7Oil borrows to pay note; funds on way

Eight employees of Circuit Engineering District No. 7 will get pay raises ranging from 3 percent to 8 percent, it was determined Tuesday morning at a meeting of the district’s board of directors.
Among other business, the board also voted to loan the district’s 7 Oil Energy District $201,509.50 to make a note payment that was due Saturday, June 23. The CED 7 board members also serve as trustees of the Energy District, so they had to vote first for the Engineering District to make the loan and then for the Energy District to accept it.
The vote was 9-1 with Custer County’s representative on the board, Kurt Hamburger of Weatherford, the lone dissenter.
He also was among three members who voted no on the pay raises. The others were Mike Allen of Blaine County and Raydell Schneberger of Washita County.
Hamburger had requested a roll-call vote on the employee pay raises, and it was granted.
The vote on the pay raises followed a 35-minute executive session, with the public and press barred. Kirk Butler of Jackson County made the motion to approve them at the request of Executive Director Monte Goucher. Tim Bingham of Kiowa County seconded.
There was no public discussion before any of the votes.
Goucher said afterwards sales have been made that would be sufficient to pay the note but the money has not yet been collected. He said a seven-year note was taken out to get construction money for the plant and it could have been stretched out further, but the board wanted to reduce interest.
After the financial dealings at Tuesday’s meeting, the directors voted unanimously to allow Goucher to hire Ethan Garner as a new employee. It was approved unanimously on voice vote.
Garner, who’s from Clinton, has an engineering degree  from the University of Oklahoma. Goucher said he will be working with both the construction and emulsion departments.
Counties in the district are Beckham, Custer, Dewey, Greer, Harmon, Jackson, Kiowa, Roger Mills, Tillman and Washita.
The oil emulsion plant was constructed in 2012 with a $2-million loan from InterBank. This is not the first time money has been borrowed from the parent CED 7 district to make the loan payment.
It was announced earlier this year that the plant had been cleared to sell oil in Texas.