The Pawhuska City Council has awarded a bid to Kinard Painting and Sandblasting, Inc. to make improvements to the ground storage tank and these improvements will cost just over $790,000. Engineer Tim Ward recommended this company over the other business bidding on the project, whose price was nearly double what Kinard Painting and Sandblasting, Inc. was offering. Interim City Manager Tonya Bright explains how the city will be paying for the project.
After the grant money is used up, The City of Pawhuska will be out around $200,000 to pay for the repairs. During a special called city council meeting in Pawhuska, Councilman Steve Tolson made a presentation regarding the city’s finances and how they have declined over the past couple of years. Revenue is divided
Dating back to the 2017-2018 fiscal year, total revenue stood at just over 10 million dollars. Expenses were around nine million dollars, thus making for a surplus of just over one million dollars for the City of Pawhuska. Since then, revenues have decreased and expenses have been on the increase, causing the City to have a deficit at the end of the 2019-2020 fiscal year. The same is projected for this year as well. Because of this, Tolson says it is important to be careful on how the council proceeds in funding some of the upcoming projects. This was only a topic of discussion and no action was taken on the item. The Oklahoma State Department of Health released its weekly county-by-county risk level assessment for the chances of getting COVID-19. For this given week, only one county is in the orange, or moderate risk. There are 51 counties in the yellow, or low risk category and 25 counties sitting at the green, or new normal level.
This is the best the map has looked since they began tracking the data this way in late September and District One Commissioner for Osage County, Randall Jones says he is seeing the same thing. In Wednesday's report, an additional 143 COVID-19 cases were reported. The Barnsdall Class of 2021 will take the stage for the final time on Thursday evening from the Bartlesville Community Center for graduation ceremonies. You can listen to the evening’s festivities on Sportstalk KPGM FM 99.1 beginning at 6:45 p.m.
Thank you to Performance Operating Company, Barnsdall Nursing Home, Kelly’s Trucks and More, Get Real Ministries, Verdigris Valley Electric Cooperative and Holden’s Septic Service for making the broadcast possible. At Monday evening's school board meeting in Pawhuska, board member Addie Roanhorse put in her letter of resignation, which is effective immediately. Superintendent David Cash says they have 60 days to fill the position and goes on to explain how the process will play out.
Cash hopes to make a recommendation to the Board within the next month. The Osage Nation Museum is seeking input from the public as they begin making plans for renovations and an expansion to the museum.
Beginning next week, there will be three community dinners where people will have the opportunity to meet with architects, museum planners and others to gain a better understanding of what the expansion may look like. The first meeting will be held next Tuesday in Pawhuska at the Wakon Iron Center. The Hominy Village Community Building will host Wednesday’s meeting and Thursday’s meeting will take place at the Grayhorse Community Building. All three community dinners are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. By designating County Clerk Robin Slack as the point of contact and allowing her office to track revenue and qualifying expenses, the Board of Osage County Commissioners took the next step in receiving federal funds through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. District One Commissioner Randall Jones details the process.
At a recent meeting, it was unclear if those funds were going to be able to be set up in an individual account. After speaking with someone at the State Auditor's Office, Slack learned that those funds will be broken up into separate accounts. Jeremy McLemore with Miller EMS gave his monthly report at Monday’s Board of Osage County Commissioners meeting and said he is beginning to see business pick back up after dropping during what many considered the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
McLemore said for the month of April, they had 27 calls for service and sent 23 patients to the hospital in the Barnsdall area. That number was significantly higher in Fairfax, as there were 47 patients transported to the hospital in that area. McLemore said what they are beginning to focus on is the Tulsa Ironman race, which is scheduled to come through Osage County on Sunday, May 23rd. One of the ambulances with Barnsdall’s EMS currently has an oil leak and Miller EMS is attempting to fix it. At Monday’s Osage County Commissioners meeting, the Board approved the nutrition department’s financial report. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nutrition Director Kyme Vincent received a lot of federal grant money for the program and she isn’t sure if she will be able to use about $150,000 of those funds in this fiscal year, as she is only able to use the money for allowable expenses. Therefore she has reached out to see where that money will go.
Vincent said while this isn’t an ideal situation, the program’s financial status could and has been worse in years past. The commissioners also updated a resolution on when it is allowable for the Board to buy county employees meals. The newest administrative assistant with the Osage County Health Department gave an update regarding how things are going within their clinic. Sarah Patterson was hired on to fill that role in December and she said they are in the process of making new hires to fill vacancies that had been left behind. When they are able to hire another RN, Patterson hopes to be able to take advantage of a mobile clinic and serve patients across the county.
Patterson went on to talk about how the county has done in its release of the COVID-19 vaccine to residents and the demand they are currently seeing for the shot. Patterson hopes the clinic will be able to begin administering COVID-19 vaccines to kids aged 12 to 15 when given the go ahead. As of May 3rd, just over 21 percent of Osage County residents had received the prime dose of the vaccine. |
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