Speaker 1: Ay one, the one you trust.
Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 2: It's ten o six and the time now for community
Speaker 2: connection right here on K one. The one you trust,
Speaker 2: Amazon or the mayor, Mayor Dale Copeland is in with
Speaker 2: us today and a good morning to you, sir.
Speaker 3: Good morning Tom. It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 1: It certainly is.
Speaker 2: We've got a nice little forum coming up, and we're
Speaker 2: going to be seeing you and hearing you tomorrow night
Speaker 2: at the forum at of course, at our best bank
Speaker 2: over there on the East Side location. But we got
Speaker 2: you here today and I want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about being a city councilor as well as being
Speaker 2: a mayor.
Speaker 1: You have Ward one. Tell us all about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, word one. We moved things.
Speaker 4: If you recall a few years ago when they did
Speaker 4: the redistricting. Every time there's a census that's done to
Speaker 4: keep things balanced.
Speaker 3: Word one.
Speaker 4: At this time, if you live east of Highway seventy
Speaker 4: five Washington Boulevard and over to Madison, west of Madison
Speaker 4: east of Highway seventy five and then north of No
Speaker 4: Water Road or Highway sixty all the way up to Nebraska,
Speaker 4: there's a little bit of a jog over and down
Speaker 4: on the northeast corner down to Ohio over by Wilson School.
Speaker 4: But basically that area from Madison to Highway seventy five
Speaker 4: and then from No Water Road up to Nebraska constitutes
Speaker 4: Ward one.
Speaker 1: Oh very good. Now you've been around a little bit a.
Speaker 3: Couple of years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the Golly we moved to Bartlesville. I was
Speaker 4: actually started started growing up, finished growing up here, but
Speaker 4: started growing up in Houston and moved up here like
Speaker 4: a lot of kids in that day and time. My parents,
Speaker 4: my grandparents worked for Phillips. My wife's parents worked for
Speaker 4: Phillips or her dad, and we came to Bartlesville and
Speaker 4: been here ever since. And Golly, I went to Bartlesville schools.
Speaker 4: My wife Donna did. That was more than fifty three
Speaker 4: years ago, because we just had our fifty third anniversary.
Speaker 4: But both of our sons went to Golly the same
Speaker 4: deal I did. Went to Ranch Heights, went to Madison.
Speaker 4: Then two of our grandsons, in fact, one of our sons.
Speaker 4: We've been fortunate with public service. Tom I have not
Speaker 4: only had an opportunity to work with the city, but
Speaker 4: worked with scouting. I had a lot of opportunities there,
Speaker 4: and of course with my church, but one of our
Speaker 4: sons is in law enforcement. One of the grandsons just
Speaker 4: last year is one of the school teachers here in town.
Speaker 3: So we enjoy this community.
Speaker 2: Very, very good, a lot of local engagement. Like you say, there,
Speaker 2: city council manages policy and oversees a ballast.
Speaker 1: Budget and finance.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of day to day functioning going on
Speaker 2: there of people.
Speaker 4: A lot of times I think we get caught up
Speaker 4: in a single issue because it's very important to us.
Speaker 4: It might be our street, it might be something that's
Speaker 4: happening or not happening in the community that people want
Speaker 4: to see changed, and that's important. But in the city council,
Speaker 4: we look at a budget covers a lot of things,
Speaker 4: everything from streets to parks. You've got we have a cemetery.
Speaker 4: The community center is actually a subset, but ultimately the
Speaker 4: city council has oversight of that and water, police, fire,
Speaker 4: all of the things that make a city work. And
Speaker 4: I've told when I work with young kids talking to
Speaker 4: him about government, a lot of times all they know
Speaker 4: is what they see on TV, which is a bad
Speaker 4: place to get your information about government because they dramatize.
Speaker 4: You want boring government that just works. You want hopefully
Speaker 4: we're never gonna get there, but we're going to work
Speaker 4: hard getting all the streets fixed.
Speaker 3: You want the trash to be picked up.
Speaker 4: You want water to come out when you turn on
Speaker 4: the tap, and on the other hand, when you push
Speaker 4: a little silver level, you want the water to go away.
