A replacement for Keith Meek’s seat on Hennessey’s town board is still up in the air.

That’s after the other four board members met in a 90-minute closed session Tuesday night to discuss his successor, but took no action.

Mayor Bert Gritz said the appointment of a new board member was tabled.

Meek was not at the meeting, but the other four trustees were: Mayor Bert Gritz, Vice Mayor Clif Vogt, Richard Simunek and Harold Shaw.

Town Administrator Tiffany Tillman did not attend the closed session, but was called in briefly to answer a question.

Meek was elected to the board in 2017 for a four-year term and was re-elected in February to another four-year term.

His resignation letter was made public Aug. 30 by the town.

In it, Meek wrote that he didn’t have “the drive to be a trustee anymore” and that wasn’t fair to other board members, town employees or the citizens.

His resignation was acknowledged at the start of the meeting.

The mayor and others commended his service.

The board usually meets the second Thursday of the month, but changed it this month due to an Oklahoma Municipal League conference.

Zoning, other service fees

The board discussed and took action on only one item that wasn’t routine during its 30 minutes in open session: a resolution to adopt a new fee schedule for filing and processing zoning, board of adjustment, land division, development application requests, building floodplain administration, planning and inspection services for properties.

Tillman said she used the same fee schedules used by Kingfisher and Enid.

Shaw said the town has lots of people with the ability to do their own construction work and do it themselves. He said the $1,000 charge for construction started without a permit was too much.

Simunek agreed.

Tillman said the town doesn’t automatically make the charge, but the resolution allows them to make one.

There was discussion that some people begin building without a permit because they didn’t know it’s required.

Gritz said the town has required building permits for 50 years.

Tillman asked Treasurer Shelley Burch, who handles those permits, about someone they’d contacted in October because that person didn’t have a permit.

Burch said that person still hadn’t come into the office to file for one.

“If you don’t know if you need a permit to build, then you should call Town Hall,” said Gritz.

The board approved the resolution 4-0.

Administrator’s report

Oklahoma Municipal League Conference — Six employees and three of the trustees attended the recent OML conference and attended sessions ranging from budgets to annexing and code enforcement.

They also met staff from other municipalities, Tillman said.

The town’s swimming pool was featured during the conference and Tonkawa and Alva plan to build the same pool.

Simunek said he sat at a table with Enid officials and its mayor commented on the pool.

Enid school buses brought students to Hennessey several times during the summer and Kingfisher and Cashion also brought students to swim.

New employee — Jamie Keel was hired and started work Aug. 31 in the water department.

Purchases — Water plant generator (breaker went bad), estimated $5,000 from Farmers’ Electric and Keith Dobbs will install a new drive-thru window at Town Hall.

Gritz said he wished they’d gotten propane instead of diesel. Tillman said they may be able to switch it to propane later.

REAP waterline project — The contract with Pinnacle Underground was signed and work should start in 30 days to replace the same water line on Bonita and Cimarron streets with six-inch lines.

Halloween trick-or-treating Oct. 30 — Since Oct. 31 is on a Sunday, Tillman said trick-or-treating will be the evening before and Town Hall will coordinate trick-or-treating with businesses on Friday afternoon, Oct. 29.

At the meeting

In addition to the four board members, Tillman and Burch, other staff at the meeting were Town Clerk Kati Walters (also board minutes clerk) and Police Chief Ed Cangiano.

In the audience were Scott and Karel Hajek and Bryan Burch.