Alva Review-Courier -

Each month the Alva City Council receives reports on work done by the various city departments. Several of the departments are working short-staffed, but a lot of work is being accomplished. These are some of the reports from the month of June distributed at the July 15 council meeting.

Utilities

The customer service center (otherwise known as the city office), entered and forwarded 236 work orders and processed 35 citations. Employees processed and mailed 2,510 utility bills and responded to 1,221 incoming phone calls.

The water-wastewater department crews worked to repair leaks, update equipment at the well field and complete projects. Because many of the crew is new, there’s a lot of training going on which makes progress somewhat slower. Two large waterline leaks were repaired in June, one on Oklahoma Boulevard and another across from Lake Drive Estates at the cemetery. Approximately six other smaller leaks were also repaired.

Work has continued on wells 64 and 66, the two water wells that experienced contamination. Currently plumbing needs to be completed, concrete put around the casing and the building installed. The crews have also replaced several meters that have gone bad.

The sanitation department continues to work with two critical positions short. Currently the department is seeking two CDL drivers; these are the most difficult to hire. They also have an opening for a general labor position. Due to the continued absence of drivers, some of the street crew employees have been temporarily assigned to sanitation.

The sanitation crews have been working diligently to keep the trash routes caught up and to keep Alva clean. They are now working to grind tree limbs into chips to clean up the transfer site, and crews are able to pick up limbs again. That pick up had been halted when heavy rainfall made the tree limb pile too wet to process with the chipper.

Alva Recreation Center

The Alva Recreation Center was a busy place during June, sponsoring a number of activities. A softball tournament included four Alva teams and 15 from out of town for a total of 19 teams with a total of 228 youngsters involved.

In Rec League there were 72 games. Of these 40 were T-Ball, 20 were Coach Pitch and 12 were Machine Pitch.

Six campers attended a golf camp at the center.

There were 12 softball and five baseball games in league play.

The center hosted one birthday party and one reunion.

There were five adult basketball practices, a Mega Sports Camp, one classroom meeting, and eight youth practices for basketball, soccer and softball.

Community Development

During May, the Alva Planning Department completed 20 inspections with eight for residential building, three electrical, four mechanical, four plumbing, and one sign. There were 20 permits issued. Permit fees collected totaled $951.76.

The department received 20 complaints with 18 being for grass and weeds, one for trash and one for an inoperable vehicle. Fourteen of the complaints were handled with six pending.

Library

During June the Alva Public Library hosted the Little Explorers Story Hour and Activity Time, the Summer Reading Program, the Lego Club, eight small group activities, and the weekly Code Club.

One staff computer and three patron computers were replaced due to age of the computers. Three new iPads were added for the juvenile area, bringing the total to six. The basement air conditioner and roof top unit were replaced.

During June 36 programs or meetings were hosted by the library. There were 1,953 items checked out and 761 items were digitally downloaded from the library e-service, the internet service was accessed 968 times, and 228 items were added to the physical collection.

Street Department

The street department completed asphalt overlay on 12 blocks of streets during June. These overlays required approximately 1,800 tons of asphalt. During down time, the crews filled 400 to 500 potholes with 10 tons of cold asphalt mix.

Harvest traffic was very hard on city streets, particularly on Santa Fe Street and the 200 block of 9th Street.

Police

In May, K9 Duke had an open sore on his leg which at first was thought to be an infection. However, it was determined to be an aggressive form of cancer and his leg had to be removed. He can still perform his duties as a drug dog, but he will not be able to use his bite training for the police department.

During June, the police responded to 319 calls which resulted in 35 tickets, 188 warnings and 96 reports. There were 42 incidents handled in June including three assaults, one civil, nine drugs or narcotics, three warratns, one trespassing, eight public peace, five burglary, three driving under the influence, three family related, one vandalism, and three threats or intimidation.

Along with citations there were 62 reports filed and seven accidents worked. Police Chief Ben Orcutt and Assistant Chief Patrick Hawley attended training at the Oklahoma Association of Chiefs of Police Conference.

Fire

The Alva Fire Department is conducting their annual fire hydrant testing. At the end of June they had flow tested approximately half of the 335 fire hydrants in Alva’s distribution system.

Jacob Cox started in the fulltime rover position on June 24 and is working on job training.

On June 27 Woods County Dispatch reprogrammed transmitters. The fire department conducted a siren test to be certain reprogramming did not interfere with their ability to activate the sirens.

During June, the fire department responded to 68 calls. Four were vehicle, structure or electrical fire and they went to one grass fire in June. They provided 38 EMS assists, one vehicle injury wreck assist, and eight aircraft landing zone safety assistance. There were five false alarms.

Emergency Medical Services

During June the EMS assisted the fire department with the annual Mud Slinger Shootout. They volunteered time to run testing stations for the Northwest Technology Center EMT practical testing. During the Kids & Cops Pack the Park event, they manned one of the game stations and set up a cooling station/mister for attendees to have a place to cool off.

The EMS had 76 calls during June with 35 of those requiring transport. They made 24 transports in Alva, ten to Enid and one to Oklahoma City during the month.

Alva Cemetery

During June there were six burial and one cremation services at the cemetery. The majority of employee time was spent resetting headstones that had shifted because of the heavy rains early in the spring. Crews are continuing to work on settling and leveling of graves from the last couple of months. They are also replacing a broken water hydrant and making repairs to the road dividing Blocks 11 and 12.