Speaker 4: And I don't really care. I just want it to happen,
Speaker 4: and I think that's the best government. If we need
Speaker 4: police or fire, they show up quickly, they do a
Speaker 4: good job as ours do. And parks where we can
Speaker 4: go and have fun, play soccer, baseball, or just sit
Speaker 4: out and enjoy the day, walk on the pathfinder a
Speaker 4: lot of things to oversee. The budget covers all of that.
Speaker 4: We have all of the employees that make that possible.
Speaker 4: We have a great staff and Barville and the city
Speaker 4: Council is a part of all of that. Yes, we
Speaker 4: go to council meetings once or twice a month, sometimes
Speaker 4: three times a month, but more importantly, we talk with
Speaker 4: people every day. You get your packet of information for
Speaker 4: a council meeting. I think the last one was around
Speaker 4: four hundred pages that you have from a Thursday when
Speaker 4: that is released until Monday night to read that, get
Speaker 4: familiar with it.
Speaker 3: But then there's all the other things. I know.
Speaker 4: Each council member has a different position right now. I
Speaker 4: work with the Community Center Trust Authority as a member there,
Speaker 4: Bartlesville Development Authority, the Vice Mayor Curtin, myself for what
Speaker 4: are called ex officio, we attend and participate. We do
Speaker 4: not have a vote. Bartlesville Education Authority. I'm the chair
Speaker 4: of that Water Resources Committee I chair, the Washington County
Speaker 4: Bartlesville Emergency Operations Committee I chair, and then the Bartlesville
Speaker 4: Municipal Authority. Those are important because they oversee, particularly the
Speaker 4: debt for the water plant. We're getting ready to do
Speaker 4: a large sewer wastewater treatment facility upgrade, the biggest in
Speaker 4: city history. So a lot of things that the council's
Speaker 4: engaged with. Plus streets. Streets is a really big deal
Speaker 4: to me. We joke that the most important street is
Speaker 4: the one in front of your house, because that's the
Speaker 4: one you're familiar with. Yeah, and then the ones that
Speaker 4: we drive a lot now in Barlotsville. We know some
Speaker 4: of those aren't hours, so they're state highways or federal
Speaker 4: highways that O DOT takes care of. But a lot
Speaker 4: of things to oversee and manage, folks to talk with
Speaker 4: and try to make it all come together as smoothly
Speaker 4: and as I've already said, as boring as as possible.
Speaker 3: Just get her.
Speaker 1: Done, my Guinness sixth that's all like going. I see here.
Speaker 2: Strategic Reserve was created in two thousand and eight. How
Speaker 2: many you know governmental entities actually have that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a rare it is.
Speaker 4: We've had other cities contact us to ask us how that.
Speaker 3: Is structured and how it works.
Speaker 1: I bet you have.
Speaker 3: We not I was.
Speaker 4: Not on the council, but the city council at that
Speaker 4: time made a very wise decision to begin setting aside,
Speaker 4: like any homeowner or any group, set aside a rainy
Speaker 4: day fund basically and put away some money. And then
Speaker 4: when we have a downturn. You know, one of the
Speaker 4: problems you have the time that you need government the
Speaker 4: most locally is when there's a downturn, maybe there's a
Speaker 4: lack of jobs, or there's some issue, could be a
Speaker 4: big storm like we saw in make Oh Boy. That's
Speaker 4: when you need government. And yet government's supported by tax money,
Speaker 4: and there may not be as much of that. So
Speaker 4: the strategic reserve is that Raindy Day Fund. We have
Speaker 4: funded that now for a number of years. I believe
Speaker 4: last report I saw it was just a bit over
Speaker 4: fourteen million dollars or getting close to that, so that
Speaker 4: when we have those times, we don't have to pull
Speaker 4: back the very time that we needed the most. I'm
Speaker 4: a big supporter of financial resource and dependability and taking
Speaker 4: care of business and planning ahead to be able to
Speaker 4: continue to deliver services.
Speaker 1: I want to look.
