Money. Good morning, good morning, Welcome young and welcome. It's time
now for city matters. It matters to you, It matters to the city.
That is plain and simple. How you doing their assistant city manager at
Tracy Rolls very good? Are you still get used to saying that? That's
some of the nicer things that are said. I'm sure there are still other
things. They'm probably closer to the truth. We got a lot going on
this week, even though it's a short week, don't we We do short
We're in preparation for another big week kind of Yeah, we've got a lot
going on. Terry's got a lot going on. We were talking about the
rain or the lock thereof the wind, and Laura's got a lot going on.
Everybody's got a lot going on, except Mike Bailey, who you know,
we like to give him a hard time when he's not here, just
because it's funny. Can't defend himself, and so that we will take some
shots at mister Bailey throughout this broadcast today, So just so everybody's ready for
that. So a big week this week in preparation for a big week next
week. First of all, we'll talk about the charter election, it's April
the second. That's the regular voting day. Early voting is the twenty eighth
and the twenty ninth of March, and that is this Thursday and Friday early
voting. We asked that people to get out and vote, let us know
what you want us to do for the city and how you want the city
to be ran. And this is a way through their vote for the people
to really let their voice be heard when it comes to the charter and to
tell us if we're on the right track or if we need to do something
different. Kind of like on the roof right now, Tom, there's something
going on up there. I don't know really what it is. They're working
on it. They're trying to find something to patch up there. I think
they're going to find twenty if they keep up whenever they're down. And then
the wild heard of woodpeckers, and there's definitely something going on, but progress
right, the progress. So we asked that, you know, people get
out and vote, but we also asked that they educate themselves before going to
vote. And there's several ways that that people can educate themselves to know exactly
what is in the in the propositions, for the charter election. The city
website has a quite a bit of information about what we are proposing and asking
the voters to vote on the city beat. Obviously, Kelly Williams and her
staff do an outstanding job of getting out not just information about the charter election,
but information about all things city. The Oklahoma Election Board their website has
information about the each each of the propositions as they will be seen on the
ballot. It's always good to look at those things and to read those and
review them to understand exactly what you're voting yes or no on. Also,
tonight, at six point thirty at Crossing second, there is an event that
one of the things that will be discussed is the charter and the charter election.
I think Terry, you're going to talk about some water issues at that
event tonight as well and some other things. So a lot of information not
just about the election, but a lot of information about the city can be
gained at that event tonight. Again, that's at six point thirty at Crossing
second. Tomorrow night, the League of Women Voters are holding a charter forum
that too, is at six point thirty. It's at the Bartlesville Library in
meeting rooms. See, both of those events are free and just both of
them are are opportunities to really educate oneself about what we're asking people to vote
on. So that if you go vote this Thursday or Friday or next Tuesday,
you're educated, asked to what exactly the city is proposing through the charter
election. So a lot of ways to educate oneself, and we asked that
that people take advantage of something to educate themselves. Nobody wants to be that
person in the voting booth saying hey, what's that? You know, you
don't want to be saying that out loud, so I educate your Yeah,
it's embarrassing. It's not a real good position to be in. No,
it's kind of like the roof right now, Tom, the roof is not
a good place to be. Not right now, we're not in the good
position. Yeah, yeah, right on top of it. Folks are kind
of hearing that a little bit over the air, big pounding and thumping,
that's what's going on. We're getting ready for the big rainstorms that are coming
up out. They're practicing their Irish you know, step dancing or something up
there. Oh yeah, I remember that commercial. Yeah, there's definitely something
going on here. We may not be saying hard hats. You heard of
river dance. This is a KNY river dance. Mister Potter should provide hard
hats or something. When we come in here and this is going well.
