Ah, good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome,
welcome. It's the time now for city matters. If it matters to
you, it matters to the city. And boy, Bud, we got
the people in here. We've got the assistant city manager, Tracy Rolls,
in a cast of hundreds. How you doing there, Tracy, We're doing
great, said I wanted to even the score today. You brought enough with
us today that we're gonna cover everything city related at some point in what thirty
minutes. That's sounds right, You're right. So I'm not gonna say much
at all because we've got a lot of people here that have a lot of
important things to say. All right, So we're gonna start with lours Sanders,
who wants to hire good people for our city and to keep this cast
of misfits under control. So Laura, go right ahead. But hey,
we've got lots of city jobs open. We've got something for everyone. That's
what I like about working at the city is there's so much diversity in our
positions. So currently we have maintenance worker for parts and for water distribution,
and we've got police dispatcher positions open. We're always hiring for police and fire,
and then we have our sanitation collector position available as well. So the
city has excellent benefits, we have competitive salaries, and so it's really the
place to work. I know that I'm biased sometimes, but oh a little
bit, but that's okay. So if you're interested in a job with the
city, you can go to Cityobartlesville dot org and we've got a full list
of the positions that we're hiring for. You can also apply through there.
You can also reach out to us through phone. It's nine to one eight
three three eight four two two one. Very good. So the online process,
lord, is it? Everything can be You can apply for everything online.
Yes, So there's an application out there that you can use for all
of our positions for police and fire. There is a checklist out there and
so there's a few extra forms that have to be filled out for those,
but for the main application, it's all out there and available, and any
questions they can just call call HR and you guys can call help them through
the process. And you know, one of the things that I think that
we don't talk enough about are our benefits that are provided through the city.
You know, I've had the opportunity to work at a few places, and
by far, the city of bortles Wille offers the best benefit package that I've
ever had offered. So if you guys are interested, please take a look
at that website. It's a great place to work, very good people to
work around, great team. So thank you for what you do in your
team. So, Mike, you had a fly in not long ago,
and I hear it's pretty successful. The weather cooperated and we didn't do anything
that would have been considered bad. So if you want to talk about the
fly in and how that went and what's going on at the airport, Yeah,
thanks Tracy. So the first annual Back to Bartlesville Regional fly in was
September the twenty third, That Friday and Saturday. The weather did bite us
a little bit. Friday morning, we had some showers. Attendance was low.
We had a lot of aircraft that were scheduled to fly into Bartlesville that
canceled out due to the weather, not just in the area but around the
area. A lot of these guys fly open cockpits, and if you have
a weather threat, they just tend not to want to get their airplanes out.
But yeah, it was well attended. By the public, thank you
for coming out. We had about I think between the two days we had
about twenty four hundred visitors to the fly in. Had a super turnout for
the first regional fly in. We were showcasing the locally based DC three or
C forty seven and the military designation for that aircraft. Lines were long all
day long to tour that aircraft and we had eight six from Sweetwater, Texas.
The WASP the Woman's Air Force Service pilots. A lot of folks don't
even know that that branch existed in the late nineteen forties. The women would
fly although they weren't allowed to fly combat missions. They would take these aircraft
out and fly them from manufacturing to the respective bases in the United States before
they shipped out. It was a really unique organization. Didn't get a lot
of recognition till much later in the scheme of things. They didn't receive veteran
status until nineteen seventy seven, and then at one point it was actually revoked
and then reinstated. So great that those folks got the recognition that they deserved.
But we're very much looking forward to next year's event. If you'd like
to become a volunteer or a sponsor. You can go to the website at
bartlesvillefly in dot com. There's a couple of tabs in there, so just
check out the website. We'd love to have you as a volunteer and or
a sponsor. We'd like to give a huge shout out to Charles W.
Harris Foundation and Betsy Kersey who manages that foundation. Charlie chaired the National Biplane
Association fly in for I think it was twenty three or twenty four years,
and also the Tulsa Regional fly in. So he's passed on now, but
his foundation lives on and still doing a lot of good community It's very good.
What was the oldest plane there? Oh, my gosh. The oldest
airplane there could have been probably a Steerman maybe there was nineteen thirties, nineteen
twenties. Wildcat itself is an eighty two year old aircraft. It's a nineteen
forty one. Our platinum sponsors got a ride. For being a platinum sponsor,
they got two tickets for a tour of Bartlesville on Friday afternoon in Wildcat.
So the eighty six from Sweetwater was also selling rides. I heard it
was a bang up deal. It was kind of on the pricey side.
