And welcome, welcome, welcome, and we are live right here on the
air with our good friends here in the city. And it of course it's
our City Matters program right here on a K one, the one you trust
in here with a shitty Matters Remember, if it matters to you, it
matters to the shitty Mike Bailey and company. How are you doing there,
young man? Good morning. I like the end company. Yeah, he
did look over his shoulder anymore. I got everybody in the shot. How
do you like that, guys, Larry Larry thought he got out that.
I like that. I like your new camera. Larry was trying to hide.
It's a good sea shot. Well, good morning, Well, good
morning. How's the air show? Happy Monday. The air show was actually
pretty fantastic. I hopefully everybody had a chance to check it out. I
went out Saturday. Unfortunately the wind didn't cooperate, so they weren't able to
do the static line parachute drop that they'd discussed. But regardless of that,
it was pretty awesome. There were some great aircraft out there, and they
said the total the total number of visitors over two days was twenty three hundred
that went in to see it. So a little over twenty three hundred.
Yeah, it was, it really really was great. Just I wish I
wish they'd have been able to do that static line. I want to admire
those people, and I want to believe that I want to do that,
but I don't. When I was younger, I was convinced that I wanted
to do that, and now I just want to want to. Yeah.
Well, he goes around telling everybody was born to be wild, at least
till eight thirty, sometimes nine o'clock, you know, but about nine thirty
it gets done. Get a little quieter. You're born to be mild these
days. That's right, you are correct. It's probably better once upon a
time, maybe that not anymore. Flying Bailey, that's it now now.
Our representative, however, was out there with his ultra life, which is
it is something, and after looking at it, I'm still convinced that he's
absolutely insane. Took that long. I visited with his father. When I
was standing in lite, didn't realize who I was talking to until until he
said, my son won't he won't fly in an antique aircraft, but he
does fly that little ultra light. And I said, oh my gosh,
mister Strom, I know your son. Yeah, so it was. It
looks like a cross between an airboat, a go cart, and a parachute.
I think that bad about it. I think that pretty much captures it.
Now you go, You got the DNA of all those things combined in
there, and it's like it's a fly in which it flies, but not
with me in it. So anyway, we're often running. Last week we
had a bunch of us went to a conference, so we're all trying to
get caught up this morning. And last week was the first week of our
new city Hall hours. It seemed to go very well, so if anybody
is wondering what that is. We're open eight to five now Monday through Thursday,
which our hours were a little shorter than that. When you don't have
a lot of staff, it's hard to cover everything. So right now we're
open eight to five, including lunch, but on Friday we are open eight
to eleven thirty, so we've got a little time off for our employees and
we feel that this makes us more accessible to the public. Monday through Thursday.
It seems to be going very well. It'll take a little while for
everybody to get used to the new hours. Anytime you make a change,
it does, but did seem to go very well. There was a lot
of phone calls to be answered come Monday morning for people who weren't aware of
it yet. We'll all figure it out together. So a couple of quick
announcements. We've got a soccer survey that we have issued, So if you
have an interest in youth soccer in Bartlesville, go on over to the City
of Bartlesville dot org and fill it out. We're particularly interested in hearing from
people who have current players in youth soccer. And this is just in any
youth soccer in Bartlesville. But of course if you have experiences from back in
the day when you had other children, when you did have children and it,
feel free to join us. But it'll ask you to differentiate whether you
have kids in soccer or don't. Trying to get trying to get a really
good picture of how well the programs serve our public and so that all right,
see's a lot of kids, there's a lot of kids. It is
a hugely popular sport in Bartlesville. We just want to make sure we're taking
care of people to the best of our ability. So City of Bartlesville dot
org if you have an interest in that. And starting today, we have
a water disinfection project that's going on. And so for anybody who's a water
chemist, never mind, you don't need me to tell you if you're a
water chemists, so I'll explain it for people who aren't water chemists. So
we use a disinfection project product called monocleoor means, which means it's chlorine mixed
with other chemicals. And it is a really mild disinfection project. And what
that does is, over time, you can have build ups of certain biologicals
in your system. In order to address those, you switch over to free
chlorine, which is what most people using their swim pools and that they're used
to at their houses. We switch over to that. I believe it'll run
for about six weeks, but it starts today. You will likely notice sometime
over the next couple of weeks a stronger smell of chlorine in your water.
