Good morning, good morning, morning, welcome, welcome, welcome time now
for our community connection right here on Kwando one you trust, and it's brought
to you in part by Arnold Moore Kneecamp at funeral home. We've got our
friends in herey Quinn Sheppard, how you doing. I'm fantastic today and you
brought friends a friend friends, Yes, good morning, I'm delightful. Thank
you. All right, Jessica is here with us today, and this is
a Republican and other Conservatives of Washington County otherwise known Rock Rock. Yes,
now, we got a big event coming up here on the twenty fifth.
Tell us a little bit about it. Well, this is our monthly meeting
from March March twenty fifth, six thirty two, round seven forty five.
We're going to be meeting at Crossing second with the theme of charter water and
voting voters. Oh my, well, there you go. And it's all
top of mind very much of these days. Yes, it is. Oh
my goodness. You know when we when we talk about the city charter h
some folks would kind of scratch their head a little bit. They say,
well, what is that? I understand We've got an expert coming in,
Well, we have a couple of experts coming in and talk about that and
to frame the conversation a little bit. Today, Tom, the city has
what it's called Bartlesville Next, it's a strategic plan yep. And Martians all
know that the city Hall is downtown, and so one way to describe the
strategic plan for this city. It's more internal. So it has to do
with you know, city services, city management, city government and the things
that happen, policies, all those sorts of things. Whereas the comprehensive Plan
I think of it as more external to all of that is the long range
plan for everything from roads to water to housing density. All kinds of stuff
are covered in that. So if we narrow it down to the strategic plan,
the city has been very diligent to follow that plan. They give updates
at city council meetings. You can watch those or attend live you can.
City beat comes out, Yes, city beat if you don't have that,
encourage listeners to go to the City of Bartlesville and sign up for that and
keeps people informed about that process. So part of that process is reviewing policies,
best practices, all those sort of things. The difference with the Charter
is that's governed by state regulations, as are many things that we do as
a government as a city. State regulations statutes, certain requirements, and that's
why amendments to the Charter have to go to a vote of the people.
Now I understand we're going to be bringing in a couple of speakers to address
this. We will, yes, we will. We've got our city manager,
Mike Bailey coming in. He knows a lot of words, and our
mayor, you know, even more words. And while they've been doing some
presentations around about these things, it's just another opportunity for people to come hear
the rationale behind some of this while they're proposing these amendments. And those are
going to appear on a ballot on April tewcod as ten different propositions, so
there's a reason they are separated out. A little bit later today on our
website on one Little Radio dot com, we're gonna have the sample ballot out
there so folks can take a look at it. And you got it right
there. We're going to have that posted so that everyone can see what that
looks like. So you don't walk in there and go, oh my goodness,
I don't know what I'm doing, and you'll be able to go through
it and be more familiar with it. But also with this charter, there
are things like city elections and recalls and things like that that they're going to
be addressing in this election as well. Yeah. I don't want to get
into all the particulars that here, maybe, but they are going to be
addressed saying a number of various things. Yeah, ten things that in their
overall review. And people also need to understand that this just doesn't come out
of a vacuum. There have been citizens that have been talking to the manager
or the mayor. If you've got a city council member, you've got questions
about it, talk to them. All these people are very approachable and they'll
answer your questions. We want people to be informed voters, because everybody's got
a voice and a vote, and we want to encourage that. So part
of our objective is to really educate and inform people about issues about candidates coming
up. And it's kind of important fact is electorate yes active to be bare
act there you go get out and vote yea good. Don't shut on your
duff because if you sit on your dough. You can't complain, You're just
going to be a def center. We don't want that. No, you
don't want that. That's kind of what this organization is about, is becoming
an informed and a participating, active voter. Right. And I got to
ask you, Jessica, what drew you to this? Well, this was
my major in college was politics and history. But I like to be active,
like you said, and informed on what's going around. And sometimes we
feel like we can't make a difference or we have no impact anywhere, but
in reality, we honestly do, especially at the local level. That's where
they say all politics is local. Yes, it starts on your sidewalk in
the street where you live. We don't want to talk sidewalks here because right
now Larry Curtis and going I know he did it, he did it sidewalks
again. But we are going to talk water resources, are we? We
aren't going to talk water resources. No. We are an association of people
for Washington County, and our utilities director Terry Lawrenson is going to come into
a presentation. All the water resourcing in Bartlesville is not just for Bartlesville.
We provide water for fifty five thousand people, which is actually about one thousand
more than the population of Washington County. So when we talk about, you
know, drought readiness, when we talk about where the resources are coming from,
what's been going on in the drought this year. Actually with the comprehensive
plant plan, one of the top concerns that citizens have expressed is about dowgoing
water concerns that don't just affect us. So Terry Lawrence's presentation is really going
to be for the entire county. Will be part of that presentation because we
provide water for a lot of people. Now you're on the Water Resources Board.
