The Elk City Commission met for their regular meeting Monday, Jan. 2nd, at 7 p.m. in City Hall. This first official meeting of the new year lasted 18 minutes due to a brief agenda. Mayor Cory Spieker called the meeting to order and gave the invocation. Commissioner Rocky Andresen was the only one absent.
The first order of business was the approval of the minutes for the Dec. 20th meeting. Then the commissioners approved the purchase of a 2023 KM-8000TEDD-SRC 4-ton asphalt hot box from Crafco, Inc., (through Sourcewell) for the Street Department in the amount of $54,670, which was a budgeted item. City Manager Tom Ivester said that this will allow the street department to keep the asphalt hot, which will stretch the use of hot asphalt to possibly fill potholes around the city.
The next item on the agenda was the approval of payment to Public Service Company of Oklahoma for material and labor to install three phase upgrades of a transformer at the Elk City Regional Airport in the amount of $28,403.98. Ivester explained that this is for upgrades at the airport. They need three phase electricity, which is not currently installed there. Ivester requested that three phase be brought to the airport, but PSO gave him two quotes. He was unclear about the quotes but put them on the agenda to make sure they could move forward with the installation.
With the installation of the three-phase electricity, the airplane mechanic at the airport will be able to repair jets in Elk City rather than having him travel to New Mexico for repairs to jets, they will be able to fly to Elk City for maintenance. The commissioners continued to item three on the agenda, in which they approved payment to PSO to build overhead lines to upgrade single phase to three phase at the Elk City Regional Airport in the amount of $32,568.34. Ivester said this is the second amount requested for the upgrade.
The commissioners then approved Purchase Orders FY 23-24 and recurring invoices for Jan. 2nd, 2024. Ivester began his City Manager’s Report, discussing indicators in the town’s activities.
“Last year the library started a New Year’s Eve noon drop for children. We had 67 who attended last year, and we had 131 attend this year. They got pizzas donated by Pizza Hut, and they did a balloon drop, which they actually put the netting on the ceiling and filled it with balloons. Then they pulled the string in the balloons, and they were all dropped. It was such creative work, and well attended,” Ivester said.
He continued to talk about an accident at the rock yard involving the city’s shuttle that moves the cars and two rail cars. The brakes failed on the car owned by the city. No one was injured, but there was a significant amount of damage to the shuttle car. This is not covered by insurance, but the city will be sending the shuttle to Oklahoma City to see about repairs. There is a safety investigation being conducted, but he is concerned about moving rock.
“We don’t really have the ability to move the cars (rail cars) right now, and we can go back to the old way, but there was the reason why that didn’t work. There were multiple safety accidents involved. So we’ve been in contact with Farm Rail to help move cars,” Ivester explained.
The next report that Ivester gave was about the bids for the new airport terminal and hangar. They are conducting what is called hard bid projects, which are due Jan. 10th. Over the past few years, the city has worked with a construction management bid. There was a pre-bid meeting where four construction companies attended, and all of them were from out of town. Ivester noted that there has been more interest from local construction companies recently.
The bids will be taken as a package; a company can bid only on the terminal; or a company can bid only on the hanger. Ivester hopes that bids come in at the estimated cost because the grant is only for a certain amount, and any additional cost will be paid by the city. He said that the third project is the extension of the taxi lane.
Additionally, Ivester received word that there has been tentative approval of the FAA grant to cover updating the water and sewage at the airport. This would be a 95/5 matching grant for utilities. The estimate of this cost was about $350,000.
Ivester said that if all goes well, they will vote on it at the next board meeting, which will then be approved by the aviation commission at the end of January.
City treasurer Jennifer Rainey had no report for the commissioners. There were no public comments, and the meeting adjourned at 7:18 p.m. The next meeting will be the mid-month regular meeting, at 2 p.m., in city hall.
