Guthrie council approves leases, cybersecurity grant changes, IT contract, airport consultant and interlocal emergency agreement

The Guthrie City Council on April 22 approved a slate of operational, procurement and interlocal actions, voting unanimously on each item brought forward.

On the consent agenda the council approved routine items (consent items A through K) without discussion. The council then approved an amended lease with the Country Club for the Santa Fe Lake property. Staff said the renewal is a 25-year lease and that terms changed because a planned Highway 105 water-line relocation would otherwise have required routing the city water line under several golf greens; the revised engineering approach moved the line to the north side of Highway 105 and staff negotiated lease changes including indexing rent to the annual dam inspection cost required by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board and requiring the country club to install a meter for lake water use so the city can limit use during drought conditions.

Council accepted an amendment to a state/local cybersecurity grant the city received in 2024. The original award totaled about $300,000: $167,518 budgeted for an IT director and $242,797.69 for hardware and software. Staff said they were unable to hire an IT director from the applicant pool and requested the cybersecurity board's permission to reallocate the grant to pay for consultant-managed IT services instead; the board unanimously approved the amendment and council accepted it.

Following that acceptance, the council awarded a one-year contract for managed IT services to Standards IT LLC, effective May 1, 2025 through May 1, 2026. Staff described Standards IT's proposal as a fixed-fee model providing 400 hours annually of combined on-site and remote support at a total cost of $68,000 per year; the contract includes 24/7 coverage intended for critical services used by police, fire and dispatch. City staff recommended approval subject to final form review by the city attorney; the council approved the contract unanimously.

The council approved an interlocal agreement with Logan County Emergency Management. Staff described the agreement as a three-year partnership under which the city would transfer ownership of one Tahoe (described in meeting materials as a 2016 Tahoe) and a donated Typhoon drone to the county for a nominal fee (staff said $2). Staff said Logan County had proposed a cost-share of $27,300 in an earlier draft for acquisition of a drone and a vehicle; the agreed approach was a three-year arrangement with transfer of the listed equipment to county emergency management to strengthen joint emergency response capacity. Chief Lawson and Emergency Manager Hager spoke in favor of the arrangement.

On aviation matters, the council unanimously awarded RFQ 2024-14 (airport engineering consultant services) to Park Hill. The selection committee recommended Park Hill over Lochner based on experience with Guthrie projects, in-house architectural capacity and a project manager with a local stake in the airport. The council also approved a master on-call agreement with Park Hill; staff emphasized that each major project (for example terminal design and construction) will require separate authorization and that the master agreement does not obligate the city to use Park Hill for every project.

Other procedural actions included approval of the public-works-authority consent agenda. Where specific votes were not recorded by name in the transcript, the council announced unanimous approval for each of the above items.