Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: It is time now for city matters right here on
Speaker 1: K one, the one you trust. If it matters to you,
Speaker 1: it matters to the city, have city councilor Aaron Kirkpatrick
Speaker 1: here with is. And of course we're recapping last night's
Speaker 1: city council I mean, first of all, welcome aboard today.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Tom, Good morning Bartlesville. It is always a
Speaker 2: pleasure to be back with you, and this is my
Speaker 2: first time doing it in this format. Been on citizens
Speaker 2: to be heard a few times, but it's the first
Speaker 2: time you get to sit down as a city council
Speaker 2: member who you're kind of by myself and recap in
Speaker 2: the meetings.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take it nice and slow. We're gonna start
Speaker 1: off with the library grant. This the first vote took
Speaker 1: place when you were absent. Yes, and tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about what's going on here. This is the
Speaker 1: one that also allows people to take courses to become
Speaker 1: United States citizens.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in January's meeting, my family and I had
Speaker 2: had a trip planned kind of a Christmas trip with
Speaker 2: the kids for months before, so it was unavoidably absent
Speaker 2: and unexpectedly, the library grant became kind of a flashpoint
Speaker 2: of contention. And basically there's a grant that comes from
Speaker 2: the federal government through the Oklahoma Department of Libraries that
Speaker 2: that essentially pays for us to have a program that's
Speaker 2: English English second language training, literacy, and ultimately training people
Speaker 2: for citizenship tests.
Speaker 3: It's been going for.
Speaker 2: Eleven years and it's had you know, lots of people
Speaker 2: have used it over the years. You know, it's pretty
Speaker 2: pretty common for our you know, our local employers to
Speaker 2: bring in people from out of the country and then
Speaker 2: very spouses come with them, and so then it's been
Speaker 2: just this great opportunity for people to learn English, learn
Speaker 2: our culture, and ultimately for some of them become citizens.
Speaker 2: So back in January it was time to vote on
Speaker 2: that budget, everybody kind of thought it was gonna be
Speaker 2: just a you know, a simple thing turned into not
Speaker 2: a simple thing.
Speaker 3: And as everybody knows, we don't have to rehash all that.
Speaker 3: But I got back. I guess we came.
Speaker 2: We landed on Wednesday morning and my phone was just
Speaker 2: blown up from people all over time.
Speaker 3: What just happened? Have you seen the meeting? What are
Speaker 3: we gonna do? About this, and I.
Speaker 2: Kind of looked into it and said, listen, I will
Speaker 2: do whatever I can do to help get this thing fixed.
Speaker 2: It was a two to two vote, and fortunately, I mean,
Speaker 2: our whole community spoke up on this, right, I mean
Speaker 2: dozens and dozens of emails and calls and text messages
Speaker 2: and then you know, conversations with people all over the community,
Speaker 2: and so thank you Bartlesville for speaking up. And everybody said,
Speaker 2: like our library, A lady said last night, wonderful phrase
Speaker 2: is like the crown jewel of our public services here.
Speaker 3: Please save this program.
Speaker 2: And my fellow counselman heard that as well, and so
Speaker 2: last night we reconsidered it. It took a little bit
Speaker 2: of procedural stuff to be able to, but we reconsidered
Speaker 2: that grant.
Speaker 3: We accepted it as is.
Speaker 2: I'm proud to be able to say that our library
Speaker 2: has been fully compliant with every federal statute mandate that
Speaker 2: has been expected of it.
Speaker 3: They've reported every year, like you know, whatever.
Speaker 2: Concerns they may have been were laid to rest because
Speaker 2: as expected, our library has just been doing good work
Speaker 2: for the past eleven years.
Speaker 1: And I understand this helped about what roughly ninety people
Speaker 1: who were in the midst of trying to get.
