On January 5, 2022, Hot Springs Village Property Owners’ Association Board Discussion Session, Jason Temple, Director of the Public Services Division, explained the need for the purchase and implementation of a computerized control system at the water treatment plants. Temple said, “SCADA is [stands for] Supervisory Control Data and Acquisition software.” The HSVPOA is already using SCADA at the water treatment plant.
Temple said, “… at our water treatment plant, we have a SCADA control system that monitors all the tanks and operating systems and we can operate our entire water system from the wastewater treatment plant through this SCADA control system.”
Photo of SCAD System Used to Monitor HSVPOA Water Plants
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Temple said that our wastewater treatment plants are even more complicated than our water system, but we don’t have any SCADA control for the wastewater system.
“This is the beginning of modernizing both of our wastewater treatment plants, starting with the Cedar Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant,” explained Temple.
“We had fifty-something thousand dollars budgeted in 2021.” We want to combine the 2022 Budget with the 2021 budget in order to do the entire SCADA upgrade at Cedar Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Temple read the discussion from the memo: “Board authorization is required to install a SCADA system at Cedar Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant for a cost not to exceed $115,826.”
Bids for this were requested in 2021. Decisions were made on the vendor and the product at that time. This is the exact same SCADA system used in the water treatment plant. “We have that compatibility,” stated Temple.
Temple said, “we are not dealing with different types of software or different types of SCADA. Our SCADA at the water treatment plant has worked very well, so we are going to use that same SCADA system at both of our wastewater treatment plants for enhanced control.”
“The budget in 2021 was $50,000. The approved budget in 2022 is $80,000. So we have $130,000 worth of budgeted money and at our next Wednesday Board Meeting [1-19-22] the authorization on the motion request will basically include granting the GM the authority to execute a contract for that to include installation of that product plus any change orders not to exceed the budgeted $130,000. There’s always going to be a few adjustments, especially in these times where price controls may change by the time we get that material into the site, the prices might change a little bit and we’ll need to have the GM – the GM will need to have a little bit of leeway to do a few changes, [indecipherable] as it does not exceed our budgeted $130,000,” said Temple.
Questions
Gary Belair, Board Director, asked, “do we have a memo on these subjects – the two items that were added?”
Temple answered, “yeah, I do have drafts of them and I apologize that we did not get these to Katrina soon enough to get them into your hands. But it was important for us to get into the discussion phase. We’ll have these things – that won’t happen again. If we don’t have those memos in Katrina’s hands by the required deadline, we’re not going to talk about it.”
Joanie Corry, Chair of the Board said, “Okay, because it is very hard to explain it to people when we don’t have any information.”
“Yes. I totally agree and that will not happen again,” stated Temple.
John Paul, Interim General Manager, said, “and we don’t usually like bringing this [request] this late, but with the state of things going up the way they are, we are afraid not to [indecipherable] it in before it could get a price increase on it.”
Temple said, “Prices could change on a monthly basis so it is time to act if we can and I apologize for the inconvenience, but we’ll have this under control.”
Votes are not taken at Discussion Sessions, but it is anticipated that this item will be brought to the Board for consideration at the January 19, 2022 regular Board meeting.
By Cheryl Dowden, January 11, 2022
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Tom Blakeman
01/11/2022 — 6:53 pm
It’s simply another panic, must do asap money grab. This just complements the rush, must do water meters, the urgency Cortez lift station pumps and a few other things. The Board should step back, take a deep breath and dig much more deeply into all of it. In fact, task the incoming GM with justification of it all, before he finds himself blindsided with unnecessary projects which will likely come back to bite him in the end.
Colleen Woodward
01/11/2022 — 6:57 pm
Who over see’s Mr Jason Temple?
Appears a check and balance is needed.
Jama Lopez
01/11/2022 — 8:00 pm
Are all these eleventh hour requests being rushed through, before new GM takes over, on purpose?
Are there proper RFPS?
Bids?
ROI analysis performed when applicable?
This is concerning.
Mark Oliver
01/11/2022 — 8:53 pm
My thoughts exactly. Additionally, why is Temple involved with the administration of a rural water company located in Benton that is tied up in a lawsuit with the city of Malvern?
Helen Sanders
01/12/2022 — 9:41 am
Good question. I wondered about that myself, but didn’t have the fortitude to ask. I hope you get a response.
Elizabeth H Berry
01/11/2022 — 10:42 pm
Although Mr. Temple was not the handler of the leasing of new trash trucks, the situation was the same. It had to be voted on before concrete plans had been made for the operation of the trash pickup. That included which side of the street pickup would be made, etc. The comment made was, “we will work it out later”, (not exact). The reason for the rush was the interest rate the bank was giving although the rate changed several times. This took place within a couple of weeks of installing new board members and so the four members voted on it. Some board member asked if this deal should have the people discuss it and was told that we voted them in and they will do what they want. So it seems that they must vote spending our money quickly before we have a chance to disagree with their decisions. Is it a pattern or plan?
George Armstrong
01/14/2022 — 7:46 am
The board needs to step up and tell Temple to do a proper job or find another one. The water meter project in total is over 2 million dollars and the water treatment over 115 thousand.
There should be no vote until the board has time to review all data from all vendors in full.