Where Have I Been? 07/30/2008

Wow, where to start the summer has been flying by and its been some time since I made a post to my blog. I wont try and detail the entire void time, but I will try and highlight some areas that have moved forward regarding the City of Guthrie. The council approved the movement forward on the highly needed water treatment plant with a rate increase and the added $7.50 fee per month or $90.00 per year or a.246 cent per day fee specifically for the water treatment plant. I think overall the community understands the need for the plant and the ability to continue to serve quality water and the sustainability for the future growth of our community. This has been a collectively difficult decision to make anytime dealing with citizens pocket books and one that was not taken lightly by me or the City as well. As we know sometimes progress and change can hurt a bit but in the end I know the city will be in a better position to serve its citizens and the future growth of the community. On another note the establishment of the First Capitol Neighborhood Solutions has been formed. This group will be made of citizens from each ward to help establish neighborhood groups within the City. I have been a huge proponent for this type action and look forward to the many ideas to come from this group. I know in my neighborhood, we have established an area and we are looking at holding our second block party coming in late September or Early October and should be great fun again. I would like to take a moment to thank Dr. John Wood regarding the implementation of the neighborhood group organization without his help, I am not sure it would have taken off so well. Moving forward I have a few things on my plate to help get started in the community one is the implementation of a curb side recycling program for the community. There would be a fee associated with this type service so I am curious what the local population thinks of this type service? I would welcome anyone reading this blog within the community to write me back if they would be for such a service in order for me to move forward. I would think the fee would range in the $3.00 to $4.00 per month for curb side service but I don't have an exact cost just a guess but a place to start. On a personal note I have been so busy this summer dealing with the day to day activities of work and summer. This is quite a busy time of the year for the Ayers family with the wedding business in full force. It seems blog writing gets shuffled to the bottom of the pile. I will make a conscientious effort to post more often. As usual I welcome family, friends, and my community to shoot me a response for our City. I am always pleased to get input from the local citizens the dialogue is a great way to make things happen. Thanks again for the opportunity to serve you.

Trey

General Information and City Council February 19th, 2008 and

Good Morning I hope all is well. It has been a while since my last post and alot of things have occured during my absence. I hope all had a wonderful Holiday we certinaly did spending time with family and friends. My famliy and I took the coveted trip to Disney world and spent a week on the property seeing the sites and spending the money. However, our girls had a wonderful time at Disney and we wore them out with a solid week of Mickey and Minnie Mouse! Upon our departure back the the airport in Orlando I asked my girls where would you like to go to next year on vacation and with a resounding response of THE BEACH!!! "so we can relax they said". Anyway looks like the ocean is our next stop of Ayers vacations. On the happenings at the City we are continuing to plug away at the various challenges ahead of us this year, one of which is the development and construction of the water treatment plant for the city. In addtition am still working to get our neighborhood committiee set in place within the city soon and hope to have this completed in short order. The City is seeing various new commercial ventures popping up across the town a great indicator that the community is growing and I am very excited to get these new business in place its an exciting time for Guthrie as we continue to strive for continued growth. I encourage any one with in the City of Guthrie that reads my blog to share your ideas and comments with me in order for me to be able to respond accordingly with the City. One very exciting item the City is putting into place is a system called E-GOV this system will open up communications with the City of Guthrie via the web and any comments or concerns you have can be used thru this system and will directed to party to take action all thru the web based system. This set up should expedite concerns and help with communications between the city departments and the general public. With all that being said again please feel free to comment to my blog I look forward to the dialouge with the good folks I represent in Ward 1 and the rest of the City of Guthrie.



Trey Ayers

Councilman Ward 1

Council Meeting 12/4/2007

Good morning, I am in hopes that all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday as I did. The Council held its first meeting for the month of December. The agenda was fairly standard with the usual approvals of the daily operations of maintaining a city. Council did approve the next years meeting dates and times for Council, GPWA, GIDA, Finance, Street, Transportation, Library,Board of Adjustments, Planning commission, and the rest of the boards and committees involved with the City. In addition Council approved the appointment of Cheri French to the housing authority for the City to fill a vacant seat. Also Mr. David Hood was appointed as alternate judge for the City to fill in when the presiding judge is out. I wish David all the best of luck and appreciate his time to help serve the City of Guthrie. The library was granted to start a program called food for fines. This program allows people to bring non-perishable food products to the library in lieu of late fines. The food will be donated to Gods food bank for distribution. I would also like to take time to thank Mr. John Wood for helping put together the starting points for a new committee for the City of Guthrie. John and I have been working on this new committee and John has put our ideas to paper and, I am very excited about this proposal. I look forward to bringing this proposal to the Council in the near future. I will attach this proposal to the blog for review and comment. To access the proposal please click the link at the top right hand side of the blog. This link will take you to the proposal. I would encourage any comments about the proposal good and bad to help John and I craft something that works for all involved. The proposal is a neighborhood committee made up of citizens from the three wards in Guthrie to help promote neighborhood developments and groups. Please take time to look it over and respond. Again I thank John for all his hard work and dedication and I cant wait to get this program started for the community. Last but not least as we head into the new year the challenges ahead of the City are numerous, but I am confident in our ability to overcome the many challenges and welcome our communities involvement. I look forward to future responses to our proposal so please comment when you can.

