Grove City Councilors

Ward I - Ed Trumbull                 term ends 2011
Ward 2 - Marty Follis                 term ends 2014
Ward 3 - Larry Parham              term ends 2011
Ward 4 - Gary Trippensee - Mayor     term ends 2011
At Large - Mike Davenport         term ends 2011
City Manager - Bruce Johnson

Grove OK web site  http://www.cityofgrove.com/
City Council meets 1st and 3rd Tuesdays at 6:00 pm

City Hall phone number   918-786-6107
List of meeting agendas on Grove web site

Grand River Dam Authority,
Web site  www.grda.com

GRDA Board of Directors meet monthly
List of meeting dates web site
http://www.grda.com/AboutGRDA/board.html

Lake Patrol web site.   
http://www.grda.com/Water/lakepatrol.html

Lake Patrol Headquarter phone;   918-782-9594

Grand Lake Water Level  
http://www.swt-wc.usace.army.mil/PENS.lakepage.html





Delaware County Clerk web site    
http://www.delawareclerk.org/

County Clerk phone number;   918-253-4520 / 3955

List of meeting agendas for various county committees
http://www.delawareclerk.org/pgs/agendaindex.htm

County Commissioners meet every Monday at 9:00 am
Commissioners:
District 1 - Kenneth Crowder, R, Grove
District 2 - Billy R. Cornell, D, Jay
District 3 - Dave Kendrick, D, Colcord

Court Clerk - Caroline M. Weaver, D, Jay
Clerk - Carol Fortner, R, Grove
Sheriff - Jay Blackfox, D, Kansas
Treasurer - Mary Jane Law, D, Jay
Assessor - Leon Hurt, D, Colcord
Election Board Secretary - Dixie Smith, D, Colcord

Associate  District Judge, Delaware County - Barry Denney, Grove

District Attorney for  District 13 - Delaware, Ottawa
Eddie Wyant, D, Miami

What's the latest at Grove City Hall. 

Another item to be reviewed and downloaded from the Grand Lake Business Journal is the five year capital improvement plan submitted to the City Council by City Manager Bruce Johnson.  It is a five page document full of places where your tax money will be spent.  Review this document then ask, could I do a better job of spending that money?

Suggest you take an opportunity to visit the Grand Lake Business Journal and view the 45 minute video of the city manager, Bruce Johnson discuss the budget for 2010-2011.  This will be an eye opener as the city is anticipating a 6 - 7% fall off of sales tax for next year which will result in some real changes in the budget.

In the video it is stated that the city has about 2 million dollars of road work that needs to be done, but will have significantly less than that to work with.  There is some discussion of revenue enhancements (taxes) that may be of interest.

For your information Grove has never had a bond issue (General Obligation Bond) for city infrastructure requirements.  This does not include the Grove Municipal Services Authority which routinely will take out revenue bonds for capital improvements.  A revenue bond is paid for with income from the utilities.  A general obligation bond which was briefly discussed would be paid for with property taxes.

The City of Grove will be posting their preliminary budget on the city web site shortly.  You need to pay attention to this as it may affect your pocket book

One of our GAB members let the City Council members know what he thought of the proposed fee increases and any increase in taxes.  The letter follows.

May 17, 2010

To: Bruce Johnson, City Manager
    Gary Trippensee, Mayor
    Larry Parham
    Mike Davenport
    Ed Trumbull
    Marty Follis
 
After watching the video on the Grand Lake Business Journal of Bruce Johnson I feel
that I must comment on the projected shortfall in the proposed budget.

First I am retired.
I got a zero increase in Social Security.
And, although the stock market has recovered somewhat ,
I have still lost a significant amount of my IRA.
My house has lost 20-30 percent of its value.
The Federal government is surely going to raise my taxes.
The state government is under federal mandates, …. such that fees and taxes are going
to raise.
The county commissioners just tried to raise my taxes and they haven’t given up trying
again.
Unemployment is between 9-10 percent.

However, I am still living within my income.

Now having said all of that, ,,,,,,you expect me to be sympathetic ,,,,,,when you talk
about raising taxes, fees and police citations.
You spend money on projects that help very few people, ,,,,such as swimming pools, yet
our streets are so bad you can just barely walk on them,,, much less drive on them.

I want you to know that I am fed up with government……. (federal, state and local) that
is unwilling to live within the income they have.

Just realize that many of your constituents that vote for you are living on a reduced
income. The time has come that tax supported entities realize that they must do the same.
Tax payers cannot support a government that continues to be "spendaholics" when many of
the people that provide your income have lost theirs.

I have a very simple solution for the expected budget short fall. Cut spending.
I am angry and I am not alone. Cut spending!!!!!!!

Now if you want me to do your job just ask, ,,,but know this, I will not take a pair of
tweezers to the budget. I will take a hatchet and I will be brutal.

Sincerely,
Don Smith
1644 Dilar Dr.
Grove, OK


Visit the City of Grove Web Site.  Agendas for upcoming meetings are available on this web site.
 Agendas must be posted 48 hours prior to the meetings.  Thus most Tuesday meeting agendas
are available on line by Friday evening.

                      

**********************************                        Patriots here are the recent postings regarding the        *********************************************

The Jail Authority/County Commissioners had called a special meeting for April 28, 2010 at 2pm in the Commissioners chambers at the Jay Courthouse.

The last item on a very short agenda is to discuss what size jail is required and  how should it be funded.  Sounds like a rerun at this point.  Quite possibly the discussion would be what needs to be done to satisfy the overcrowding problem and satisfy the state requirements.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

There was a spirited discussion at the April 28 meeting.  It appears there have been back room discussions between one of the county commissioners and certain members of the Grove City Council and Administration.  A plan was floated to go for a slightly smaller jail, finance it over a 40 year period and reduce  the sales tax levy to 0.2% for 40 years, or until the bond is paid then reduce the sales tax levy to .1% for ever.

