The regular meeting of the Elk City Commissioners took place Monday, May 1st, at 7 p.m. in City Hall with Rick Shelton acting as mayor in the absence of Cory Spieker. Rocky Andresen was also absent for the meeting. Shelton gave the invocation and Commissioner Jeff Waters led the flag salute.
Prior to tackling the agenda, the commissioners held a public hearing for a rezoning modification for petitioners Linda Consolver and Nikole Huerta to rezone 1119 S. Boone from single family residential district to A-1 agricultural district. Chairman of the Zoning and Planning Commission Tom Johnson represented the city, and said they voted to approve the rezoning.
The next two items heard during the public hearing were concerning dilapidated buildings. The owners were notified about the hearing. The first structure is located at 101 Hughes Access Road, and City Inspector Jackie Addington told the commissioners that the owner has no plans for the buildings, and that they are in disrepair. He recommended demolishing them.
The other structure addressed during the hearing is located at 523 S. Van Buren. The owner was present and told the commissioners he has arranged the demolition but needed time to get it accomplished. Addington told them that they are waiting on DEQ to approve the reclamation of the property.
The commissioners then went on to approve the minutes from the April 10th meeting, and they also approved declaring the structure at 101 Hughes Access as dilapidated and ordering the removal of the structure.
They also approved tabling the structure located at 523 Van Buren for 90 days to be declared dilapidated, thus giving the owner time to have the building demolished and removed. It will be on the August 5th agenda.
The introduction of Ordinance No. 1251 was tabled at the recommendation of City Manager Tom Ivester. He said that one paragraph was wrong, therefore, the ordinance could not be introduced at the meeting. The introduction of Ordinance No. 1252: An Ordinance changing the zoning classification of a tract of land situated in Block 13, Herring Addition, Beckham County, Elk City from R-1, Single Family Residential District to A-1 Agricultural District was heard, but because it was an introduction no action was taken.
The next two items on the agenda concerned the lease agreement with Fauver Racing and Promotions, LLC, for the stock car racetrack and the Racetrack Radio Controlled Aircraft. David Osterloh was present to speak on behalf of the Flying Aces radio control aircraft club. He has been in negotiations with Ivester about the radio control racetrack but did not agree with the lease agreement that was proposed.
“You have two lease agreements here. One is for the racetrack itself, and then Mr. Fauver had some ideas on utilizing some of the radio-controlled aircraft ground into his operation,” Ivester began to explain. “So that involves parking RVs next to the landing strip. We talked about things to make sure that it didn’t interfere with the radio- controlled airplane operations. We went back and forth about it, and I thought we’d come to a compromise. I don’t know but Mr. Osterloh wants to give his thoughts on that. The lease is only for one year.”
Osterloh stepped to the podium to address the commissioners. He said that he would like to continue the 30-year tradition of the Flying Aces and utilizing the air strip. He made three points about the lease agreement that was being proposed. The first one was concerning where the RVs would be parking. He believes it would prohibit them from taking off and flying above the RVs. Secondly, he wanted the Flying Aces to have the lease with the city rather than Fauver Racing, and the third point was that the Flying Aces carry $2 million in insurance in case of accidents.
“We (the Flying Aces) feel like the relationship with the city should carry on as it is, instead of changing it to be under the control of Mr. Fauver. So that’s really all that I wanted to say, gentlemen. I may or may not change the outcome of things here, but I just wanted things on the record because next year is another year,” Osterloh concluded.
Commissioner Shelton asked Osterloh how many events they have had at the airstrip. Osterloh said that it has been several years since they have had an event because the hobby has been struggling. He noted that the younger generation is not as interested in the model airplanes.
Ivester addressed all of Osterloh’s concerned, and he recommended that the commissioners approve the leases, which they did.
The next item on the agenda was the approval of a Sourcewell Design Build Agreement between the City of Elk City and American Ramp Company for the project, Elk City Pump Track. Ivester explained that this would be paid for from the remainder of the Arrowhead funds, which was around $600,000. This is CAPP’s money and would go for a pump track next to the existing skate park in Ackley Park. The agreement would start the design process, but the track would not start for at least one year. He added that the company is out of Missouri and that there are few companies in the US that do this type of work.
The commissioners then approved the purchase of 27 acres located in the S 1/3 of W ½ of SW ¼ Section 14, T11Nm R22, WIM from Othala Investment LLC in the amount of $85,000. The land is next to the existing vertical landfill.
They declared 54 – 32’ long metal light poles and 45 – 16’ broken light fixtures to be recycled or disposed of as surplus. The next item on the agenda was previously tabled from July 20, August 1st, Nov. 7th, and Feb. 6th for the structure located at 604 N. Booth to be a dilapidated building. The owner was present to ask for more time to complete the demolition themselves. The commissioners tabled the item until July 3rd, giving her another 60 days.
The Purchase Orders FY 22-23 and recurring invoices for May 1st were approved and followed by the City Manager’s report. Ivester said that there were 57 soccer teams in town for a tournament, 14 softball teams, and 39 baseball teams. Canute softball district games were played in Elk City, as well as two teams from Texas, because their fields were rained out.
Ivester told the commissioners about some incidents that caused city employees to become involved in local disputes or problems. He said that he investigated the problems and felt like the employees acted as they should have in the situations. They will be dealing with issues at the rock yard, concerning the cost of rock.
Ivester said that they are going to pave the rest of the alleys in R and R, and they will be putting up three-way stop signs at the corner of Lakeview and Randall. They will be putting a credit card reader for water located on Lakeview.
Jennifer Rainey, City Treasurer, did not have a report but said that the new software company had been there to train them. They would return to complete more training when the software goes live. There were no public comments. The meeting adjourned at 8:05 p.m., and the next meeting will take place May 17th, at 2 p.m. in City Hall.
