2. Departmental Reports

(Electric, Water, Sewer, Police, Street, R.O. Plant, Golf Complex,
Economic Development Director and City Secretary).

Electric Department Superintendent Brad Tilley:
The department completed approximately 75 work orders this month and lately the crew has been working with TXDOT on the utility relocations that are required for the Highway 277 project.

Water/WW Operations Superintendent Greg Shumate:
We’ve been busy with work orders and have had 3 notable leaks. One leak required that we fix a main. The Sewer Plant has been running very well. The pipeline is working well and averages 135,000 gallons per day. We are making sure that the sewer lines are kept flushed out. We are currently working to get the old “Water Rack” up and running. We plan to use this Rack, which is located near the old water plant site, to produce raw/non-potable water, for use during the construction of the Hwy 277 realignment. We will sell this water to the construction firms.

Police Chief Tommy Duncan:
Our office answered 318 calls for service this month. There were 3 minor accidents and the K-9 officer and “Panther” had a productive month. ‘Panther’ was recertified. There are many schools and training opportunities coming up for the department.

Street Superintendent Ronnie Kolacek:
We have been busy cleaning out bar ditches and helping Rick with projects at the RO Plant. We also installed some cattle guards out there. We have been putting up street signs and processing our daily work orders.

Water Production Superintendent (R.O. Plant) Rick Garcia:
We have been staying busy with daily operations. We are pumping a little more water than normal averaging 450,000 to 600,000 gallons a day. We did fix the cattle guards and did lots of ‘housekeeping’ projects out there. The aquifer is in good shape;it looks better than it did this time last year. There is no word on the approval of the new wells from the state.

Salt Fork Municipal Golf Complex Groundskeeper Missie Hargrove:
Supr. Hargrove was unavailable.

Economic Development Department Director John Studer:
Here is the text of the ED Dir. Monthly report.

“Dear Mayor and Council,
_I took some vacation time during Christmas and over New Years.
Even with this shorter time frame; it has been very busy in my department.

The projects this office is working on this month are:

• Renewable Energy:
I had meetings with Munday Economic Development (ED) Corporation, Knox City Economic Development Corporation and the coordinator for Haskell County, Judge Davis. Munday and Haskell are ready to do whatever we ask of them. Knox City wants more information before they commit to paying for a share of the feasibility study for an Ethanol plant. We need to gather more information anyway; so a meeting was scheduled with finance experts from First Southwest of Dallas (investment bankers). This meeting will be on Thursday, January the 26th at 10 AM, at the Salt Fork Municipal Complex’s meeting room. It will be an informational meeting with Mike Ferree and two of his associates from the First Southwest Company of Dallas. I asked him to give an overview (from beginning to end) of what is required to build and to operate an ethanol plant. The First Southwest Company will provide the financial framework for this project. They provided the financing structure for the new Levelland, Texas Ethanol facility. We will know after this meeting whether or not we should proceed with the feasibility study on this subject. The feasibility study will then determine the potential profitability of the project as a whole. I hope members of council can make this important meeting. City Secretary Simpson informed me she will post it as a “possible quorum” meeting – so you do not have to worry about
being in a quorum should this occur.

• Auditorium:
There will be a benefit concert by the Imitation Stats on Sunday afternoon, January 29th at the old High School Auditorium. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the City Hall Historic Auditorium Renovation project. I will contact Shelley Green this week to check on the progress of their grant proposal. A reporter and photographer from the Wichita Falls Times Record News were here on Thursday the 12th. They were fascinated about the Auditorium and took a lot of pictures. We hope they will do a story on it.

• Beautification:
The Array of Lights fund-raising function raised approximately $7800. This is “Community Pride” in action. As I said before, we need to keep this locomotive going. I am putting the finishing touches on the $5000 TDA grant application. I am waiting on some figures from Bobbie Loving for costs of the new lighting. Then I will be able to make a budget and to send in the grant application. Hopefully, it will be done by the time you read this. One requirement of the TDA grant is that the lamps be installed within six months after project acceptance. This is obtainable.

• Website:
The Economic Development Department section will be the first to be launched on our new World Wide Web (www) site. We hope to see this within two weeks. The City hasn’t updated the information on our site for over two and a half years – in computer slang it is now a “cobweb”. It will be a real plus for the city to take down the cobweb and put up a newer, more streamlined website. It is a window to the world. I plan to print some color copies of some of the pages that our new webmaster (Ralph Tobin of Running Turtle Studios of Fort Worth) has created.
These pages will give you Council members a good sense of the look and feel of the site that Tobin is designing.

• City Pride Signage:
I got TXDOT approval last week for the placement of City Pride signs at the entrances to our town. The letter congratulated us on being the first City in the Wichita Falls district to have this privilege. The sign will be an 8’ by 10’ sign which notes our superior water, exemplary schools, trauma level 4 Hospital and the presence of a museum.

• Times Record News:
The TRN had a reporter and a photographer in our town on Thursday, the 12th. They spent two and one-half hours with me gathering positive stories about Seymour. They spent a lot of time at the City Hall Auditorium, the Fire Station and discussing the highway 277 project. I have no idea when they will run this story. The reporter said she regularly phones all regional small towns to ask them what good things are happening. The reply she usually gets is “nothing is happening”. She noted that we have so many positive things happening. Hopefully, we will get positive coverage out of this.

• Assistant Living Facility:
I have sent inquires to Texhoma Christian Care of Wichita Falls about locating a satellite assistant living facility here. I got a reply back from their board that they were not interested in doing any satellite locations. I will keep pursuing this.

• Miscellaneous:
I had some conversations with an individual who wanted to open a small Aluminum Extrusion plant here. It would not have employed very many people and required too much capital assistance. I sent a letter to a contact for a truck stop. This is an avenue we need to pursue more as construction is about to begin on the new highway. I also plan to attend a renewable energy conference in Oklahoma City on January the 31st and February the 1st. I also did a letter of support for the “FutureGen” project (Electrical Generating Plant) being pursued by Vernon at the Oklaunion site.

There are always a lot of projects, in progress, that might not be in this report. If you have any questions or advice, I urge you to call, or come by my office, anytime. As always, thanks for your support of the efforts of this office to strengthen our community’s future.”

City Secretary: Elaine Simpson:
CS Simpson was unavailable, and City Secretary Assistant Torrez had no report.

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