He came in to check on me a little bit and go said, how's
it going pretty good? And that was really nice? It was you know,
that felt good special. April the twentieth Operation Clean House. That's a
that's a county wide event so that people can can dispose of their hazardous household
and automotive type material in a safe, environmentally safe way to two places where
people can drop that stuff off, the Phillip sixty six Downtown parking Lot and
also the Washington County Barn in Dewey. Again, that's that's something that happens
every year April the twentieth, eight am to two pm. People can take
advantage of that if they have some material, hazardous type material or stuff like
that that they need to get rid of. Let's make sure that it's not
volatile at the moment that you bring it Forthdad. That happened a few years
ago. Yeah, we did have a situation downtown that was that uh,
a little excited. I can't remember exactly the details of it, but it
turned out okay, Oh I did. Yeah, it wasn't good for a
little while. No, it's a little nervous there, Yeah, kind of
like we are, as we said here, now listen to what's above us,
a little nervous. Good Friday is this week, So that means that
if your trash was supposed to be picked up on Friday, that will happen
on Wednesday. Friday, trash move to Wednesday. If you don't move it
to Wednesday, then it'll be there over the weekend and you have to wait
till next week. You'll be that one on the block, you know the
one. Yeah, you don't want to be that one usually me. I
usually forget. But yeah, Good Friday. Not just will trash routes be
amended for that day, but also city Hall will be closed in for Good
Friday as well. But remember, if you're a Friday trash collection person,
your trash will be picked up on Wednesday. Tom Remember that. Well,
yeah, I'm the guy clunking around at three twenty in the morning hauling that
out there. May the sixth to the tenth yard debris collection. So grass
leaves just getting really serious. I know we keep talking about this. People
out there listening are probably thinking what is wrong with those people, But there's
some serious stuff going on here. Yard to Break collection, May the sixth
to the tenth. Grass leaves lone clippings, limbs, and branches less than
four feet, no more than fifty pounds. Put it out by the curb.
You're the normal trash truck will not pick that up. There will be
another truck that comes around to pick that up. So don't call and scream.
Right, your trash is gone, but hard to breeze still there.
Don't freak out. We'll come back. We'll get it and make sure that
that stuff's taken away for you. The last thing that I want to talk
about and then we'll turn this over to the real brain trust of the group
is some upcoming retirements. We have a few upcoming retirements from some people who
have served the city for many, many many years. They've been very dedicated,
very professional in their service to the community, and we are very appreciative
of all that they have given to serve the public and to be leaders within
our organization. A few of those Library Director Shelley McGill. We'll be retiring
soon after several years of great service to the community in various roles. We
will definitely miss her and her expertise when it comes to a lot of things,
and we were starting the process to find her replacement and that will be
a lengthy process. But she's retiring in August, well deserved retirement and we
wish her all the best and thank her tremendously for her service for as many
hats as she wears. That's gonna be a tall order. It will be.
Laura's got her work cut out for us to try to find it.
Yeah. Chief David Topping, our fire chief, recently announced his retirement thirty
five years of service to our community to a little over two and a half
years as our fire chief. He has certainly will be missed. He has
brought a lot of professionalism and dedication to our fire service in many different areas
and he will be missed for sure. We are actually doing interviews to fill
that position this week. We are first round of interviews. We do have
some internal candidates who have applied. We're excited about that and the opportunity to
see if they're ready to advance to take over the fire chief role, but
chief topping he's one of the hardest working, hardest working, most professional people
I've ever had the opportunity to be around, and he will truly be missed,
and we are so lucky to have had his service for over thirty five
years in our community. Another retirement, the last one that I'll speak of,
is Deputy Chief Rocky Bevard. He also is set to retire May the
thirty first. May thirty first is a popular retirement date, so anybody wants
to retire, maybe May thirty first is the time to do it. But
Rocky has announced his retirement after over thirty five years of service to the Bartlesville
Police Department. He will truly be best is he has such a wide range
of knowledge when it comes to not just policing, but the organizational side of
law enforcement. And he has really done a good job serving the citizens of
Bartlesville. And I am so fortunate to when I came here in twenty eighteen
as the police chief. In early in twenty nineteen, we had the opportunity
to create a deputy police chief position and we got to a point Rocky,
and that was tremendous helped me a lot as far as trying to build that
foundation of coming into a new organization, and without Rocky, I don't know
how successful we could have been. He's done tremendous things and I cannot say
enough good things about him, and he will definitely be missed once. He's
pretty darned humble, too, very humble man. He's done a lot.