Trey Ayers
Councilman Ward 1

Council Meeting 11/20/2007

Good morning from Guthrie, Oklahoma I hope everyone is ready for a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday, I sure know I am. The Council had our 2nd meeting in November last night, and I heard a collective sigh of relief from the City Staff that Centennial was over. The agenda was light yesterday evening with the approvals of the general funding request and the last council meeting minuets. In addition the council made an appointment to the planning commission last night to fill a vacant seat which had opened up. Council also made approval to increase the fines from $75.00 per day for code ordinance violations to the allowable maximum State of Oklahoma penalty of $200.00 per day this was just a general clean up of the ordinance to keep it up to date. The evening ended with general accolades for the the City staff, the general public, and all the visitors that visited our great community. Looking forward I believe the City has been making great strides, however we have several difficult challenges facing our community, and I will work hard along with other to accomplish the goals of the city. The celebration is over but the great spirit of the community is strong and we will continue to grow and be successful together. I hope you and your families have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday and our thankful for things that have been given to us. I know I could never say thank you enough for the things I have received in my life, but I will try my hardest to complete. Thank you to my family and friends for all that you have given me, HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

In addition I could not resist adding the picture of our illustrious City Attorney Randel Shadid

" The Great Bandito" showing off his sombrero for the Territorial Ball. As you can see if was a great time and a great event for Guthrie.

Trey Ayers

Councilman Ward 1

Centennial Weekend Statehood Day

All I can say is WOW! what an incredible weekend for Guthrie, Oklahoma. I was honored to be asked to be a part of the Re- Enactment of the original swearing in of the first State of Oklahoma Officers. In addition to the swearing in of the first Governor of Oklahoma. I played the part of Edward Trapp the first State auditor and later to become Governor himself for the State of Oklahoma. I am the second one down on the left side in the picture. The day started early at 7:30 am and ended for me with the parade down Oklahoma Ave. The estimates are still coming in, but has been between 60,000 and 80,000 people that visited our great community. On Saturday evening the Territorial Ball was held at the Scottish Rite Temple there were approximately 375 people there along the current Governor Brad Henry and his wife, the Lieutenant Governor and the Attorney General for the State.The event was a great evening good food provided by Dominion House and good music and wonderful fellowship. It truly was a special weekend for the State of Oklahoma, and again I was honored to be a part of the history moving forward.

On a separate note for the City of Guthrie what can you say, everybody from the City staff to the citizens of Guthrie did an outstanding job. The City was in tip top shape, traffic moved with ease, the police and fire departments were helping with issues and the day went off without a hitch. Guthrie was in the local and National spotlight and did we ever shine. I was so proud to be a part of this community and all that make Guthrie their homes should be proud of what we accomplished. We may not be the capitol of the State of Oklahoma anymore, but we certainly are the "Best Small Town" in Oklahoma and that is a fact!

Council Meeting 11/06/2007

Good morning from my office in Guthrie Oklahoma. Last night we held our first November 2007 Council Meeting and all went well. The council re-appointed several ladies to the park board and I am hoping we will have some good ideas and things happening at the parks this year. Council tabled Wal-Marts request to adopt the loop that runs from Division that makes the two entrances into the Wal-Mart complex. Our decision to do so was to make sure Wal-Mart completes the road work and brings all issues with the existing road back to city standards in order not to put the city with a failing road upon taking over of that road. The council also raised the existing franchise agreement with Cox Communication to 5% from 4% for the next 6 months with another renewal option 6 months from now. Council also approved renewing the lease agreement for the use of Logan County aging services to continue to use Highland Hall Facility. Vice Mayor Doug Hehn asked for a clause to be added to the lease allowing the Logan County Election Board to be able to hold elections there during this lease option. It would be the Election Boards decision to use Highland Hall for a polling place, but would give them the option. I thought this was a good idea, and I hope the Election Board will take advantage of it's use. I was excited to see the approval of both the taxi way extensions and the erosion control items being approved for bid for the Airport. These are both very important issues for the continued growth at our airport and the airport continues to be an exciting area in our city.

On the Centennial Celebration front all is full steam ahead from the Heartland Flyer bringing State legislators from Oklahoma City to Guthrie for the celebrations. On Nov 9TH, 2007 at 5:00 PM the Centennial Clock will be dedicated I have seen it at night and its really a nice addition to our downtown district. The city has also contracted with the City of Edmond to provide additional Bus transportation support for all the visitors and the city has over 40,000 parking spaces set up across the city. It's going to be an amazing experience in the City of Guthrie starting at the end of this week thru the 16th of November.

On an important note, I want to say to the entire City of Guthrie Staff, what a great job you are doing and thank each and every one of you for your hard work. I especially want to thank Maxine Pruitt and the Municipal Services Division for their amazing work in prepping downtown from the new street signs down to the striping of parking spots. It looks incredible and you and your staff should be proud.

I have to admit if there was a time to get elected to the Guthrie City Council this was certainly the time. I have been surrounded with extremely professional City staff and continue to feel the ship is pointed into the wind and look forward to the continued days of sailing.

Trey Ayers
Councilman Ward 1

Flying From Guthrie Edmond Regional Airport