Speaker 1: Alrighty, here we go here, k one one, you trust
Speaker 1: we do have an early what we call a community
Speaker 1: connection today and I'm having all kinds of fun with
Speaker 1: our computer.
Speaker 2: Hey, how you doing that? Panell? Anyway, if you're trying
Speaker 2: to watch.
Speaker 1: This connections, you know, Facebook is something a little bit different.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we have in here not one, but two
Speaker 1: two city councilmen, well one who is retained his and
Speaker 1: we also have a newcomer in here today too. So
Speaker 1: my goodness sakes, how are we doing today, mister Dorsey.
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty good at uh uh. I'm glad we
Speaker 3: we got that rain we ordered back in August finally,
Speaker 3: and we're I mean, you know, now it's kind of
Speaker 3: like can we turn off the tap and turn it
Speaker 3: on it? But you know, we talk a lot about
Speaker 3: water and and sometimes it seems like we need water,
Speaker 3: and we were in about in one of those situations,
Speaker 3: and the Good Lord delivered for sure.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we got it at the brim up there
Speaker 1: at the lakes and at the river and everything. You
Speaker 1: brought a friend with you here, mister Kirkpatrick, gonna be back.
Speaker 4: Good to see you.
Speaker 2: Good to you.
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 3: I brought Aaron and uh, unfortunately I also invited Larry
Speaker 3: East and Tim Sherrick, who will also fill the positions
Speaker 3: in new new seat positions.
Speaker 5: I guess December the fourth.
Speaker 4: Second, second second, Sorry.
Speaker 2: Well when they show up, we'll bring him in.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then that they had their schedule was already booked up,
Speaker 3: so unfortunately they couldn't be here.
Speaker 2: But I want to.
Speaker 3: I wanted to make sure all these guys have the
Speaker 3: opportunity to, uh see how this works. I'm I'm sure
Speaker 3: they they've all been in a position where they've done
Speaker 3: something like this before, but just kind of get them,
Speaker 3: get them acclimated. I know, this is the mid month
Speaker 3: meeting where we sit down with you. So when you
Speaker 3: don't have a meeting it sometimes you're kind of like, well.
Speaker 1: Well, you got resourceful. He brought the new kids in town.
Speaker 3: That's right, And I thought I would give them an
Speaker 3: opportunity to where they, you know, people could.
Speaker 5: Get to know them a little bit better.
Speaker 3: I know, obviously people in their wards know them because
Speaker 3: they elected them to serve in those positions, but you know,
Speaker 3: maybe not everybody knows them. So it gives them opportunity
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: Able to speak Aaron, you're with the church right behind
Speaker 1: the hot, warm and cold tanks.
Speaker 2: You get Church of.
Speaker 1: God, the Church Christ Church Christ there on Adams, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: And you're also ran a pretty good campaign there and
Speaker 1: you got across the Finnish Slange in good fashion, and
Speaker 1: you're representing Ward for and.
Speaker 2: Tell us what you bring in to town.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean I was very honored. Is the first
Speaker 6: time I've done any kind of election. It's an honor
Speaker 6: as Trevor's done this several times that people say, yeah,
Speaker 6: we believe in your vision and we support you and
Speaker 6: we want, you know, we want to give you this
Speaker 6: opportunity to serve. So I still kind of wake up
Speaker 6: and pinch my stuff a little bit. And but also
Speaker 6: it's a little bit like the dog that chased the
Speaker 6: rabbit and caught it, you know, like now what do
Speaker 6: I do now? The work starts, you know. But as
Speaker 6: you said, I've been a minister here in town for
Speaker 6: ten years. Love our community. You know, we're raising our
Speaker 6: kids here. Our little ones were two when we moved here,
Speaker 6: the twelve now my oldest is sixteen. So this is
Speaker 6: just home and having the opportunity to serve in another way,
Speaker 6: you know, service is just core to who we are.
Speaker 6: So we've served in all kinds of different capacities and
Speaker 6: this was just an opportunity to serve in a way
Speaker 6: that I hope it's my gifts and will bless the
Speaker 6: city around us.
Speaker 1: Well, we got a lot going on, and Trevor, I
Speaker 1: imagine they've been asking a few questions. So what do
Speaker 1: you think these these fine a gentleman who'll be joining
Speaker 1: you on the council.