Right now, the water shouldn't taste like it, so that you'll start to
notice some changes. As far as the taste and odor, The water is
safe. It's perfectly safe to drink. There are always medical advisors for anyone
who uses it for medical processes, like I'm blanking out him this medical process.
That'll just do it right there, dialysis specifically, so but yeah,
those are so for anyone who's using that. Of course, contact your doctor
and make sure that everything's good. But we worked with the hospital and everyone
else, so this is it's a relatively normal thing. Some cities will do
this routinely every three years. Other cities will wait until they start the show
signs of that biological build up before they do it. So this is the
first time we've done it since we switched over, but it didn't want anybody
to be alarmed. Also, a couple of quick updates. Got a lot
of stuff happening right now, by the way. So the Bardsville Water Resources
Committee has been meeting met twice so far and we'll meet again on Thursday of
this week. They're kind of working on a couple of projects. One of
them they're working on our long term water supply, and so we have presented
a lot of information to them and some possible options and ask them to help
us narrow those down on the ones we want to focus on. Specifically,
they are recommending that we pursue reallocation on Hula and Copan, which essentially raises
the lake levels so that you have more water available in your existing lakes.
Those are the more most cost effective. However, as we have seen,
Hula and Copan are fairly and they are not very drought tolerant, and raising
the water level will help that, but they're still going to be very geographically
dense. They're just right there together. So you have to have rainfall in
a you know, a thousand square miles. How does it happen that the
rain hits Heula and missus Copan and like, buy am it did? Right?
I mean it? I mean, I mean it's six and a half
too. It's right pretty close to anyway, and Hula was actually up in
the floodplain not too long ago, so it is that is a little frustrating.
It's of course worse for the town of Copan. They get all of
their water pan lakes, so they are currently dealing with a water emergency,
which we've already gone through and so but so those are those things are really
cost effective and we want to pursue those right now. However, we wanted
to also explore some other opportunities. So there is a aquifer to the west
of us that is very it's not really used for commercial purposes. There are
some private whales on it, but not a lot of commercial whales, and
so that is the aid of Amosa Aquifer. We are going to apply for
a grant with the assistance of Senator Lankford's office, to see if we can
get a grant to study that. So once we study it, we'll know
whether this is a good source of water for us or not. And the
other thing that the committee has opted for is to explore regional partnerships. And
specifically when we're talking about that, we're talking about a pipeline to Call Lake
and the potential of building Sand Lake, and so both of those happened to
fall in the actual Osage nation, and so the committee was interested in seeing
if the Osages have an interest in forming a regional partnership with us. There's
also a couple of small towns and cities through there that may also be interested.
So we'll begin to do those those things, some of them are more
easily accomplished than others, and so we'll begin tackling those right now. Though.
The other thing that they're doing is that they're reviewing our drought contingency plan,
and so the drought contingency plan that we had in place, we asked
Council to put a pause on it about well the first meeting of this month
and because the Water Resources Committee was reviewing it. So we expect that this
Thursday they'll finalize a recommendation to Council. They'll likely take that up at the
first meeting in October, and I would expect a decision at that point.
Of course, things things could change, but that's the plan at this point
in time. So as far as water goes that that's where we are right
now. As you mentioned, Copan Lake is actually below forty percent. Now
Hula Lake, I believe, is at ninety six percent. So that good
news is most of our water comes from Hula and it is still in good
condition. But I certainly feel for the town of Copan and that Copan Lake
is in our water supply, so we we're monitoring that as well. One
other quick notice before I turn it over to these guys, we have the
General Obligation Bond coming up. I'm not going to spend a lot of time
on it today, but we've got several more programs that will have before before
the actual election date to describe the projects in detail, but essentially this will
be on October tenth. This is a seventeen point six million dollar bond.
