By Tom Fink
October 21, 2009 — Claremore City Manager Troy Powell told council members last night about progress on the city’s plans to host an upcoming “thank you” dinner for its retail customers.
The biggest detail to be worked out? The guest list.
“We have begun plans for a ‘thank you’ dinner to recognize some of the city’s largest retail and industrial customers,” Powell told council members at their regular meeting Monday night. “Our goal is to get everyone together for an evening of let them know they’re appreciated for what they give to the community.
“For this event, we’re partnering with Rogers State University, the Rogers County Young Professionals (RCYP), and Claremore Public Schools, who will providing the entertainment, most likely in the form of a jazz or other local band,” Powell said. “We’re also hoping to work with the Claremore Chamber of Commerce, as well as getting Grand River Dam Authority, Cox Communications, and Oklahoma Natural Gas on board as event sponsors.
“The one thing we’re needing to discuss, and possibly later draft a resolution on, is who are we going to invite to this event,” he said. “Obviously, we can’t invite (representatives from) every business in the community, so we’re needing to set some kind of criteria as to who we want to invite, how we want to invite them.”
One option suggested by Powell was to invite Claremore’s largest electric/utility users, but also to consider area businesses with the most tenure.
“We’re looking on between 150 and 200 people, so depending on how many people (per business) attend, we could have anywhere from 20 to 70 business represented,” he said.
Area businesswoman Stephani Freeman, who has been working with Powell to coordinate the event, suggested the assignment of a point system in considering who to invite.
“I had thought that the easiest and fairest way to determine who would be part of this dinner would be a point system — assigning points for the number of years a business has been in service, the amount of electricity they use, and the number of employees,” she said. “If you assign points in each of those areas, you wouldn’t rule out businesses who might not be the largest (utility) users, but who have hung in there and stayed put, contributing to the community, for decades.”
Powell concurred with Freeman’s sentiments, and encouraged council members to e-mail him with their suggestions while a point system is devised.
“This isn’t going to be any kind of dog and pony show — just an informal get-together for us to say thank you for our (utility) customers and industries — the people who have really kept the wheels of Claremore spinning,” he said.
The event is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 10.
