Council extends Dockery’s contract

Clarendon City Administrator David Dockery will stay in his current position after the city council extended his contract last Thursday, July 12.

Aldermen met in closed session to evaluate Dockery before returning to open session and adding a year to his current contract, which now expires in 2020.

Dockery also received a three percent raise and an increase to his monthly car allowance.

In other city business, Aldermen designated more than $53,000 into a special account for future maintenance of the proposed water recreation facility. The funds were what the city paid about three years ago for preliminary engineering for the upcoming USDA water system improvement project. With that project about to get underway, those fees were reimbursed to the city by the USDA project funds.

Aldermen also appointed five people to evaluate the qualifications of firms vying to be the engineers for the water recreation project. Those citizens are Mayor Sandy Skelton, Alderman Beverly Burrow, and water recreation steering committee members Markeeta Howard and Derlene Gray. They met Monday, and their scoring will be presented to the city council next week.

The council approved $1,000 from the community programs fund for the Donley County Senior Citizens Meals on Wheels program, and aldermen also approved the city’s support of Southwestern Electric Power Company’s Wind Catcher Program, which proposed to build a wind energy facility in the Oklahoma Panhandle to help reduce energy costs for SWEPCO customers.

Aldermen voted in favor of having Foster & Lambert conduct the city audit for fiscal year 2018.