I'll take about three to four years to issue all of those. And it's
as far as how the projects are broken up. Just in general, there's
two point four million for public safety and there's about point there's about seven hundred
thousand for it needs parks two point two million, but the lion's share of
this is going to streets, and so about seventy percent of the funding is
for streets and that that comes out to about twelve point three millions. So
that's that's the good news there is that we have got a substantial amount of
money ready for streets. And if you want more information on this, go
to City of Bartlesville dot org. There's a map that shows all of the
streets. And frankly, I think that the Street Traffic Committee did a great
job and selecting these They use data to select them to determine, you know,
what streets are in the worst condition, but also applied metrics such as
how many cars do they carry and all of those things, so they had
a lot of data to sort through. But I think then made a really
good decisions. So that's October tenth. This is not a tax increase.
Now you some people will say, but if we voted, know, then
our taxes would go down certainly, which is why these are These are limited
taxes. And so we come back to the citizens of Bartlesville every three to
four years and asked them did you like what we did the last time,
and if so, we would like to renew it, and here are the
newest projects, so that we feel that that provides great accountability to the public.
So but this is this is a continuation of existing program, not a
tax increase, not a new program, not new taxes. And October tenth
will be your chance to for your voice to be heard on those all right,
I took up took up about a third of that. Geeve there you
now I'm gonna so we One of the things that we have heard about as
we went through our strategic plan and through other processes is a concern over homelessness
in Bartlesville. And so we have we spent a lot of time, a
lot of and become more much more educated on this. Personally, I'm much
more educated than I ever was about it. And one of the things that
we heard is that overall homelessness in the state of Oklahoma is on the decline.
And of course when we heard that, it was the assistant city manager
Tracy Rowels and I and looked at each other. So that's not our experience.
Well, it turns out that our experience is relatively normal because overall homelessness
is on the decline, but the unsheltered portion of the homeless, which are
the most visible, that is on the increase. So we've focused a lot
of our efforts on that because we think that that is obviously it's the most
visible, it's the most concerning when it comes to homelessness. And so chief
we've got we established it's a crisis Intervention Response Team, which was a partnership
with Grand Mental Health, and they've gone around and actually gotten us some statistics
so that we know really how many how many unsheltered homeless are there in Bartlesville.
Sure, and those numbers are again or numbers they went out research,
They went out on the pathfind or they went different areas of the city trying
to find right, yeah, that's right, trying to find a number.
That number was fifty four unsheltered, which doesn't seem that great unless you see
them all out at once. That's right. Well, when I come in
at three thirty, yeah, yeah, we have the darkest conversations as I'm
trying to walk up the steps. They're very kind, very very sure you're
doing so. So with those fifty four, they're you know that's the unsheltered,
the sheltered, or you know you've got the lighthouse they've got they stay
full at seventy. So, you know, one hundred and twenty four people
out on the streets that we know of, I'm sure there's some they've missed.
Uh. They they've gone out, they've gone to right links to try
to find everybody that they're dealing with on the street, on the paths,
in the parks. Uh. And you know that that brings us to the
next thing that the council created two officers for the patrol. Hopefully soon we'll
have those guys hired and where we can get those out as soon as possible.
