Good money, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It is time now for our City Matters program with his honor the Mayor.
How are you doing there, Mayor Dalell? I am good Tom,
how are you well? We got a lot going on, you know,
it's the first day is spring, and I take a look at what we're
looking at here today. There's just a lot going on there is. It's
springtime. Things are blooming and the city is bustling. Yep. First of
all, I heard our city clerk, our city CFO talk about this about
our sales tax, and it's amazing how it can be down and up at
the same time. Well, it depends on what you're comparing to the last
ten years. It's excellent. We're comparing to last year. It's down a
bit. But we do can. We budget very conservatively, and I think
at the time that's tough. You know, it's just like your house,
you know why we think we're gonna have more, let's just spend it might
not, so we always budget conservatively. The budget has exceeded well, our
receipts have exceeded our budget plan, but that's beginning to kind of level off.
We're still ahead and last year was a record year. But I think
we're thirty three thousand dollars but on a twenty six million dollar budget. That's
not as much as it sounds like. But we are ahead and we do
budget that way, so we're in good shape. But it's great to see
that receipts use tax. We didn't know, had no idea. Oh yeah,
it's a baseline year. Now we're about fourteen months into that, so
we're beginning to have last year to compare to, and it's out performing what
we had expected and so that's a good thing. But again that was down
too, so things are leveling off, but we're still in good shape.
Hey, you know, if you want to be a part of government,
or at least you know, get a peek behind the curtain. We've got
tons of opportunities we do. There's more than twenty commissions, boards, authorities
and committees that meet. They do streets and parks and golf course and line
library and just the list goes on. Cemetery, community center, ambulance service.
There's just a lot of things. And we've got citizens people, your
neighbors and friends just like mine. But take their time, they bring their
knowledge and they give their wisdom to study those particular areas in their particular committee
or authority, and then when something comes to the council, a lot of
that has been done. There's a lot of great input and it helps make
the best decisions. But we ask people volunteer. If you have an interest
in something, volunteer. Maybe there's not an opening right now, but next
month, next year, and we keep those. You can apply for several
different You go to Citybartlesville dot org. You can download that application, complete
it, submit it, never leave your requiner. You can go by city
Hall, go up on the second floor, talk to Elaine Bain's in the
city Manager's office. She'll get you a form. Take the form you filled
out, or answer questions on how to do the form. But look at
those and be at You'll learn a lot, but you'll also give back to
our community. Okay, we talked about some openings, but we've got another
opening too. This is kind of at the top. It's a fire chief
we're looking for. We do. Chief Topping has been there for a long
long time, over thirty years, and there comes that time that it's time
to retire, and I don't particularly like that. It'd be a bunch nicer
if he just stay there forever. But apparently he didn't agree, so he's
set to retire in June. So we started the process, as we've done
in other departments, to look for the very best candidate we can find,
and that will be both an internal and external. We've seen that happen both
ways. Time. We've had outside people come in and do a great job.
We've also had people that were already here, so they'll look at that.
That's not a city council function, that's something that staff does city manager,
but that is going forward so that we can keep our fire department the
best in the state. How we doing water wise? Water is looking a
lot better in springtime. We kind of expect that, but as you recall
a year ago, that wasn't the case. Heal A Lake is full and
a bit over up in what they call the floodpool. Copan has not,
but it's a whole lot better than it was. It's still below being quote
unquote full, but it is coming up. We're getting some rains. I
think the other thing that's worth mentioning is we have asked repeatedly for people to
conserve water, use water. That's what it's there for. But don't waste
water. Just like all resources, take care of it, whether it's your
money or the gas bill or the electric bill. The water is a crucial
resource, and I can tell you that people are doing a great job.
We're using just over four million gallons a day, about four four point one
four point one five. But it tells me that everybody has paid attention,
is doing their part, and if we all do a little bit, it
adds up. Now the lot of reuse planning, everybody's thinking, oh my
gosh, we're reusing our dirty water, Oh my gosh. And it's come
on, folks. No, and we've talked about this and we'll continue to
but the water is not being reused. We do have the pump and the
pipeline in place, but we have to have ODEQ permits. They're running a
pilot project right now to run tests on various different processes to get the very
best called affluent, but basically what goes back in the rivers already going in
the river. We're just going to look hopefully in the future, probably twenty
twenty six before all this finishes up. Everything is slow, but we'll put
it in the river in a different place is the only difference. But that
is not happening, regardless of what local experts proclaim online Keyboard war Year.
Well, it just creates confusion. I'm always tell people, if you have
a question, call a city council member. Therefrommers are posted, call the
city called Terry LARTs and the water utilities director and get the information firsthand.
