REGULAR MEETING MINUTES

LAWTON CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING

FEBRUARY 10, 2004

WAYNE GILLEY CITY HALL COUNCIL CHAMBER

Mayor Cecil E. Powell,                Also Present:

Presiding                        Larry Mitchell, City Manager

                            John Vincent, City Attorney

                            Kathy Fanning, City Clerk

                            Col. Gregory K. Herring, Fort Sill Liaison

                            

The meeting was called to order at 6:42 p.m. by Mayor Powell.  Notice of meeting and agenda were posted on the City Hall notice board as required by law.

ROLL CALL

PRESENT:                Randy Bass, Ward One

                    James Hanna, Ward Two

                    Glenn Devine, Ward Three

                    Amy Ewing-Holmstrom, Ward Four

        Robert Shanklin, Ward Five

        Jeffrey Patton, Ward Six

        Stanley Haywood, Ward Seven

        Randy Warren, Ward Eight

ABSENT:    None

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION:   

CONSENT AGENDA : Separate consideration was requested for Item #9

1.    Consider the following damage claims recommended for approval and consider passage of the resolutions authorizing the City Attorney to file a friendly suit for these claims which are over $400.00:  Robert Wayne and Lynnette Moore, Johnny and Mitzi Jenkins, Thomas L. and Ursula E. Dorman, James and Mary Suttles, and Fonda Riggs.  Action:  approved Res. Nos. 04- 08 , 04- 09, and 04- 10 .  

2.    Consider a resolution approving action taken by the Lawton Water Authority authorizing issuance, sale and delivery of the Authority's promissory note to the Oklahoma Water Resources Board; ratifying and confirming a certain lease agreement, as amended; establishing the City's reasonable expectations with respect to the issuance of tax-exempt obligations by or on behalf of said City in calendar year 2004 and designating the Series 2004E SRF Promissory Note and 2004F Promissory Note to be a qualified tax-exempt obligation; and containing other provisions related thereto, and take action.  Action:  approved Res. No. 04- 11 .

3.    Consider approving the record plat for Dunbar Commercial Addition, Part 1.  Action: approved.

4.    Consider approving Change Order No. 1 assessing liquidated damages, accepting the Wolf Creek Bridge Painting/Repair Project #2002-15 as constructed by B & B Painting, and placing the Maintenance Bond into effect.   Action:  approved.

5.    Consider denying requests for the installation of traffic control devices near 604 SE "C" Avenue and on Ft. Sill Blvd. at Birch.  Action:  approved.

6.    Consider approving a Resolution authorizing the installation and/or removal of traffic control devices on Tower Road from Lee Blvd. to Bishop, 31 ^st and Ferris, McKinley and 8^th Street, Garfield and 8^th Street, Sheridan Road just north of Lee Blvd.  Action:  approved Res. No. 04- 12 .

7.    Consider adopting a resolution ratifying the action of the City Attorney and the City Manager in filing and making payment of the judgment in the Workers' Compensation case of Constance Jones, surviving spouse of Jimmie Jones (deceased) in the Workers' Compensation Court, Case No. 2003-03838H and 2002-06316A.  Action:  approved Res. No. 04- 13 .

8.    Consider approving contracts for Community Arts Program for Cynthia Sosa ($400.00) and Jeff Dixon ($93.00), facilitators for the interviewing/writing portion of the project.  Action:  approved.  

9.    Consider a request from Great Plains Improvement Foundation (GPIF), Inc. to approve a proposed Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) project and authorize the Mayor to sign the Certification of Local Approval for the ESG application to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce (ODOC).

Bass asked who pays the dollar for dollar match if the City doesn't pay it.  Aplin said the match would be the responsibility of Great Plains Improvement Foundation.  He said the City is not requested to provide matching for this grant.  Bass asked how much is the grant?  Aplin said they have applied for $20,000, which is basically going towards running the C. Carter Craine Shelter.

