Durant City Council in its regular meeting last week voted to withdraw from a request for a forensic audit that was approved by a prior council.
City Manager Pam Polk said the city was contacted by auditors about this recently and that a previous council requested a forensic audit from the Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector.
As reported by the Democrat, in a June 14, 2022, meeting, the council voted to move forward with requesting a forensic audit.
Then-Mayor Oden Grube, Council Member Humphrey Miller and then-Council Member Mike Morris had previously voted for an audit during a special meeting April 27. Sherrer was absent and then- Council Member Steve Brittingham voted no.
During the June 14, 2022, meeting, there was an agenda item to rescind this vote.
Sherrer made a motion to rescind the prior vote and said it needed to be discussed.
“I don’t think we can because it’s already passed and it’s a done deal,” Grube replied.
Sherrer asked why they were requesting an audit and Morris replied that it was discussed at the April 27 meeting.
Brittingham said new information was brought up during a budget meeting, information the council did not have at the time. He said there has been no alleged mismanagement or corruption.
“Citizens are under the impression it could go back 20 years, that’s not the case,” he said.
Sherrer said he saw no reason to conduct a forensic audit and that due to the cost and time spent by staff, it would not be very productive.
“We’re chasing after something that’s not there,” Sherrer said.
“We don’t know that,” Grube replied.
The council voted 3-2 at that time against rescinding the vote taken for the audit in the prior meeting.
In last week’s meeting, Polk recommended not having the audit but since it was approved by a prior council, it would have to be sustained by the current council.
When Council Member Lauran Fuller asked about the cost of an audit, Polk replied, “They are very, very expensive. They’re hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Vice Mayor Mike Simulescu asked Miller and Sherrer what the thought process by the council was at the time.
“We were wanting to look into certain things like on the DIA and stuff but then the DIA voted to not be forensically audited,” Miller said. “The criteria they were wanting to go back and look at was going to be so far long ago that if they found anything, there wasn’t going to be anything they could do about it anyway. To me, it would be a waste of time now to do anything like that because there hasn’t been any particular item brought up that they wanted to get forensically audited.”
Sherrer said he was not in favor of the audit at that time.
“The auditors looked at a lot of things and they kind of do a preliminary audit,” he said. “They can’t find anything. The cost, the time that it would take the city staff to take away from their regular duties to do it, I just thought that there wasn’t anything there.”
All council members voted to rescind the audit request except Mayor Martin Tucker who was absent from the meeting.
In other action, the council approved a contract with Hi-Lite Airfield Services in the amount of $203,885.95 to replace the runway and taxiway markings at the Durant Regional Airport. The bid had already been approved in a May meeting contingent upon receiving the grant from the FAA.
“We finally got the grant awarded for our marking project out at the airport,” said Joshua Matekovic, airport manager.
The grant is for 90 percent of the project.
During the Durant City Utilities Authority meeting, board members approved a $2,604,540.00 bid from Krapff Reynolds Construction Company for the rehabilitation of manholes.
Public Works Director Phillip Hightower said the bid was $1.1 million below budget and about 700 manholes will be rehabilitated which will take seven-eight months.
A conditional use permit requested by Twila Maddox for property at 2101 W. Main St., Suite 102, was approved by the council. This is for a cigar lounge where customers will bring their own alcohol to be served by employees. Alcoholic beverages will not be sold and staff members will be trained to monitor drink usage and customers will not be allowed to take their bottles with them.
The council approved an updated Emergency Operations Plan for the city. The plan has not changed, but contact information was updated and police and fire resources were updated.
In items of new business, Miller said he would like to see citizen comments added back to the agenda so citizens can express concerns to the council.
“I’d like to see it back on there just to give them a voice,” Miller said.
Sherrer replied, “I’m actually in agreement for that.”
Simulescu said this could be approved at an upcoming meeting.