they
were healthy, but they're not healthy enough to give it to us. There's a shortage of water for us in the county there's no shortage of water for the people in the city that's not fair i have no one to appeal to but you
representative brown you're recognized thank you mr chair i apologize i didn't write down your name but so are you part of
Representative Karilyn Brown
Unverified
40:13
a are you supposed to be getting water from a municipal system or is this a district water
Chair
Unverified
40:19
system it's a regional water system that has been taken over by the city of
Hot Springs. It's a regional system, but the city of Hot Springs administrates it. And so they have their own interests, and they're not pursuing the interests of the region that it was initially developed to serve. They want to grow their city, and they're using this water to force people to become part of the city they're starving us out our life blood
is being withheld from us it's a regional system but it's not being operated
Speaker 63
41:01
regionally well i i realize that's not our position on this committee to litigate
Representative Karilyn Brown
Unverified
41:09
that but it sounds like a regrettable situation and i hope you get some relief thank you
Chair
Unverified
41:16
I appreciate your help. Representative Dalby, you're recognized.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
41:24
Okay, we have a motion to end
Speaker 26
41:30
debate. It's non-debatable. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say no. No.
Speaker 18
41:40
Okay. We have ended debate. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your testimony. Does that include closed, or
is that ending the debate? Yeah, closed at this time.
Speaker 68
41:57
Colleagues, you've heard testimony for and against, and I think the last one was pretty much paramount to what
you really need to hear. That gentleman's coming because he has no one to hear his issue. Now, you've heard that, you know, maybe this is a hot springs issue. This is just one of the issues that this
bill resolves. The 85% tsunami is coming.
We're either going to get ahead of it or we're going to kick the can down the road. That's just, it's going to be inevitable. The state does not have the money to take care of the issue that this bill will address. We have hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure issues. We have inadequate funds being collected for those municipal systems.
So we have to do something. I don't want us to sit up here and harp on the High Springs issue, but that gentleman just nailed it. If we don't address this issue, it's just going to continue. So I hope that we can come together and we can resolve this issue with a yay vote for this bill. I'll
Speaker 68
43:17
pass it over to Senator Clark for any closing remarks. whatever you decide i have spent my time here being transparent
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
43:33
whatever i told you is exactly the truth we have serious problems that if you don't decide to resolve them are just are going to be left there and i don't know why i should be concerned or you should be concerned. If the Municipal League is not, since most of the problem is with their members. It is interesting to me that we have a flawed, a bill that is completely flawed because we amended
out multistate because we didn't have the answers for that yet. And we amended out the electorate the cities that supply electricity and water because we realized they were a different animal. And of course if we hadn't amended them out it would have been the opposite argument. but the interesting thing is with all those amendments
to try to make the bill better and to try to satisfy the problems this fundamentally flawed bill if I made one more amendment the Municipal League would support it don't know how it is that they support a fundamentally flawed bill unless they're just not telling the truth and i know you're not supposed to say things like that but it's the truth we need to fix this for people i brought it here with no high expectations
to for you either to pass it or to leave it with you in the municipally i'd appreciate
Speaker 18
45:35
a good vote Mr. Chair, I have a motion do pass. I have a motion do pass. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Discussion. Excuse me. I'm sorry.
Representative David Whitaker
Unverified
45:48
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, you're recognized, Representative Whitaker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It seems somewhat ironic and yet fitting that this gentleman that was the last to testify
with a horrible story, a difficult, difficult situation to be in, but it brings it right back to the beginning, where this all started. It is clear, and it has been for years now, that this was all about this conflict, a local conflict, that we now have a proposed bill that's going to drag in everyone else in the state to try to fix one problem. I won't even go into at length about
the constitutional problems with local or special legislation, but it's the injustice. This is going to work on every other system that's playing by the rules and doing its right. At the end of the day, I'm going to vote no, and I'd urge my colleagues to also reject this. If you want to do mandatory rate plans. Let's have a bill that says everybody's got to do a rate study. No problem with that. But let's leave behind a bunch of the junk that's in here. Thank you.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
47:03
Anyone else? Yes, sir. Representative Rye. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How can we fix something that we are not equipped to fix? okay a year and a half ago i had a phone call over close to mark tree and the man told me that he said that you know we got problems here with the water system he said what i what i want
to do i want to get some answers on how people can go up on a water bill how they can do what they want to do and the people that are actually operating this system are not even in this county okay now he asked me to go come down here and check it out and see what i could do and i did and i got with the division of legislative audit and uh basically they told me that they would try to help me find out why the rates were like they were and if it had a board and all these
kind of things well after two or three weeks she tried her best to help me from division legislative audit and she basically told me that there was like a sheet of paper a disclosure that they sent out once a year and she sent that to these folks never returned and I asked them I said why why can you not do something about this she says we're not equipped to do something about this okay and i said well how can someone go up on rates from 70 to 80 or 90 dollars do what they
want to do and you guys can't do anything about it she says we're not equipped so i they're not equipped to handle this i don't how can you look into something when you don't have proper audit of every one of these different uh water um operations and how can you unless you've got statute law to back you up on everything that should be done within each one of them
i don't think that you're you're equipped
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
49:20
to operate like this representative ryan we're discussing the motion can you move it towards that be making a motion or what no no no no
Speaker 12
49:31
no you were uh you were uh i kind of got off the
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
49:37
subject well i wanted to let these folks know that's here on our committee uh um mr chairman that we are basically listening to a situation here that i know these folks are in real trouble
but but mr chairman honestly i don't know that we can do anything to help them Okay, and I'll leave
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
49:57
it. All right. Representative Brown, you're recognized. Okay. Any other discussion? If not, I have
Speaker 26
50:03
a motion on the floor. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say no. No. The no's have it. Your bill has failed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee. Thank
Speaker 89
50:16
you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee. I'd ask the committee not to go anywhere.
