CITY MATTERS 12-9-24

Christmas, and that's what this holy day is all about. And so while you're enjoying the fun and the family and the laughter, we need to make sure that leading up to and on that day we are keeping Christ at the center of our celebration and remembering that's what this is really all about.

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Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It's timed out where the city matters, right here on K one, the one you trust. First things first, before we get things going. What's with this bog and eight our skyline? I mean, I took a look at our camera out here and I'm looking downtown and I don't see yours.

Goy no, No, it's uh, well, it's just the wintertime, so you just never know what you're gonna get.

Yeah, that's the beauty of it.

Will just wait a few days and they'll be completely different. Or maybe in this after afternoon outshot.

Yeah, hey, Keith, do you think it's gonna know? It's a four letter word, Tom, we don't question. Well, let's get things out of way.

I know that today is the first day of the leaf and the grass pack.

It is, uh, today's the day to take advantage of the leaf and grass collection. Uh, So hopefully you've got it out there today if you're a Monday route, because we're picking it up on your normal trash collection day. So all leaf and grass, if you've bagged that material and set it out at the curb, it will not require a refuge or a grass yard waist sticker. So it's a free service to all our residential customers. So get that material out there again today. Hopefully you've already

But again if it's a.

Residential collection, you don't have to worry about getting it out before or after because we don't work the residential guys don't pick up on Wednesdays anyway, So with the holiday falling on that day, we're good.

For those two days. Wait, no confusion, that's the way we like it. Easier the better.

So just to encourage people, like to say, with the holiday season, make sure they're kind of following the rules and regulations. Have your carts out to the street by six o'clock in the morning. Typically, I like to tell people, you know, it's better just to put it out the night before.

That way you don't miss it.

We have a lot of relief drivers sometimes during the holiday seasons that fill in, so sometimes the routes kind of like the mailman. You expect him to come by at ten oh five and some days he comes by at eight o'clock, sometimes at noon, and we can be that way sometimes. So make sure you put it out first thing in the morning at six o'clock. Have it out at the street. Nothing within five foot of the cart, so no obstructions. Make sure we can get to the cart.

Well, very good, And while we have you here, and this is gonna keep me from calling you at like four in the morning when it snows.

Okay, how do we go about?

What's the procedure here as far as snow removal in the city.

We actually have a snow removal policy that was established several years ago and it kind of outlines the procedure that we follow when we do the snow removal. And typically that will be the arterial streets first. So usually those are the ones that you know you're gonna have the first issues with travel on those bridges, overpasses, artillial streets, So we start with those and then we work into

Is such a.

Problem with blocking driveways and what have you that typically just doesn't work out and in the time issue of you know, trying to get to all those So we do have a policy that we follow describes what we do sand salt and where we plow.

There you go you have do is go to City of Bartlesville dot org and he'll be right there.

You bet we should be on our website.

All right, good, all right, Uh Terry, let's talk a little bit of water the unpros.

Yeah no, we'll uh well, let's let's let Jason do his thing, because we all everything runs on the finances of the city.

Let's do that.

Let's microphone, that's right. I want Jason to get his time in the in the limelight.

In the well.

You know he takes so much, Yeah, he does.

Earlier. So sound Sex was up.

This this this month December eight is that almost eight point five percent, which is good because last week last month was down eight point four percent. They kind of flipped flip the months there, so he's doing gray. We're up one percent compared to last year currently and we you know, we budget really conservatively, so we're up almost two one two and a half percent compared to budget on the year.

Flip that over to US tax.

US tax kind of had a battle month, down twenty percent on the US tax side.

Looking at that though, it is compared to the.

Largest use tax being last year, the largest use tax month we've had today, which there's not a whole lot of data points here yet, but that being said, we're still we're still up a quarter of a percent compared to budget and we're.

Still station the tax. Well, so use tax is now online sales tax.

So when you shop at Amazon, you shop at any kind of store that has an online presence that doesn't have a physical presence in the state of Oklahoma, your sales tax is going to be collected as use tax. It's a companion tack two sales tax, so it goes hand in hand with it. But in the older days the internet, online sales tax wasn't collected, but you.

Just weren't collected sales tax.

Yeah, so our state codified the online sales tax has used tax, so that's why we see.

It in that form versus just sales tax collection.

Good to know.

So on the sales tax, what months Sometimes people think that that's actually from, for example, last month.

How much behind is the reporting on that sales It's.

About a month and a half behind. You got to realize if you.