Speaker 2: Ahead to the next council term. There are quite a
Speaker 2: few things in the big one we mentioned it already.
Speaker 2: Streets and again it's very important.
Speaker 4: People don't understand Bartlesville has about five hundred lane miles.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: So if you do the math, prices have gone up.
Speaker 4: Milk and eggs and gas and everything has gone up.
Speaker 4: As we know, well, so has the cost of building streets.
Speaker 4: And it's between five hundred thousand and two million dollars
Speaker 4: a mile.
Speaker 3: So if you apply that to.
Speaker 4: Two three four hundred miles, it's a very large number.
Speaker 4: So we're going to prioritize. We have the Streets and
Speaker 4: Traffic Committee. We have a thing called the Pavement Condition index.
Speaker 4: We throw around letters the PCI and we want to
Speaker 4: improve that. And so they look at this and I've
Speaker 4: had folks say, well, why not my street, My street's terrible.
Speaker 4: Well they look at that and say, what is the
Speaker 4: traffic count? You know, a street that has three cars
Speaker 4: per day is not going to demand the attention that
Speaker 4: one that has five thousand cars per day five hundred.
Speaker 4: Then they look at the condition index. Is that a
Speaker 4: forty sixtieth seventy three point five? And then they look
Speaker 4: at how much money they have and they pick a
Speaker 4: list and they say, we want to do these streets.
Speaker 4: They're also careful to spread that across the community so
Speaker 4: that all parts of Bartlesville have streets. I know, for instance,
Speaker 4: I've been working to get Yale between Frank Phillips and
Speaker 4: Adams repaired and fixed for several years and that's just
Speaker 4: that's getting ready. It's going to happen, but we don't
Speaker 4: get all of them at the same time. So streets
Speaker 4: we're going to have to. Now, the last bond issue,
Speaker 4: the voters approved over seventy percent of that seventeen point
Speaker 4: whatever million dollar bond issue. They approved. Seventy percent of
Speaker 4: that is going to streets a little over twelve million dollars,
Speaker 4: about twelve point three million dollars, and that's going to
Speaker 4: allow us, along with some CIP sales tax money, to
Speaker 4: make a dent in this road repairs and start gaining
Speaker 4: some ground, we hope.
Speaker 1: Very good. Yeah, Well, we talk about the bond issue
Speaker 1: and everything else like that.
Speaker 2: This is where the citizens vote and they have a
Speaker 2: say in this we do. City council has got governing
Speaker 2: with the iron and saying this is what we do.
Speaker 4: Well, by golly do no. The property taxes are approved
Speaker 4: by the voters. Marlinsville City Council has held our share
Speaker 4: of the property taxes at about fifteen mil for as
Speaker 4: long as I can remember, at least twenty years or more.
Speaker 4: So they approve that, sales taxes, they approve Economic Development
Speaker 4: Fund taxes, they approve all of that is approved by
Speaker 4: the voters. The city council then works with the funding
Speaker 4: and gets those projects done. We don't always get them
Speaker 4: done the first year because it's a five year bond issue.
Speaker 4: But everything from Sooner pool to the street repairs we
Speaker 4: talked about, to water plant upgrades, buying a fire engine.
Speaker 4: Expensive fire engines have gone up to but all those
Speaker 4: things are a part of the City Council's oversight to
Speaker 4: not just set policy, but to monitor and maintain the budget.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go. Now, water is a big issue.
Speaker 1: It's always been a big issue. If necessary for life, And.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's putting it mildly, but we've had our flirtations
Speaker 2: with water supply shortages.
Speaker 4: Water is a history around the world throughout history of
Speaker 4: being a challenge and we want to try and improve that.
