Durant City Council in its meeting last week, approved a resolution for a non-partisan special election of a council member for Ward 2.
This is to fill the remainder of Lauran Fuller’s term that ends in 2029. Fuller resigned in August after accepting a teaching position with Southwestern Oklahoma State University.
Candidate filing for the offi ce is from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Dec. 1-3 at the Bryan County Election Board.
The election will be on Feb. 10.
In other action, new city attorney Douglas Elliott was sworn in by Vice Mayor Mike Simulescu. Mayor Martin Tucker was absent from the meeting. Elliott replaces Thomas Marcum.
Drew Jackson and Shane Knight were appointed to serve additional three-year terms on the Durant Planning Commission and Buddy Holder was appointed to the commission to serve the remaining term of Thomas Newsom, who resigned after being named president of Pittsburg State University.
A bid in the amount of $325,756.00 from Reaction Distributing for two five-yard trash compactors for the transfer station at the landfill was approved by the council.
According to Public Works Director Phillip Hightower, these will replace the current ones from 2001 that have had to be repaired weekly, and one of them is completely out of service.
An $87,000 bid for a valve service kit with hydraulic power pack was approved by the council. Hightower said this is for the maintenance and operations department.
“What this does is we would be able to insert a valve in a water line that is hot and the reason we’re looking for this is because in a lot of places in town, you have to drain half the town to fix a water leak,” Hightower said. “You could take this machine and within an hour and a half, you can have a valve in a line where you can shut the water off, fix your water leak and everybody else is still in water.”
An ordinance was passed rezoning property near Sunnyside Road and North Highway 69 from agriculture to singlefamily residential. Surrounding property owners were notifi ed, and there were no protests about the rezoning request, according to the Office of Community Development.
