Published: September 16, 2008 09:16 am      

County officials believe more planning needed

While agreeing that the county fair buildings require improvements, especially in sight of the ongoing renovation of Crystal Beach Park, Woodward County Commissioners said more planning needs to be done before they can approve any construction or funding plans for those improvements.

County commissioners met with representatives of the Woodward County Fair Board for more than an hour during their Monday morning meeting to discuss the proposed improvements, which include extending the two east livestock barns as well as constructing an additional barn measuring 100 feet by 200 feet and a new main fair building measuring 200 feet square to accommodate bigger events.

However, the commissioners felt that they still needed more information before they could consider setting an election date for a proposed sales tax initiative to fund the proposed improvements.

The initiative, as proposed by Fair Board Gary Neilsen, suggested establishing a sales tax of three-tenths of a cent to fund the project which was roughly estimated at $15 million, according to County Clerk Ron Hohweiler, who noted that the fair board was hoping for a December election on the sales tax issue.

The initiative and the construction it would fund had already been tabled for want of more information by the commissioners from their previous meeting last week, when both were originally proposed.

Despite the presence of Architect Jim Hasenbeck and additional fair board members, Monday’s second discussion of the issues seemed to only leave the commissioners with even more questions, such as will there be enough room in the round building that has been proposed to replace the current county offices located by the fair buildings.

Another important question was broached by Commissioner Ted Craighead who asked “is there adequate time to prepare for the December deadline?”

Hasenbeck said that he believes there is time, but the commissioners will have to act soon.

OSU Extension Director Terry Nelson explained the need for speed in this matter as “building costs go up every day. . . things are going nuts between concrete and steel.”

Somewhat reluctant about setting an election so quickly, the commissioners did not make any motions regarding the proposed sales tax question.

However, they did approve moving forward with the planning and development of the project, but nothing specific was said about what that planning or development would include. There was also no mention of when the fair board would address the commission again.

In other business, the county commissioners approved monthly county officer reports, the allocation of approximately $11,700 from the alcoholic beverage tax collection, and a couple of road crossing requests from CEI Petroleum.