He's a cop, you know, He's an old school cop, comes from
a family of law enforcement. His sons serves in law enforcement at Washington for
the Washington County Sheriff's Office. So great family, great legacy. He will
truly be missed. And I know that Chief Ickleberry will have big shoes to
fill when he appoints the new deputy police chief. But I'm glad that's his
problem and not mine, because that'll be a tough one to fill. So
a lot going on, a lot of good people leaving, but with that
comes opportunity and excitement to have new leaders and emerging leaders come forward and move
our city forward and can continue to serve the departments of their respective departments.
So, Laura, we have kind of some things going on from the HR
side and the city side that you would like to visit. About so we'll
let you have it. I think you talking about our upcoming retirements is the
perfect segue to talk about some of our open positions with the city. So
the biggest one that we're filling right now is our fire chief position. The
application process is opened through April fifth, if anybody's interested in that position.
We also have some maintenance worker positions that are open in the streets department,
in wastewater and water distribution, and then of course we've got an abatement officer
position in neighborhood Services. So there's lots of opportunity here at the city.
So if you go to Cityofbartlesville dot org slash careers, you'll see a full
listing of all the positions that we're hiring for, and then our application is
out there as well. I would like to point out that we offer excellent
benefits at the city, so we have competitive pay, but the benefits are
awesome. So we offer great time off. Our health plan is awesome.
We have a cool benefit called the Zero Card that is probably our best benefit.
This is the benefit that I'm most proud of. Anyways, employees can
get better on our health plan, can get a lot of different services covered
at no charge to them, and of course this is also a cost savings
to the city when they use this zero card benefit instead of using their regular
insurance. And so, yeah, if you're interested in a position with the
city, we've got lots of opportunities at Cityofbartlesville dot org slash careers. Talking
about the zero card, you know, I've worked at a few different places
throughout my career and by far the best benefit that I've had as far as
the city offered benefit other than my salary, has been the zero forger card.
Yeah, it is amazing how when you get a referral. For example,
one of my kiddos had their tonsils taken out and it absolutely cost me
nothing, cost me nothing. I mean, it cost me the time to
drive to Tulsa and however much that cost and gas, but as far as
the procedure, it was absolutely nothing. So it is a tremendous benefit that
that I don't think people really understand, and certainly when I got here,
I didn't understand because I thought, oh, there's got to be a catch,
there's got to be something. Zero really doesn't mean zero, but zero
really does mean zero when it comes to MRIs or different surgical procedures, and
it is such a cool benefit. We always share it, you know,
in our new hire orientation we talk about the zero card, but I don't
think it really hits people until they need to use it. And I think
even for me, I think it was five years before I actually used it,
or maybe not quite five years, but we had had the benefit a
long time before I actually utilized it. And then I'm like, oh,
this is really wonderful when you actually see that cost savings. So a lot
of expensive procedures, diagnostic services such as blood work and MRIs and X rays
all covered at zero cost to the employee. And then there's obviously a cost
savings to the city as well, so everybody wins. So what's that list
of openings? Where can people find it? Scooper friend, It's a great
benefit. So next up, I wanted to talk about our citizens Academy.
So we have launched our first ever citizens Academy for the City of Bartlesville.
Now we have one for the police department, but this one would be for
citywide, all city functions, and so I'm excited to be able to share
this just because I say all the time I get the advantage of seeing all
the cool things that our employees do. So it's really cool to be able
to share that with citizens so that they can take a deeper dive into what
city employees do and what city services we offer and that sort of thing.