Speaker 4: We have improved that. Are we finished yet, No, Tom,
Speaker 4: I don't know if we'll ever be finished. Long after I'm gone,
Speaker 4: they'll still be working with water. It is necessary. I
Speaker 4: think though that if you look at some facts, it
Speaker 4: is encouraging. In two thousand and two, we got down
Speaker 4: to believe seventeen percent capacity at Hua Lake and it
Speaker 4: was a crisis, no question about it. We began planning
Speaker 4: and in that period of time we have upgraded and
Speaker 4: improved the intake pump assembly at Johnstone Park. We have
Speaker 4: gotten additional storage at Copan Lake. That was literally an
Speaker 4: Act of Congress. Senator Enhoff Shepherd died that through and
Speaker 4: got it done. And we also have completed the hard scape,
Speaker 4: if you will, the pipeline and all the systems to
Speaker 4: do water reuse. We are not doing water reuse. It's
Speaker 4: still going through process for approval by the Oklahoma Department
Speaker 4: of Environmental Quality od EQ. But those are steps that
Speaker 4: have been taken. Looking at the options we've talked about
Speaker 4: in the list as long, but the ones that come
Speaker 4: to the top is heula.
Speaker 3: According to the CORPS.
Speaker 4: Told us in two thousand and seven, it's called a
Speaker 4: Performance Assistance to States. I think a PAS study the
Speaker 4: core suggestion was your number one option should be reallocation.
Speaker 3: Of water levels at Hewla Lake. And so we're working
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 4: We're also working and we have our congressmen and our Senators.
Speaker 4: I've spoken with them personally, both Congressmen and Congressman Burkin
Speaker 4: this month, talked with the staffs regularly. Senator Langford, Senator
Speaker 4: Mullen have been very connected with this to get what's
Speaker 4: called a Water Resource Development Act a word, a bill
Speaker 4: through Congress. It's being processed now that will allow us
Speaker 4: to buy affordable and I stress affordable. You're gonna hear
Speaker 4: me say affordable a lot. You can do anything with
Speaker 4: unlimited funds, but we don't have unlimited funds. We have
Speaker 4: to make this affordable, and we're looking at the remaining
Speaker 4: water available at Copan Lake to get that at an
Speaker 4: affordable price. The worda bill should accomplish that for us,
Speaker 4: and we just have to see if that can get
Speaker 4: through and get approved like the one that sander Anhoff
Speaker 4: did several years ago. So all of those things will
Speaker 4: help us. Now we've continue to look at Callake, but
Speaker 4: there's questions there about not just the amount of water.
Speaker 4: They have a lot of water, but what's the quality
Speaker 4: of the water, what treatment challenges might it present? And
Speaker 4: especially what does it cost to play a pipeline from
Speaker 4: here to there? Distribution's going to be the big question
Speaker 4: all the way across Osage County, which is a big county.
Speaker 4: We've looked at a number of other options. The eight
Speaker 4: of Vermosa Aquifer, which people may not even heard of.
Speaker 4: I had not heard of it before we started this
Speaker 4: in Osh County runs down to southwest Oklahoma. Is that possible?
Speaker 4: How much water? Again, what's the quality of the water,
Speaker 4: what would it cost? So again the thing of making
Speaker 4: it affordable and not just spending a lot, because we're
Speaker 4: spending taxpayer dollars. And I'm very very sensitive to spending
Speaker 4: because I'm a taxpayer just like you, and that's that's important.
Speaker 4: So I think all of those things we will get
Speaker 4: there the end that discussion perhaps time, because we could
Speaker 4: go on for a long time. We were down to
Speaker 4: seventeen percent in two thousand and two. We've had the
Speaker 4: worst drought in one hundred years according to Messinet in
Speaker 4: the last several months, and yet our capacity the last
Speaker 4: time I got the report was at eighty one point
Speaker 4: six percent of our total capacity, much better than seventeen percent.
Speaker 4: Not only has the city learned to manage and control
Speaker 4: and work better, but I think all of our citizens
Speaker 4: it's always a good idea to conserve, not just during drought,
Speaker 4: businesses and residences as we develop those habits, whether it's electricity,
Speaker 4: whether it's water, it's just a good practice for everybody,
Speaker 4: and it'll save us all money.
Speaker 1: Well, we have an election coming up.
Speaker 4: We do.
Speaker 1: People should vote.
Speaker 3: They should.
Speaker 4: It's a sad thing when election turnouts are six or
Speaker 4: ten or twelve percent. It's a privilege to vote. There
Speaker 4: are people in this world that would love the opportunity
Speaker 4: to vote. But I think it's also a responsibility to vote.
