Emotions hit a high point Thursday night among Hennessey’s town leaders.

“I give up,” said Mayor Bert Gritz.

“I do too,” said Town Administrator Tiffany Tillman.

Their comments came after a motion by the mayor and a second by Vice Mayor Clif Vogt failed by a 3-2 vote to discuss Tillman’s “job performance” in executive session (closed to the public). Voting no at the meeting were Trustees Richard Simunek, Harold Shaw and David Jones.

Gritz said he was disappointed “in the lack of willingness of board members to work with Tiffany.”

Shaw said they’d asked a couple of months earlier for a job description and didn’t have one.

“If we don’t know what your job description is, then how could we discuss your performance?” Shaw said to Tillman.

“There is nothing I can do,” Tillman said, “because I have asked and asked for you to come in and talk with me and you haven’t.”

Gritz said it was an oversight on his part because he thought when “across-theboard raises” were given to all employees that it included Tillman.

She hasn’t had a raise in eight years, he told the board.

“I don’t want a raise,” said Tillman, in reference to Gritz’s comment and an agenda item to approve a raise for her.

But she did want input from board members about her job performance and asked Simunek why he voted against holding the personnel session.

“I’d rather not discuss it at this time,” Simunek said.

“I’m disappointed in the board,” the KT&FP reporter said at the end of the meeting.

“I’m also disappointed,” said Vogt.

( Note: Last summer Simunek posted on a local social media page that it was a lie that Gritz was “not intending to tear down the library…This is not the first time I (Simunek) have been lied to by Bert and Tiffany.” Gritz took Simunek to task in a July board meeting and said he didn’t intend to tear down the library building. He also said Simunek had put the town at risk when he wrote that Tillman had lied. “She’s not an elected official [like we are],” Gritz said. “She is a town employee.”)

Switch to E-911 Dispatching?

It appeared that all board members were on board to switch from Hennessey Police Department dispatching to using Kingfisher County E-911.

That was after trustees had a lengthy discussion with E-911 Director Ryan Deatherage about a possible Jan. 1 start.

There wasn’t a vote, but the board agreed for Deatherage to give them a contract draft subject to approval by the town’s attorney. Gritz said the board could call a special meeting this month to take action.

Shaw said even little kids know to call 911 when they have an emergency instead of calling 853-4444 for the police.

Gritz and Police Chief Aaron Pitts said they want to make sure the county’s radio frequencies and equipment will work with the town’s police and firefi ghter radios.

Deatherage said they would try that out this week.

He said E-911 has four dispatchers from Hennessey on staff so they know the people and the area.

County is also in the process of upgrading $350,000$400,000 in 911 equipment and will take care of paying for new “addressing” homes and businesses in Hennessey, Deatherage said.

He said they can see a patient’s heart rate on the phone and pass that information on to Hennessey’s Life Ambulance service.

“It’s not all about money,” said Tillman. “We want the best service.”

Deatherage said that cost is based on the county population of 15,000 with county paying 47 percent, Kingfisher 32 percent, Hennessey 14 percent and Okarche 7 percent.

Shaw asked about the cost.

Deatherage said Hennessey’s dispatching share would be $3,345 a month on a one-year contract, or $41,000 a year. He said that’s based on Hennessey’s share of county sales tax and 75 cents each month for cell phone users.

Tillman said salary and benefits for Hennessey dispatchers is $152,000 a year.

Both Gritz and Police Chief Aaron Pitts have visited the Kingfisher operation and were impressed.

Town Treasurer Shelley Burch said she is concerned about the safety of her police officer husband and her E-911 dispatcher daughter.

She questioned if more dispatchers are needed and if dispatchers have some time to de-stress after handling calls.

From the audience, the board was asked how the switch would affect use of the jail.

She was told the jail wouldn’t be used and questioned why the town spent all the money on constructing the jail.

Shaw said it never should have been constructed in the first place.

Pitts said they’ve only had two prisoners in about a year, although one of them was a repeat offender.

Deatherage was asked about Spanish translators since Hennessey has many Hispanics.

He said they’d had an instance with needing someone who spoke Mandarin and they were able to do it with their equipment.

“Turk (Lonnie McDade) took the call,” he said, “and it worked great.”

Gritz said dispatching for the fire department and police during the recent incident at Lacey was “amazing.”

“That was Turk and Bryann (Burch-Guffey),” said Deatherage. “They handled it like champs.”