Speaker 2: Through the Yeah, well just last year, I mean there
Speaker 2: were I think at any given time is what it
Speaker 2: sounded like. There's about one hundred people in the program,
Speaker 2: so it's been extremely well used. And actually one of
Speaker 2: the coolest things about last night's meeting was we did
Speaker 2: a lot of citizens to be heard and we invited
Speaker 2: people to give public comment on these issues, and we
Speaker 2: had four ladies come and speak to us who had
Speaker 2: gone through that program, at one of whom was now
Speaker 2: a teacher, A couple who had gotten their citizenship or
Speaker 2: were working on had gotten driver's license, like they had
Speaker 2: learned to do all this.
Speaker 3: Because of this library program.
Speaker 2: And then now some of them are like mentors giving
Speaker 2: back and volunteering and helping others.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, the.
Speaker 2: It's not easy, you know this because you communicate all
Speaker 2: the time. Like there's a lot of people that are
Speaker 2: very uncomfortable speaking in front of anybody, right, I understand
Speaker 2: that there were one hundred people in that room last night,
Speaker 2: and these ladies got up not only and shared in
Speaker 2: front of one hundred people, which takes courage, but did
Speaker 2: it in their second or third or fourth language. Yes,
Speaker 2: oh man, it was I personally was just extremely moved.
Speaker 2: I appreciate everybody who came and talked about the library,
Speaker 2: but especially for those four ladies. It was just it
Speaker 2: was very moving to me to hear their stories. And
Speaker 2: so we voted. It was unanimous. We accepted that grant.
Speaker 2: Everything's going to keep trucking right along at the library,
Speaker 2: business as usual. We you know, we had a bit
Speaker 2: of a hiccup, but we're good.
Speaker 1: All right. It's also trees along seventy five. We had
Speaker 1: that tornado back of May six. Boy, I remember that
Speaker 1: because we were right in the middle of it here
Speaker 1: at the radio station and it whacked a lot of
Speaker 1: those trees there. In the media. Yeah, and I understand
Speaker 1: that there was a situation there similarly with trying to
Speaker 1: understand the whord to fores and who's the wats and
Speaker 1: buy the wits and the party of the first part
Speaker 1: on that thing too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There, once again there was another one of those January
Speaker 2: issues that got had an unexpected outcome. So last night
Speaker 2: again we kind of went back to that vote again.
Speaker 2: We look at it a second time. Tyler Vacklaw, who
Speaker 2: is the chair of the Keith Bartlesville beautiful committee which
Speaker 2: I have the pleasure of serving on, got up and
Speaker 2: spoke and told us about the trees, and you know,
Speaker 2: essentially Phillip sixty six graciously offered to pay to replace
Speaker 2: the trees that have been destroyed, plus adding some more
Speaker 2: in some other It's just to beautify that intersection sure.
Speaker 3: And and also it has a very practical perspective.
Speaker 2: I've I've had constituents reach out from that neighborhood just
Speaker 2: west of Highway seventy five, who because of the commercial
Speaker 2: you know, there's commercial buildings over there, and that.
Speaker 3: Light comes through.
Speaker 2: So those trees have been helpful in the past to
Speaker 2: kind of block some of those lights and just make
Speaker 2: it a little bit less bright at night in their houses.
Speaker 2: So I mean, this not only is it beautiful, but
Speaker 2: has our realactical impact for some of our neighbors. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Tyler got up and explained all of that, and and.
Speaker 3: This was a partnership with Up with Trees.
Speaker 2: So they've got professional you know, horticulturists and arborists, and
Speaker 2: you know, everything I touch whatever the opposite of a
Speaker 2: green thumb, brown thumb, I guess that's what I have.
Speaker 3: If I touch it, it dies.
Speaker 2: My wife stopped asking me to trim the hedges because
Speaker 2: I kept killing them. So like, that's not my nothing,
Speaker 2: my area of expertise, but it is theirs. And when
Speaker 2: they recommend, hey, these are good trees here, like, I
Speaker 2: just trust them. So we revisited that, uh and and
Speaker 2: again it passed unanimously. So we accepted that grants those
Speaker 2: trees will be planted here. It should be over the
Speaker 2: next couple of months, sure, and then we'll be re
Speaker 2: beautifying that part of Bartlesville.
