This Week

American Electric Power (AEP)-West Texas Utilities (WTU) Clarendon office will remain open for customers to make bill payments until July 31, 2000.  After this date the front office will be closed for all customer transactions.

“We announced in February that the office would remain open until September 30, 2000; however, personnel changes have made it necessary for us to discontinue taking ‘walk-in’ payments sooner than we had originally planned,” said Jeff Thigpen, AEP-WTU area business manager.

All local phone calls to the Clarendon office will be forwarded to the Customer Service Center in Corpus Christi, which is available to accept calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Representatives at the Customer Service Center provide prompt attention to requests for service connection or disconnection, account information, outage reports, or to answer other questions that customers may have.  For customer service, the toll-free number to call is 888-216-3523.

Customers currently have a number of convenient bill payment options available.  These include by mail, by automatic bank draft through the DirectAdvantage Plan, Internet electronic bill payment through www.transpoint.com, and credit or ATM card payment via the telephone for the ChoicePay Plan.

The Clarendon office will continue to be used as a base of operations for service technician employees, Mike Proffitt and Leon Ward, who work in the energy delivery area of the business.

“While we’re making changes in the way we conduct business, our commitment to provide superior customer service and reliability hasn’t changed,” Thigpen said.

Darrell Leffew and Stan Leffew look over the Terex S17-E tractor from Scotland, which will be married to a locally produced scrapper.
Enterprise Digital Photo.

After a seven-month delay, a tractor from Scotland finally arrived in Clarendon last week.

The tractor, which was initially to have been here December 1, 1999, will be hooked up to a 17-yard scraper built by Clarendon Manufacturing & Distributing.

Clarendon Operations Director Stan Leffew says testing of the S-17E prototype will begin within the next two weeks, and the unit is tentatively scheduled to be unveiled in the latter part of August.

Changes in the design of the transmission and engine of the S-17E were responsible for the tractor’s delayed arrival, Leffew said. Also, the Scotland company, Terex Equipment Limited, had another unit in production that had to be completed before the S-17E tractor.

The tractor started its trans-Atlantic voyage from South Hampton, England, on June 19 and arrived in Galveston on July 3. Clarendon’s president and general manager, Darrell Leffew, arrived here with the tractor last Thursday.

When the S-17E is in full production, it will compete head to head with similar models of earthmovers made by Cat, Leffew said.

Clarendon Manufacturing & Distributing Co. has been in business since 1971. The local firm hopes to land a contract to produce 50 of the scrapers for Terex, which is based in Motherwell, Scotland, and has offices in the United States.

Rental of hanger spaces at the Clarendon Municipal Airport was again a topic of discussion when the board of aldermen met last Tuesday, July 11.

Alderman Smiley Johnson reviewed the history of airport’s development and said nothing had been found regarding who would be responsible for the maintenance of the facility.

The city had been charging hanger owners $25 per month to keep their hangers at the airport. But in October 1998, the city raised that rate to $40 per month. Some owners stopped making payments to the city, and pilots have told the city they felt as though they were being asked to pay for the entire cost of the airport.

“The pilots who live here should pay a portion of the cost [of the airport] but not the whole amount,” Johnson said at last week’s meeting.

Mayor Tex Selvidge suggested the city return to charging $25 per month and require everyone to pay. The hanger owners who have been paying the $40 per month would receive credit. “Then when everyone is caught up, [the city] goes to a per square foot charge,” he said.

The board approved a motion by Johnson, seconded by Alderman Mac Stavenhagen, to collect the delinquent rent and charge $25 per month to the end of the current fiscal year.

The board also approved a motion by Alderman Michael Tibbets, seconded by Johnson, to have the city attorney write a letter to the delinquent hanger owners informing them of the city’s decision. The vote was 3-1, Stavenhagen opposed.

The board then debated the amount of a square foot charge. After much discussion, the board voted 3-1 to charge 20¢ per square foot per year to lease hanger space at the airport. Johnson voted against the measure.

The new charge will result in the hanger owners paying about 50 percent of the operating expense of the airport.

Johnson said he thought they should only have to pay 25 percent of the cost. And one citizen in attendance, Pat Robertson, said, “It’s never been brought up that we also pay [municipal property] taxes on the hangers and the planes.”

In other city business, Michael Tibbets was sworn in by Mayor Selvidge to fulfill the remainder of former alderman Kent Womack’s term.

The board adopted a resolution establishing an Affirmative Action plan for the Texas Community Development Program from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

Alderman Mac Stavenhagen was appointed to serve in the position of the Fair Housing/Equal Opportunity Standards Officer for the city.

The revision of the water, sewer, and sanitation ordinance was discussed and changes made.

The aldermen reviewed the 2000-2001 budget for the Donley Appraisal District and voted unanimously to disapprove the budget. The board was critical of the district’s budgeted salary increases.

The Commissioners’ Court last week voted to temporarily relocate the district courtroom and to move a precinct ballot box in the first steps in vacating the aging Donley County Courthouse.

Monday’s actions were the most recent decisions in the long process of the upcoming $2.9 million restoration of the 1890 courthouse, which will require the county offices and records to be relocated for two years.
 
Chris Hutson, John Volz, and Tracy Hirschman go over a roof design last week as part of the planning for the restoration of the 1890 Donley County Courthouse.

Enterprise Digital Photo.
 
Commissioners approved a resolution designating Clarendon College’s Bairfield Activity Center as the temporary facility to hold county and district court as well as court proceedings for Precincts 1 & 2.

Commissioners also decided to temporarily move the location of the voting box for Precinct 2-01 from the courthouse to the courthouse annex.

Still in question is where county offices and records will be moved to.

The court approved two contracts relating to the restoration. John Kiehl of the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission will provide administrative services for the restoration grant from the Texas Historical Commission (THC). And Ken Smith of Southwest Securities Group, Inc., was hired as a consultant to assist the county with financing its matching funds.

Also last week, a three-member team from the county’s Austin-based architect firm spent four days going over the courthouse from the roof to the foundation.

“Donley County is our favorite project and also the most challenging project,” said architect John Volz. “We’re really excited about the opportunities here.”

Volz & Associates, Inc., is providing architectural services for courthouse restorations in Grimes, Llano, and Sutton counties. The firm is also working on the courthouse master plan for Fayette County, which hopes to receive funding in the THC’s second round of grants.

Information from last week’s survey of the building will be used in an upcoming report to THC, according to Volz intern Tracy Hirschman.

The design development package must be turned in to THC by July 24 and will explain what work is planned for the courthouse, Hirschman said. Volz will then begin working on construction documents in preparation for the bidding process.

AUSTIN – Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander last week delivered a total of $208.9 million in monthly sales tax payments to 1,106 cities and 119 counties.

Cities in Donley County saw sizable increases in their July payments over the same period one year ago.

Clarendon’s rebate was up nearly 33 percent for a total of $18,479.17. Hedley received $257.46, a increase of 20.16 percent, and Howardwick’s payment of $988.88 reflected a 16.66 percent increase.

Across the state, payments were up 17.1 percent for July.

July sales tax rebates represent sales taxes collected in May and reported to the comptroller in June.

For more information visit the Comptroller’s Website.

Construction of the new TxDOT Donley County Maintenance Facility is now complete, according to local maintenance supervisor Steve Smith.

The move was completed Wednesday, July 12. The new facility is located one mile west of Clarendon on US 287.

Construction began in July 1999 by Reynosa Construction of Amarillo. Architects for the project were Secord & Lebow of Wichita Falls.

Official opening ceremonies will be held later this year, most likely in September.