We close the application process on March first, and our twenty participants have been
notified, so we're doing twenty this time around. The first session will be
April eleventh, and so all of these sessions are bi weekly, so every
other Thursday from one to four pm. The last session will be on June
twentieth. So for instance, for this first session will we will do at
the Helm and this will be an introduction of the program. Will give the
participants and opportunity to get to know each other. So we'll do some ice
breakers and some fun activities, and then we'll hear from our mayor and city
manager. We'll hear from our CFO municiple budget, and then we'll hear from
Terry Lauritson on the water supply update. And then we'll also have some guest
Yeah, Chris Bauchelder and yeah, Terry's here. I don't know if he
knew that he's doing that. I thought he knew he does now he's been
informed. Yeah, he knows now well here from Chris Bauchelder with the BDA
and then Maria Gus from visit Martlesville, so that chrisjas a little bit so
and that's just for the first session, so there's a lot to learn just
in the first session. The next session will go it's public safety, so
we'll go to the police department and we'll go to the fire station and learn
about what they do. And then the third session is legal and public Works,
so we'll hear from Jess Cain, our city attorney, and then Judge
Gentias on you to supper Court, and then we'll do what we call the
rodeo, so we we'll get introductions from street parks, leap facilities, and
sanitation on that day. So that'll be a big day for sure. And
then week four we'll hear from Communications HR and Community Development. So this one
will have an actual bus tour. We'll go visit some different facilities and we'll
look at some dilapidated structures and so I think that one will be a fun,
interactive one. And then week five is library History museum and then a
bus tour to the airport and water plant, so that again is a Terry
day. So Terry's going to get an opportunity to speak about water and all
of its facilities a lot. And then of course the last session will be
at the golf course, so then we'll hear from engineering, we'll do a
tour of the wastewater treatment plant and then the sewer lift station. So that's
the highlight and that will be you'll open it in a good way and then
you'll close it on the made. So when I say this is fully and
that, it definitely is. So we're excited to be able to kick this
off and to yeah, to learn with citizens very good, that's exciting.
Yeah, we really appreciate it. And I know that I speaking for mister
Bailey and myself, we really appreciate you bringing this idea forward. This was
an idea that Laura got. She was off at a training on the other
side of the state and brought this back and said, hey, what do
you guys think about this? And we said, yeah, we think that
would be a great idea for you to do, and so so she enlisted
Terry. So she's done it and Terry's now he's on board as well.
It's definitely a joint effort. We've got a lot of directors that are participating
and sharing their their knowledge and so this is going to be good. This
is one of those things that's going to go on for a long time.
Yeah, we hope. So, you know, it's just another another vehicle
that we use to communicate transparently with the citizens and hopefully we can really raise
their civic IQ by showing them kind of the inner workings of what we do
and maybe some of the reasons why we don't do some things that they think
that we should do, why we have certain services that we provide versus services
that cities typically don't provide, and hopefully give people some understanding on how those
two operate and how they intermingle but don't necessarily fall specifically to the city.
So I'm very excited about this. I know the police department we did it
for several years and it was tremendous and such a such a great response,
and I think that this program will be equally or even more powerful. So
thank you for your hard work and dedication on getting this done. So Terry,
we got water, we got uh water reuse, we got water updates,
We've got some rain. Obviously you're going to be the highlight of the
Citizen's Academy, so you've got a lot going on. Start of the show.
I don't know if the start of the show or I'll be the punching
bag for I think it's one of the isn't it one of the same?
Maybe so maybe. So one thing that they failed to mention for the Citizen's
Academy is that both Tracy and Laura will be facilitators for that, for that
entire class or the entire session, So uh, we'll get to see them
in action on every step of the way. So uh, you know,
in the wastewater plant is a dangerous place see and things can unfortunately get on
you that maybe we're unintended, but the little ranch of a different kind,
it is a branch of a different kind. Absolutely everything is washable, right,
everything is washable except replaceable except bleach. I mean that's pretty much rue.
But let's talk about our drinking water. So we've had the benefit of
some nice range really starting on Christmas time, and so our water supply is
really in good shape, with exception of Copane Lake, so that is our
smallest water source. We do have four sources, so it's Shutter Lake,
Hudson Lake, the Caney River, and then Copine Lake. All of our
water sources are full with exception of Copan Lake, and right now Copan is
just under sixty eight percent, So from a water supply perspective, we're really
in good shape for this time of year. Copane Lake has been on the
rise here for the last two or three weeks, and so the rain this
weekend did help much, but obviously didn't hurt at all. So there's more
rating forecasted later this week, so we'll wait and see how that how that
transpires. But historically springtime we'll get weather weather, wet, wetter weather,
and so I anticipate that will be more of a normal weather pattern for us
this year and Copan will be full once again. So we do track that
information on the city's website. So Kelly does post updates as far as our
water supply weekly, So if you are interested in keeping up with that,
you can just go to the citybarswel dot org. It's usually on the front
page or it's in within city Beat. So Kelly publishes city Beat weekly.