Speaker 2: What should be looking for? What's big on the rise here?
Speaker 1: I think water right now has kind of been taking
Speaker 1: care of for right now, but it'll come back. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well the water is all you know, it's a
Speaker 3: it's an up and down topic, you know, as the
Speaker 3: lakes go up and down. So you know, that is
Speaker 3: a big topic and that is something that for many
Speaker 3: years we've been working on and so that you know,
Speaker 3: we got to figure out a lot of things. Number one,
Speaker 3: I know, the water reuse is something that we've been
Speaker 3: working on and that I think will probably come online.
Speaker 3: But that's not even when when we're that would be
Speaker 3: in the most dire or severe of drought situations. Long
Speaker 3: term is working out additional water, which there is some
Speaker 3: additional resources there at Copan and Hula, and then there's
Speaker 3: simokrafers out I believe east of town, and there are
Speaker 3: communities like Ena did a pipeline from the Kaw River.
Speaker 3: Of course, I think that came along with the price
Speaker 3: tag about three hundred million when Enid did that pipeline.
Speaker 2: So I don't think any of us have that in
Speaker 2: our pocket.
Speaker 3: No, Well, and we want to limit you know, that's
Speaker 3: that's always the you know, you want to try to
Speaker 3: be a magician is figure out how to accomplish a
Speaker 3: lot of things without any increases in water bills or
Speaker 3: those type of things.
Speaker 5: So we've got that task in front of us.
Speaker 3: But I know whenever I came into the council and
Speaker 3: I told these guys some of the new things. When
Speaker 3: you go to the OMAG training and you learn about
Speaker 3: you know, what you can do, what you can't do,
Speaker 3: then you're kind of.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's that class where they keep you out of jail.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: That's Thursday. Larry East and I are carpooling down there.
Speaker 6: We're hitting the first thing. We would like us to
Speaker 6: stay out of jail as much as possible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, it was good for a politician to do that.
Speaker 3: That was one of the more educational for sure, but
Speaker 3: entertaining because you know, you'd have different people in that training.
Speaker 3: Whenever I went and I was I was down there myself,
Speaker 3: but I think I was the only probably seat that No,
Speaker 3: that's whenever I field the role. So whenever I got
Speaker 3: kind of like Billy Rohan and whenever she filled the seat.
Speaker 3: Same thing with Quinn. So they had a lot of
Speaker 3: people asking questions and it's like, well, can I do this?
Speaker 3: It's like no, you know, it's like that, what's the
Speaker 3: Monopoly game?
Speaker 5: Yeah, don't pass, go straight to jail.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, you learn a lot of those
Speaker 3: things like what you can and can't do, and I
Speaker 3: you know, I think that a lot of the community
Speaker 3: doesn't realize, you know sometimes whenever they ask questions, it's like, well,
Speaker 3: I can't sit down with their three councilmen, you know,
Speaker 3: before the meeting and try to figure out, you know,
Speaker 3: how do we resolve this or how do we do
Speaker 3: this or how do we do that. So I think
Speaker 3: that'll be kind of eye opening but educational for him.
Speaker 5: And then when we get into.
Speaker 3: The budget process that's pretty tedious, and I think it's
Speaker 3: eight or nine hundred pages in that budget book, so
Speaker 3: it takes a lot strong.
Speaker 2: I walked at that thing.
Speaker 6: I walked out of city Hall with about well with
Speaker 6: three binders this big the other day, and I started
Speaker 6: reading the budget. I started reading the you know, the
Speaker 6: long term, the comprehensive plan. I saved the rules.
Speaker 4: You know what we're gonna learn at OMG. I've saved that.
Speaker 6: Although I've created a bot where I can, like, you know,
Speaker 6: it can read.
Speaker 4: It to me. But yeah, I mean there's I don't
Speaker 4: know I've read.
Speaker 6: I've got about a thousand pages ahead of me to read,
Speaker 6: and I mean it's it's interesting. I mean, you learn
Speaker 6: a ton, right, but it's drinking from a fire ose,
Speaker 6: so it's exciting. I want to say, talk about the
Speaker 6: water thing for just a second, because I think that
Speaker 6: everybody in Bartlesville needs to understand what we have in
Speaker 6: those emergency situations that Trevor alluded to. We got to
Speaker 6: sit through a presentation by the company that's been running
Speaker 6: a pilot program here in Bartlesville for the water reuse.