Speaker 1: Cool water is a big deal around here. It always says, now,
Speaker 1: we might see some water fall from the sky today, tonight,
Speaker 1: and tomorrow, and we might not. And that is usually
Speaker 1: the case here in this part of Oklahoma. We either
Speaker 1: get a whole lot of water at one time, we
Speaker 1: don't get any water at all. Water resources is a
Speaker 1: big deal. What's going on there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one of the one of the committees that
Speaker 2: I'm now on is the Water Resource Committee. So I
Speaker 2: get to sit in with some people who've been doing this,
Speaker 2: say very long time, and know their stuff, and we
Speaker 2: have good news on that front. I don't know about you.
Speaker 2: I get really stressed when it gets really dry. It
Speaker 2: makes me a weird thing for me, but if I
Speaker 2: can't walk out and see water somewhere, my blood pressure
Speaker 2: goes up. So in these really dry times, we had
Speaker 2: the second worst draft that we've ever had over the
Speaker 2: last two years. And I think the first worst draft,
Speaker 2: they said was like the two thousand and one time
Speaker 2: when they got really dire around here. That was before
Speaker 2: my time, but I know everybody who lived here at
Speaker 2: the time remembers basically being able to walk across Hula Lake.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that Water Resources Committee's been going for over twenty
Speaker 2: years now, been working on how do we secure Bartlesville's
Speaker 2: water future for the next seventy five to one hundred years.
Speaker 3: That's their goal.
Speaker 2: And what Terry Lawrence came and showed us last night
Speaker 2: was the kind of the fully updated here's where we are,
Speaker 2: and then kind of made the Water Resources Committee's recommendations
Speaker 2: to the Council for what to do next. Essentially, the
Speaker 2: suggestions that that committee has made is to ask the
Speaker 2: core of engineers to raise Cula Lake by ten percent,
Speaker 2: basically reallocating some more flood control, which is a significant
Speaker 2: I mean, it's an enormous amount of water. And then
Speaker 2: we have now developed this emergency reuse process. So once
Speaker 2: the once the water treatment plant is updated, then hopefully
Speaker 2: by twenty thirty we'll have the ability to turn that on.
Speaker 2: We could turn it on today, but you have to
Speaker 2: you know, ODEQ has some things to say about that.
Speaker 3: So basically they've proven the concept PAP.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's still a few more steps to take, but
Speaker 2: once that's done, that'll be another four million gallons a
Speaker 2: day of water that we're already using that is cleaner
Speaker 2: when we put it back in the river than it
Speaker 2: was when we pulled it out. And then the real
Speaker 2: big movement was what just happened at the federal level.
Speaker 2: So there's a water resources bill that comes up every
Speaker 2: two years, and for our city to really be water secure,
Speaker 2: one of the missing pieces that we needed was the
Speaker 2: option to hopefully begin to use water that comes out
Speaker 2: of Copan. So two years ago, Congress passed a law
Speaker 2: that said that we could do that, and then it
Speaker 2: kind of set a price range. Then we had to
Speaker 2: work with the Army Corps of Engineers, and when it
Speaker 2: was all said and done, it was just it was
Speaker 2: like over seven million dollars to secure those water rights.
Speaker 2: So our congressional delegates and people who have been working
Speaker 2: on this a long time went back and then this
Speaker 2: water bill they changed the language to lower that price.
Speaker 2: So now instead of having to pay like seven seven
Speaker 2: and a half million dollars for that storage, we're not
Speaker 2: going to pay like half a million dollars, and so
Speaker 2: the impact on all of our water rates will be
Speaker 2: basically nothing.
Speaker 3: Because they got that price down.
Speaker 2: Now, there are still some things tend to go, but
Speaker 2: it's just that that's what we can by the rates with.
Speaker 3: So now we're doing some negotiating with COPAN.
Speaker 2: There's already a memorandum of understanding with them, so it's
Speaker 2: just you know, working through these final steps. The really
Speaker 2: encouraging thing about that is where we are right now.
