City Board reviews 2020 highlights

City Administrator Phillip Patterson reviewed the year’s highlights with the city board members during their Dec. 15 meeting.

Patterson gave the board yearend numbers from various city departments so the board would have an idea of the work staff members completed throughout the year in addition to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

As of Dec. 14, the community of Siloam Springs has seen a cumulative total of 1,335 covid-19 cases, impacting 6 percent of the population, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement website, achi.net.

Based on the sanitation department’s recycling program, the city saved $55,000 in tipping fees this year, paid to the landfill by municipalities, by recycling materials rather than taking them directly to the landfill, Patterson said. The recycled materials were the equivalent of 93 semi loads of trash, he said.

This year, the water/wastewater services team set up almost 400 new water meters and located more than 2,700 city water or sewer lines, according to Public Works Administrative Assistant Janet Hall.

Code enforcement dealt with over 2,400 cases regarding animal control, property maintenance and nuisance, Patterson said.

The library hosted 78 in-house programs and 88 virtual programs in 2020, attended by more than 9,000 people, Patterson said.

Siloam Springs parks division won two awards in 2020 from the Arkansas Recreation and Parks Association, Patterson said.

“We won the Facility of the Year for over $500,000 for Memorial Park and the Chautauqua Amphitheater, and our City Lake Park won the Natural Surface Trail Award,” he said.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the parks department had to cancel 15 programs and six summer day-camps, Patterson said. The parks department was able to create some online programs for area children such as At Home Fort Building, the Sidewalk Chalk Challenge, Bingo and Virtual Yoga, Patterson said.

More than 1,100 building, electrical, heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and plumbing permits were issued by the city’s building division this year, Patterson said. They conducted more than 4,000 inspections of those components, he said. The city also issued 105 new business licenses throughout the year, he said.

Siloam Springs’ new building facilities coordinator installed 200 feet of covid-related Plexiglas barriers throughout the city, Patterson said.

Patterson thanked the board for approving the facilities position because the city did not have anybody on staff nor would have had anybody to deal with the issue, he said. Instead, the city was able to install the protective barriers by utilizing its own staff, he said.

This year, the electric department installed more than 270 new electric meters and dealt with repairing more than 420 street lights and security lights, Patterson said.

The electric department also installed 45 new light poles on U.S. Highway 412 that were damaged during the previous year’s storms, Patterson said.

Electric department personnel also installed more than 15,000 linear feet of overhead high voltage conductors, more than 27,000 square feet of underground high voltage conductors, and more than 28,000 square feet of underground service wire, Patterson said.

Firefighters responded to just under 1,000 fire related calls and paramedics responded to more than 2,000 emergency medical calls for the year, as of Dec. 15, Patterson said. Fire department personnel received more than 23,000 hours of training for the year, he said.

The total crime clearance rate for 2020 as of Dec. 15 was at 83.2 percent, which Patterson said is extremely high.

Other crime statistics show the drugs and narcotics clearance rate is at 95 percent, stolen property reports to the police department decreased by four percent from 2019, and vandalism and criminal mischief incidents decreased by 7.1 percent, Patterson said.

Finally, breaking and entering has decreased by 25.5 percent compared to last year, Patterson said.

Human resources oversaw the purchase of thousands of gloves, masks and everything related to the coronavirus pandemic as well as trying to keep up with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) regulations of quarantine and isolation.

The finance department oversaw the issuance of the $31 million bond issue for the water treatment plant and also managed the application for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act reimbursement, which Patterson said was very difficult.

“I hadn’t heard horror stories from our staff, but I heard horror stories from other cities that the overseers of the CARES money, the distribution of that money were telling cities exactly what to say, how many spaces to put in there between sentences ‘No that word won’t work, it has to read this way,’ and were very very picky and we passed that process with flying colors,” Patterson said.

Information Technology (IT) staff supported 55 physical servers and virtual servers and 256 computers, Patterson said.

Patterson ended his report by praising the staff for all of their hard work in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I want the public to know our staff worked extremely well and very hard to get everything done that we did this year,” Patterson said.