Swimming pool opening delayed

 


The Alva Municipal Swimming Pool usually opens on Memorial Day but it won’t be ready by May 27 this summer. City Business Manager Joe Don Dunham told the city council Thursday that equipment has been ordered to make the required improvements. It was scheduled to arrive around May 21 or 22. Once equipment is installed, staff will have to be trained to use it, the pool will have to be filled, and the Oklahoma Department of Health will have to inspect and approve the equipment and pool. All of this will delay the opening of the swimming pool.

Water Department

Construction is proceeding on the chlorination station for the city water system. Again, there’s a delay for the delivery of controllers and a new building for installation. Once those arrive, Dunham said the project should be finished in about three weeks, provided the weather cooperates.

Rehabilitation of two water wells (64 and 66) is proceeding. Unless there are unexpected delays, the city should meet the DEQ approved time line of May 30. Crews will need to re-plumb the pumps, pour the concrete slab and set the new well house.

The water department has replaced motors in wells 46, 54 and 72. These motors started failing last year and the wells were taken off line.

Sanitation

The sanitation department has spent a lot of time picking up limbs and running the chipper. Although they’ve been doing this on a regular basis, the city is getting behind and the limb and grass piles are becoming unmanageable. Dunham said the rain has contributed to the problem with limbs piling up in standing water. The city is waiting for things to dry out so they can use the chipper. This will mean a delay in picking up limbs from residential yards.

Nuisances

During April, the city had 27 nuisance complaints filed. Of those 24 were on grass and weeds, one was trash, and two were other categories. Nineteen have been handled with eight still pending.

Human Resources

The city has employed 19 seasonal lifeguards and one seasonal grounds employee, a parks and building maintenance employee, an inmate supervisor, a seasonal parks maintenance employee and a full time airport attendant.

The city has openings for two full time water department employees a full time firefighter I for the rover position, a grounds maintenance position for the rec park, general laborer in sanitation, and both full and part time EMS employees. The strictly part-time positions open are an airport attendant, rec park attendant and grounds maintenance employees.

Officer Ron Vasquez was recently presented with the Employee Recognition Award for providing excellent customer service. At the meeting Thursday, Courtney Nesseralla also received the employee recognition award.

Street Department

The street department has spent most of their time recently cleaning up after all the rain. Drains have become clogged and culverts have experienced some wash out. The grass had to be peeled off of Skyline Drive, East Flynn Drive and County Road 460 to allow water to drain off the roadways. There were approximately 100 yards of dirt, debris and silt cleaned off of city streets. Several loads of rock and dirt were hauled from Kraft Drive to keep the street passable.

The city started overlaying Fifth Street but had to put the project on hold because of the rain. Emergency repairs were made to East Flynn by the Industrial Park as well as in the 300 block of East Flynn. At the corner of Meno and Flynn, a culvert washed out and will need to be replaced. This will be a city-county project and will be done after wheat harvest. The city has also hauled street millings to the cemetery so the sexton can make street repairs as needed.

Dunham said when the weather is warm enough (and dry enough) for asphalt work, the first area to be worked will be Seventh Street in the area of Washington School.

Police

The Alva Police Department made 369 separate contacts during April resulting in 118 tickets and 251 warnings. Along with these citations, there were 40 reports filed, five accidents worked, ten canine runs and four canine certifications performed. Animal control picked up 12 dogs and wrote six citations. Officers John Caviness and Kris Franta attended training for criminal interdiction.

Fire

Chief Kirk Trekell attended OkFirst Server Weather Recertification on April 2. He attended the Woods County Hazardous Mitigation Planning Committee meeting on April 16. He is helping to update that plan.

On April 24 the department ran three demonstration stations at Ag Safety Day for school students at the fairgrounds.

The department continues to carry out daily and weekly procedures, inspections and exercises. Apparatus exercises occur every Monday. That’s also the day of thorough cleaning of the fire station.

During April the fire department responded to 66 calls. Of those, 43 were EMS assists. They provided aircraft landing zone scene safety nine times. They went to one structure fire, two grass fires, and one farm equipment fire.

Emergency Medical Services

During April EMS started training three of the four new hires. By the end of the month one new hire completed field training, the second was nearing completion and the third was about one-third complete. These are all part-time positions. One full-time employee resigned for another job but wishes to remain part-time with EMS.

There were 93 EMS calls during April. In 36 cases the patient was evaluated but no treatment or transport was required. There were 34 transports with no lights or siren, two transported with lights and siren, 18 standbys, and three runs cancelled.

EMS made 40 transports during the month and six were transported out of Alva.

Financial

The general fund had a negative month-to-date cash flow of $128,355 and a negative year-to-date cash flow of $1,402,607. The Alva Utility Authority had a month-to-date cash flow of a positive $89,870 and a year-to-date positive cash flow of $833,095.

Through the month of April, the city has made $581,597.27 in principal payments and $268,220.77 in interest payment. As of April 30, the city owes across all entities a total of $6,686,340.65. The payoff dates range from July 1, 2019 to Sept. 15, 2048.

Sales Tax

During April the city received $322,150.33 in sales tax and $93,010.13 in use tax for a total of $415,160.46. This is up $89,918.31 from March 2019 and up $118,035.20 from April 2018.

In May, the city received the sales and use tax from the sales occurring in March. The May report shows a significant decrease of $53,498.10 compared to April 2019 totals. Currently sales and use tax is 7.47 percent more than last year and 4.4 percent less than budget projections.

 

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