Speaker 2: It gives us, in our projections at least another thirty
Speaker 2: years of water security. If the if the Army Corps
Speaker 2: of Engineers decides to approve that flood allocation again to
Speaker 2: raise HUEA by ten percent, then we will be water
Speaker 2: secure for over one hundred years. It's important to know
Speaker 2: that in the last drought, that second worst drought, we
Speaker 2: just went through our water source out at Hula never
Speaker 2: dip below it was like sixty percent or so.
Speaker 3: Terry Lawrence shouldell you exactly.
Speaker 2: But we really, even as severe as that drought was,
Speaker 2: because we already being good stewards of the water that
Speaker 2: we have, we didn't really dip deeply into kind of
Speaker 2: our primary water source.
Speaker 3: But we essentially drop from three sources.
Speaker 2: So we have the Caney River, we have Heula Lake,
Speaker 2: and then we have or we will hopefully have Copan
Speaker 2: Lake once that process is done. Congress has approved it,
Speaker 2: just have to finish negotiations. So the way that the way.
Speaker 3: It's been helpful for me to kind of learn how
Speaker 3: this works.
Speaker 2: I kind of have compared it to coffee shops, so
Speaker 2: that because people confused, well, we've got this lake, why
Speaker 2: it's got water in it, Why are we struggling, Why
Speaker 2: are we saying we're in a dire drought or whatever.
Speaker 2: So we don't get to control how much water comes
Speaker 2: out of lake or goes into it. Right, So it's
Speaker 2: like you buy a coffee shop franchise, but your franchise
Speaker 2: e tells you, hey, here's how much coffee you're going
Speaker 2: to get, and you don't control it. Okay, So, uh,
Speaker 2: the Army Corps would be the franchise. You know, the
Speaker 2: franchise owners at this point, God would be the one
Speaker 2: who sends the rain, so he kind of gives a
Speaker 2: supply right. So what we have done is basically we've said, okay,
Speaker 2: we want to buy the franchise from Hula. We bought
Speaker 2: every single gallon of water that we can buy out
Speaker 2: of hell just to store it. We say like, we've
Speaker 2: got this where this is ours. Nobody else can pull
Speaker 2: water out of Hula Lake except for us. How much
Speaker 2: water is in there, like they're going to release it,
Speaker 2: and we are paying every single year to have access
Speaker 2: to all of that water we can pull out of
Speaker 2: the Cane River for basically for free. We've had those
Speaker 2: water rights forever. So that's like making coffee at home, right,
Speaker 2: that's free for us. When we to have water rights
Speaker 2: out at HeLa Lake, we pay a little bit, not
Speaker 2: as cheap as drinking it for free, but it's worth
Speaker 2: having because you know, you got more access. And then
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do out at Copan now is
Speaker 2: basically saying, hey, can we purchase part of your franchise
Speaker 2: because the town of Copan has, you know, the water
Speaker 2: rights that they need, and then access to water rights
Speaker 2: that are so much larger than they can than they
Speaker 2: would ever.
Speaker 3: Be able to use.
Speaker 2: So what we basically said is, hey, can we invest
Speaker 2: in your coffee shop? And then we had to agree
Speaker 2: on the price, and really it was it was it
Speaker 2: was the core who had to decide. So what they
Speaker 2: did in that last water bill was to get that
Speaker 2: price so low that it was a basically it was
Speaker 2: like the water that would have come out of there
Speaker 2: was about five times more expensive than what we were paying.
Speaker 3: Now it's almost the same price. Oh wow, Like.
Speaker 2: What this group has done, and we cannot thank our
Speaker 2: state reps, our Congression reps all the way up to
Speaker 2: the federal level, as well as people who have been
Speaker 2: on that Water Resource Committee.
Speaker 3: I mean there are folks.
Speaker 2: Like State Center Julie Daniels, Tom Gorman I know has
Speaker 2: been a part of this, of course.
Speaker 3: Mike Bailey, and you know a lot of those folks.