Speaker 4: And in Bartlesville, we have a good system. If you
Speaker 4: watch the news, you could get really depressed when you
Speaker 4: hear about all these other places, but Oklahoma, Barnisville especially,
Speaker 4: I'm a little biased. But you can go vote, You
Speaker 4: visit with free a little bit, and you're in and
Speaker 4: out in a very short time. It's a good system.
Speaker 4: It's been a dependable system. It's a model I think
Speaker 4: the rest of the country could look at. So I'm
Speaker 4: encouraging people to vote. Take a few minutes. You can
Speaker 4: vote early starting Wednesday. You can go downtown to city Hall,
Speaker 4: but you go up the fourth floor. They call it
Speaker 4: sweet flour, which is a little confusing. It means fourth floor.
Speaker 4: Get on the elevators, go up to the fourth floor.
Speaker 4: They'll get you through there and back out. Might see
Speaker 4: some folks you know and catch up on some news.
Speaker 4: So please vote. Vote early Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from
Speaker 4: eight to two, and let's move forward. We've got a
Speaker 4: lot of opportunities. We've got a lot of big projects.
Speaker 4: We've got some new employers coming to town. We've got
Speaker 4: new retail opportunities that we're looking at. And I'm involved
Speaker 4: with all of that. I've worked with a city, I
Speaker 4: work with the Scouting programs. I work with church. We
Speaker 4: had a business here for fifty one years and so
Speaker 4: we're invested in Bartlesville. I want to see this continue.
Speaker 4: I want to focus on street repairs. I think that's
Speaker 4: critical that we've got the keep hammering street repairs while
Speaker 4: we buy new fire trucks and do all the other
Speaker 4: things that we need to do. And we need that
Speaker 4: constant attention, that constant focus on affordable solutions. Sometimes that's
Speaker 4: not the fastest solution, but we want to find the
Speaker 4: best solution. And Bartlesville is special, special to me, but
Speaker 4: the people I talk to. One of the coolest things
Speaker 4: is to drive in from the west and as you
Speaker 4: come down the hill, especially at night, it's just cool.
Speaker 4: It's amazing to see. It doesn't look like any other
Speaker 4: city of thirty eight thousand i've ever seen.
Speaker 1: No, you look like you're coming in to paradise.
Speaker 4: This is an amazing place to live. It's not a
Speaker 4: perfect place because we've got humans here. I'm here, you're here,
Speaker 4: so it can't be perfect. But it's a great place
Speaker 4: to live, and we just want to keep building that.
Speaker 4: I'd like to keep working to do that. So I'm
Speaker 4: here today to ask the people to call me anytime
Speaker 4: you can. Look, I've got a Facebook page Copeland for Bartlesville.
Speaker 4: You can call me, you can send me email and.
Speaker 3: Tell me what you think.
Speaker 4: Tell me which questions are a lot of times Tom,
Speaker 4: you and I have talked about it. People say well,
Speaker 4: this is this and this, and I said, well, did
Speaker 4: you know? Because there's so much detail, There's no reason
Speaker 4: people would know the hydraulics on a trash truck. Don't
Speaker 4: mean who wants to know that? But they just wanted
Speaker 4: to work. Yeah, did you know? And if you can
Speaker 4: visit with people, they'll tell me things I didn't know.
Speaker 1: That helps.
Speaker 4: I can hopefully share things with them that they might
Speaker 4: not have known. And at the end of the day
Speaker 4: we find out we're really all trying to go the
Speaker 4: same direction. We just want to keep this a good place,
Speaker 4: as we say, to live, work and play, not just
Speaker 4: for me or for you, but for my kids and
Speaker 4: for my grandkids.
Speaker 2: Very good ladies and gentlemen. We've been speaking with that
Speaker 2: Dale Copeland City councilor and also mayor. He represents Ward
Speaker 2: what and we'll see you tomorrow night at the forum
Speaker 2: at our best Bank Eastside location and right here on
Speaker 2: the air Kaway
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you,