So try to reach out to those people, more people on the path
and in the parks and make sure people are safe out there. You know,
there hasn't been any crime per se listed out in the parks. It's
been pretty calm out there, but the perception is that it's people are in
fear because they see things that they're not normal and so with those abnormal sightings
of people that are not familiar with it, it causes some apprehension. So
we want to make sure that we're reducing that fear so they can get back
out in the parks and utilize all the facilities, because we have great facilities
in the works and we've got a number of different outlets for people to go
and take their children and enjoy the parks, and it feels like they're not
getting to do that because of the fear. So if we can get that
reduced, we'll be doing good. The Crisis Intervention Response Team has been doing
that and continues to deal with the mental health issued, which is the greatest
part of the homeless or the end shouldered and they've they've gotten people out of
the homeless area and they've got them into apartments, they've got them into other
cities to where they're living in apartments. So we feel like that's that's right,
that's someone that could help them. So so we feel like it's being
successful. It's taken time but they're building those relationships out there. I believe
last last month they had two hundred and twenty nine contacts UH. Thirty four
of those were in crisis, so they responded to crisis and incidents where they
were threatening harm to themselves or others. And that's more than one a day,
so that's that's pretty pretty big number. And then they went out and
did one hundred and forty two follow ups and that that's one of the big
things for us is we want to make sure that if we're dealing with people,
we can follow up on them and maybe get them, make sure they're
staying on track, getting their services they need, the medications they need,
and and offer them try to get them into other services. You know,
as they stay on track. They've got some pretty good UH contacts out there
that they're really building relationships with and hopefully those will change into people living off
the street but back into housing and being productive again. So that's our long
term goal. It was our goal from the start of this program and UH
and we want to just keep rolling forward with that. The team is to
two Barslo police officers and two Grand mental health case workers and it's it's taking
a team approach. It's it's uh reaching out to all the contacts and all
the different agencies within the city to make that happen. You know, all
our nonprofits, and we're blessed to have as many non profits as we do.
They're out there trying to help the the underserved, so to speak.
And uh so with that, the combination of those services, we're hoping to
to make a difference your interactions. Have they become positive, a little bit
more warmer since you're going out a lot more and having these interactions with the
folks who are unsheltered. Absolutely, they're starting to see us as more of
a friend than a foe. Okay, so, and that was the idea
behind the project in the first place. We try to interact with them when
they're not in a crisis, you know, interact with them, give them
the help they need. If they need a right to get their medicines and
they don't have a right to get their medicines, won't give them that right
so they can stay on track, so we don't have to deal with them
later and maybe in a different scenario, different scenario and a bad outcome.
So would rather address it in front rather than try to catch up. You're
doing good work. And what we've what we've experienced is that the Council is
very dedicated in applying our resources in the areas where we have the greatest concern
from our citizenry. And so that's what you're seeing with the Crisis Intervention Response
Team and the park Patrol. Now, those ideas came from city staff,
from police chief and his staff, and but the Council has been very supportive
of that. And so because we have there's been a lot of concern and
express to us. Those are the areas where we've chosen to put our resources
and try to address us proactively. So hopefully over the next year we'll start
to see some positive returns on this. I think what we're doing is not
unique across the country, but it's fairly unique in Oklahoma. This is this
is an approach that not many cities are taking. So I'm glad to see
us lead the way on this and hopefully start to see some some positive benefits
of it. Absolutely, I think we're hitting in the right direction, and
you know, I know that you know we want to listen to the citizens
and address the areas of policing that need to be addressed, and these are
certainly the areas that they're they're talking about right now. All right, thanks,
Chief, I appreciate it. We're gonna move on. Now. We
have one of our largest projects probably as far as planning, well, I
would say as far as planning goes, this is definitely the largest project we've
probably done since the late nineties, I think, the last time we updated
this plan. And so cities operate off of something that's called a comprehensive plan,
and that includes comprehensive land use, and there's housing and all kinds of
good things. So before we jump into what we're doing, Larry, what's
the exactly is a camp plan and what's the value of it to a city
and its citizens. So the Conference of Plan is the master plan for this
city, and it is the plan that the city is following as it moves
forward over the next you know, twenty to thirty years. And so it
incorporates, as you said, you know, housing, information, land use,
things along those lines, but it also incorporates transportation, utilities, storm
water, floodplane hazard mitigation. All of those things were incorporated into this document.
