jiffy mart disc
A billboard advertising the 35 acres owned by the city west of town will soon be going up.
billboardMembers of the Henryetta Economic Development Authority (HEDA) approved a three-year agreement with Stokley Outdoors to put a sign facing the I-40 exit west of town. That sign would show the property is available with an arrow pointing to the location and the city hall phone number.
At the monthly HEDA meeting Monday, Sam Stokley said that sign would be one of several promoting the town.
He had proposed a sign north of Henryetta at Coalton Road and another at the 237 exit.
In his presentation, he said three versions had been designed showing what is available in Henryetta. Those signs included space for an ATV park but HEDA members Bruce Jones and Andy Bealko said they would rather see antiques being featured. “Anytime people are driving and they see the word Antiques, they are more apt to leave the highway and check them out,” Jones said.
Bealko said the motels and lodging also needed to be included since much of the funding would be coming from the hotel and motel tax.
The three-year agreement would cost HEDA $400 a month. Stokley said with that price his firm would print and install the sign at no charge to the city.
A request by the city for HEDA to pay $225,127.36 more for water line work along Trudgeon and US 75 drew disagreement from the authority members.
Public works director Ron Casey said the lower bid on the project came in at $497,895. That was $205,692 above the original budget that HEDA members agreed to fund.
Casey said the cost of materials has, “gone up rapidly and availability is becoming an issue.”
“I’m disappointed in this,” said authority member Andy Bealko. “I can’t see HEDA spending this much more money.
“We don’t have a choice. We have to have water but the engineer should not paid,” said Jim Beymer.
Two of the HEDA members, Michael Dickey and Jill Francis, were not present for the meeting. That left Jones, Bealko, Beymer and chairman Keith Estes to make the decisions. Normally Estes would only cast a vote as a tie-breaker.
Jones made the motion to table that item until the city could see what other funding through grants would be available. Jones and Bealko voted in favor of the delay while Beymer voted against it. Estes pointed out the three votes would not constitute a quorum and he had to add his vote to table the matter.
The issue of only four HEDA members present arose again when the chamber of commerce rodeo committee made a request for $80,076 to be paid to First Family Federal Credit Union as reimbursement for the new bleachers at the rodeo grounds.
Bealko and Estes are both members of the rodeo committee and would have to abstain from voting. Francis is also on that committee.
The request was tabled until a full board can be present.