It was a full agenda and a busy city council meeting at Watonga Tuesday evening.
The council passed as part of the consent agenda renewal of annual contracts with multiple entities, including Clean Slate for drug testing, the Friends of the Ferguson and the Watonga Community Theater Group for building leases, Harrison and Mecklenburg as city attorneys, RS Meacham for accounting and Jana Walker to perform the annual audit for the city.
The agreement between the city and the Lions Club to provide funds for the Independence Day fireworks was also approved, as was the agricultural lease on property adjacent to Huff Lorang Park.
Discussed individually was the change in law enforcement dispatch for the city. In the past, the city cops were dispatched by the county dispatchers. However, the county has outsourced dispatching to Weatherford. This left the towns with no other option but to follow suit. The annual cost will be $47,013. Weatherford has dispatched EMS and fire services for the city for a number of years.
Council member Tina Willis pointed out that she had several complaints from citizens about the new service, indicating they were transferred several times before the appropriate help was on the way. She and city manager Karrie Little agreed to follow up on those issues and determine where the problem was occurring.
Colin Bellmer with Garver Engineering was on hand to discuss the bids for the wastewater treatment improvements and the drinking water treatment plant construction. The council had been holding its breath over the bids, fearing they would be so far over budget as to be unattainable.
That was not the case, however. There were two very competitive bids, each about $15 million for the combined projects. That figure is about 10% over the engineers’ estimates, when some recent construction bids on similar projects had come into other cities at more than 50% over engineer estimates.
“I’m pretty happy with the bids,” Bellmer said. He went on to say that Garver had worked with both companies, but he was recommending the city accept the bid from BRB, a Kansas company that specializes in wastewater and drinking water projects. There was less than $20,000 difference in the quotes.
Bellmer promised he would attend each Monday morning construction meeting and would safeguard the half-million dollar contingency included in the project.
“That is there as a safeguard and it comes back to us at the end of the projects,” he told the council.
The company will also maintain a full time on site quality control overseer and the final work will be inspected and approved by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, which provided the loan to the city for the projects.
Construction on the drinking water plant will begin by July 1 in order to remain compliant with the Department of Environmental Quality consent order demanding the city reduce the levels of nitrates in its drinking water. The project is slated to be completed by July 2025, with the wastewater treatment project to be completed in 18 months, or about January 2026.