I thought, four hundred and fifty dollars, I think to fly on the
aircraft for forty five minutes. But it wasn't just a level of europe wheels
up, shut up. It was a very interactive flight with the instructor or
not instructor, but the them and flying the pic piloting command. He was
out doing some lazy SSEs. Maybe some split ass is a little you know,
risky for somebody that is sensitive to motion. You might have to have
a six sac in the back of the airplane in an eighty year old point.
Yeah wrong, But you have good turnout and we're very happy with the
way way things went awesome. Thank you so much for not just that event,
but for what you guys do at the airport every day. A lot
of times I think that the airport gets forgotten and the good that it brings
to our community, and you and your staff do a tremendous job. So
thank you guys for what you do every day. I would mention that just
a little bit of Oklahoma aviation industry facts, the Oklahoma aviation aerospace industry produces
just under forty four billion dollars in economic activity in the state. It's the
second largest economic engine in our state. The average salaries seventy three thousand,
three hundred, making it one of the highest average salaries in the state.
And we are the state has one hundred and eight public use airports and which
puts about ninety six percent of our population within thirty minutes of a jet capable
airport of five thousand feet or more. So it's a little bit of economic
data on the aviation. Very good, well, thank you very much talking
about economic things, projects and other things. Chief engineer, mister Mike Seemers.
I don't I'm doing great. I feel like this is a little bit
of a dirty trick. There's more people here and there's still a lot of
time left on the clock. I don't see. I'm got to figure out
ten minutes for you. We're out the door right all the time. All
right, that's not bad. That's not bad. Yeah, you're looking like,
wait a minute, Okay, I'll do my best. We'll see.
Yeah. So we've all kinds of projects going on the just the twenty twenty
three g O bond pass. You citizens. We appreciate you guys getting out
and voting, and that did pass. So we've got a whole slew of
other projects that will come on the line here in the next couple of years.
Won't see that for some time now. Still, we I think this
fall will issue the last Troncha bonds for the twenty twenty g O bond.
So I think the first Tronch was nine point five million somewhere in there,
and this next will be about the six six point five million, I believe
somewhere in that ballpark. So again, not quite half the project still left
to issue on that. We've been trying to work on design and whatnot on
the rest of the projects and getting some of those constructions. So as far
as we do having our construction right now, We've got the Delaware project.
This is an asphalt rehab essentially from Fifth Street to Hillcrest. It also included
Clearcreek Loop, which that portion has done that's over there at Tuxedo and Madison
and Bison, small neighborhood over there. They got that work wrapped up first,
and then they dove into Delaware and started working on that project, got
everything milled up, build the assholet. They're working on patching right now.
Some concrete handicapped ramps. Anytime we do a street project anymore, the ADA
requirements require that if there are sidewalks essentially the intersect the roadway, that they're
not eighty A compliant, that we have to make those ADA ramp connections and
whatnot. So we've got, gosh, we've got a pretty substantial amount of
ramps including that project as well. One of the more interesting things about the
project though, it's kind of a really just a kind of a cut and
drive project as far as an asphalt and millon overlay. Nothing too exciting about
that other than if you live on that street being good condition, but there
is that was a portion of that is where the old Innurban railroad used to
to run, and so in the design side of that, we were aware
that there was potential for some remnants of that track underneath the roadway. You
could see it reflecting through the asphalt. And so Steve roper are our newest
project engineer, he incorporated into the plans that we would investigate that that we'd
salvage anything that needed to be salvaged as part of that contract. And so
when they got that milled off and exposed, sure enough, there were portions
of rail, and I think talking to Debbi and East and the History Museum,
she'd never actually seen the portions of there's portions that rail along a curve
there that had had double rail section essentially. I think it's probably designed in
such a way to help the trolley stay on the tracks, probably going around
the curve most likely, And so she hadn't seen anything like that, because
again, we got remnants all over town with this has popped up, and
she's got some small pieces and whatnot. But so anyway, at that point
when they expose that, we worked with the History Museum, worked with the
contractor other city staff to really try to come up with a plan for doing
something with this, just to try to preserve that. So a couple three
foot sections are going to go to the History Museum. I think they'll make
an exhibit up there on the or fifth floors City Hall. We tried to
salvage pieces of the timbers, but those were degraded to the point that really
didn't gain much out of that. So uh but we uh, we got
some of the spikes and some of the track that they'll get and they'll make
a little exhibit up there at the History museum. But then also we salvage
I think around seventy five feet of total track, so and the bricks as
well, So there's a bunch of the I guess they're the Buffalo Buffalo bricks
that were built there, you know, manufactured there in the early nineteen hundreds
as part of this, and so we salvaged all the brick, we salvaged
