News

MUNICIPAL COURT

Reese Elizabeth Hardy, El Reno, speeding, $165.

Christopher Wayne Grider, Moore, improper equipment, $105.

Caleb Joseph Condit, El Reno, failure to stop at stop sign, $165.

Samuel Marcus Watson, El Reno, speeding and driving under suspension, $560.

Dale Steven Baker, Yukon, expired tag, $165.

Sharon Kay Ferree, Oklahoma City, failure to obey traffic control device, $165.

David Nathaniel Walker, El Reno, speeding, $195.

Juan D. DeLaTorre, El Reno, speeding, $165.

Crews have begun canvassing El Reno neighborhoods collecting limbs that are placed at the curb, Mayor Matt White said on Thursday.

White told the El Reno Live audience the city has contractors collecting limbs lost from the recent ice storm. He said the plan is to have the pickup completed by Nov. 22.

Steve Jensen defeated Jacqueline Stevenson Smith to win the Ward 1 El Reno City Council seat. The vote was 591 to 567

While limb removal was running smoothly, a number of areas in and around El Reno remained without power Monday morning.

City Manager Matt Sandidge said the city did not have specific numbers from OG&E and other utilities concerning outages in residential areas. He did say the power in the area around the city cemetery as well as at the El Reno Regional Airport did not have electricity.

As for limb removal, Sandidge said the process was running well as trailers and trucks lined up to dump the limbs at a designated area on the northwest side of Lake El Reno.

El Reno resident Ariana Orozco had decided renting was a waste of money.

“From a financial standpoint, I realized that I wanted to own a home instead of paying rent. Paying rent is like throwing money away. When you own a home you build equity,” she said.

This first-time homebuyer had been approved for a loan, but the loan process raised a lot of questions.

“Obviously, your lender understands the process and the terminology. They start asking you to sign paperwork and write checks for the appraisal fee and other things,” Orozco said.

El Reno Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts will be canvassing neighborhoods on Saturday hoping to collect canned and non-perishable food items as part of the annual Scouting for Food campaign.

The food will go to The Lord’s Harvest, a local food bank ministry that has been involved in helping the community for about three decades.

After months of planning, a new veterans medical clinic in Canadian County is nearly ready to begin seeing patients.

The clinic will be located in Yukon, a few blocks south of Integris Canadian Valley Hospital. The goal is for the clinic to be open before the beginning of 2021. The clinic is one of two that soon will open in central Oklahoma to provide health-care services to area veterans.

The other center will be in Norman.

El Reno residents were told they could haul limbs to a site at Lake El Reno after last week’s ice storm tore trees apart and left much of the town without power and water.

El Reno Mayor Matt White said residents could begin hauling limbs to the area near Reformatory Road, on the west side of Lake El Reno. He said the location would be open every day for the cleanup that will be necessary following the storm.

“The damage is terrible,” White said.

The limb drop site will be open from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. daily.

On Tuesday, El Reno voters will select a city council representative for Ward 1. The Tribune posed questions to the two candidates, Steve Jensen and Jacqueline Stevenson Smith.

The questions were:

▶ What is your vision for El Reno and what steps should be taken to make it a reality?

▶ In your opinion, what are the two greatest issues facing the community? And how should they be addressed?

Their responses are provided here as they were received.

By Thursday morning, El Reno firefighters had responded to 111 emergency calls, one of them a house fire in Williamstown.

The ice storm that arrived Monday and knocked out power for most of the area led to a child using a candle to hunt for an item in a closet, fire department reports show. The candle apparently caught some items in the closet on fire. No one was injured in the Wednesday blaze, but damage to the house was estimated at $15,000.