So when the city, when the Planning Commission and the city council has
to make determinations on projects, say look to this plan to say is this
in conformance with the comprehensive plan? Uh? And if uh, this is
how we should move forward with it. Or is this something that's not exactly
where we saw ourselves or where we want to be? And so, yes,
it has been some time since our last complan update and and so yeah,
so we're we're looking to have a new plan created and then typically cities
will then revisit it about every five to seven years to make sure that is
this where are we where are we going? And is this do we need
to make any changes as we move forward? And so it's it's not something
that is absolutely set in stone. It's not this is this is a living
document. It'll need to be changed as we go through it. So if
there's that's that's one of the figures that everyone has when you create a plan
like this is that I, well, we're going to be trapped. It's
going to be used against you. Well, the reality is is if you
don't like the plan and then the plant exactly. I mean, it's not
it's not an ordinance, This is not law. And yeah, just like
everything, it's Uh, in planning is that it is living and breathing and
you know, uh, people change, technology changes, and so that's why
the Conference of plan needs to be revisited. Everyone's will for that use,
so which is which is what we're doing. It is And having never gone
through this myself, yeah, I was quite shocked at the scope of it.
So the length of time that it requires is typically about a year for
the Conference of plan and so you know, the Council was very wise in
the creation of the Conference of Planning Committee and very excited by that. We
had fourteen applicants or fourteen smiles from various companies across the country come through and
so the staff whittled those down to fourteen or excuse me at that fourteen down
to six, and the committee then reviewed those six potential companies and then interviewed
two of those and so now we're down to the final two and the committee
did make us is looking to make a recommendation to City Council and so we
hope to have that before City Council on the meeting in October. So it's
it's really exciting. I mean, the and what's so amazing about these companies
is that These aren't just you know, people that just submitted a document and
you know, boiler plated it or anything like that. They took the time
and they saw that Bartlesville is very serious about its plan. And so these
were very, very good companies that came forward. So it's very exciting that
they want to partner with us as we move forward with the project. And
of course we're the vision for the organization is a leading community by choice,
and so we chose that intentionally because we believe that Bartlesville got the way that
it is by choice. Everything was very intentional. You can you can go
back to the heyday of Phillips and city Service, and we chose to be
the way we are, and so this plan is simply an extension of that.
We're going to continue to look at what do we want to be,
what we want Bartlesville to be. So, now, from a citizen's perspective,
what can they expect to see over the next twelve months as far as
it's developed. So as when a company is selected by the council to enter
to a contract, is that there'll be a kickoff meeting and so there'll be
a public meeting for that, and so that'll be at the very beginning,
and so there'll be an opportunity for citizens to come out and hear what the
timeline is going to be, what they can expect things on those lines.
And then after that there'll be periodic meetings that'll be associated that either be through
the through the consultant, or be through our staff. We'll have periodic meetings
throughout the entire process. But the beginning of this is going to be uh,
you know, the kickoff, but there will be a little slow just
because our consultant, we'll be working with staff to gather all the data together.
We've got to analyze the past before we can move forward, so we'll
be doing that together. And then after that there'll be a lot of interactive
meetings. Data you know, current data collection that will be collected by the
consultants and be able to award at that time, and so the citizens there
will be meetings that they can provide their input. We anticipate the probably surveys
and things of that nature. Of course, we're not shy about surveys.
We've got one out right now as far as soccer, we just wrapped up
one as far as sidewalks. So this is how we This is how we
get data, and data itself does not make decisions, but it does inform
the decisions that we make. Helps the community, helps sup playing commission,
helps it AC Council and the qualities policies decisions. So this is this is
going to be quite a project, yes, and it will. I appreciate
you being willing to take this on. Absolutely I had it would not have
been me, I promise, should have had to be somebody else. So
luckily not my first and definitely not gonna be my last. So I look
forward to it. It'll be fun, it'll be it'll be a good time.
Anything else the public should be aware of. Yeah, we're currently doing
a housing study project. We have to have that route. Hope to have
a draft document to administration and to City Council in the next coming weeks with
some data on that. I'll really help guide, uh, you know,
our economic development process and things on those lines. You know, we're we
are in a unique situation in the sense of our housing. We have both
you know, old stock, news stock that are online coming offline, and
so we'll be reviewing all of that and kind of see where we need to
go. That will help comprehensive plan as well. As we move forward,
that'll be it'll be more information that's fit into that exactly. And so we
all know that there's a housing shortage, not just here but across the country,
but when we don't know is at what price point and by how many?
