WEBVTT

1
00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:11.599
Good morning, good morning, good
morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.

2
00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:14.880
It is time now for our community
connection right here on K one,

3
00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:18.239
the one you trust today at City
Matters and we have the Vice Mayor of

4
00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:21.519
the City of Bartlesville, James Kurd
with us. How you doing this their

5
00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:28.079
Good morning? All busy night last
night at city Hall, some kind of

6
00:00:28.359 --> 00:00:33.840
heavy business last night. We lost, of course, Counselor Billy Rohan to

7
00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:40.479
after a short illness and we have
a vacancy in her ward. Tell us

8
00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:43.759
how we progress from here? What
do we do? Well? It was

9
00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:49.439
it was certainly a tough evening because
we actually had three meetings last night and

10
00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:53.479
Billy's been such a great part of
that council for the last two year,

11
00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:59.159
year and a half and two years
actually so and we had a beautiful bouquet

12
00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:03.319
roses in flowers in her seat last
night, so you know, you carry

13
00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:07.319
on and keep doing the business of
the city. That's what we needed to

14
00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:11.719
do. But it was a very
heavy hearts last night that we had to

15
00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:15.120
conduct it without billity there last night. I think we were all still kind

16
00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:18.760
of reading from the fact we had
no idea and it was a short illness

17
00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:22.480
and we lost her very suddenly,
so but we did carry on, we

18
00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:26.280
did discuss the next move forward.
We've I've been on the council now for

19
00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:30.319
almost eight seven years now and we've
had two replacements on the council. Uh.

20
00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:37.079
We have a process where we basically
take in take applications and then divide

21
00:01:37.079 --> 00:01:40.040
the applicants up between the councilors.
We meet two at a time so we

22
00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:46.079
don't violate any open meeting laws and
interview the councilors and kind of coalesce our

23
00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:49.239
our ideas back to the city manager
and from there then conduct a meeting where

24
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:57.879
we'll eventually pick a replacement for to
fulfill this term through December. And I

25
00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:00.920
understand that the applications are being accept
it as up today. They started this

26
00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:05.879
morning. Elaine is there and for
just getting it going this morning. If

27
00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:08.840
there's any questions or it does flow
very smoothly, knowing Elane, it will

28
00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:14.560
blow very smoothly, but just call
a city manager's office and she can help

29
00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:16.319
guide you through the process. Yes, first things first, you have to

30
00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:20.039
be a resident. You have to
be a resident of that ward for six

31
00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:23.159
months, and there's some other requirements
beyond that, but we can find that

32
00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:27.400
on the website. City Market all
that on the website, and it's within

33
00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:30.439
our charter also and that's posted on
the website too. So any citizens out

34
00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:35.719
there interested in applying for that position, read up on that charter or read

35
00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:38.319
up on that and then certainly call
it Elaine and get an application. You

36
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:42.840
have any questions as a result of
reading that information, just direct them towards

37
00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:45.960
the Cita manager and we get those
answers for them. And then the budget

38
00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:49.759
took a center stage for a while
there too. Last night we had we're

39
00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:53.439
early in the budget season, which
is kind of nice. We have a

40
00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:57.080
lot of things going in the city
in May, and so they've tried to

41
00:02:57.080 --> 00:02:59.639
push the budget. I had a
little this year, and so we're on

42
00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:05.039
top of a little earlier lengthy discussion
of the budget and how we're going to

43
00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:09.400
present it and what the expectations are
for revenue, expectetions are for expenses,

44
00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:15.000
expectations for new hires, employees,
and so kind of the highlight of it

45
00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:17.560
is we're going to proceed with a
one and a half percent reduction in sales

46
00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:23.280
tax next year. I think one
of the and that's a conservative nature that

47
00:03:23.319 --> 00:03:27.719
we always Mike and has always done
the city. I think it's better to

48
00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:31.159
be surprised and have better income than
to predict growth in sales tax. We've

49
00:03:31.159 --> 00:03:37.800
had two strong years of sales tax
growth, and I think there's an ineffable

50
00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:40.039
slow down with inflation and everything else
coming that might impact that. So I

51
00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:44.400
think it's a good choice to kind
of look at things like that. And

52
00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:47.319
then we also looked at some employee
changes. I think one thing that concerned

53
00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:54.000
the council more most is that we're
got seventy four police officers. We'd like

54
00:03:54.039 --> 00:03:59.479
to have seventy seven or seventy eight, and we're going to hold off hiring

55
00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:03.800
anymore base officer for the position of
hiring three new dispatchers on our nine one

56
00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:10.280
one because our nine one one dispatchers
are struggling to get the call volume down

57
00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:15.599
down to be able to return calls
quickly, so it's a trade off.

58
00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:18.279
I think the police chief decided it
was a good trade off to hire these

59
00:04:18.279 --> 00:04:23.399
dispatches over the police, but it
raised some questions in the counselor's mind last

60
00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:26.879
night, and we certainly need help
in the dispatch with the nine one one.