But no, that is not true. Oh good, Hey, we've got
sign signs everywhere. Sign but they're looking pretty cool. They do the New
Week all them wayfinding signs. They're at the parks, they're downtown. They're
different places to help people. Even if you've lived here a long time,
you might not go on that street or in that section. And then then
they look really nice too, but particularly for folks coming from out of town,
might be coming in for a sports tournament, soccer, baseball, basketball,
whatever, which by the way, Oakue was doing great on basketball.
Yeah they are. That's good news. But we're continuing to expand that.
You'll see little little concrete things and like, what are those Those are going
to be another sign at some point in the future. They're going through the
process of getting those little concrete bases poured and then they'll come in and start
adding more signs. Ultimately, the ones I'm looking forward to is is you
come into town on Highway seventy five north and south, there'll be a welcome
to Bartlesville brand new sign. I think this thing is like seven or eight
feet high and eleven feet wide. Really looks nice. Matches the ones that
are already there. So those are continuing to pop up like that. Now
we've got our state of the Police depart Apartment event. Yeah. I can't
think of another word that would fit. Yeah, now that's coming up.
Get the date, March the twenty eighth week on Thursday. It's gonna be
at the we call it the Center, the Community Center, and they'll just
talk about the different things. I'm sorry, I've just emraced what i just
said. The judge tells the jury disregard that. Ye disregard that to Oklahoma
Wesleyan University. I'm sorry. But it's on March twenty eighth, which is
a Thursday, from six in the evening to about eight, and the police
department will discuss, I'm sure, answer questions all the things that are going
on there. There's a lot happening there that running an Assitizens Academy, Police
Academy that's been full every time they've run it. Everyone I talk to that
goes to those comes away with a better understanding and really a better appreciation of
our police department. Now we talked about these unpaid boards and commissions and texts
like that. We've got real job to pay, real money. Well,
we'll do. There's all of those. There are lots of jobs, over
three hundred employees with the City of Bartlesville, and we need good people,
dedicated folks. They're looking for a good career path. There's good benefits.
There's lots of good opportunities within the city. And there's a posting city Bartlesville
dot org. It'll tell you everything from this department to that department, what
particular jobs. Obviously, FI Archief we talked about that. Yeah, I'm
not qualified for that job either. I can't run into a burning building like
they do now. But it's a great thing if you have an interest in
that, or you have a friend that's looking for employment, looking for a
career recommended least considering City Bartlesville. Right, very good. Now, we've
got an election coming up, we do. It's on April the second.
What do we got going on. Well, it's interesting. Tom started doing
a little bit of history, give you a little background on this. The
first city charter was adopted in nineteen ten. We're both a lot younger than
yeah, a lot lot younger. It's been amended many times in that period
of time, once at one hundred and fourteen years. Some of the most
recent was April of eighty three, again in April of eighty five. The
current charter was adopted in January of eighty seven, So every two years there
were changes happening. There was a break there for about eighteen years, but
then it was amended in April of two thousand and five and then again in
November of two thousand and ten. And so what we're looking at is having
an election April the second. It's not yes or no, you know,
all in one. It's broken out into ten separate questions. So the ballot
will have ten things listed. Now half of those are basically housekeeping. The
original this charter, if you go back and read it says if this charter
is approved, then this changes in that Well, the charter was approved,
so that language is now obsolete and we would clean that out. There was
also a section there because at the time they met at seven pm, that
says new councils shall be sworn in and seated at seven pm. That's not
got to happen. Well, it could, but we're really confusing because we
now meet at five point thirty, which has worked very well. So there's
five of those that are that kind of housekeeping. The other five deal with
particular issues that the council felt we're worth putting out to our citizens, friends
and neighbors that live here, shop here, go to school or whatever,
recreate and ask them what they want to do. So some of the things
would be council terms. Right now, we went from four years to two.
Four is a long time. Two. I don't think I Tom could
learn the radio business in two years, and I look in this room and
there's so many buttons and switches and lights flashing that it takes a while.
Same thing with government and city council. So we looked at three years.
We also looked at and there's arguments for and against all these things, and
that's the discussion we want to have. But we looked at three years and
then staggering those so that you don't have a situation. I think they was
told in nineteen seventy six when they had an entirely new council, and that
might be warranted. I'm not saying that's not the case, but the confusion
and the learning curve that happens, then you don't get the best government.
