Guymon City Council zipped through a light agenda Thursday evening as the thunder rolled outside reminding all that a certain sporting event was taking place later. There’s was also a reminder inside the council chambers with Vice Mayor Kim Peterson sporting an OKC Thunder T-shirt.
It took the panel just 40 minutes to:
– Accept a 6-month agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma to provide insurance for city employees. The city will continue to bear the cost of the employee’s insurance. However, employees will have the option of buying up for more doctor visits or prescription drug coverage. The previous insurance provided by Community Care cost the city $1.93 million per year. The Blue Cross price is $1.06 million, saving the city roughly $900,000 per year. However, the new agreement is for 6 months and will be up for renewal in January to synchronize it with the city’s switch to a calendar year budget.
– Accept a bid in the amount of $691,216.20 from Tarbet Ready Mix & Construction Inc. of Ulysses, Kansas, for the multi-phase taxiway reconstruction project at the Guymon Municipal Airport, as recommended by Garver Engineering. Four bids were received — two close to $500,000 and the other two about $1 million. Garver’s estimated cost was $741,000.
– Tabled an executive session to discuss termination of employment and a pending claim.
– City Manager Ted Graham also updated the councillors on a variety of topics, including: the city presently has 213 pending cases for code enforcement for everything from weeds to all the codes. The police department is ticketing where appropriate; the next council meeting will be paperless with the councilmen being issued iPads and individual training. Peterson noted another city has already switched and expected to regain the costs in 18 to 24 months but realized it in just 6 months due to the intensive paper and labor process of producing the binders for each council member; city is moving forward with plans for a public fireworks display on July 4th, depending on whether county issues burn ban before then.
As the Guymon Utilities Authority, council agreed to pay Hydro Resources $128,218.02 for the last water well project, which is 100 percent complete. They also agreed to use $3000.73 in local funds.
