When the Watonga City Council met Tuesday in regular session, the topics addressed were anything but regular.
After quickly working through items like the financial report for the first 30 days of the new fiscal year and paying the bills, council took up weighty topics that address long range planning for the community.
One discussion was centered on whether there was interest in creating a ‘business incubator’ on donated property. Watonga City Manager Leroy Alsup helped launch such an endeavor when he was serving as Guthrie city manager.
The idea is to put up several small structures and allow new businesses to occupy them at greatly reduced or no cost to see whether the business idea will take wings and fly. Alsup suggested a 2- to-3 -year trial period. The little area could also serve as a location for the farmers’ market as well as hosting entertainment on weekends to draw in visitors and shoppers.
Council member Neal Riley had reservations. “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea,” he said. 'I just don’t want to subsidize a business that is in competition to an existing business.”
After talking about the ins and outs, council agreed to look at more information that Alsup will provide about the project.
Council also learned that no commercial garbage collection business was interested in reopening the Watonga convenience station. Part of the problem is that when it was open before, residents could off load garbage at no cost provided they showed a utility bill. That meant there was no record of income so commercial operators had nothing on which to base an income projection.
Instead, the city will run the transfer station itself, opening one Saturday a month. It will assess each load a $15 service fee plus a cost-per-pound charge of about $4 per 100 pounds of refuse. The numbers aren’t carved in stone, because certain costs – such as the purchase and operation of a credit card reader – are still being calculated.
Alsup said that the city will include the operation of the transfer station into its next request for proposals – bids – for garbage service when the current contract with Veterans Waste Services expires next year.
The transfer station will begin operating October 17.
Perhaps the most significant discussion for council was whether it should establish a task force for Roman Nose State Park.
The city owns the property, but entered into a 100-year lease with the state to operate the park eight miles away. The lease is up in 2034, but Alsup said the town would be remiss to wait until then to address the park and the lease. “We don’t want to say ‘here you go, have a park’” he said.
He went on to say the 520 acres represents a “tremendous untapped potential” and the task force could encourage the state to make investments. His plan is for a task force to start the renegotiation of the lease to include minimum standards of maintenance and care, minimum lodging capacity and minimum capital investments.
Those minimums could include addressing the state of the lakes, requiring them to be repaired and stocked with fish such as bass and working with the state to recruit and retain a full service restaurant at the lodge. Alsup noted the city could offer a sales tax rebate to the restaurant operators to sweeten the deal.
Other facets the task force could insert into the new lease might include expanding guest capacity and working in partnership with the state to make the pool at Roman Nose the city pool. Alsup said he had discussed with Watonga Superintendent Kyle Hilterbran the recruitment and training of high school students as lifeguards – there were none at Roman Nose this year – as well as having a regular back and forth bus route from a central location in town to the pool using a district bus.
A task force could also push for improvements to the golf course and the pro shop and adding the course to the Oklahoma Golf Course Trail marketed by the Department of Tourism. It could address reopening the general store and rental facilities for boats and kayaks as well as a vendor for the stables where trail rides used to be offered.
Alsup pointed out he wanted to wait until September to launch the task force because by then the new legislator for the area will have been elected. He also said if the council was not interested in moving ahead with the idea, he would abandon it.
In the end, the council gave Alsup clear direction that he should develop both the task force to pursue a more robust park and the business incubator concept to spur economic development.