Speaker 26
50:22
Representative Wardlaw asked me to run Senate bill. 599. It'll take two minutes.
Representative Fite, you are recognized. Okay, I'm Lanny Fite, District 23, here to run Senate Bill 599. What this bill does is a solid waste district. If they're going into bond indebtedness, the quorum court has to approve of this bond indebtedness. If it crosses, if it's a multi-county, then the rest of the quorum courts have to do this. This is coming out from the incident we had for the neighbor's landfill.
These people are paying about $30 million over the next, well, to the year 2042 on their property tax, $18 a month. And this will stop
Speaker 18
51:41
such things happening in the future right here. I'd entertain any questions. Are there any questions?
Speaker 76
51:52
Representative Whitaker Thank you Mr. Chair Representative Feit where are
Representative David Whitaker
Unverified
51:58
the solid waste districts on this
Speaker 94
52:02
have they piped in at all I've not heard anything from them
no thank you are there any other questions I have a motion by Representative Feit to pass or do pass is there any discussion on the motion all in favor say aye aye any opposition congratulations you passed
your bill and members I have only one more
piece of business you know usually what we do is you know as a session wraps up we like to collect some money to actually give gifts to our staff and so from the committee to the staff, which is Natima and Alana. We
have a special gift for you to say thank you all for the work that you've done over this session. So thank you all. Thank you all.
Agenda
Number Sponsor Subtitle
SPECIAL ORDER OF BUSINESS
SB481 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING RETAIL WATER AND WASTE WATER PROVIDERS AND RELATED SERVICE.
CONCUR IN SENATE AMENDMENT
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1443 Vaught TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING RURAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
RE-REFERRED TO COMMITTEE
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1614 Hawks TO CREATE A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR MUNICIPAL FIREFIGHTERS.
REGULAR AGENDA
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1926 Richey TO ALLOW A MUNICIPALITY TO AFFIX A SECURITY CAMERA TO A UTILITY POLE LOCATED WITHIN THE MUNICIPALITY.
SB277 Hill TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING SURPLUS COUNTY PROPERTY AND INTERNET SALES.
SB599 Flippo TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING THE ISSUANCE OF A BOND BY A REGIONAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT DISTRICT; AND TO REQUIRE APPROVAL BY THE QUORUM COURT PRIOR TO THE ISSUANCE OF A BOND.
DEFERRED BILLS
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1025 Rye TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE NUMBER OF VOTING CENTERS IN A CITY OF THE SECOND CLASS.
SB180 M. Johnson CONCERNING NOMINATING PETITIONS FOR MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.
HB1735 A. Collins TO AMEND THE MUNICIPAL AID FUND; TO AMEND THE DISTRIBUTION OF REVENUES IN THE MUNICIPAL AID FUND; AND TO TAKE COMMUTER TRAFFIC INTO ACCOUNT IN DISTRIBUTING REVENUES IN THE MUNICIPAL AID FUND.
HB1766 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING MUNICIPAL SEWER SYSTEMS.
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Speaker 1
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
Speaker 5
Speaker 6
Speaker 13
Speaker 15
Speaker 18
Speaker 22
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
Speaker 26
Speaker 28
Gerald Black
Unverified
Speaker 31
Speaker 32
Speaker 34
Speaker 36
Justin Allen
Unverified
Speaker 42
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Representative Monte Hodges
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Representative Karilyn Brown
Unverified
Speaker 63
Representative Fredrick J. Love Chair
Unverified
Speaker 68
Representative David Whitaker
Unverified
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 12
Speaker 89
Speaker 76
Speaker 94