10.    Consider approving the following contract extensions:  Wrecker Service (CL03-038) with American Wrecker Service and Priest Brothers Inc. - Equipment Maintenance; Footwear (Safety, Athletic, Walking) (CL02-040) with Woodwards and Bill's Scoreboard - City Wide; Ballistic Vests and Covers (CL02-025) with Skaggs/Special OPS - Police; and Police Duty Gear (CL02-031) with Skaggs/Special OPS - Police.  Action:  approved.  

11.    Consider awarding contract for Dewatering Polymer (CL04-041) to Polydyne, Inc. Action:  approved.  

12.    Consider awarding contract for Flush Truck Hose (CL04-040) to Improved Construction Method (ICM) of Oklahoma City.  Action:  approved.

13.    Consider awarding contract for Heavy Equipment Service and Parts (CL04-039) to Warren Power and Machinery LP of Oklahoma City.  Action:  approved.

14.    Approval appointments to boards, commissions and trusts:  CIP-Rainwater; Traffic Comm.-Means.  

15.    Consider approval of the minutes of January 13, 2004, Regular Council Meeting and of January 20, 2004 Special Council CIP Workshop Meeting.  Action: approved.

16.    Consider approval of payroll for the period of January 19, 2004 to February 1, 2004.  Action:  approved.

OLD BUSINESS:

17.    Consider approving a contract for the sale of treated water, for a limited duration, between the City of Lawton, Oklahoma and Bruton Construction Co., Inc.

Vincent said this matter was brought back before Council at the last meeting to approve a contract for the sale of treated water that was subject to Mr. Bruton agreeing to an amendment to the contract to fence, with opaque fencing, 8' high, the perimeter of the area.  Mr. Bruton did not agree to do that, but what he has agreed to do is shown in paragraph 17 of the proposed contract.  It was passed out under separate cover, to provide screening around the plant and material used in the making of concrete, sand, gravel, rock, cement, by installing an 8' high opaque fence and gate.  It could be chain length with strips of material that covers the fence affectively making it opaque.  They are wanting to limit the fence to the plant site itself and not the whole perimeter they are obtaining from the person they are getting the property from.  Since this is a change from the motion that was made at Council meeting, this matter needed to come back before Council for approval.

BUSINESS ITEMS:

18.    Consider authorizing staff to prepare plans and specifications for the Lake Ellsworth Gate Repair Project #2004-1 and identifying a funding source.  

Ihler said two weeks ago, during his presentation of the status of the Lake Ellsworth water levels, he mentioned bringing this back to Council to discuss some maintenance type items we should take advantage of due to our unfortunate situation.  Our lake levels are about 14.3' down from the top of the gate, so we are about 4.3' down from the bottom of the gate.  We are asking Council to authorize the Engineering Division to proceed with plans and specifications to take care of three items, as it relates to maintenance on the dams and gates.  The first item would be to sandblast and paint the gates.  These gates were installed in 1969 and we have not painted them since.  There has been a lot of corrosion that has occurred with the gates and a lot of pitting from this corrosion.  We are concerned if we don't do something now, over time, there may be a possibility of leaking through the material.  We are asking to sandblast and put on an epoxy coating on the upstream side and paint the gates.  The second item is we have some construction cracks in the spillway on the upstream side and want to fill those cracks with some epoxy, flexible sealant.  The third item is to replace the metal race plates.  These rubber seals actually push up against, seal and hold the water back.  Those race plates are corroded and pitted, so we want to replace them with stainless steel plates.  The estimation of cost is approximately $300,000 to perform this work and asking Council authorize us to utilize the funds that are available from the Water Treatment Plant budget in the fiscal year 03-04, from their chemical account.  The new chemicals that would be utilized for the new plant, the majority of those chemicals weren't brought on line until December-January time frame, therefore, we have half a year of budgeted savings we would not be utilizing.  We are asking to use those savings to fund the maintenance of the gates at Lake Ellsworth.

Powell asked if Ihler was asking for authorization for staff to prepare plans and specifications and bring that back to Council at a later date.  Ihler said they are asking authorization to go out and receive bids also and we will bring those bids back to Council at that time.