61
00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:31.600
We have twenty four agencies that we
are responsible for. I think that

62
00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:35.240
we answer nine to one one calls. So it's a very important position and

63
00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:39.639
we do need some help in there. And that's not an easy job.

64
00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:44.319
I've done that, and I got
to tell you it's trying. I can't

65
00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:48.600
imagine how difficult something something else so
good there, So telecommunicators, Well,

66
00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:53.240
I guess that'll be posted on the
city website as well. I would.

67
00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:56.319
Yes, it certainly will be,
and so it once we approve it in

68
00:04:56.360 --> 00:05:00.720
the budget, and we still got
another thirty days or so. Looking today,

69
00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:03.600
No, but I'm fairly certain we're
going to be hiring some new dispatchers

70
00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:08.480
for the city of We certainly need
them very good. There was some other

71
00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:12.319
work that the city did last night
because there were three meetings. You have

72
00:05:12.439 --> 00:05:16.720
that we had three meetings, which
is unusual. We periodically have a Barbleville

73
00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:21.399
Municipal Authority meeting and it's a kind
of a financial arm of the city council,

74
00:05:21.480 --> 00:05:26.439
so we can borrow money and do
things. But last night was basically

75
00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:30.959
accepting an environmental report, several hundred
page environmental report on the activities out at

76
00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:36.240
our wastewater treatment plant that's been ongoing. It's under a consent degree with the

77
00:05:36.279 --> 00:05:43.000
EPA of eighty million dollar improvements to
that plant to better handle the volume and

78
00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:47.319
better handle the treatment of our wastewater. So we approved that in a BMA

79
00:05:47.399 --> 00:05:51.120
meeting. Then we rolled right over
into a special city Council meeting, a

80
00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:57.879
formal city council meeting to accept that
report from the BMA into So it's kind

81
00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:00.920
of a it's just a logical way
to do it so that it's all out

82
00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:06.240
and transparent. So we did that
basically at our other meeting, and then

83
00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:09.720
of course went over a couple of
things, and then we rolled into our

84
00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:13.160
third meeting, which was a workshop
meeting, which was pretty much dedicated to

85
00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:16.720
the budget, but we also did
talk about Adam's golf course, our pro

86
00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:21.759
out there. Jared Benedict will be
retiring and so we've got some strategic plans

87
00:06:21.759 --> 00:06:26.920
in mind on how to operate the
golf course in the future. So he

88
00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:30.040
had a contract there, and we're
interested in looking at the other opportunities we

89
00:06:30.120 --> 00:06:34.839
have ways to want whether it be
you could lease the property to somebody,

90
00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:39.360
you could hire a management company to
run it, or you could keep it

91
00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:43.879
in house and have a director at
the city operate it. So I think

92
00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:46.560
what we came away with last night
is the idea that we'll have look at

93
00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:50.959
two opportunities, two groups to look
at number and the city could do our

94
00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:56.000
own review, or we might try
to put out a request for proposals from

95
00:06:56.120 --> 00:07:00.720
consultants that could come in and look
at the golf course as a third eye

96
00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:03.600
and just give us their view of
how it has operated, how it could

97
00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:08.680
be better, how it is operating
well, and then give those back to

98
00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:14.279
the City Council, and then we
could basically choose between a city review or

99
00:07:14.319 --> 00:07:18.040
a consultant review. And we've got
a golf course operating committee that is up

100
00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:21.759
and running and kind of reinvigorated and
wants to be involved in the process,

101
00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:27.120
and thankful for some speakers who came
last night to kind of voice their concerns

102
00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:30.000
for the golf course and what we
feel we can do better out there.

103
00:07:30.120 --> 00:07:31.639
Well, the golf course is right
day in the middle order, it gets

104
00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:36.279
the beginning of getting some things have
redone kind of like a little bit of

105
00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:39.720
an overhaul. We're putting a lot
of money into it. The city is

106
00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:42.519
for a change, and it's been
you know, it's gone through the period

107
00:07:42.519 --> 00:07:46.480
of years where we were had low
sales tax and it went through ten or

108
00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:49.319
twelve years where it's just was underfunded, and I think everybody agrees with that.

109
00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:53.399
But it's a jewel within the city. It's been a bigger jewel than

110
00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:56.199
it is today in the past.
So I think there's a lot of hope

111
00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:59.439
that we could kind of raise the
standards out there. And Jerry's done a

112
00:07:59.480 --> 00:08:03.319
great job, Jodie's done a great
job, but it's been funding and other

113
00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:07.079
issues. We feel like we can
kind of it's a great opportunity, so

114
00:08:07.160 --> 00:08:09.480
I see how we can perform better
out there, especially for the citizens.

