Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Officials: City changes save money
SPRINGDALE — Janell Perkins’ home is her castle. A moat has surrounded that castle this spring. Recent rain and poor drainage left standing water in her yard.
Perkins said she’s complained to the city about the flooded intersection near her home for about three years.
Brad Baldwin, the city’s director of engineering and public works, recently promised to drain that moat.
The city reorganized and streamlined several departments and services last summer. Mayor Doug Sprouse said the public works, engineering and airport divisions now operate as one department working as a team under Baldwin and James Smith, deputy director for public works and manager of the Springdale Municipal Airport.
The efforts over the past year have saved money for the city and its taxpayers, city officials report. City staff now handle many smaller improvement projects inhouse, such as fixing drainage issues, filling potholes and designing and building some roads.
“Some of these areas weren’t very efficient,” Baldwin said. “We weren’t doing enough with the taxpayer dollar.”
WASHED AWAY
Rain usually floods the intersection of West Price Avenue and Harris Street in front of Perkins’ house and leaves water standing.
The water creeps across the lawn and close to the house, she reported. It leaves a mess in her driveway, and her grandchildren can’t play there.
The problem became crystal clear when public works employees opened the gutter inlet just north of the intersection, Baldwin said.
Stormwater flows in the gutters, but the gutters never were attached to the underground pipes meant to carry the water away.
The neighborhood developed in the 1940s, and the drainage system is one of the oldest in the city, he said.
He noted the problem is an easy fix. He said Friday the standing water is gone, but the project is not complete because of recent rain.
Baldwin and his staff are working through a backlog of residents’ complaints dating to the 1990s, he said.
“What would you think if you were a taxpayer and you complained year after year?” Baldwin asked.
Most cities keep a list of smaller drainage and street issues such as this to be addressed, Sprouse said. Ben Cline, a spokesman for the city of Rogers, said city crews tackle some smaller street projects in the spring and summer and drainage issues in the fall.
“There’s always a drainage project you can do if you have the money,” Sprouse said. “They are designated from mild to substantial and completed as money is available. That’s how potential projects stay on the list a long time. Or they may be considered to be a part of a larger project.
“Also drainage issues and standards change over time. We focus on how serious the problems are,” he said.
WATER RUNS DOWNHILL
The Spring Creek Park subdivision on the western reaches of Wagon Wheel Road faced more pressing problems, Baldwin said. Drainage from the hill across the street flowed through the living rooms of several homes.
Today, the city requires developers to build curbs and guttering and connect it to the city’s drainage system. The developer of the Spring Creek subdivision left the drainage inlets 8 inches off the ground, too high to catch the water, Baldwin said. He said he doesn’t know why.
The engineering and planning departments inspect developers’ final work. The final approval of the subdivision came in 2008, the planning department said. Baldwin joined the city in 2014.
Baldwin said, as he moves forward in his newest role, he is finding completed projects that don’t make sense and would not pass inspection today. But he’s working to fix them.
At Spring Creek Park, city street crews are building another lane for Wagon Wheel, layering the dirt to reach the height of the inlets.
Residents will have an added benefit: A left turn lane into the neighborhood.
“The street department is now building streets,” Baldwin said with just a hint of a smile.
This project should be completed by late summer, he reported.
BUILD UP
Building streets saves the city money and clears a backlog.
Projects designed in-house do not require design fees, Baldwin pointed out. Projects built by the public works department cost the city nothing but materials, he added.
“You’ve got people paid to be here,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure they are doing what they can do.”
Baldwin noted contractors prefer to tackle bigger projects. “They don’t want to mess with these little, messy projects,” he said.
The city will continue to hire contractors for major projects, such as the roads, fire stations, parks, animal shelter and city administration building the voters approved in a 2018 bond issue, Baldwin said.
City engineers are creating a plan to improve drainage on the soccer fields at the new recreation center and designing repairs for five areas of trails damaged in the 2017 spring floods.
Baldwin hopes his staff can help residents in older neighborhoods with inadequate drainage. The design and requirements for drainage differ greatly from the time they were developed, he said.
“If it’s not draining, then it’s not efficient,” he said. “And now we are able to do the work instead of just putting it on the list and getting around to it.”
Baldwin likened the long list of small drainage and street projects to chores homeowners put off again and again.
“Instead, we need to prioritize these projects,” Baldwin said. “We’re going to fix the problem and get it off the list. These are the projects that are near and dear to my heart.”
THE PAYOFF
The city’s reorganization gives taxpayers the proverbial “more bang for their buck,” Baldwin said.
The city didn’t add or remove any workers in the change.
Baldwin said he, Smith and other leaders retrained and redirected some of the 55 public works employees and bought the equipment and tools they need to do the job. For example, mowing grass was assigned to public works, including men hired and trained to run construction equipment and pour concrete, Baldwin said.
The city traded 14 lawnmowers for one with a batwing arm and larger cutting surface — which requires just one operator, not 14, he said. Four city employees in the newly formed landscape division and two seasonal workers are responsible for the city’s mowing. Last year’s crews included roughly 25 temporary workers who were not rehired this year, he said.
Responsibility for mowing some strips of private land was turned back to property owners. City crews mow only the lawns of municipal buildings and pockets of city-owned land across town, Baldwin said. City staff helps private property owners who might not own the appropriate equipment with areas important to the storm water drainage system, he added.
The city also will take a cue from the Arkansas Department of Transportation’s highway maintenance program and increase the use of herbicides along the rights of way.
“Now, instead of mow, mow, mow, we will mow, spray, not mow,” Baldwin said. “We’ve never done this before, but we’ll try it and see if it works.”
Two years ago, the engineering department completed an inventory and assigned grades to all of Springdale’s streets based on the roads’ conditions. But the improvement projects were delayed because the city didn’t have the staff or equipment to handle the project, Baldwin said.
“It will take us $10.5 million from our asphalt inventory to overlay every street that needs it,” he noted.
This summer, city teams will start a three-year plan to overlay streets in the worst condition after bigger projects are completed.
And one crew has been assigned to do nothing but fix potholes, Smith said.
City leaders take more calls from residents complaining of potholes than anything else, he noted.
But with a new asphalt patching material that dries even in the rain and cold, every pothole reported should be fixed within one day, he said.