New commissioner Smith: experience led to election bid

May 15—Kevin Smith may be brand new to the street department, but he's no stranger to operations within the city of Tahlequah.

Street Commissioner Smith was sworn into office in early May and has since gotten down to business with repairs and maintenance.

"The streets are naturally the No. 1, and anywhere and everywhere you turn, there's street repairs," Smith said. "I know a lot of things we're going to be doing is maintenance, and doing that everywhere we can, because there's a set of plans to finish out."

Smith began his career with the city in 1977 when he started out as a laborer for the parks and recreation department. From there, he was promoted to a supervisor role ,and then became head of the parks department.

"Three years before I got hired on the city, I worked for the city through a program with Cherokee Nation in the summer," Smith said.

Smith was named assistant city administrator in July 1999 and served in that role until he retired in 2016.

He did what many other retirees would do: traveled the U.S. He completed many projects on his rental properties for the time being, and said he just got bored.

"I decided to run for street commissioner because of the previous work I had done for the city of Tahlequah for 36 years. I felt like giving back and there are some things — when I retired — that I saw not get completed and not finished, and I wanted to come back to see some of these things through and finish them up," he said.

The new street commissioner said he already had an understanding when it came to being a department head after having 36 years of experience with the operations in the city.

"It definitely does because of ordinances, the code book; I don't know how many times I've read that code book. I remember when I became city administrator, I probably read it three times, end-to-end. Once I said I was going to start doing this again, I went through there and read what the duties and responsibilities were for this role and for the department," said Smith.

Smith was asked what goals he wanted to accomplish within the first year as commissioner. For many frustrated residents, it's no secret just how bad road conditions are, and Smith said that's something he'd like to tackle first.

"The city has several projects coming up, whether they be through the bond money or through the special tax. Our streets are in pretty bad shape, so along with those, [we'll be] getting as much street repairs we can possibly get done in a collective, orderly manner," he said.