115
00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:13.279
It's a great golf course, the
layout is great. We have a city

116
00:08:13.319 --> 00:08:18.399
open out there. We share that
with Hillcrest. They have Men's League out

117
00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:20.879
there, they have tournaments all the
time they've got and more importantly, they

118
00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:26.519
have our United Way tournament that our
large corporate neighborship put on that's worth a

119
00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:31.039
couple of million dollars a year to
our United Way. So that golf course

120
00:08:31.279 --> 00:08:35.720
is very important to the community.
And like I said in the council meeting,

121
00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:39.080
and golf is local. It's very
personal to people that play golf at

122
00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:43.120
that golf course, and as it
is at any other golf course in their

123
00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:46.919
community. So hearing from people last
night that like the golf course and want

124
00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:50.000
to see it improved, it was
good, very good, very good.

125
00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:52.440
I want to go back to the
reduction in sales tax. When when would

126
00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:56.639
that take effect? Well, we're
just proved. We got to prove it,

127
00:08:56.720 --> 00:09:00.879
right, Yeah, yeah, it's
just it's a small decrease. We're

128
00:09:00.919 --> 00:09:05.000
predicting a small decrease in sales tax
next year. Okay. I thought there

129
00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:07.519
was going to be something where you
pay less at the cash register. I

130
00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:09.960
wanted to get that clarify. Thank
you for telling me that there's no reduction

131
00:09:11.039 --> 00:09:15.240
in sales tax and within our budget
we're predicting that we'll have less sales tax

132
00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:18.559
revenue. Okay, for I want
to make sure we got that clear because

133
00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:22.480
they're gonna be folks out there wait
a minute here, Oh, they probably

134
00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:24.639
if they thought it was reduction.
I'm sure they would have been calling the

135
00:09:24.639 --> 00:09:28.120
city hall immediately today if we were
reducing it. But I think we have

136
00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:35.120
a conservative nature of looking at our
budget and predicting our revenues on a reduced

137
00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:37.320
scale or conservative side of something we've
always done. And it's worked out,

138
00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:41.600
for the most part very well,
because we're either coming in at that level

139
00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:43.639
or slightly below, or when we
come in ahead, then we feel like

140
00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:48.200
we've done pretty good, very good. We've got some very capable people.

141
00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:52.879
Mike Bailey course with our CFO for
several years underhead and then our current CFO

142
00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:58.919
just hit there on top of every
aspect of our budget. So they like

143
00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:03.080
numbers. They are they good with
them to they are good at numbers.

144
00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:07.879
It's good that it's printed and in
front of us because the way it comes

145
00:10:07.879 --> 00:10:11.159
out in a meeting is challenging to
be a tenant to every minute of it

146
00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:15.399
because they know it inside out.
So well. Anything else you'd like to

147
00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:18.320
add to everything that's going on,
Well, I was trying to think what

148
00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:20.240
else we had. I'm going to
just look at my sheet here, because

149
00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:28.279
we did have. I talked well, we did in our We had an

150
00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:33.240
update on our comprehensive plan last that's
right. There was something that was it

151
00:10:33.320 --> 00:10:35.480
and there was a very in depth
review of that. We've got a consultant

152
00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:39.840
working on our comprehensive plan within the
city. They gave us an update.

153
00:10:39.879 --> 00:10:43.440
I think they said they were around
seventy percent complete. Still had some ways

154
00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:48.000
to go, but we've talked about
land use and regulations and things within our

155
00:10:48.039 --> 00:10:52.600
city. So this is a very
in depth view. We only do it,

156
00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:56.200
I think legislatively we're supposed to always
have one done every twenty five years,

157
00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:00.840
and so it's good to catch this
plan up in front of the city.

158
00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:03.440
It will be a great framework for
us to go forward. They can

159
00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:05.240
always change the plan as we go
forward, but it's good to have a

160
00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:09.679
plan in front of us. And
this consultant has done a tremendous job involving

161
00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:13.240
the public, public meetings, involving
the counselors, involving administration to come up

162
00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:16.960
with a comprehensive plan for the City
of Barbles as we go forward. So

163
00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:22.120
great update last night on that.
The communication has been pretty good. You

164
00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:26.600
know, the city people who have
an interest in this have been showing up

165
00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:30.240
and they have been vocall yeah,
and we've got we've used We've got a

166
00:11:30.279 --> 00:11:33.000
lot of people that are involved that
are reaching out to their circle and their

167
00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:37.600
friends to try to answer surveys and
get more information for the comprehensive plan.

168
00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:39.919
So they were pleased with the amount
of people that we've had involved. And

169
00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:46.559
we can always do better, but
it's advertised on the city web page.

170
00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:48.120
We do all we can to get
it out to people. Not all we

171
00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:50.279
can, we can always do better, but we do a lot to try

172
00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:52.480
to get it out to people,
and we've had a fairly good response at

173
00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:56.080
this point, I'd say so,
counselor, thank you very much for being

174
00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:58.679
with us. Student. You bet
we could have had a thirty minute meeting

175
00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:01.399
going over for those three meetings,
but glad we got a lot done in

176
00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:05.799
about twelve to fifteen minutes. All
right, thank you very much. Thank

177
00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:07.639
you've been listening to City Matters.
How did