You don't get things going. I always tell people what you want is dull
government. The trash goes away, the water comes out when I turn it
on, it goes away when I pushed the little silver handle. All of
these things happen. It's just dull and boring, and it works and it's
smooth, and that's what you'd like to have. Then we also looked at
the recall. It's never actually happened, so it's still theoretical. But it
turns out the recall was pretty loosely framed, I think, and there were
no limits. So I think, well, there might be a situation when
it was necessary to recall someone, and that's perfectly fine, and in fact,
should happen. I would assume that that was a pretty egregious situation,
that something had been done that needed to be addressed. And back to the
fire department. If the building's on fire, we need to address the fire
today, not next week or next year, and if there is something of
that magnitude, then we ought to have that action taken in a timely manner
and get it resolved and keep the city moving forward. So we looked at
a recall that would be allowed for up to one hundred and eighty days now,
whether you have a two year term as we currently do, or if
it went to a three year term, in six months when something has come
up that enough people would sign a petition to initiate a recall, and then
to ask right now, you have to have so many voters in each ward,
well, it's over one thousand, and for the city clerk to have
ten days to verify one thousand plus signatures, they'd have to stop everything else
they're doing. So the idea was put forward on that one to allow up
to thirty days for them to get that accomplished. Still timely, but a
little more time to do the job they already do, plus to handle that.
And then finally, this one's a little I think, probably not as
exciting, but it's important. The city council sets a budget, the city
council approves significant changes to that budget, auditions or deletions, and the City
Council will approve contracts. Well, it's mister Bailey. The city manager has
mentioned this. If you want to buy ten gallons of paint, he has
the authority in his department heads to do that. Doesn't something you'd wait till
next month to approve. On the other hand, if he wants to hire
someone to put on that paint, then there's a contract. Well now it
has come City Council and it's cumbersome, and the question is is it propered?
Is it the most efficient? The council still has the oversight not being
taken away. What we're doing is we're taking all the situations that the c
manager has the authority to do up to limits and we're going to change this
one and say this one's included. So there's consistency, and it makes for
a more efficient operation and should save money and save time, which time is
money. But that one I think is perhaps the least understood. But it
just essentially aligns all of our different methods that we expend city funds and makes
them consistent. Well, very good, very good. So we're going to
have early voting on this, and of course we vote on April second.
Yes, I tell people vote. Whether you vote absentee, whether you vote
early go down to the election board, which is the fourth floor of city
Hall, or whether you vote on Tuesday, election day, please vote to
have light turnouts. Oh, that's back up. That reminded me. That
was the other change was to move the elections from November to April. Now
that one has garnered a lot of discussion, and that's great that people are
concerned and interested me attention exactly why because in November, as you will know,
Tom, you can't get a radio spot here at the radio station.
They're all taken up. We have state, we have federal we have a
president, senators, governors, and somebody running for city council, our state,
our school board by the way, an unpaid position gets lost in that
flood and allowed. Yeah, the phone calls, I love those, the
mailings, all of the different things, the social media posts. How do
you even get somebody running for ward one in city council? Get your message
out? People even know who you are when you're lost in that sea of
information. So moving it to April is when we have school boards and all
the local things, and that's done across the state. That's what we did
up until two thousand. Well we did it in twenty eleven, so it
was later that we changed over in twenty twelve, and that twelve years of
experience has shown us that sometimes the voters aren't aware of who is running to
represent them at the city council. They're not aware of what their thoughts are
on a particular issue that may be important to you, and we want to
bring that and elevate that up. And we feel like moving to April,
I realize there's high turnouts in November. The problem is if they're there to
vote on president or the governor, which is very important, have they really
focused on their local government. So those are the things we're going to ask,
but basically just vote. Tell the people need to tell the city what
they want, because that's what we're going to do very good. We need
to clean up a little bit. It's been kind of messy since that fall.
It was very dry, which created a whole lot of leard debris in
my art. But we did this back in the fall. We do this
in the spring. People might scalp their yard. Everybody has different methods of
taking care of their lawns. But on May I have to look and get
it right here, because I've already messed up once. May the sixth through
May the tenth, on your regular trash day, put out your polycarts the
way you always do. But if you have yard debris, you can put
as many bags, any bag, clear bags, color bags, whatever.
You can put limbs and sticks and twigs as many as there are at the
curb, not on the carts, but near the carts, and they will
be picked up, probably by a separate truck at a different time. But
the limit is that the yard debris, leaves and black grass clippings need to
be bagged, do not need a sticker of any sort. The limbs and
sticks and twigs need to be bundled, no more than four feet long,
no more than fifty pounds, tied up in a bundle, so that the
city workers can pick them up and load them and get rid of them for
you. The important word for all of this is that little word free.
It's free, my favorite price. That's right. No stickers, no tags.
There's a lot of work. Get I'm ready, But if you put
them at the curb, they'll go away. Very good, very good,
mayor thank you for being with you tonight. I was preppycure. It's a
chance to visit. All right, folks, you've been listening to. You
are a city Matters program right here on K one. I'll never forge