If you're not a member or a subscriber to that, we would encourage you
to become one because that's a fantastic resource, not only for water and wastewater,
but really all issues and things that come up before council or actions that
are taken through there. So encourage you to subscribe if you haven't, and
if you are, certainly you'll be aware of those of that information. Tom,
does this noise come through? They can they hear that? Yes?
Okay, I'm wearing headphones and it's like amplified times. Dad, I didn't
know if that was if people could hear that. It's it's not a thunderstorm.
I mean, that's people above us. Yeah. Do you ever feel
like you're below Studio fifty four on Saturday? Like, I hope people can
hear it, because if not, they think that we have lost weird weird.
Well, they can see the camera shake every now and then when a
big one comes down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a little unnerving,
I know, but you're doing good. You just have to go to
a different space, Tom. So I'm trying my best try, and I'm
still in shocked that I'm involved with so much of the Citizens Academy. That's
a little bit a little bit shocked, I guess not shocked, but I'm
just well, you're a popular guide. It's overwhelming, obvious deer in the
headlights. No, it should be a great a great session. Not to
change the suge, but that Citiens Academy is similar to what we have done
from a Leadership Barsville perspective, So if you've been through Leadership Barsville, that
will be fairly similar. But we're able to go much more in depth than
in Leadership Barsville. Leadership Barsville is just a one day smash it all the
way through beginning to end, So this is six weeks or six sessions,
so it will really facilitate a much deeper dive into operations and then to ask
questions about why we do or why we don't do certain things. Can we
clear up a rumor we're not drinking tinkle water? Are we're not reusing water
yet? No? No, well we're reusing South Kansas's water, so we're
drinking their tinkle and we have been since. Because the people on the internet
get crazy, they just get nuts. You get some keyboard warriors who are
half way informed, and you know, I'm getting I'm tired. I got
to stop looking at the Internet, so I just wanted to talk to the
guy at charge, So Tom, thank you for that segue. So we
are doing a pilot study in our water reuse scenario or a reuse proposal.
We are not sending that upstream of the Caney River to reuse. We are
doing that reuse treatment at the plant and we recycle the water to the planet
itself. So we're not doing anything different from a discharge perspective to the environment.
We are running through various scenarios looking at different chemicals filter configurations. We're
taking a lot of tests to validate or to see how those perform not only
with the standard treatment parameters or chemicals and constituents that you monitor, but we're
also testing for the trace elements that are not regulated at the Tennis of University
concern as they say. And so we are about a month into that pilot
study. Will continue to the end of May or early June with that process.
Uh So, we've we've gotten a lot of good data so far.
So we've been able to narrow down some of the treatment chemicals based on performance
to date, and so we'll continue to refine that and then we will you
know, we will publish all that information in June July. We do have
to remit that to the state as part of our permitting process. Uh.
So it's a bunch and an abundance of data that we have with it.
But that's far it's been. Uh it's been performing as we have anticipated.
Uh and so we'll continue to monitor that. And if you are interested in
taking a tour of that, this is your facility, so we would you
can reach out call ahead. Yeah, don't don't show up, but call
ahead and we'll coordinate. Coordinate through my office. So you can call a
nine one eight three three eight four one one six. That's to my administrative
assistant and she will kind of help coordinate a meeting. If you have a
group, a retiree group or an interested group of keyboard warriors, we would
love to have you out there to take a look at it and to see
for yourself. So again nine one eight three three eight four one one six.
If you just want to talk to the city manager's office, that's always
your purview to do so of nine one eight three three eight four two eight
two, which I always like to do. Mister Bailey likes talking. Mister
Bailey would enjoy having a conversation with you and probably looping me in. So
if it's about water, wastewater, so RESUS is going well. So if
you are interested, reach out and we can schedule you a tour. All
right, sounds good. All right, that's gonna do it for our city
matters. I want to thank everyone for being on board today and putting up
with our construction