WATONGA – Watonga Interim City Manager Larry Mitchell bid farewell to the Watonga City Council during their last meeting of his tenure on Tuesday, Aug. 17.
Mitchell updated the council on the move to a new City Hall, an upcoming report on the Watonga Police Department, and the quest for a grant to replace city sewer lines. Mitchell served as interim manager for about 15 months and was succeeded by Karrie Beth Little, who started this week.
“I’ve enjoyed my time here,” Mitchell told the council. “You’ve been very supportive, and I think you’re on the right track. You’ve made a lot of progress. I know sometimes, you sit back and look at it and it’s hard to see it, but you really have.”
Mitchell said he had hoped the City Hall move would be completed by now, but now estimates it likely won’t occur until mid-September. “We’re running into the same problems that everyone else is,” Mitchell said. “When you order something, it’s three weeks, four weeks. So right now, we have a phone system ordered. I think it’s going to be about two weeks to get it installed.”
The city is moving its offices to 410 W. Main St., the former Department of Human Services office across the street from Karl’s Apple Market, which it will share with the Watonga Chamber of Commerce.
Regarding the upcoming report on the Watonga Police Department, Mitchell said Oklahoma Municipal Management Services has a rough draft nearly ready and wants to meet with the council in the next few weeks to go over it.
The OMMS interviewed police officers and community stakeholders in June and prepared the report to evaluate the department’s policies and procedures. Watonga councilmembers agreed to meet and review the report on or around Aug. 31.
“I haven’t seen the report. It’s in the rough draft form,” Mitchell said. “But I think it’s going to be well-done and comprehensive, and I think they’re going to do a good job with it.”
Finally, regarding the sewer line grant, Mitchell said the city has it “on fairly good authority” that the project has made the “final allocation list” for grant money. It’s just a question now, he said, of whether the city will receive any of that money before it runs out.
The Community Development Block Grant funds are provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered in Oklahoma by the Department of Commerce.
“I can tell you that Watonga has made the final list,” Mitchell said. “… They have a list of viable applications, and they just go down the list and fund as many projects as they can. So the good news here is that our application wasn’t thrown in the trash can.”
The city should find out if it will receive the grant by the end of September, Mitchell said.
Water Rate Increase Coming?
Earlier in the meeting, the city council heard from Randy Clark of the Oklahoma Rural Water Association, who created a report on the city’s water rates.
Clark recommended that the city raise its rates.
“My proposal to you is to increase your base rate from $8 to $10,” Clark said. He also suggested the city not include any water in its residential base rate; Watonga’s base rate currently includes the use of 1,000 gallons.
“If you turn the light switch on here, how many kilowatts do we get free?” he explained. “We don’t get any. … We believe we are a utility, we run like a business, and therefore there should not be any water included in the base rate.”
Clark also recommended increases to commercial rates and sewer rates, and for the city to create a separate “sprinkler rate” for residents who want to water their yards without paying sewer rates. “A lot of municipalities have a sprinkler rate where the customer has to buy a new meter,” he said.
The city council took no action on Clark’s recommendations Tuesday, but agreed to revisit the issue in the future.