Mississippi native eager to build

Spa City public works chief now deputy city manager

HOT SPRINGS — Denny McPhate likes to build things.

He spent more than a decade supervising industrial construction teams that built and maintained pumps, boilers, conveyors, rail lines, high-pressure vessels, motor control centers and pipelines at paper mills in Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Connecticut. He’s spent the last 17 years in the public sector, starting as a supervisor in what was the engineering division of the city of Hot Springs’ public works department.

He’s been director of public works the last 13 years, overseeing 300 miles of city rights of way, dozens of traffic signals, the city’s stormwater program and the maintenance of all city property. City Manager Bill Burrough recently expanded that portfolio, elevating McPhate to the open deputy city manager position.

As one of Burrough’s top lieutenants, the Natchez, Miss., native will be responsible for public works, engineering, sports and recreation, parks and trails, utilities and utility billing services. His expanded portfolio puts about a third of the city’s more than 600 employees under his line of authority.

“Denny has been with the city for many years,” Burrough said. “He has knowledge of many of the projects we have underway, as well as a very good working relationship with our executive team.”

Utilities is one of the city’s biggest departments. The combined budgets of its water and wastewater divisions total almost $40 million. The more than $100 million Lake Ouachita water supply project has been underway for several years, promising to deliver an additional 15 million-gallons a day of water to the more than 90,000 people in the city’s 145-squaremile service area by 2023.

Engineers are designing more than $50 million of improvements to the regional wastewater system, upgrades that will move the city closer to compliance with the Clean Water Act.

All of it will happen under McPhate’s watch.

Much has changed since the city hired him in 2004. Engineering has become a separate department from public works, helping the city become more proactive in identifying leaks in its water system, securing additional water supply and improving wastewater collection and treatment.

The ethos within the city’s workforce has also changed.

“The cohesiveness and the pulling together as a team is completely different than what I saw when I first came here,” McPhate, who started his new job Monday, said. “Everybody works together. They pull together. It’s more of a big family than it ever used to be. People enjoy working here.”

A resolution on the Hot Springs Board of Directors’ consent agenda Tuesday night would approve a contract for sensors and software that provide real-time updates of city street conditions, an example of how technology has made departments more efficient since McPhate joined the city.

“Vibration sensors we’ll mount on city vehicles will report to the server daily on what those conditions are,” McPhate said. “It’s going to assign it a certain condition based on the vibration factors that are programmed into the software. If that changes over time, it’s going to measure that. We’ll have real-time reporting from probably close to 100 city vehicles.”

Grants will help fund improvements to upper Malvern Avenue, creating a dynamic streetscape for the southern approach into downtown.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” McPhate said of the projects he’ll oversee. “That’s my cup of tea. My forte is projects and construction. That’s all I’ve ever done.”