the rails, and so at that point we'll come up with a plan probably
a later date, uh, to do something in one of the parks as
far as essentially reconstructing a portion of this track is for people to see,
So that's on the game plan right now. So that was interesting. Not
something we typically see on our project Sometimes our our stuff is kind of bland
up there in engineering. But uh, but this is this is interesting for
sure, and I'm glad that we were able to do that. So kind
of kudos to Steve Roper for identifying that and getting involved with that, and
also Debniese the History Museum, and we had Larry Curtis involved on the community
development side, and uh, it's a good thing. So glad we could
do that. One of the other exciting projects that that's happening right now is
uh pickleball courts. So it's amazing how many people are excited about and interested
in pickleball. Played it for the first time myself about a month ago something
like that, and it's no major injuries. There were a few of our
staff that was involved in that and the directory HI might have blew a hammy
out or something. So we had you two, the police chief and the
IT director. That was that's quite the Quite the force I'm telling it was
really an We're an athletic force out there. It was. It was impressive
to see. Telling you what, man, guys on the circuit better get
ready. So no being serious though. So the pickleball courts, we do
have a bid opening on that this afternoon at two o'clock. I think this
is one of the first projects that I've ever had enough interest from the public
that we've actually got a couple of the interested pickleball parties showing up for the
bid opening. So I won't necessarily change anything or the outcome, but hopefully
get some good bids on that. And so the idea behind this is adding
some pickleball courts there by the tennis courts at Sooner Park. We've got a
base bit of six courts, we'd like to build eight, so we do
have a bit alternate for two additional courts. There's also a bit alternate for
lighting. I think our preference will be, if we can afford it is
to do at least six lighted courts, and then if we can do eight
lighted courts, that'd be great. But I think the preferences have lighted courts
over more courts potentially, so we're looking at that, and we've got some
bit alternates also for some taller fence around a perimeter. I think we bid
it out with six foot fence in the base edwin're looking at eight foot.
There's a bit alternate on that as well, and then some shade structures on
the east side of the project for spectators or people who are waiting to play.
I think there's enough pickleballers out there that will probably have some pretty good
lines waiting to play. Being que there so be a good project. If
you go to the City of Ardmore's website you can kind of see really the
concept that we were going with there when we designed this. So they've got
some new pickleball course of the day just recently completed and this will be fairly
similar as far as the layout, So that's an exciting project. And then
really other than that, we have a whole slew of parks projects that are
under design right now. We've got we're trying to freshen up our parking lots
at the parks. You know, years ago when there was a need for
a parking lot, we just put in a gravel parking lot and moved on
and those that served their purpose. And but you know, with development standards
and whatnot, it's you know, we require other people to pave their parking
lots and whatnot. We feel like we probably got to get on board with
that as well. So we're looking at doing that work at various parks,
at Johnstone Park, at Sooner Park, even Lyons Park which is over there
off of Hensley in downtown, and so we're working on design on that right
now. We've got designed on eighth Street storm sewer projects from essentially Shawnee to
the east, about three blocks to the east of Shawnee, So we're actually
just got plans on that this morning, so we'll be reviewing those plans,
get that out for construction soon hopefully. And then we've also got a project
on Clearview that should open up quickly. It's a concrete panel rehab project.
They're around the mid high and it's essentially from Adams to Baylor. It also
includes a section of Baylor Place. Again, we've opened bids on that about
a month and a half ago, working with the contractor on getting a date
to get that started under construction. And that's really about what we got going
on right now that you should see something happening soon. The rest of it,
like I said, is in the works, and I know we've been
getting lots of questions on our bridges on Tuxedo Bridge, we've had the barricades
up for a while. We did not decide to make patches on that and
spend money on that project because we do have that are designed to completely replace
that bridge deck. We're getting close on that. The plans that actually have
been done for about a month and a half now. We're just waiting on
the corp of Engineers to cut us loose on the environmental side of things to
permise to do that work. And then we're also working on the Sunset Bridge
plans. Those are essentially in the same holding pattern as far as plans are
complete. That bridge deck will be replaced as well, and just waiting on
the court to cut us loose on that. So I'm gonna blame that.
I'm big brother. If we can get them off I Center, we'll you
get to go on those projects. Hey here, it's more the core of
lawyers and it is the corp of engineers. I think Terry can probably attest
to that. Yeah, just repeating Goship, there you go, there you
go. Good. One thing clarification on the pickleball courts. Now will the
existing tennis courts go away or it will it be additional? This will be
additional, So the additional that the existing course will stay there. This will
be built just to the noise of that adjacent to we'll be shared parking.
