Good money, good money, good morning, and welcome, long and welcome,
and it's time now for city matters. It matters to you, It
matters to the city. We got is honored a mayor and with this,
Hey you doing that, mister Coplan, Good sir, how are you well?
I'll tell you why I find is any finary betwins They got the size
for it. But anyway, we busy night last night with the City Hall,
just a whole lot going on. But it seems like you guys got
it over rather quickly. Talk about being expedient. Things went well. We
had three different meetings. Actually, first was the Bartipal Education Authority, the
BEEA. In that meeting we primarily passed, discussed, and then approved funding.
It's what's called conduit funding, which is perhaps not something everyone is familiar
with, but it's past three funding. The schools have limits on their funding
levels. The city does not. So there's a situation where perhaps they would
have to take a project into two or three pieces, which would not be
very efficient or cost effective. The city, on the other hand, can
fund, in this case ten and a half million dollars. I think they
told me that that was primarily for Ranch Heights. One of the elementary schools
and get all of that done at one time with one contractor, and try
to get that accomplished in an efficient manner. So that was our first meeting,
and then the second meeting was the Bartlesville Municipal Authority, which deals with
primarily the water plant, the wastewater plant, and in that one we again
discussed and approved potential funding. I stressed potential of a little over eighty three
million dollars. That's important and you and I have talked about this before.
The biggest municipal project that has ever been done in the city of Bartlesville was
the water treatment plant several years ago. I think it was around forty two
million dollars. That was funded through not GEO Bond's property tax, but through
the Oklahoma Water Resources Board OWRB and a low interest financing agreement. It has
worked very well. Last night we approved a request to the OWRB for a
similar loan when we need it. We're not ready to start that yet.
We think it'll be twenty twenty six, but when that comes that we could
have the funding for up to eighty three million. We may not need that
much. We do what they now call value engineering and so you look at
things and say, can we do this better? Can we combine and say
what are all the options that are possible to make this as effective and efficient
as possible. So in any case, we approved that. Essentially, what
it does is set a cap on what we would pay. It does not
set a floor. And we also discussed, well, what if there's always
the what ifs. If interest rates go up, then we the citizens of
Bartlesville, are protected. If they go down, then we can what they
called de obligate and go back for an approval at a better rate. So
it really is something that is just a prudent practice to give the best rate
to do what we have no choice. The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality has
mandated. The City of Bartlesville has been under various consent orders to upgrade our
wastewater system for literally decades. The most recent one, I believe was in
twenty nineteen. As we complete one, they issue another, and so we
have to build a wastewater plant. We have known that for some years.
We've done design and engineering, we've gone through all the phases. We're getting
very close to the phase where we have to actually begin to do the work
on that plan. It's going to be expensive. So that's was that one.
And then finally the regular city council meeting. Now, I see we
got that thing taken care of for Oquo, that apartment to complex. The
rezoning, Yeah, that is kind of different. You know, heard the
president say that, well, we can only do one at a tile and
some make crops a few million dollars on us. Everything is expensive, but
you got to get the zoning taken care of first before you get etta shovel
in the ground. Over the years, OAKLU has been a tremendous local success
story. They have grown. They have done a very good job not only
training the student population, but also in their physical plant, their facilities,
beautiful facilities. But then if you're going to have more students, where are
they going to live? Yeah, and for all of us that have had
opportunity to go to college, you know that is a question. College towns
are different, there's different student needs and things. They have been very proactive
over the years. They have acquired a number of properties to the east of
the university. They're off the Silver Lake, and so last night they said,
you know there's four point two seven acres I think just about over four
acres that they wanted to rezone. Some of them are empty lots presently,
some of them have houses on them, older houses. The streets are older.
I suspect they go back to the county that many years ago. So
it was an interesting discussion. Change is always concerning to people, what you
know, what's going to happen, what's it going to be like, how's
it going to work? But doctor Dunn came and I think spoke quite well
that they intend to do what they have always done is take care of their
facilities. This would be no different, and that their students are held to
a certain level of accountability and that they would maintain that. But I think
some other things that were in the packet we didn't really get into last night.
They have agreed to upgrade the Parkway Street, one of the streets that
abuts this, which would be a benefit for everyone that uses that street.
