When Watonga City Council held its regular December meeting, one of the first agenda items was to determine the status of the Ward 1 seat.
That seat was held by Tina Willis. Willis missed the regularly scheduled November meeting and had informed the mayor she would be out of town for the rest of the year.
That left the city in a tough spot, since with only two council members in attendance, no business could be conducted due to a lack of quorum.
Statute allows a council to unseat a member who has missed more than 50 percent of meetings in a four-month period. Watonga City Council scheduled six special meetings, which, when added to other meetings Willis had missed reached the required 50 percent mark.
Tuesday night, the remaining council members declared the seat vacant and the action allowed them to proceed with certain actions.
Jared Harrison, the city attorney, made clear that the council could not approve any expenditures that had not previously been budgeted or appropriated. It also cannot enact any new ordinances.
However, the council could – and did – move ahead with approving the 2025 city council meeting calendar, the holiday schedule, the pay schedule and approved the general election date for the empty seats and the appointed seat, which is currently held by Kayla Ragsdale, the mayor.
The claims against the city – basically the bills due – were also approved for October and November.
Some of those items, such as the meeting schedule, are required by the state to be approved and provided to the state by or before December 31.
Moving outside of the consent agenda – items that can be approved by a single vote unless a council member asks to review and discuss one or more separately – the city took up other items that had been piling up.
One was to approve new signers for the library’s certificate of deposit (CD) and another to remove the old signers. This was necessary, according to Interim City Manager Karrie Beth Little, so the CD could be renewed for another term.
Two other items were to pay bills three and four from BRB Contractors, the company installing the city’s grit removal and nitrate improvement projects. Bill three, from October, was $481,409.99 and bill four, from November, was $667,110.57. The two bills meant the city owed the contractor more than $1.1 million.
The city attorney reminded the council members that they must, when approving such payments, add the term ‘as previously appropriated’ to the motion in order to show the action was within the parameters of what a reduced council could undertake.
The city council also agreed to purchase emergency responder radios for $327,039. Again, as the radios had been budgeted from the sales tax account in the 2024-25 approved budget, it was not a new expenditure and fell within the restricted powers the council was allowed.
The city council also granted approval to the Friends of the Ferguson Home to have the 123year-old home painted. The organization had made clear to the city it was not asking for any funding and had the money through its fundraising efforts.