Discussion included how you can plan that far ahead.  The County Commission and Jail Authority have been unsuccessful in predicting need over the past 20 years, so what should make us believe they have improved their abilities.

The next meeting of the Jail Authority is now called for May 12, 2010 at 11AM in the County Commissioners Room at the Jay Court House.  At this meeting financial details of this new proposal will be discussed.  The plans are to take this to the voters sometime this summer or early fall.  Keep tuned in for the latest.

At the May 12 meeting new financial analysis were presented by Rick Smith from Municipal Finance Services,  Inc.  The new financial s follow that were presented.  They do not paint a pretty picture as the sales tax revenues for Delaware County are down by an estimated 7.04% for FY 2010 as compared to a increase for FY 2009 of 2.77%.  That trend appears to be continuing not just for Delaware County but state wide.  A further meeting is planned within the next two weeks to determine where to go from here.  That meeting is now scheduled for May 19, 2010 at 9AM in Jay.

The seven pages of the financial review are available here as pdf files. 
click on the page you wish to view.

Page 1 Historical Sales Tax Collections.  This is the page that shows the percent  change in sales tax receipts for 2003 through 2009 and the estimated receipts for FY 2010.  This is where the drop off of sales tax revenues are shown.

Page 2, Estimated Sales Tax Collections FY 2010 for Delaware County  This page has a tabulation of the amount of revenue that would be generated for various sales tax rates.

Page 3, Delaware County Jail Operations.  This page shows the amount of money presently used to operate the existing jail.  This is important as the analysis assumed the present operating revenue would be available for the operation of the new jail

Page 4, Delaware County Jail Expenses.  Another document concerning the cost of operating the present jail.  It should be noted that the numbers are overstated by $60,000 as that is the expense of operating the sheriffs cars not on jail assignments.

Page 5, Estimated Finance Capacity.  This page shows three different scenarios regarding funds available from three different sales tax rates (0.20%, 0.25% and 0.30%) for three different repayment terms (20yrs, 25yrs and 38yrs).  The last column on this page represents how much money would be available for the Operations and Maintenance of the jail after the loan payments were made.

Page 6, Estimated operating cost for a 172 bed facility.  This pge explains the
makeup of the operating cost.  Also, in the lower right of the page is the
estimated cost/day/inmate for three different number of beds,  of the 172
available.

Page 7, Community Facilities Loan tabulation.  This page summarizes the revenues and expenses for a 172 bed facility, based on estimated 2010 sales tax revenues.  Of significance is the final column that shows the short fall for the Operating and Maintenance funds for nine different scenarios.  Note that the $60K cost of operating the sheriffs cars on non jail activities must be added back into the O&M costs.  It is thus shown that there will be an annual added expense for this type of facility no matter the amount of sales tax, within the range discussed.

The next meeting of the Delaware County Jail Authority has been posted for May 19, 2010 at 9AM in the County Commissioners Chambers at the Delaware County Court House in Jay OK.  The formal posting for this meeting follows.  Also read after the posting for recent events regarding the jail authority.

The May 19 meeting of the Delaware County Jail Authority was a spirited and opened meeting with some surprising results.  The meeting began with a statement by our GAB leader John McArtor.  Click here to view a video of his remarks.  Also view the video of the remarks made by Tom Sanders, which follows the McArtor video.

After considerable discussion which is presented in detail in the Grand Lake Business Journal article which includes the two videos, the jail authority voted to instruct the design consultants to work up a proposal for a smaller facility to be built on the grounds of the existing Delaware County courthouse.  It was a struggle for one of the trust authority members to accept anything but a magnificent 228 bed facility at the Jay Industrial park, but she finally relented as it was obvious from all attending it was not in the cards at this time.  Stay tuned.

It might be noted here than in the discussions the controlling factions within Delaware County are the south end of the county, the Grove Area and the Get America Back coalition.    We've come a long way baby.

The purpose of the June 2 meeting was to review several different configurations of added jail capacity, along with cost reviews of the various iterations.  The choices ranged from 60 to 82 to 100 additional beds in an add on facility at the Delaware County Court house.  There were three different sales tax amounts discussed, .2%, .25% and .3%.  No decision was reached on which to proposed to the voters as costs for operating the new facilities had not been reviewed by the sheriff.  Thus the meeting ended with a request to the sheriff to make the study and have some figures ready for review in about two weeks.  Click here to view the financial review prepared by the Municipal Finance Services of the various configurations discussed at this meeting.  The jail authority is still striving to call for an election in August to once again try to pass a proposition to impose an additional sales tax on the citizens of Delaware County to build the jail addition.

After considerable discussion at the June 16 meeting, and as a last gasp effort of the present Jail Authority members and election is being set for August 24, 2010 once again asking voters of Delaware County to fund and operate a larger jail facility in Jay Oklahoma.  After being defeated three times in the past few years here is what we will be voting on this time.

The proposal slated for the August ballot is for a one-half cent sales tax increase, for 10 years or less, to expand the county’s current 62-bed facility to 162 beds. The new facility will be added to the existing Delaware County Court house as a 100 bed extension to the existing facility.  Once the debt for building the facility is paid off, the tax would drop from .5% to between .2 and .25% for maintaining and operating the jail.  This tax would remain in effect indefinitely.  

The estimated pay-off time is between 5 and 7 years, which officials, including financial advisor Rick Smith, agreed would pay for building the facility and would also provide adequate funding for operating and maintaining it.