Hennessey’s Board of Trustees were asked to approve the purchase of a Ford Explorer with “police outfitting” at $56,000, but tabled the matter Tuesday because the majority preferred a Chevrolet Tahoe.

It’s also $6,000 over what was budgeted.

Town Administrator Tiffany Rowen said Police Chief Christian Solis found that state bid and that car costs are up. The same goes for trucks, she said, because they’d looked to buy a new truck for the public works department.

The police department’s oldest vehicle is a 2015 model, she said, and the board had decided to buy a new police car each year.

Trustee Bert Gritz said he thought the police department had mechanical issues with their Explorers in the past and suggested a Chevrolet Tahoe.

Rowen said there were none available.

Mayor Harold Shaw and Trustee David Jones agreed and said a bigger vehicle with a bigger engine would be better.

Rowen said that would also mean higher gas and repair costs.

Board members asked for the police chief to get current costs on Tahoes.

Lots of Police Cars

Jones said he’d noticed lots of police cars setting around and not being used.

Rowen said the police department is down two offi cers right now, each officer has a vehicle that they are in charge of and officers who live out of town can’t take their patrol vehicles home.

“So that’s why you see a lot of vehicles at the police station,” she said.

Rowen was also asked why they were replacing, instead of repairing vehicles.

She said it’s because “we’re on a schedule to replace them.”

There was also discussion about possibly reducing the number of police vehicles to help manage costs.

The police chief wasn’t at the meeting and Jones asked Rowen, “If I asked the chief for accurate maintenance records on the vehicles would he be able to give them to me?”

“He should be able to,” she said.

State Audit

The state’s forensic audit is 70% complete, Rowen said she found out after contacting State Representative Mike Dobrinski, R-Okeene, for information.

That audit started in October 2023. Costs to the town so far are $25,100 and the last bill from the state was in September for $2,031.50, she said.

Cemetery Addition is Planned

Gladiator Construction of Hennessey was accepted as the lowest and best bidder for preparing a new section at the Hennessey Cemetery for $8,200.

Other bidders were F5 Construction and Equipment Co., Hennessey, $10,000, and Shuterra LLC, Norman, $5,800.

The work that was bid only involves leveling and draining.

Surveying for road replacement and lot delineation will have to be done later on that new section which is on five acres donated by Scott Hajek about five years ago.

“The current cemetery is nearing capacity, but we’ve still got quite a bit of room on the west end of section A,” Gritz said during discussion.

There were some concerns about erosion issues and Gritz said, “We need a good, good quality of grass planted this spring in order to get a new stand of grass by this summer.”

At the Meeting

All four Trustees were present: Shaw, Gritz, Jones and Randy Bohnstedt.

Other town officials at the meeting were Town Treasurer Shelley Burch (who is also the Town Hall office manager) and Town Clerk Kelley Vaverka.

Staff at the meeting were Rowen and Alyssa Kubat, public works director.

In the audience were Dist. 2 Kingfisher County Commissioner Mike Sparks and town board candidates Frank Patton and Evelyn Ramirez.

( Ed. note: See an upcoming edition about the Town of Hennessey working with Dist. 2 County Commissioner Mike Sparks on a project as well as other items covered at the meeting.)