So what exactly is our stock? What's the demand? And what do
we need to be aiming exactly? And so you know both historically because the
state of Oklahoma did a housing study back in twenty thirteen, and so Barblesville
did have its had its own subcategory associated with that. But you know that
ten years of passings then, so it's time for us to be you know,
definitely seeing where we are and where we're going with that. Look look
forward to the results of that as well. Did open All right, thanks
Larry Type for Silence team. There we go, there we goad. I
just threw my phone on the floor. Throw So Michael, what we got
going on? Project wise? How much time do I have now? Four
minutes? Okay, three and a half? All right, well, okay,
run on. So the probably the biggest one that people are seeing ongoing
right now is going to be the Delaware and Clear Creek Loop project. So
it's an asphalt rehabilitation project. They're currently working in Clear Creek Loop. This
is at the northwest corner of Tuxedo and bison Uh neighborhood in that general vicinity,
and so they're working on that. Hopefully get the asphalt wrapped up,
the final lift of that done middle of next week something like that. So
we got Brent Bell Construction working on that and he gets in there and works
pretty quickly, so which is pretty good. Yeah, which is a good
thing. So so I should get that wrapped up middle of next week.
They should start this week working if they're not already working on ADA ramps on
the Delaware projects, I think there's gosh, I forget the number, there's
a large number of ADIA ramps. So we have to do with that.
Larry's nodding happily in the background. Yeah, So you know, anytime,
due to ADIA standards, now, anytime that we're working on a roadway project
that a butts a a ramp or an area where there should be a ramp
that's that's not compliant, then we have to bring that into compliance. So
essentially there's existing sidewalk. Didn't always used to be the case, but that
is the case now, so so we're sticking with that. So again they'll
they'll start on that this week, if not already, and then you see
it should see them working on the asphalt part of it, then coming into
UH in the next week, maybe the week after that. So they're planning
on a start at the south end of that, so that's from Fifth Street
to Hillcrest, so they'll start there at Hillcrest work their way north. This
is around Central Middle School as well, so we've got some details we got
to work around that to keep their their operations running with the buses and whatnot.
Always always yeah, not at all, no, no, but we've
been working with the schools and they're they're aware of it and had been been
really good to work with. So none of them. It's around schools as
well as we have our Crestling Concrete Rehabilitation Project SIS is going to be from
Adams to Baylor and Baylor over by Madison Middle School used to be the Mid
High It's also inclusive include the Baylor Place, which is a little loop that
connects from from Baylor to to Crestling as well. And again it's a little
it's not a full reconstruction, but it's a it's a large amount of concrete
panels that will be replacing there on that section as well. There will be
some ada some hot sidewalk work on that as well. We actually just awarded
that project at the last City Council meeting to Jay Jay Graham Construction should have
a pre construction this next week and we anticipate construction sometime this fall, potentially
potentially starting October. Not sure if we get on back quick or not.
It really depends on the contractors availab building there and the weather always the weather.
And you refer to that as a concrete panel. So we have two
we really have two types of streets in Barlsville. We have asphalt and we
have concrete cranel And if they're concrete, we prefer to keep from concrete.
I know in the past we've laid asphalt over the top of them. We
don't like to do that anymore because it degrades the base, which is the
concrete. It does more quickly, So we'd prefer to keep them as concrete.
And if they're asphalt, obviously, then that's a that's that's a quick
easy right go into a mill and overlayoff of those but concrete has a longer
life. It does it's more durable, but it does take longer when you're
going to do these repairs, it's longer and more costly, and well at
length of time just leaves the more money to won't You won't be driving on
it the same day They lay like you do with asphalt. That's almost you
can almost follow the asphalt roller and drive just almost, yeah, just almost.
The next ones, we got pickleball. I know I'm supposed to wind
up. We're opening bids on that on October twenty third. I know a
lot of people are zip interested in. That's hundreds of people playing pickleball at
Souonar Park. Yeah, yeah, you do so. We're we're excited to
have that done as well. Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us
with the shitty matter residential and commercial coming in Colination's coming. We're serving you
with their k WO in Bartlesville, K two twenty seven s