Kyle Kellams: And let's start this Friday edition of Ozarks at Large with Michael Tilley from Talk Business and Politics. Michael, it's almost the end of February. That's good news for me. Is it good news for you?
Michael Tilley: You know, I guess so. I'm just, you know, when you get to be my age, just every day is — I'll take it.
Kellams: Every day, it seems like there's something new about the Parrot Island water park.
Tilley: Yes. And, you know, I thought maybe we were getting close. We had a board vote a couple weeks ago to approve the package to get it built and, you know, hopefully get it behind us. But, you know, like we've said before, it's the gift that keeps on giving. So I'm just going to run it down. This has been going on for almost two years or maybe over two years now. So I'm just going to sum up some bullet points.
So the board, the board of directors, last year approved $2.1 million to build these five new water slides at Parrot Island Water Park, which is a shared facility by the county — Sebastian County and the city. Well, then that grew to $4.2 million when the county declined to play. And then that grew to just under $7 million, we think, when the cost to install was determined. Then we weren't sure where it was going to go forward. Then somehow, Director Lee Kemp, he came forward with his bid from Royal Ridge Construction to install part of the work for about $1.1 million, roughly $1.059 million, which was apparently under the other bids or under previous estimates, I should say. But then a lawsuit was filed by Joey McCutchen, because that contract with Royal Ridge was awarded without a competitive bidding process. And you got to have a — you have to show an emergency or some crisis to do that.
And then we learned this Tuesday night that Kemp decided to readjust, you know, everything. So let me make two quick points on that. First, Kemp raised this change of plan during a directors forum late in the — that's when stuff — that's when you usually say, well, that Kyle Kellams is doing a great job. Let's all give him a hand. You know, it's just stuff like that. But he changed this, you know, at a time when the board is struggling to be seen as transparent and trustworthy and all that — why slip this in as a non-agenda item late in the meeting? And then second, Kemp thought, I guess he thought they could just pivot and seek bids and, you know, do it that way. But that — I'm trying to be as diplomatic as possible, but, you know, there's a legal way to do things. Once a city has passed an ordinance, that's the law. That's the law of the land, so to speak. And you can't just say, "hey, my bad, let's do this instead." That proposal that Kemp brought up Tuesday night was concerning for those two points.
But here we are, you know. So the goal now is to bring two bids back to the board by March 17. They're going to put this out for public bid. There are some people that have raised concerns about, you know, you're giving companies less than about three weeks — really less than three weeks, depending on when the notice goes out — to pull together bids on, you know, what's somewhat of a complicated project. So we'll see what we get there. There's a bid to build the concrete foundations and the plumbing and the pump house. And there's another bid that is used for some pool equipment, pumps and pipes, kind of connecting the slides to the existing infrastructure. So those two are going to come back. But, you know, this episode is just — it's not been a good look for the board, except maybe for the three board members who have consistently voted against it. And now we seem to have another pivot out of the blue that — I don't know, it's just — it just doesn't seem like the way you would want to run a train.
Kellams: Well, as long as we're talking about water and money, Talk Business and Politics at talkbusiness.net has started a series about Fort Smith water infrastructure. And there are — I don't know if I'd say alarm bells, but it's an interesting read.
Tilley: Yeah. And, well, I think you kind of hit it. The goal is — I had been watching this for a while, obviously, and in the back of my head I kept feeling like I wasn't doing a good job as a journalist by trying to outline really what's going on for the reader. So every once in a while I'll listen to the voices in my head. And so that's why this time we decided to do this series. It's the first time I've laid out a series and I don't have — I don't know how many stories it's going to be or when it's going to wrap up, but our goal is to try to capture what's going on in the Fort Smith water system without hyperbole, but also to convey the sense of urgency and alarm that these city engineers have been expressing for the past few years.
We really kind of got a slap in the face a little bit at a study session last week, where you had Todd Mittge — he's the director of engineering of the city. Lance McAvoy — he's the city's director of utilities. And Matt Meeker, director of public works, and Jimmie Johnson, deputy director of engineering. They all essentially said, you know, boys and girls, we're at an inflection point here, as they say.
And so there's some key points that they've talked about that are troubling — or not really troubling, but need some priority attention. And that includes a lot of money. Their upgrades at the Lake Fort Smith water treatment plant in Mountainburg. The Lee Creek Water Treatment Plant, on the other end, in the western side of Crawford County. Completion of this new water transmission line from Lake Fort Smith to the eastern side of Fort Smith. And then aging distribution lines in the city. And then modern water meters.
So I guess one of the compelling parts of this recent study session was to hear Jimmie Johnson say, in the last five years, there have been five critical moments that could have been a crisis.