Shanklin asked if we were not holding our own on Ellsworth on pumping.  Ihler said we were not, we are actually losing ground on Ellsworth.  We are pumping from Ellsworth to Lawtonka about 20-21 million gallons a day and from Lake Waurika to Lake Ellsworth. We are only able to pump about 13 million gallons a day because of their pump situation. They have one pump out.  He said actually, right now, we are not pumping at all from Waurika to Ellsworth because there has been a break on the 42" line, between Lake Waurika and the Lawton Relay Station.  Lawtonka is actually coming up a little bit during the winter months.  We are about 2' down from where we would stop pumping from Ellsworth to Lawtonka, but we are not able to maintain Ellsworth.  It's continuing to drop at this point.  Shanklin asked what time frame are we looking at to get this done.  Ihler said  it will take approximately 30-45 days to get the plans and specifications together and go out and start advertising for bids, so we are probably looking at 2 months before getting back to Council.  We would paint what we have access to and replace the race plates.  We will do what we can and if we should get a large amount of rain, to where the lake level comes above the gates, then we would do maintenance on those that are above the water.  

Shanklin said it was mentioned we need to get a conduit to the well at Ellsworth that pumps the water going into the Lake Ellsworth proper, to pump the water to Lawtonka. He asked how many feet of pipe is that.  Ihler said we have actually been discussing three alternatives; 1) go ahead and install perhaps on a barge, some low head pumps we would be able to pull water from Ellsworth and pump directly into the wet well, regardless of the level of the lake, as long as it was able to ride on a barge; 2) run a pipe line from the surge tank south of the dam.  The Corps of Engineers are about to approve the 36" tap of the 42" line of the Waurika pipe line, so they can come off at that location near the surge tank, to provide raw water to the Ft. Sill National Cemetery; we would want to pick up from that location and run to the wet well on the east side of the dam, about 1,000' of pipe; and 3) run a pipe line on the upstream side of the spillway from the west wet well to the east wet well, which is about 350' of pipe.  Ihler said they have done some analysis and if we continue to pump at 13 million gallons a day, we would not be able to pump once we got into the November time frame.

Bass asked if this something, because of the time frame, that we can do in-house.  Ihler said it has lead base paint and would require special handling and that is not something we could do.

19.    Consider accepting donation of four police canine bullet/stab resistant vests.

Chief Thorne introduced Master Officer Jenkins and our Senior Patrol Dog, Flipper, wearing one of the four vests donated to the Police Department by citizens.  We have four patrol dogs we have a lot of money invested in and these dogs are actually fearless, they will go places officers may be hesitant to go and will do anything for us and these vests are worth about $700 each.  He said we don't have the funds within our budget and these citizens thought it would be beneficial to us to purchase them and we hope Council will accept them.

REPORTS: MAYOR/CITY COUNCIL/CITY MANAGER

Warren said he thinks everyone has done a good job and there's room to improve and we can all do a better job next year.

Haywood said there were two individuals who went to the hospital, his former teachers, Jessie Stewart, a former coach and teacher at Dunbar and Douglas.  He has been in the hospital for heart surgery and doing well and Mr. Andrew Hill who turned 80 years old also had heart surgery and wished them a safe recovery.  Haywood reminded everyone this is Black History Month and Great Plains has a lot of displays from Douglas High School and everyone needs to attend.  It has been on display for one year and this is the last month.  He said Friday and Saturday there will be a rodeo and he was informed he is the Grand Marshal.

Powell said we do wish Mr. Stewart and Mr. Hill well and they are in our prayers.

Patton said one of our very own was honored by the NFL.  Will Shields was named NFL Man of the Year and he is someone from our community who has given a lot back and hasn't forgotten where he comes from.  He comes back quite often to do his camp and has donated a lot of time and money to the Lawton School System.  We should think of a way of honoring him in some way.  Patton said someone had suggested some type of sign, "Welcome to the home town of Will Shields" because he is certainly a great product of this city and has gone on and been successful.  He's a tremendous asset to this community, as well as to the community in Kansas City.

Powell said coming out of Lawton High School in recent years were Mike Mentor, Will Shields, Martin Chase from Eisenhower, and Brown from MacArthur and OU.  He thinks our public schools need to take people like this and build off them.  Bass said, like James Trapp, the fastest man in the NFL from Lawton.

