By Pat Hammert/Staff Writer

City Manager Douglas Henley has scheduled three retreats this month so that city leaders can plan strategies for the city through the new year and beyond.

The plans they devise with his help may well be part of his legacy to a city he’s managed since November 2002. Henley plans to retire in June 2007.

Henley’s contract comes up for renewal June 30.

“I’m asking for a year’s extension, then I retire,” the 64-year-old said.

But before he’s done, there’s work to do, he said. Beginning Saturday and through two consecutive Saturdays, the Council will gather in retreat to set some capitol improvement goals and other strategic planning.

“This is a very, very important process that I’m not sure this community has ever gone through before. We’ll do strategic planning, establish priorities and put in place some funding mechanism for major capitol improvements,” he said.

In recent years, the city has developed a comprehensive master plan and former City Manager Ken Vanderslice held a series of neighborhood meetings in which community needs were discussed.

“We’ve done some wonderful things with the bond money on our infrastructure but with all that’s been done, we could easily come up with another $13 million needed as we look around at our capitol equipment needs,” he said.

The condition of some of the city trucks, backhoes, public works facilities, parks and garage facilities “is sad and a real shame that the city has not been able to address them.” Henley said he believes Council members are ready to get started. Funding projects will be at the top of the agenda in retreat meetings. Last year for the first time, a public safety sales tax was discussed.

“There’s a need for it, but we need to develop a plan and that will be up to the Council to decide,” he said. Any sales tax increase must be put before voters for approval. Henley said he also wants to see the Council review the hotel-motel tax, a flat rate of $1 a night, with an eye to converting it to a percentage rate for easier monitoring and tracking.

“This Council, or the majority, I believe, is excited about our upcoming planning sessions and they are eager to get started. They are optimistic and I’m optimistic about the future of this community.”

It has not been an entirely smooth ride for Henley with the previous nine-member Council and the current five-member Council. After the latest closed-door session in which the Council discussed his job performance, a motion to provide him a salary increase died for lack of a second.

Henley said he takes issue with a recent unscientific poll taken by The Tribune for online readers that resulted in a 50-50 split on his job approval rating.

“I’ve never seen a community newspaper do such a thing. I don’t think it’s appropriate. The negatives come out of the wall when you conduct those kinds of polls,” he said. “I just try to concentrate on the positive things that are going to happen in this community.”

Reacting to Mayor James Moore’s public comment that he has a difficult time communicating with the city manager, Henley said he doesn’t see a problem.

“I don’t see a problem with communicating with this Council at all and I’m not going to discuss personalities in the newspaper. It’s not professional and it’s not very ethical. I love this community, I believe in this community and I’ve invested a lot in it,” he said.

The Council has done much to be proud of over the past three years, he said.

“Regardless of their feelings about me, we’ve accomplished a whole lot,” he said.

He aired the successes he has been a part of in a recent e-mail to Councilman Paul Atkins. In it, he said the city was in “bad shape” financially when he arrived with just under $74,000 in its fund balance, or about 1.26 percent of the operating revenues. (Auditors recommend at least 10 times more.) He took over when the city had been without a city manager for several months and a financial director/city clerk for several weeks.

A “bare bones” budget for 2003-2004 brought that fund balance to about $1 million “which has provided us with some security, but that number needs to increase to an acceptable level.”

Henley listed accomplishments including the institution of a pay plan for city employees to make them more competitive with peers in other communities, signed union contracts with police and fire ahead of schedule, worked to upgrade public works and parks department facilities, improved parks citywide, pushed to add an Oklahoma city waterline for supplemental water as a “long-term insurance policy” on water needs.

In addition, Henley outlined economic growth for the past three years that included a movie theater, a strip mall and a new motel. He pointed to upcoming housing additions, student housing, an industrial steel building business and a tax increment financing district.

Housing development like Bradford Acres will provide affordable housing for middle income families, he said. He points to Chesapeake Oil’s plans to add 100 new employees this year, reflecting the upswing in the oil and gas service business in the county.

“Those are new employees, although a few may be transferred in, they’ll be hiring the rest,” he said.

As well, the national drug store chain, Walgreens, is still “very, very interested in coming to this town and are still looking at potential sites” in the downtown area.

Henley was hired as an interim manager in November 2002 and then signed a three-year contract in March 2003.