Kellams: Ugh.
Tilley: Where large parts of town could have been without water, or the whole town could have been under a boil order. You know, we're not talking about you might not be able to run your sprinklers on Saturday kind of stuff. We're talking about real issues.
And so just the water treatment plant improvements, this completion of this 48-inch water line — that cost is estimated between $320 million and $580 million. That's — I don't know about how you folks do in northwest Arkansas, but that's a lot of money down here. And it's a big ask, but it's not a new ask. And I think that's part of what this series is going to do. You know, folks have been calling for this action for a few days, and you and I have talked before about the city was put under a federal consent decree because they kept kicking the can down the road on the sewer system and wouldn't fix that. Well, I'm not saying that we're running out of road on the water system, but I think some people are starting to point out the exits and they're not pretty.
The city also has limited options on funding it. You know, they just rejiggered the sales tax package for the sewer system. So that limits what you can do to raise this money, which may also be as much as what was needed for the consent decree.
Kellams: Wow.
Tilley: Yeah. So, if you want to be on the Fort Smith board of directors right now, you might want to think that through very carefully, because it's not going to be a fun job for the next few years.
Kellams: Turns out running a city ain't cheap.
Tilley: No, and leadership ain’t pretty.
Kellams: Yeah. Speaking of the board, there was an — and there is an ordinance that outlines how the city will deal with third-party intermediaries. Can you give me a brief sort of synopsis on this?
Tilley: Yeah. I think this is a reaction to that thing we talked about, because it was a third party — it was American Resort Management, which brought these new slides that were — they were going to be able to be bought on a discount. So Director Christina Catsavis — and there's some debate as to how effective this is going to be. The city's attorney, Colby Roe, outlined that it really just provides a little bit of a window, a little bit of opening. If you're working with a third party and they give you some — what you think — some fraudulent information, but then you're still going to have to prove that it's fraudulent, that it was, you know, said with intent, or intent to mislead. But that's the ordinance they passed.
There have been several meetings to discuss it. It just essentially calls for accountability, disclosure for third-party intermediaries, that they essentially have to sign something and say, look, as we work with you through this process, we have to be as honest as we can. And that's already in place for some departments. Engineering departments, when they do preliminary work for engineering, that type of thing. So I think that's what they're trying to apply here.
Kellams: Hey, the city of Fort Smith lost a spay-neuter program to budget cuts not too long ago, but now it's back.
Tilley: You know, well, I tell you what. When you start messing with people's cats and dogs —
Kellams: Hell yeah.
Tilley: You being a dog owner, I know you understand that. But so last year, essentially, the city ran out of money to support this spay-and-neuter voucher program, and they decided not to renew it as part of these broad 2026 budget cuts.
The public raised hell. And I — several directors told me that they'd received more feedback and emails and texts over the spay-and-neuter program than more than the Parrot Island water park debacle. But so the board voted unanimously to restore $150,000. We'll see if that gets them through the year. But they voted to restore that.
The goal is — some of the animal advocates there said, you know, a community like Fort Smith, if you can get eight to 10 years of this, often you can drop it — that you've had enough of an impact on the population. And because you've educated people also — that spay-neuter voucher program is still needed and it'll still be ongoing, but a municipality won't have to support it. So we'll see. Well, I guess we'll have eight to 10 years to watch to see if that's true.
Kellams: Building permit numbers now posted at talkbusiness.net for the Fort Smith metro area — slight decline for the January numbers.
Tilley: Yep. Off a little bit. Actually, they were — it's not a surprise. We had, as everybody knows, we had a bout of nasty weather. But the January numbers are down about 49% — just Fort Smith and Van Buren. That follows, you know, we had almost a 6% gain in all of 2025 for the region.
And our reports this year are probably, unfortunately, not going to include Greenwood, which is the third-largest city. They've gone to a new software program. And, bless their hearts, they're just not able to somehow get us the permit total. So we're just going to go to Fort Smith and Van Buren. But Fort Smith numbers were down also. Both Fort Smith and Greenwood numbers were down.
Hopefully this — you know, like I said, 49% — hopefully that's not a trend. And we often see a lot of volatility in first-quarter numbers, whether they're building permit numbers, sales tax — well, not so much sales tax, but employment numbers. It's just sometimes people are taking breaks and that December-January period. So, hopefully, again, hopefully that 49% is not a trend.
Kellams: You can read about all of the things that we've just talked about and a lot more from across the state at talkbusiness.net. Michael Tilley is with Talk Business and Politics. Michael, let's do this again next Friday.
Tilley: Well, if you keep inviting, I'll keep showing up.
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