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February 3, 2010

Municipal Authority meeting delayed

Woodward City Commissioners’ short meeting was made even shorter Monday night when they had to cancel their business under Woodward Municipal Authority.

The cancellation was prompted by the fact that an old agenda from the commissioners’ Jan. 19 meeting was posted instead of the correct Feb. 1 agenda. City Clerk Kathy Coleman noted the mistake was made as city officials tried to get the agendas posted before closing early last week due to the bad weather.

City Manager Alan Riffel said the commissioners will now have to hold a special meeting to address the renewal of a short-term commercial lease contract that had been included on the unposted agenda.

Riffel said the special meeting is needed because the lease contract, which is between the municipal authority and the Commissioners of the Land Office for water rights, “requires action prior to the next regular meeting.”

However, the city commissioners were able to conduct some business Monday night, including approving a $112,717.19 bid from Vaisala, Inc., of Louisville, Colo. for installation of an Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS) at the Woodward Regional Airport.

“Our AWOS system has been ailing for some time and is now out of commission,” Riffel said, noting that the system is important because it serves as “the weather alert system for all flights interested in landing or taking off from Woodward Regional Airport.”

He said the system must be replaced because “the age of the equipment is such that it no longer can be repaired.”

“The FAA and the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission have approved the purchase,” Riffel said, noting that “the city buys it (AWOS) and they cover 95 percent of the cost.”

Also Monday, the city commissioners received their monthly report on the city’s wastewater treatment plant from David Kincannon of Accurate Environmental Services.

Kincannon said the biggest item of note in his report was the fact that “starting today (Monday), you had your first discharge of treated water in three years.”

He explained that the purpose of the discharge is to “get the (evaporation) ponds down before spring rains,” adding that in the past the city was able to rely on these ponds and an irrigation system to release enough water so that discharge wasn’t necessary.

After the meeting, Kincannon told The News that the plant is expected to “continuously” discharge treatment water for the next “couple of months.” He said the city is permitted to discharge up to 1.8 million gallons to the North Canadian River each day.

In other business, Mayor Bill Fanning presented two special proclamations during Monday’s meeting. He presented the first proclamation to local Boy Scout Troop 251 declaring Feb. 1, 2010 as “Boy Scouts of America 100 Years of Scouting Day” in Woodward. He presented the second proclamation to the Ambucs clubs of Woodward recognizing February as National Ambucs Visibility Month.

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Workers prepare to load a damaged diesel tanker onto a tow truck following a fatality collision along Highway 412 west of Orienta Thursday.

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