It would. Yeah, And to your point, funding everything is expensive if
you build a house for yourself, Well, they're building housing for students.
They're looking ultimately at eight housing units. Initially they would do one, but
they had the what I call conceptual drawings of what will this look like?
It can be done with computers now and very attractive. It looks much like
the rest of the structures at the university. Nice, so it was just
nice. Yeah, I think it will be and I think that they addressed
a lot of the concerns the unknowns, and everyone that spoke last night spoke
in favor of it. What's now The library master made a lot's going on.
He's been busy. A lot of changes inside. If you haven't been
inside, you need to visit your library. A lot of changes outside.
I think in the next week or two. We didn't talk about it last
night, but the outdoor sign there on Atoms is due to be replaced.
We approved that some months ago. Like everything today, it takes a while,
but that's about ready to go. In last night we talked about two
specific things. One of them is the Wi Fi. You can't see it,
but it's what allows your laptop or your Chromebook or your phone to connect.
And with lots of users, it had reached pretty much its capacity,
so they will be able to go in and expand that, putting in more
hardware, improving the connections to expand that to make it available and faster for
even more people. The other piece was the skylights. Tom. It's hard
for me to appreciate it seems like they just built that library. It's a
beautiful, modern facility, but it was built in nineteen ninety three. I'd
have a hard time thinking that that through too, because you'd say it was
probably built ten years ago. I start counting, and that's thirty years to
you and me. In thirty years wonderfully maintained. It has been been well
taken care of. We have taken care of issues with the heat and air
system last night. The skylights, which is a unique feature and makes it
bright and area inside. But they're also thirty years old, and so we
did a prove a contract to get those replaced. Just like you have to
put a roof on your house you don't want to leak, we would do
that for the library. So a lot going on the library. If you
haven't been there, you need to go visit. I understand that pickleball is
back on the uh. Pickleball is a great, big, big popular thing,
you know, so it draws a lot of people when they do the
tournament every October. Hundreds of people show up for that. I mean it's
cars on top of cars. It is a big local draw. A lot
of our local citizens are really playing packleball and participating, but also out of
town there are tournaments all over. Some months ago we approved the design and
worry a contract to construct more pickleball courts there at Sooner Park. When you
turn in Sooner Park off of Madison where the tennis courts are, it'll be
in that area between that and the fire station more or less. One of
the things that we couldn't fund at the time was lighting. And so if
you have lighting, soccer fields makes no difference where then you can use them
more each day in the evenings and a lot of people are off in the
evenings and that's convenient. We just didn't have the funding. The group that
supports pickleball locally said we're going to go out and see if we can get
that funding, and they have worked on that, and what was explained last
night is they have a lot of that funding. They're still pulling together loose
ends. They have some more things to come up later this month to make
the product flow. Last night, after fairly lengthy discussion bringing up a lot
of different topics, we approved moving forward so that the contractors but a call
of change order so that the contractor can go ahead and do all the pieces
as they you don't want to pour concrete and then later you have to go
back and cut in the run, lighting power and things. We have the
capacity of the city through unencumbered sales tax funds to cover that. But really,
as City Engineer Staff explained that there, he said, ninety five percent.
I don't guess anything's over one hundred percent, but ninety five percent.
Confident that the funding will come forward, the city can actually bridge that gap
and get that project moving forward and get a pickleball court it pickleball courts plural,
constructed and ready to go hopefully in the next three to six months very
quickly. Sounds kosher. Okay, let's see what we got. Oh yeah,
the housing study. That was a big deal. That really is if
you get a chance, and I tell people at council meetings more and more,
anything that the council has, including this study, which ran to multiple
pages. They had a huge data set of information drawn from a variety of
the senses HUD several different places. And then people that are adept at that
go in and take that data and slice and dice and parse and figure out
not just housing, but housing for this age, that age, parents with
children, families without children, veterans, disabled people, all the different functions
of housing, how much homeowner versus rental, how much do people prefer apartment
living versus independent housing? So all those pieces that help us to see not
only where we are, but where are we going, and any of that
is available. The entire city Council packet is available online, not just to
me, but to you and anyone that wants to go to Cityobartlesbell dot org
download that packet. The city council packet this time, I believe was around
two hundred and sixty eight pages. The BMA packet and the BA packets were
ten to fifteen pages. But everything that I read on Friday and Saturday and
Sunday in preparation for a council meeting is available to everyone. So that housing
study you can drill down into some really obscure data points to see about how
many of this age, how many in the county versus how many in the
nation versus how many in Oklahoma. That it'd be a big thing. You
know, that wasn't a stunnard to know that we were going to need some
more houses with Blue Whale ABB. We also have that electric company now Lincoln
Electric, and into Buffalo Roum bringing people into I mean that's just tip of
the iceberg. There are a lot of Floridica. There are a lot of
ourtues in front of us. Obviously, people need housing the university. Yeah,
the same thing as someone described. If you're going to bring in more
students, where are they going to live? And so all these things.