Speaker 2: And then we've got people all the way up to
Speaker 2: the federal government who've been working on this for over
Speaker 2: twenty years and that Water Resource build going through Congress
Speaker 2: and then being signed by President Biden. It put us
Speaker 2: where we needed to be to be able to secure
Speaker 2: a future where we can all breathe a lot easier
Speaker 2: about water. Now, we'll still conserve, right, but we now
Speaker 2: have access to every single water source that we can
Speaker 2: get access to. And then we're and then we have
Speaker 2: suggested to then make an emergency plan where we can
Speaker 2: if we have to run, you know, run a pipe
Speaker 2: down to you know, place south of us, in a
Speaker 2: pen in a dire critical emergency. I can't imagine at
Speaker 2: this point how it can get to that stage, especially
Speaker 2: once the water reuse process can get turned on. But
Speaker 2: we have developed and are developing lots of options. So
Speaker 2: the good news for Bartlesville is that the things that
Speaker 2: have been stressing us out for twenty years, twenty plus
Speaker 2: year's worth of work has come to fruition and is
Speaker 2: in the process. And then the people who have been
Speaker 2: leading that process are already now turning their attention to
Speaker 2: the next ten or fifteen years and what has to
Speaker 2: get done to secure our future for a century.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing that And you encapsulate did that so well.
Speaker 1: People want to be heard, so when they show up
Speaker 1: at the city council meetings, deserves opportunity. But how much opportunity,
Speaker 1: I guess would be the question.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we've had the city council meetings, but
Speaker 2: we also had in the last month, we had the
Speaker 2: Flock Safety Forum that that the police hosted for us,
Speaker 2: and then we had a workshop on adult entertainment, so
Speaker 2: that was that was an open workshop.
Speaker 3: We probably had another one hundred one hundred and thirty.
Speaker 2: People show up for that, and thus far, as far
Speaker 2: as I'm aware, we've not told anybody they can't speak
Speaker 2: for three minutes, so we sat through. We were there
Speaker 2: for probably an hour and a half at the at
Speaker 2: the adult entertainment workshop, hearing people's stories and perspectives and passion,
Speaker 2: and then at the flock we had questions that went
Speaker 2: on for probably another thirty or forty five minutes. And
Speaker 2: then last night we listened i think to two two
Speaker 2: and a half hours of people's comments and it was
Speaker 2: so good. Like those are honestly my favorite parts of
Speaker 2: those meetings. Even when people disagree or disagree with me,
Speaker 2: it is so so healthy to have a community that
Speaker 2: shows up and says we care about what's going on.
Speaker 2: Here's our perspective on it. Now, even that communication is
Speaker 2: the tip of the iceberg. I think I told you
Speaker 2: that last month. I'm pretty sure I've met one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty new people just from going and visiting with
Speaker 2: different groups and organizations around the city to do Q
Speaker 2: and as so, and I'll make an appeal or just
Speaker 2: an offer to anybody who's watching this if you have
Speaker 2: a group that gets together like that, doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: the group is, I'm happy to come and visit with you.
Speaker 2: I love doing Q and A's where I get to
Speaker 2: hear what's important to you. And every time there's been
Speaker 2: things I've walked away with saying, oh, nobody, I've not
Speaker 2: heard anybody share that concern before.
Speaker 3: That's worth looking into and see if there's a way
Speaker 3: that we can help.
Speaker 2: So if you're looking for an opportunity to speak to
Speaker 2: someone on the city council, I'm happy to come.
Speaker 3: But the thing that I want to say the most is.
Speaker 1: Just how.
Speaker 2: How encouraging it is to see the level of engagement
Speaker 2: that we have and yes and to come. I mean,
Speaker 2: a healthy community is not a community devoid of conflict.
Speaker 2: A healthy community will have disagreements and conflict, but healthy
Speaker 2: communities work through it intentionally and listen to each other
Speaker 2: and then find a path forward together. And we've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of that over the last month or more
Speaker 2: and it's been really, really a fun part of being
Speaker 2: on the council.
Speaker 1: Great Aaron Kirkpatrick, thank you for being with us today.
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure and you know we look forward to
Speaker 1: seeing you again here real soon. Thanks folks, you've been
Speaker 1: watching and listening to