Event planned for holiday season
The Henryetta City Council approved several requests for upcoming events during their regular monthly meeting Tuesday evening.
This Saturday, the Henryetta Chamber of Commerce is hosting a movie in the park south of the Civic Center. The Halloween-themed movie, “The Haunted Mansion,” will be shown, but in the case of inclement weather, the event will be moved inside the Civic Center, with the city waiving a deposit and rental fee.
The council also allowed the use of the Civic Center again on Oct. 28 in the event of bad weather to move the Chamber’s Monster Mash.
This Monster Mash Block Party will be held 6-9 p.m. on Main Street from 3rd to 6th Street. During September’s session, the council was against shutting down the street from Fourth to Fifth Street for the Monster Mash.
Following further discussion, and with several downtown businesses remaining open during the event to more attendees and customers, the council approved the area to be blocked off.
Vendors, food trucks, and lots of activities are planned Oct. 28, and the public is invited to join in. Vendors are still being sought for the event. Contact the Henryetta Chamber for more information, and keep up to date on their Facebook page.
Last year’s Henryetta Hallmark Christmas event was such a success that organizers are looking for an even bigger one this year.
Organizers Kelly Dobson, Valerie Mosco and Eric Randleman spoke to the council and laid out what would be happening at the Dec. 2 event, which is expected to draw a large number of attendees, vendors with activities, and the Christmas parade beginning at 6 p.m.
The council approved use of the park and gazebo south of the Civic Center and the closure of Moore between 4th and 5th Streets for the event.
Henryetta’s new Fire Chief Tyler Wieland was appointed to the Henryetta Planning and Zoning Board to fill the unexpired term of David Bullard who is now city manager.
A request by Aaron Sanders to use Nichols Park for Geocaching was approved.
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting activity that uses GPS-enabled devices. In geocaching, participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the “geocache,” (usually a container or marker) at that location.
The city council also approved an agreement with Myers Engineering for work on Nichols Park Dam.
Mayor Michael Dickey explained that the city had been awarded grant money for two different projects, the spillway area at Nichols Park and one is the spillway area at Jim Hall Lake.
“From the time these were put in until now … there was $500,000 for each one of those,” he said. They have more than doubled in cost of production … so we need to funnel money from one to the other to finish one project and then do the design. To be able to execute that money we need to do the design portion also.”
The design part awarded to Myers Engineering is $20,000.
-Other agenda items approved were:
• Financial Reports for September
• Minutes of meeting held in September
• Claims for the month of September
• Payment to Bank of Oklahoma in the amount of $40,528.66 for 2015 Note Series monthly payment • Payment to AEP/PSO in the amount of $29,359.40 – During the session of the Henryetta Municipal Authority, the members approved:
• Financial Reports, Minutes and Claims for September • Payment to OWRB (ORF-08-0015-DW) in the amount of $37,962.14 for monthly payment New City Manager David Bullard gave an update on the recent hailstorm and damage in the area.
Bullard also praised the new Fire Chief for the City of Henryetta.
“He’s going to do a good job … and we’ll see some more improvements at the fire department,” he said.
Bullard also added that work is going to begin on repairing some of the streets as funds allows.
He also asked the council about setting up another city-wide cleanup event.
Under New Business, Mayor Dickey spoke about an e-waste event and what restrictions would be needed for such a collection project.