It's a good problem. It is a great problem to have, but we
need to address it and this was a step in that direction. Great David
topping our fire chief is going to step down. I hate to see that.
As I said last night, Tom David is not only a great fire
chief, he's a friend. He has become a friend. He has been
with the department for a long time. As he moved up through the ranks
to become chief, he has moved that department forward. We've made a lot
of changes and improvements under his leadership. But that is a process that happens
may times. Each of us reaches that place, and so I really am
happy that he has the opportunity to do that, and the city, as
we always do, will begin the process. He's here with us until June,
so we've got a little time, but we will begin the process of
finding that replacement. As we have seen in other positions that came open,
there's always been strong interest, not only internally but also externally, and we
will get not one, but more multiple applications from both people that already are
with the department versus people outside, and it'll let us pick that best choice
to lead that department. That's an important department. We had a meeting with
the ali USU group and explained that the operating budget for the city, about
fifty percent of that goes to public safety, which is police environment, and
they're about evenly split, and so the leadership in the fire department is important
for so many reasons. My guysh but I tell you what. He was
one of those guys that came right home after during a tour of duty in
the Armed services and decided he was going to run into burning buildings instead of
out of them. Not something of course like being in the military. It
takes a skill set that not all of us have to run toward the problem
instead of running away from. Now we appreciate him a great guy, great
chief, and we now have a special week coming up where you're allowing us
to help ourselves here a little bit, a lot of work. This the
weather, and it brings up a point I think that is perhaps misunderstood.
Why did they do the pickup in November when the weather was so nice?
I didn't get my yard done. The leaves didn't fall, so I didn't
finish for December some years other years, this year here we are. I
had the windows at my house open last night. It was so warm out.
It's great. But people are already working in their yards and doing all
the things. Somebody said they had scalped their yard, and you know ten
twenty thirty bags. Why are we waiting till May? Well, when you
plan these things, it's a little bit like planning a camp out. Is
it going to rain, is it gonna snow, Is it gonna be hot?
Is it gonna be I don't know. We're just planning a camp out.
It's Oklahoma. Nobody knows. Tomorrow is another day. So this quite
some time ago, was scheduled to be from Look made the sixth through the
tenth on your normal trash day. You do not have to use special bags.
They can be clear, they can be opaque, you do not have
to use stickers. You just put those bags of yard debris, leafs,
grass clippings at the curve, not on your trash carts, but near him.
That being picked up by another truck. Later you set the magic word.
It's another truck, another truck. Don't get crazy if your polycart got
emptied and the other stuff still that machine that goes out and get your polycart
and made just for that, and not pick up your yard tracks. Likewise,
limbs and sticks as long as they're cut to no more than four feet
in length in a bundle, tied up and no more than fifty pounds,
some of us pick those up. So you don't want a five hundred pounds
log that's laying out there by the curve, but they will pick those up.
There is no charge. We do that twice a year in the fall
in the spring. So that's coming up. And made the sixth to the
tenth on your normal trash dack. Very good, very good, Thank you,
don't thank you anything else you'd like to add. It was a great
time to live in Bartlesville. Lots of opportunities coming. Those opportunities always bring
challenges. We adapt and get ready for them, but I can't think of
any of the place so i'd like to live. Nor can I. It's
why I came here, and I said, that's it. We're done.
We're not moving, we're not we're not going anywhere. App great, happy
to pay taxes here. Thank you very much. You've been watching it and
listening to our City Matters program on K one.