Update on City business

 The Watonga city government has been in flux for a couple of years now, but has been almost completely ineffective since last summer (August 2024) when former Mayor and vice-mayor resigned on the heels of the City Council voting to dismiss the then-City Manager. Following those resignations, the City Council was left with only three members and could not make a quorum in order to vote on business items that had not already been addressed. New council members could not be seated until an election in April 2025. 

For background, in 2021 the town voted to change its form of government from a "aldermanic" form, with an elected Mayor and 5 council persons, one from each district in the town and one at-large seat, to a City Manager form of government. Under the new form of government, council persons were elected, one from each district, and from those elected persons, a Mayor was named by the council members. A City Manager was hired to oversee the business of the city, who took the job on a temporary basis in order to help with the transition. The person they hired had been a city manager in another town and was qualified and experienced in the job. Under his direction, the town made positive progress, including getting a NODA grant. It was a tough transition for our town, but after one year, that person moved on and the city was tasked with hiring a new city manager. They hired a woman with no management experience, no government experience, and who was not vetted very well, probably (I have been told) because she was a friend and "girlfriend" of the then Mayor who had been named by the sitting council members to that position. She was a good cheerleader for the City, always touting the accomplishments of the town, but not an effective manager. Without going into more detail, I'll just say that the townspeople became more and more dissatisfied with her actions in managing the city's business. There was a general "uprising", mostly on social media, calling for her to be fired and for the city to hire a new manager. It was at the August 2024 council meeting that the council voted to remove her but then they also kept her employed until "a new City Manager could be hired," which has not yet happened as of this writing.   

With several questionable issues having been recently brought to light, a state audit has been requested. The City does not post minutes of City Council meetings on its official website, so it is difficult for the average citizen to learn about actions taken by the council other than reading comments on social media (the last minutes posted on the website was in February 2025). It is now more important than ever for citizens of Watonga to attend the town's city council meetings. Regular meetings are held once a month, with special meetings being called when the council deems it appropriate. 

October 2025 City Council meeting

Oct. 22, 2025 

The monthly meeting of the Watonga City Council had 18 items on the agenda. It can be seen on the official city website: www.watongaok.gov.  The minutes of the meeting have not yet been posted anywhere, but there are recordings of the meeting on a couple of Watonga facebook pages, including Blaine County Talk. Unfortunately, the audio is not of good quality and a lot of the comments by council members cannot be heard.  A good reason for people to attend these meetings if you want to know what our city government is doing. Meeting minutes have not been posted on the city's website since February 2025. The October meeting was well-attended. 

Since the public will not see the minutes of the meeting for at least a month (they say their policy is not to post the minutes on their official website until the next monthly meeting when those minutes are presented to the council for approval, but history shows us that it could be months, if not longer, before those minutes are actually posted on the website for the public to read), I am providing a summary of what I could get from the recorded video:

On the Action Agenda --

1. Consideration, Discussion and Action: To censure Councilman Neal Riley for violation of the Ethics Code of Conduct. 

2. Consideration, Discussion and Action: To remove Marcus Wray from the Board of Adjustments due to his posting of sensitive information, concerning the City's Bank Account information from First State Bank, Watonga, on a social media site.

     The mayor first made a motion to move these first two items to the end of the meeting. Before a second could be voiced, Neal Riley made a motion to strike items 1 and 2 from the agenda. The vote was Yes from Neal and Roy and No from McGee and Howard Hursh. The mayor voted to break the tie with a No vote. Then the mayor repeated his motion to move items 1 and 2 to the end of the meeting. There were several objections from the audience, probably because most of the attendees were there specifically to support Neal Riley and Marcus Wray, and by putting those items at the end of the meeting, it was possible that many people would have to leave before the council addressed those items. In fact, the meeting took almost two hours before it was adjourned. At approximately an hour and twelve minutes into the meeting, the mayor addressed item 1. of the Action agenda and Neal Riley was allowed to speak about how those items came to be on the agenda and then presented a valid defense to Ms. McGee's accusations.  It was stated that the items were put on the agenda by Debbie McGee based on Marcus Wray posting a copy of a City check on social media. McGee claimed that Neal was guilty of violating a code of ethics by providing a copy of said check, which is public record, to Marcus Wray, a private citizen of Watonga, who then posted a copy of the check on his facebook page. 

Neal stated that the check was public record, and it was within his obligations as a council member representing the public to provide a copy of such public record. McGee's problem with posting the check on-line was that it revealed the bank account number and routing number of the City's account on which the check was drawn, which she deemed "confidential information." It was pointed out that the information on the check was not confidential information, and if Ms. McGee thought it was, it was her responsibility as keeper of the City records to make sure that information was redacted before it was presented to the City Council for approval and made a public record. [The city council later considered and passed a motion to draft a "policy" that confidential information be redacted in the future. That matter was referred to the city attorney to draft a policy.]  After discussion, a motion was made to strike both items 1. and 2.  All council members except Ms. McGee voted to strike those items from the action agenda.