Kingfisher County commissioners approved plans of the Hennessey Fire Department to expand its station using designated county sales tax funds for the project at their weekly meeting Monday.

As an accompanying agenda item, they approved hiring AIP architects for design work.

Mayor and Fire Chief Bert Gritz, Assistant Fire Chief and Fire Marshal James Matousek and Fire Department Captain Brandon Scott attended the meeting in support of the actions.

Robert Barnett represented AIP.

Matousek said the Hennessey Fire Department has been saving its share of sales taxes for years with the idea of using it for a major project. The project is expected to cost about $1 million.

One of the needs for the department is space for a ladder truck, which will be purchased later as the town grows.

Matousek inquired if commissioners project any reduction in requests from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARTPA) grant that commissioners submitted to the state auditor and inspector’s office earlier for approval.

Commission Chairman Heath Dobrovolny said he had informed two water districts (Kingfisher and Okarche) that some reduction might be indicated but he hoped others would be accepted as submitted. However, he said the state office has been swamped with requests so he expected any response to be delayed for some time.

A more complete report on the Hennessey Fire Department project appeared in Sunday’s edition.

Commissioners removed John Salmon as requisitioning officer for the office of assistant district attorney and named Jimmy Bunn to succeed him.

Salmon is leaving the Kingfisher County ADA post and moving to the Canadian County office, succeeding Eric Epplin, former Kingfisher County ADA who left here for the ADA position at Canadian County. Epplin has accepted a position with the District Attorneys’ Council, a state position.

The Oklahoma District Attorneys Council is an agency of the state of Oklahoma that provides professional organization for the education, training and coordination of technical efforts for all Oklahoma district attorney offices.

Bunn has begun duties here.

A report from the Oklahoma State Health Department showed the county’s COVID-19 cases increased by 11 since last week.åϖ

Cashion and Hennessey had increases of six cases each and Kingfisher had an increase of four, to 20.

Okarche had a decrease of five cases.

Dover, Loyal, Okarche and Omega were listed as COVID free this week.

Commissioners added one new holiday, Juneteenth, to the list of county holidays to correspond with state holidays.

Nine road crossing permit requests received approval as follow:

• Markwest Energy Operating Co.– two eight-inch steel lines in District 1, one located four miles east and one mile south of Kingfisher and one four miles east and two miles south of Kingfisher.

• BCE-Mach III Midstream Holdings – two in District 2 for eight -inch lines, one located one mile north of Dover and the other one mile east of Dover.

• Lagoon Water Logistics – three 10-inch water lines in District 3 located as follows… six, seven and eight miles south and one-half mile east of Loyal.

• K&J Construction – two lines in District 1, a four-inch line located nine miles east and and one mile north of the U.S.81-Dover-Crescent Road intersection, and a 12-inch line located eight miles east and three miles south of the U.S. 81-DC Road intersection.

District 2 Commissioner Ray Alan Shimanek and District 1 Commissioner Jeff Moss completed the board attending the meeting.

Also present were County Clerk Jeannie Boevers, minute clerk, and County Engineer Nik Smith.