The Bristow City Council met in chambers Monday evening to discuss various agenda items. The city council meetings are live streamed on Facebook for anyone who can not attend the meeting, to join in and listen to the meetings.
Councilman Johns made a motion to approve the hiring of Andrew Wedel as a Bristow Police Officer, on a probation period of one year. The motion was seconded by Councilman Peters and approved by the council.
Also approved was the consideration to establish the compensation of the city clerk as a salaried employee rather than hourly.
Several abatements were up for discussion. The first property is located at 316 S. Elm Street. The owner of the property requested the council give him a 30 day extension as he is trying to clean it up. The board approved extending the agenda item to Nov. 20. A motion was made by Councilman Johns to abate the property located at 617 E. 4th Street, for grass, weeds and debris, and the motion was approved by the council. Councilman Church made the motion to also abate property located at 420 West 9th, for weeds grass and debris. The motion was seconded by Councilman Langley. No action was taken on the abatement of property located at 220 E 4th Street. The property recently sold therefore the abatement process will need to start over.
The council discussed the adoption of a resolution determining the cost in the amount of $1,019 on property located at 1001 S. Chestnut for the removal of grass, weeds and debris. The motion to adopt the resolution was made by Councilman Witty and seconded by Councilman Johns.
The council moved on to consideration and discussion of forming an Oklahoma Public Trust to be known as the Bristow Jones Memorial Airport Authority. The appointed trustees to the Jones Memorial Airport Authority is Brandon Flood, Trey Zigfried, Logan Grant, Bob Grant, Brian Peters, Andrew Donahue and John Johnson.
The board heard a presentation from Tower Point communications as to why the city should allow the company to acquire the city's interests in the cell tower and telecommunications leases. The city has two towers here, one is located at the old Kwikset, which is a T-Mobile and the second is located at 12th and Maple, which is Sprint. The first tower is on a 20 year lease and the second only has eight years remaining on it. The initial offer on the towers is $600,000. Beth Childs, city attorney, stated she had Mike Bradley, out of Minneapolis, take a look at the offer and leases and he recommended for the city not to do it, that it would mean the loss of control of the municipality. A motion was made by Councilman Johns and seconded by Councilman Langley to have Bradley investigate a little deeper before the council makes a decision on this agenda item.
A report from Mayor Wyatt was made regarding the upcoming special meeting on the overview on economic development. This meeting will be a strategic interactive meeting and will be held at 6 p.m, October 19. The fire chief, in a report from department directors, said the fire department was going to do a mile and a half walk around the lake area in full gear, on Oct. 30, for training purposes and will also be cleaning up the Nature Trail.
Approval was made on the Bristow Hospital Authority minutes from the Oct. 2 meeting and approval of payment of various claims. The same for the Bristow Industrial Authority was made. The public is always welcome to attend the city council meetings which are held the first and third Monday of each month. If you are unable to attend but would like to hear what is going on in the community, the meetings are always live streamed on Bristow City Hall Facebook page. You can also read news from the mayor in the “Mayors Corner” in the Bristow News, page three, each week.