Speaker 6: So in times of dire drought like Stage four, where
Speaker 6: things are just I mean about like they have been,
Speaker 6: we will have the ability to turn on a system
Speaker 6: that will take our wastewater, which is something like four
Speaker 6: million gallons a day, pump it seven miles up river,
Speaker 6: and put it back into the Caney. But in the
Speaker 6: in between where the water comes back to the wastewater
Speaker 6: plant and going into the river, it's going to go
Speaker 6: through a system that is one of the coolest water
Speaker 6: purification systems I've ever seen. I had a business where
Speaker 6: we purified water straight out of the ground for several years,
Speaker 6: so like I've seen a bunch of different systems, the
Speaker 6: purity of the water that we will be putting back
Speaker 6: into the river is significantly better than the water that
Speaker 6: we originally pull out, So we will actually be improving
Speaker 6: the quality of the water and the water we'll be
Speaker 6: using it will be incredibly sustainable and incredibly safe for
Speaker 6: people to drink. We'll be pulling out chemicals that aren't
Speaker 6: even regulated yet, and all of this without adding chemicals
Speaker 6: to the water. It's just putting it through an activated
Speaker 6: charcoal process. So I know I'm geeking out a little
Speaker 6: bit here, but what I would want everybody in Bartlesville
Speaker 6: to know is this has been a long process that
Speaker 6: people have been working on, and the initial tests that
Speaker 6: they have done when they came and shared that, it
Speaker 6: was fascinating. I mean, we're set up to be in
Speaker 6: a really cool place, and because we got into it early,
Speaker 6: we kind of have first mover advantage where we will
Speaker 6: get this system cheaper than a lot of other municipalities
Speaker 6: that are going to want to go to it over
Speaker 6: the coming decades.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it sounds like we're gonna have a
Speaker 1: double cleaned water and break happy fish, you know, So
Speaker 1: I mean, never mind me, but it's gonna be Okay.
Speaker 1: What else is on the horizon that they need to
Speaker 1: look at? I know the homeless problem is kind of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we we will tackle that. And I know
Speaker 3: Aaron has a lot of passion for the you know,
Speaker 3: and you've done a lot of work already on trying
Speaker 3: to trying to figure that out. So I do think
Speaker 3: that the task forcing group that gets to put together
Speaker 3: can can really help with that. You know, we got
Speaker 3: to make sure that we're not stressing all of our resources.
Speaker 3: We've got a lot of really good nonprofits and you know, Tommy,
Speaker 3: you and I have talked about the you know, our
Speaker 3: amazing nonprofits.
Speaker 5: I don't know how many times in these.
Speaker 3: Conversations, but I think they're probably I would assume, and
Speaker 3: you've talked to him more than I have, probably recently
Speaker 3: that they're they're they're a little stressed.
Speaker 5: So it uh, we got to get that figured out.
Speaker 4: Over to GOFE. So goafe feeds people every single day.
Speaker 6: They're running right now, three hundred and fifty people a
Speaker 6: day through there, just hungry people. It's not all homeless people, yeah,
Speaker 6: but it's just people who are hungry who don't have
Speaker 6: enough for you know, to get to buy lunch or
Speaker 6: to you know, have food.
Speaker 4: At home for lunch.
Speaker 6: So three hundred and fifty people a day and that's men, women,
Speaker 6: and some children who are going through there every single day.
Speaker 4: And that's just one organization. Really good news for the city.
Speaker 6: Be the light past their environmental inspection last week, so
Speaker 6: that that was like a big hurdle from them being
Speaker 6: able to house more like to help people get off
Speaker 6: the street.
Speaker 4: So that just happened just in time for winter, just
Speaker 4: in time for winter.
Speaker 6: So I don't know what their next step is, but
Speaker 6: I know that was a big celebration they had last week.
Speaker 6: It was really great news for the community that they've
Speaker 6: got another twenty thirty beds opening up.
Speaker 4: Over there, and there are more in the works.