You told me something that is incredible about what could happen to our river
if well the river if yeah, if Hewle and go penn La likes dry
up, the river dries up a lot, that could be a real big
problem. It could be a real prob you know, I'm thinking, Okay,
well, I wasn't sure where the river started now I know. So
this is going to be very very informative. You know, when we talk
about Washington County, which is this is all about, is Washington County?
A lot of people who live in Bartlesville say, yeah, well we had
it rough, well, you didn't have it as rough as Dewey. They
couldn't do their ductory on fourth of July because that river was dry. It
was it was cond great, it was you know, you had to take
a chisel, it was you. We couldn't let the ducky float. And
on top of that, you go up to Canye just north of there.
You know, they had more troubles than you can ever imagine. And just
thinking that we were kind of lucky in comparison, but luck ain't gonna do
it in the future because we never know what our numbers of exactly, and
as well aware, there are no quicker, easier, cheap solutions. However,
the Water Resource Committee is exploring all that. Oh boy, I got
to tell you, it's going to be great having mister Lawrence in there.
He's an engineer on top of being a pretty darn good communicator too, and
he can put that into into words that everyone's going to be able to understand.
You're not gonna have to take you know, an engineering this are but
it's going to be great. And I love the fact that experts are going
to be on hand here. You're always very good at at doing that and
having them help facilitate our meetings and stuff. And one thing I like to
emphasize Tom is our meetings. Most of our meetings are very non partisan.
You know, they're very old and waters for everybody. Everybody come out and
learn and be prepared for the vote. For those who'll be have an opportunity
to be part of that. This is really pretty cool. And you know,
being a part of this has to be a lot of a lot of
fun but also a bit of a challenge there. It can be time consuming
at times. Yes, but you look like you're enjoying yourself though. I
should hope so, and I am. I hope Quinn is as well.
Right, we have a lot of fun. We're going to commit our time
and energy to something. We want it to be something that we enjoy and
be fulfilled with and believe it and believe in. And yes, yeah,
and like you said, you know, the doors open, it's going to
be a crossing second. The big room in the back. There have been
times when we've had the overflow we had to go into the game room and
open it up. But oh, there they are. We usually have people
in the game room. Yes, yeah, I think I remember when the
Lieutenant governor was there. It might have been a little bit of standing room
only there for a little bit. But by the way, get there early,
Grab yourself some food because it's delicious, yes, and then and then
get ready for the information. Some would say get ready for the show,
but it's information, but it's done in a way that you know you're going
to be You're going to be asking questions. Will we take questions from the
US Yes, yeah, they're going to be taking questions. They're going to
do presentation, take questions, and I think it will be beneficial for everybody
to be there. Good. And do we have a website or Facebook or
we do have a Facebook. If you go and you search for Republican and
Other Conservatives of Washington County or roc WC, we will pop up. There's
any comments, questions, concerns, anyone can always contact us at our email
info at ROCWC dot com. Wow, okay, that works. There you
go, and if you want to sign up for a newsletter, you can
do that through info at ROCWC dot com. But you won't find them at
TikTok racts yet. Anyway, We're not gonna do those that For the look
on your face way what I wouldn't do that again. It's not nice.
But anyway, it's going to be a great time and it's going to be
once again. It's going to be on March twenty fifth, and that is
going to be a crossing second and you just make six thirty, six thirty
thirty thirty. We encourage you to come early, like you said, grab
some dinner, enjoy friendships, make new friends, and we can also,
you know, enjoy a meal during the presentation. You can do that too,
and I'll tell you what. They'll be happy to see you, the
people there at the restaurant. Of course, your friends and neighbors will be
there as well. It's also a great way to kind of get re acquainted
with folks if you haven't been out in a while. You know, some
people in winter time they kind of retrieved a little bit, so you know,
if you got a little cabin fever, this is also take care of
that too. I want to thank you very much for coming in. It's
always so informative. Anything that I might have missed, well, I would
just encourage people to go to the Okay Voter portal. There you can register
to vote, you can change your party affiliation. You can download the ballot.
I know you'll have it as well. There's all kinds of information on
there to help prepare people so they're not just going in vote knowing everything.
Vote yes and everything you know. Don't just listen to the coffee shop gossip
like be informed and learn with some of these issues and candidates got a lot
of that to talk about this year as we go on. Who they are,
what they stand for. Give your voice and vote an opportunity. No,
do we do this monthly. We do do monthly. It's usually on
the third Monday and every month. That's a good way to remember it.
It is. The spring break is coming up next week, and so we
adjusted to encourage people to come out. Oh thank you. Once upon a
time I had seven at home. Well bless you. Yeah, a little
holding them to be positive members of society. All right, Thanks again,
folks, you've been listening to and watching our community connection on K one.