Published: July 22, 2008 07:14 am      

Sales tax tops $1 million mark

“We’ve passed the million dollar mark for the first time this month.”

This “exciting” announcement concerning Woodward’s sales tax receipts came from City Manager Alan Riffel during the Woodward City Commission meeting Monday evening.

“That’s exciting to start a year like that,” Riffle said.

In addition to it’s financial significance, the sales tax receipts also have a historical significance, according to Mayor Bill Fanning, who noted that this is “the first time in Woodward’s history, the first time in 121 years” that the sales tax figures have been so high.

“It’s tremendous,” Fanning said.

“I hope it will continue,” Riffle said.

To help it do so, the city manager also announced that the city’s new Tourism and Convention Bureau should be staffed within the next 30 days, as he has completed interviews for the director’s position and will be hiring someone within the next two weeks.

Besides the sales tax figures, the city commissioners addressed a number of other financial issues during their regular meeting, including approving two change orders for construction projects at Crystal Beach Park.

The first change order was in the amount of $3,135 to cover the costs of staining new concrete that was poured at the Crystal Beach Arena and the costs of painting aluminum bleacher support brackets that were exposed when the bleachers were shortened as part of Arena phase 1.

The second change order was for $5,887 to obtain bonding requirements as part of a lease agreement with Shawnee Lighting Systems for the lighting equipment at Fuller Park and the new baseball complex.

Riffel explained that the bonding specifications were not included in the original quote from Shawnee Lighting Systems because they were not a bid item.

However, City Treasurer Doug Haines noted the change order does not mean the city is spending any additional money on the project, since the money is being “traded dollar for dollar” from the bid submitted by Kline Mechanical, which is overseeing the general construction of the baseball fields.

In other financial matters, the city commissioners approved dismissing outstanding citations from Jan. 1980 to Feb. 2003 in the amount of $16,772.50.

City Clerk Catherine Coleman explained that those citations are no longer collectible, but the city’s collection agency will continue to try to collect citations from March 2003 onward.

“We will write these off and basically clean up those accounts,” Coleman said.

In other business, the city commission approved a resolution to add the new assistant city manager position, which is currently held by Haines, to the list of city officers authorized to distribute city records to the public.