Uh. We're actually as part of that parking lot project I was talking about,
we are looking at reworking the UH, the striping and the paving UH
to add more parking there on that corridor really between Center Park, the tennis
courts and the golf course. So so we'll try to get some more parking
in there for everybody because I know it will get busy. But but yeah,
that's going to go to the north of it. Existing tennis courts will
stay there. And uh, and again I think there's been I don't want
to say conflict, that's not the right word, but uh, there's you
know, tennis players want to play tennis pickleball court people want to play pickle
ball, and I think they have striped the tennis courts for some pickleball or
tape them up that way. And so hopefully this will alleviate some of that
and open it up for everybody and we'll have any skirmishes out there in the
tennis court. Well, you know, pickleball's picked up quite a bit.
We've last three years we've had the Pickleball Fall Classic right at the country Club
and they have hundreds of people playing, and yeah, this has gotten really
big. It has, yeah, coming together there just the right time.
You have whole venues of chicken and pickle and things of that nature. You
can have dinner, have a drink and play pickleball, drink afterward. Make
the pickalla too exciting, Always ways to make it exciting. Well, thank
you, Michae. I really appreciate that update. So look at it.
Look at this time, we are right on schedule, are we not?
Unbelievable? So Terry's going to talk about the water, the Water Resource Committee,
the free chlorine process, so he's got a lot to talk about,
I do. But before we jump in there, just a little fun fact
about our pickleball exploits because that we did defeat a team from I think it
was the Mayor of Bixby and consultant and uh and and we won that match,
and I think we retired right after that. Yeah, we're on top.
We retire on top. Always go down, always go out with the
belt, you know. Yeah, yeah, Well, I think we were
checking with HR to see if that was a Workman's comp eligible type of item,
because I think we were kind of feeling it no, So any answer,
I guess it's still no. So I guess answers that SO had some
lingering arm issues after that is what you say, the fight for the city's
honor on your own time, right, So I kind of see that,
but it is what it is. So anyway, so we'll talk a little
bit about water. So water supply just to give an update of where we're
at with that. We did change the metrics on how we measure that,
or at least how we report that earlier this month in that we look at
the overall water remaining as well as a weighted water supply. So the overall
water remaining is just all the water that's potentially available at our four sources,
so that's Hulia Lake, Copan Lake, Hudson Lake, and the Caney River,
and then the weighted water supply actually waits those by the amount of water
rights we have at each of those each of those places. And so as
of this morning, our overall overall water remaining is fifty nine point four percent
and the weighted water supply is seventy six point five percent. So technically we're
still in stage two, but we are right on the threshold of moving toward
or moving into stage three. So stage two is when the overall water remaining
is between sixteen seventy percent and the weighted water supply is below seventy five percent
or below eighty five percent, and then stage three is between fifteen and sixty
percent, and then the weighted water supply is at seventy five percent, so
we are really just at the threshold of moving to stage three. There is
four caster rains this week, and you know Kevin Potter, right before he
walked in guarantee the rain in the right spot. I usually know he has
that kind of clout, you know, yeah, I kind of paraphrase what
he said there just a little bit. But Okay, we'll see if that
holds true. Because I've my ability to direct the rain where it needs to
go. It's not very good so mine. So we'll hope that that that
rain materializes. And really all of Southeast Kansas is struggling. It's just not
us. I know that Canny has some pretty restrictive things going on. The
Town of Independence, I believe has some water restrictions that are enforced, and
so it's really not just being felt by us in Northeast Oklahoma. Really Southeast
Kansas is uh is really seeing all these uh all these things come to pass
unfortunately. So we'll pray for rain and a good soaking rain and a good
hard rain to run off quite a bit and into the lakes. But we'll
see what it what it gives, and that's going to probably dictate where we
move in the next couple of weeks. So if we do move to stage
three, the restrictions do change, where Stage two has outdoor watering on two
days a week. So if you're an even numbered of property. That's Tuesdays
and Saturdays. Odd number properties are Weday, Wednesdays and Sundays. If we
go to the stage three, that's one day a week and that's even numbers
on Saturdays, odd number of properties on Sundays, So we will get the
word out if that comes to pass. We haven't enacted as far as Council
has not enacted the water rates emergency water rates for stage two because we have
kept below the threshold that we need to prevent that. So on stage two
we have to keep below five point five million gallons of water use a day,
and we've been averaging about five point four million gallons of water use per
day. But if we go to stage three, that threshold reduces down to
four point seventy five million gallons per day. So we will likely have a
recommendation to enact the water emergency water rights or water rates if we do move
to stage three, just based on that threshold and historic use up to this
point. But we'll see what the rains have in store for us and then
we'll proceed accordingly through there. So that's all with the water as far as
we're at currently and where we're hopeful that we get all the rains and the
draft is no longer, but on the free chlorine conversion. So back in
early October, we did convert to a temporary conversion to free chlorine. So
the disinfectant that we use for our water system is a quarmine, which is
a chlorine ammonia combination. It has some benefits that we decided that was needed
back in two thousand and ten when that conversion took place. But that type
of disinfectant requires a regular flushing of your water system, and due to the
drought that we experienced last year or currently, we did not flush the system
as we needed to just to help preserve water and conserve that resource. And
so we did notice some increased biological activity in the water system on the very
southern edge of it, which is south of Rice Creek Road in seventy five,
and so to help mitigate that, we went to this free chlorine conversion
to kind of help take care of all those all the those little critters and
get everything reset to back where it needs to be. So we're right on
the mid part of it. So we've been it's been going very well.
