Past-Due Light Bill Could Darken Tullahassee

TULLAHASSEE, Okla. (AP) _ An overdue electric bill may force officials in this eastern Oklahoma town to start working in the dark. <br/><br/>Public Service Company of Oklahoma wants at least one-half of

Friday, July 27th 2007, 9:49 am

By: News On 6

TULLAHASSEE, Okla. (AP) _ An overdue electric bill may force officials in this eastern Oklahoma town to start working in the dark.

Public Service Company of Oklahoma wants at least one-half of the nearly $2,000 the town owes by the close of business Tuesday. Mayor Emma Mae Walters said she does not know whether the town, located in Wagoner County northeast of Muskogee, will have the money in time to keep the lights on at the town hall.

Walters said she had no idea when she was elected to the town board of trustees on May 31 that the town was behind in paying its bills. The town must still raise the rest of the money owed to PSO plus the money to pay nearly $2,500 that is overdue with Oklahoma Natural Gas Co.

In addition, the town owes a separate bill for its street lights. The town hall already does not have telephone service because there is an outstanding balance on the telephone bill.

``I didn't know about this until we got in,'' Walters said. ``That's the only thing that's taken me by surprise.''

The town had not held a municipal election for six years until May 31. The mayor and another of the three trustees were ousted at that meeting. The town clerk and town treasurer, who were not members of the board, have since resigned.

However, the new board of trustees still has not received all of the records from the previous administration and has been unable to get control of the town's three bank accounts, Walters said.

She and another trustee plan to take their records to the First State Bank of Porter to get the existing accounts closed and new accounts opened. But the bank's list of required documents includes a copy of the town's articles of incorporation, and no one knows where they are, she said.

``They may be in there in a bunch of papers, but you would have to dig and dig and dig to ever find them,'' she said.

A search of records in the Wagoner County Clerk's office on Thursday found some references to the incorporation in commissioner minutes, but not the articles themselves.

Leslie Harper, a clerk's office employee, said commissioner's minutes show the application for incorporation was made on Dec. 7, 1914, and an order for incorporation was issued March 1, 1915.