The Duncan Banner

Local News

March 17, 2010

Old Empire station removed

firefighters ready to move forward

Matt Tillson

EMPIRE — During the Empire town council meeting Tuesday night, Empire Volunteer Fire Chief Ricky Hyde informed the council that the old north fire station had been removed from in front of the new fire station.

“The old station was removed in late February,” Hyde said. “Now that it has been moved out of the way county workers will be coming in to finish with the dirt work for drainage.”

Empire Mayor Robert Skiles said that he was pleased that the building had been removed.

“Having that building moved is really going to help our firefighters out,” Skiles said. “We can now get through that area clearly now and will help our firefighters get to fires quicker and more efficiently.”

Hyde also informed the council that the fire department has placed a bid on a repeater for radio communications from Velma. Hyde said that the Empire Fire Department does not have a repeater and radio signal is broken up in some areas.

“Right now if we are able to get the repeater it would help us do our work more effectively,” Hyde said. “There are some areas now that our radios will not get signal in and that makes our job a little more difficult.”

During the meeting Skiles informed the council on the status of the Rural Economic Action Plan (REAP) 2010 application from the Association of South Central Oklahoma Government (ASCOG).

According to Skiles, Empire applied for money to renovate the old fire station by the community building and had been approved last month. However, because of lack of funds right now no money has been sent to them.

“We have been approved, however, because of the economy ASCOG is not sure how much they can give us,” Skiles said. “Each month they put out a letter and I saw that some others that were approved have received some money so I am hopeful, but all we do is wait.”

Also on the agenda was the discussion current status of the audits for 2008/09. According to Empire treasurer Kevin Bilbrey the town of Empire received a good report and the issues that they had last month of not having an estimate of means has been corrected.

“We have sent in our estimate of means,” Bilbrey said. “So with that all in place, I was told that we are back to good shape and where we need to be at right now.”

The Council also discussed the lighting around the community building, fire station and walking path during the meeting.

“What we are doing is lighting the pavilion and the walking path so that it is safer for everyone to use when it gets darker,” Skiles said. “Cotton Electric is helping set that up so that we can get everything working properly.”



—Matt Tillson is a reporter for the Duncan Banner. He can be reached at 580-255-5354 Ext. 142 or via e-mail at matt.tillson@duncanbanner.com.

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