Shanklin said last week end his grandson won the Fort Worth Stock Show in the steer exhibit.  His steer brought $132,500 and that is his triple crown.  He's 13 years old, 6'2", weighs 225 lbs. and has, in four years, won $410,000. Shanklin said he wanted to bring that up because that has never happened before or will happen again.  He has competed against over 7,000 steers and his three steers were chosen Grand Champion. Powell said that feat has never happened before and probably won't happen again.  He said he has been around these stock shows for a long time and seldom do you ever see repetition of one person winning successive years, so to have done something like this is really astronomical.

Devine said we have had a major problem in construction on Euclid and Waterford and hopes we have come to some kind of reasoning on it and wants people to know it's going to be at least another 60 days before this work is completed.  He asked for speed bumps and the reply was, we can't because of tort claims and he doesn't know if we will be able to have police officers out there to work it, for the traffic, because people are speeding. He said you cannot imagine how fast they drive through there.  This is a real good example of what happens when we take and use a residential street for a through street, and that's exactly what's happened there.  He said 31 ^st Street coming up through there, in front of Tomlinson Jr. High, is more less a through street from Ferris and now they have diverted it over to Waterford.  This puts it into a small residential street and they are really having a traffic problem.  He asked those who travel through there to take into consideration the people live there.  Slow down and give a little common courtesy because they can't even back out of their driveways and that is only a two block strip, but they come through there going 40-45 mph.

Powell reminded everyone that Ferris is closed east and west bound at the SE Corner of Tomlinson Jr. High School.  People should try to use an alternate route and alleviate that problem on Waterford because that is extremely dangerous.

Ewing-Holmstrom said she drove through there today.  She didn't even know there was construction and asked what the street was coming out of Waterford right in front of the parking lot of Tomlinson Jr. High.  Powell said that is Waterford.  Ewing-Holmstrom asked if there was a stop sign there.  She said someone drove straight out of there and if she had not slammed on her brakes, would have been broad-sided.  She said she didn't know if there was a stop sign coming out of Waterford onto Homestead, but there needs to be a temporary stop sign there.

Thorne said they are taking enforcement action in there and have issued citations in that area and will continue to do so when violations are observed.  He said they recognize the problem and will do their best to slow people down in the area.  Thorne said he doesn't think there is a stop sign there, it's a T intersection.

Ewing-Holmstrom asked if everyone knew that Randy Bass is in the latest edition of Trivial Pursuit.  He is the answer to one of the questions of the 20 ^th Anniversary Edition. Patton asked what the question was.  Bass said it was, "Who was the man who was able to walk Randy Bass six times in the last two games in Japan."  Ewing-Holmstrom said if we're going to say Will Shields is from Lawton, Oklahoma, we need to put a sign up that Randy Bass lives here too.

Mitchell reminded everyone the next CIP meeting is next Tuesday evening at 6:00 p.m. and the meeting will be here in the Council Chambers.  He has received four responses from the survey and will provide those to Council with the agenda on Friday.  

Vincent said legislative sessions are fully underway in Oklahoma City.  We have already had one of our bills considered and have many more to go and he will be going up tomorrow.  Powell said he will be up there also.

Powell said a couple weeks ago he mentioned there would be a forth coming plan on rehabilitating 2 ^nd Street and Downtown Lawton and has visited with Bigham and the City Manager because he wanted to inquire about LURA and funds there.  A week ago Friday, a meeting was called with LURA Board Members and they are going to go out for requests for somebody that has had proven experience on rehabilitating a downtown, such as ours.  This is going to happen in the immediate future.  He wants the public to know this is coming out of LURA funds and not out of the General Fund or the City Fund and those funds cannot go into General Funds, so this is not being done with your funds.

Powell reminded Council they have been invited to add anything to the CIP list they desire and to turn that into the City Manager.  He also wanted to let the public know that next Tuesday's meeting they will be given the opportunity to give input and if anyone wants to review what he turned into the City Manager is welcome to and is contrary to what he saw in the paper on Sunday.

EXECUTIVE SESSION ITEMS:  NONE

There being no further business to consider, the meeting adjourned at 7:13 p.m. upon motion, second and roll call vote.