In his District Manager’s report at the August 20 meeting of the Holiday Island Suburban Improvement District, Lawrence Blood said that water testing company, Environmental Simulations Inc., prepared a working dynamic model of the HISID water distribution system that will lead to recommendations as they replace five pressure reducing valves. One PRV has been delivered so far. Once this set of upgrades has been completed, HISID will again get advice for the next set to be replaced.
The goal is to work toward less waste and more cost-efficient distribution.
Blood also said the marina fuel system improvement project is complete, and passed around samples of the old and new pipes. He had submitted a work plan regarding the marine fuel spill monitoring and mitigation to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, but had not heard back. He also mentioned that all but $7500 of the spill reclamation had been reimbursed by the Petroleum Trust Fund.
Blood also passed around a plastic bag containing clumps of a clayey mud, which he said engineers found below the surface at the slide area above Stateline Drive. Blood said the area is again retaining water, and he expects engineers who performed the geotechnical explorations will recommend he pile another layer of rock at the site.
Revenue from Water and Waste Water was up slightly compared to last year. However, a mysterious outage at Well #4, in which power shut down for no discernible reason, was working again shortly thereafter.
- The chipping program had fallen behind because of the manpower shortage. Commissioner Dan Kees suggested property owners could hire someone from outside to come in and chip their limbs. Chair David Makidon was concerned the service might be too expensive, but Kees countered that maybe a few property owners could organize and work with a contractor to find a reasonable deal.
- Regarding the Fire Department, Blood said by the end of July there had been 439 combined fire, EMS and non-emergency calls whereas during 2014 there were 469 for the entire year.
- Revenue from golf activities has been about the same as the same period in 2017. Blood said he was driving by the golf course one day only to see Golf Course Manager John Prang and his crew on their knees crawling across one of the greens. Blood said it turns out the weather has been just right for goose grass this summer, and staff was trying to preserve integrity of the greens one handful at a time.
- Blood also announced he had received two bids for the long overdue project of resurfacing golf cart pathways. The lowest bid came from Heavy Constructors of America for 6438 linear feet of asphalt overlay six ft. wide and three inches deep compacted for $73,840. Prang said the paths for Holes 2, 10 and 16 would get an overlay from tee to green. Other pathways will get touched up here and there, and Prang said some areas would need to be milled and ground down a bit before the overlay. Vote to approve accepting the bid was unanimous.
Final business
- Commissioners passed the first reading of Regulation 2018-001, which would increase value thresholds for procurements. Intent of the revision was to update rules regarding which transactions had to be put out to bid. Some thresholds were so low staff had trouble even getting bids.
Next meeting will be Monday, Sept. 17, at 9 a.m., at the HISID office.