Published: August 05, 2008 07:25 am      

New roof in store for courthouse

The Woodward County Courthouse may soon be receiving a new roof.

During their regular meeting Monday morning, Woodward County Commissioners decided to move forward with the bid process for replacing the courthouse’s leaky roof.

Replacing the roof has been on the commissioners’ agenda for a while, but the issue had been tabled until they could determine if cost estimates were below an established limit that would have required securing an architect for the project.

Even with estimated costs for removing current roof layers added to the estimated cost of replacing them with a new vinyl roofing, County Clerk Ron Hohweiler said the county would still be “well under” the limit of $158,000.

County commissioners Ralph Triplett and Vernie Matt then suggested adding elements to the bid requirements to help further reduce costs. Triplett suggested that the county provide its own trucks to haul off the debris from removing the old roof layers and Matt suggested using inmate labor to help with clean up during the construction process.

The commissioners also discussed trying to keep the project relatively local by sending out bid packages to area companies including Flying Out Construction of Alva and Range Brothers Roofing out of Higgins, Texas.

Besides moving forward on the courthouse roof project, the county commissioners also received an update from representatives of Competitive Power Ventures concerning the wind power project in southwest Woodward County.

Michael Resca, of Competitive Power Ventures (CPV), informed the commissioners that “we are at the end of the development of phase one.”

He noted that CPV has conducted environmental impact assessments, completed final design and engineering for the wind power plant and has entered into an agreement for the project’s 44 wind turbines to be delivered and constructed next spring and summer.

“We anticipate ground breaking for May of next year with full commercial operating by the end of 2009,” he said.

Showing the county commissioners a map of where the 44 turbines and transmission lines will be placed, Resca also informed them that CPV has sold construction rights to OG&E.

However, he noted that “CPV is not going anywhere, we’re going to be here for the next couple of years.”

He explained that Competitive Power Ventures has already begun to plan another three phases to expand the wind farm. The expansion would be to the south, northwest and northeast of the planned location for phase one, which covers an area six miles long (going east and west) and two miles wide just to the west of Tangier Road in southwest Woodward County.

In other business, the county commissioners received a report from Woodward City/County Emergency Management, approved a resolution regarding the county’s participation in the National Flood Insurance Program, and approved low bids for road materials and tires for all county highway districts.