Speaker 6: So yes, certainly our organizations have been stressed, but they
Speaker 6: say that stress makes you worse when you're unprepared and
Speaker 6: better when you are prepared. And so we've got a
Speaker 6: lot of really well prepared organizations that under the stress
Speaker 6: have borne up exceptionally well.
Speaker 4: I've been doing really really great work.
Speaker 1: Okay, we got the comprehensive plan and the the other thing.
Speaker 2: It kind of all runs together for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know we uh strategic plan, Yeah, comprehensive plan,
Speaker 3: then the strategy strategic plan.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: The comprehensive plan. I think we spent about twelve months
Speaker 3: on that. And we had a lot of people, various
Speaker 3: uh leaders and business owners, uh and just citizens throughout
Speaker 3: the community involved a lot. We had a ton of feedback.
Speaker 3: You know, you were talking about reading through that. I
Speaker 3: read through it again Sunday, Saturday night, uh, cover to cover,
Speaker 3: which took me about two hours, but maybe more than
Speaker 3: that because I read every single response. You know, we
Speaker 3: offered a lot of opportunity for the community to give input,
Speaker 3: whether you were just a citizen, a business owner, various
Speaker 3: leaders throughout the community. So and and we did get
Speaker 3: a lot of responses, and you know, they all the
Speaker 3: responses were designated almost could take buckets and you know
Speaker 3: what's what's most important to least important, you know, and
Speaker 3: obviously water is very important. And I think when you
Speaker 3: look at those buckets and pools, we have tried to
Speaker 3: focus on those. And now that you're getting to go
Speaker 3: through it sounds like three three budget books.
Speaker 5: Then you'll be familiar with. You know, we have this.
Speaker 3: Much dollar a pool of dollars, and so we've got
Speaker 3: to make that go in all these places. And you know,
Speaker 3: one of our biggest overhead expenses obviously is payroll. You know,
Speaker 3: we've got you know, you've got streets, you got water,
Speaker 3: you've got a police, you've got fire.
Speaker 5: I mean, I I.
Speaker 3: Should know this off top my ed, but I don't
Speaker 3: know the exact number of people that are employed by
Speaker 3: the City of Barsville, but I'd say it's one of
Speaker 3: our biggest employers.
Speaker 6: And it's an average about it changes year to year. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I just read this the other day. It's like three
Speaker 6: hundred on average of about three hundred and fifty full
Speaker 6: time employees the city between all the different departments. And
Speaker 6: I mean these are men and women who go out
Speaker 6: and you know, I mean they're they're working every single
Speaker 6: day to improve the community.
Speaker 1: We as we get ready to kind of wrap this up,
Speaker 1: what is your best advice you can tell some of
Speaker 1: the new guys on the on the council, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I think the best advice what I did was
Speaker 3: just really try to dig in and get the opportunity
Speaker 3: to know each council person so that that way that
Speaker 3: can have a lot of really good open communication and
Speaker 3: dialogue and then really understand what their passions were. But
Speaker 3: I think, I know you've done a good job of that,
Speaker 3: and I feel like I've gotten to know the other
Speaker 3: two candidates as well, and so I think that we're
Speaker 3: we're going to be losing some folks that have put
Speaker 3: a lot of time and energy and effort into it,
Speaker 3: but we're going to be gaining some folks that I
Speaker 3: think got a lot of energy, You got a lot
Speaker 3: of good ideas.
Speaker 4: So it's it's been neat to get to meet well.
Speaker 6: I mean, I've been doing like you, sitting down with
Speaker 6: every single one of the you know, the other four
Speaker 6: guys and as well as city staff.
Speaker 4: And you know, people from all over the community.
Speaker 6: And I'm excited for the opportunity that we have here,
Speaker 6: you know, excitement tempered by work.
Speaker 4: So that's that's where results come from, is energy and.
Speaker 6: The willingness to put the you know, buckle down, put
Speaker 6: your nose to the grinds done and get after it.
Speaker 1: Gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming in, Trevor,
Speaker 1: thanks for bringing in Aaron and in giving us kind
Speaker 1: of a preview of what we're going to be seeing.
Speaker 2: Here in the next few years.
Speaker 5: It's always good to see it, Tom all right, thanks
Speaker 5: to