We've had a few call in complaints as far as color and some taste issues
with it, but I think for the most part has been pretty successful.
We will run that free chlorine until November fifth, and then we'll convert back
to the chloramine disinfectant. So if you have any questions or you have some
issues with your water quality as far as it smells, has a different smell,
a different taste, or it has some discolouration, if you'll just call
the Water Office at nine one eight three three eight four one zero four.
Then we'll send somebody out to take a look and make sure everything is where
it needs to be. But it's not uncommon as we go through this process
to see some of those items that come up with it, but for the
most part, we haven't really experienced that. So we're hopeful these last few
weeks we'll continue that trend very good and so on the Water Resources Committee,
they've been meeting fairly regularly here in the last few months, and so their
last meeting was back in September, and they did recommend changes to the water
ordinance, the water Supply of Water Shortage Ordinance that council did adopt at their
October the second or third meeting, and then we've been implementing those modified restrictions
and water shortage ordinance items from that point forward. But we did have a
special release of city Beat today regarding all the water supply and history and kind
of things that have taken place and where we're looking for water supply in the
future. So if you're not a subscriber to city Beat, we would encourage
you to do so. There's a lot of information that comes out on a
weekly basis there from Kelly and Kelsey, but this particular issue is dedicated solely
to water and a lot of great information that's contained within that. So if
you have any questions regarding some of the history of what we've on while we've
done it, and what we're looking to do, that's really your one stop
shop to get all that information in one document there. But it is accessible
online, So if you just refuse to subscribe to city Beat, you can
get that through the city's website at citybarsbell dot org and you'll have to drill
in a few pages to find citabat and then you can view that issue online
as well. But if again, if you're not a city Beat subscriber,
I would do so. It's just a wonderful resource for not just water and
in engineering or construction, but all types of activities that's going on with the
city of borders with there here we have one question this study on the aquifer
over in the oceagea anything come of that or are we wait for the Resource
committee to make a decision. Well, that was one of the items that
they did advocate to investigate further for us There is a lot of unknowns with
that particular water source. So this is an aquifer in central Osah County is
considered a major aquifer as far as through the USGS as far as how they
designate that, but there's very little information available up in our area as far
as how much water it can yield or produce and then the water quality that
would result from it. So really everybody that's on that aquifer is just a
residential house or a very small usage, so they would typically use about two
or three gallons per minute as far as a typical use, and for our
application, we're looking to use anywhere between one hundred to two hundred gallons per
minute, so quite an order of magnitude difference. And so there's a process
that you can do to determine those types of to determine the yield and the
water quality. That those are expensive to do, so that would take probably
one hundred thousand dollars for us to do that yield study, and so we
were looking to partner or to get some sort of grant to help offset some
of those costs. We did miss the deadline for a federal grant, which
was mid October. We just couldn't put all that information together, But there
will be another probably midyear next year that we'll target to hit and see exactly
what we potentially have through there with that water source. So that was one
of the items that the Water Resources Committee recommended to further investigate. We're also
going to look at the reallocation of the flood control to water supply at both
Hula and Copia Lake. So this takes a portion of that area that's normally
used for a reserved for storage of flood to raise that normal water pool,
the normal water surface of that lake to hold for water supply. So those
projects we'll partner with the Core of Engineers to investigate. But I think that
we'll have a meeting probably either likely in early November that will provide some updates
on when that information can be can gathered up all right. I want to
thank you all for being here with us today. Dignity, compassion, excellence,
stuff you your home. Crematory Bartlesville, No what stock An Bartlesville he
twenty seven eq. Bartlesville,