Went and spent your money today at the store, the store holds it in trust until they're reporting time, do they and they submit it to the State of Oklahoma. State of Oklahoma holds it for a period of time and then they remitted to us. It's about a month and a halfe so we get the usually around the eighth of the ninth, we'll get a deposit from the state that it's really from the prior month, a month

Taxes with the State of Oklahoma.

But I'm sure it probably varies in there to when you started doing your business. That would be my assumption on that side of it. So it is a I say, it's a.

Month month and a half behind lag.

So we're seeing so December sales, we're seeing you know, October sales.

And this is what we'recing.

And how much should we budget as far as did we budget a flat sales tax for this this budget cycle, this budget period or did we.

We always budget reduced usually conservatively, And obviously we'll look at how sales tax performing the last quarter of the year, and we usually stayed between a one percent and two and a half percent decline from the previous year.

There you go, well good and so so if somebody has just a keen interest in sales tax or really finding out more about the youth tax or getting into the numbers, which I'm sure there's individuals who just like you, Jason Jay, they just want to dive in the numbers. Who can they reach out to you? Can they find that online or what's their resource?

You can? You can go to the State of Oklahoma's website. We have this information because you know, that's where I get mind phrase to put these together. Stable Oklahoma Tax Missions website. Okay, Now, you don't really get a whole lot of data. You just kind of get lump some totals. What was a positive You can look at all the METIS spiles around the state what they collected.

There's not really a great level of detail.

We have to sign CONFIDENCEI out is with the State of Oklahoma to get detailed information because you can look back and see individual store sales and from a competitive standpoint, try to try to backdoor on their.

Monthly sales totals.

So this confidential information that we get to see that not everyone would get to see. But you can't go to tax missions website and see that.

Okay, So on the sales tax, actually the vendors pay the state and then the states US. So the city really doesn't collect sales ta the collection side, right, so we we really don't find out until.

We get the checker they posted.

We have no idea.

We can kind of see how the state's trending a little bit and kind of have an idea, but still we're not. We're out here on an island by ourselves. So a lot of times what the state does isn't always indicative of how.

We're going to do well.

And I think sales tax people get maybe confused and that they think that the cities operate on property tax or some other revenue source, but really it's ninety percent of its sales tax.

Truthfully, majority majority of our operations in funded with sales tax, especially over the general fund, police, fire, arcs, streets, General fund funded, no property tax funds operation that's only for debt service on general obligation bonds.

So yeah, so that's so, I know, water, wastewater and sanitation run off of the utility bills.

So those utility.

Bills really don't reimburse fences for street department, please fire those sorts of things.

Those are all self.

Contained entities and funded through whatever revenue it is as far as water and waste, wires and sensation come off that utility.

Building, that's how we derive your utility rates.

Right, So then on recovery.

Yeah, so the sales tax really funds the majority of the operation of the city, which is primarily police and fire.

That's that's the larger of the largest, the largest A little bit goes Keith's way.

A little bit.

I'd say it's probably one of the middle sized department as far as dollars go. It's somewhere in the middle, police and fire being the largest two departments, right, Tom.

We might also mention Benza just kind of come up on the holiday season, had some questions about recycling. It's a good time of year to keep that in mind with all the cardboard and stuff that you gather. The recycle site is actually operated by a company called Replenish. We kind of went into an agreement with them. Gosh, probably been three or four years now. Worked out pretty well, worked out very well for me, especially a lot less

So the site is open.

It's been a good partnership with Replenish. We basically supply them a site, the property that they use, and pretty much everything else they is on them, the collection, the packaging, the trucking and everything they do. All that we do occasionally help with some transport as far as labor to help load trucks, but in general it's all a Replenished organization and the partnership's worked out very well for us.

Very good.

Are there any restrictions on what they can recycle or things that?

There are some restrictions and I hate to sit here and quote me what they are. I mean they take most plastics and the people they are familiar with recycling we're not currently taking they aren't taking paper. I mean they take cardboard, but they don't take like newspapers, and I don't think anymore. They do take glass, they take aluminum cans, they take steel cans, and you get into the pet one.

Two's the trees, which are like your milk, drugs and water bottles and those things they take.

So most of the normal things, it's about having a place to market and to sell it. So some of the things that they don't take are something that there's just not a market for. They have no way to dispose of it, so they can't take it.

So like lithium batteries, things like.

No battery collections on the site, had no tires. You know, we do typically in the spring, we partner with Operation clean House where you do collective of those.

Type of materials once a year.

But NEI, as Terry mentioned, no hazardous materials of all the liquids or chemicals and things like that.

So yeah, so that makes it brings up a great point. If you do have use motor oil or maybe some fluids from your vehicle or whatever. Uh, there are some entities around town that will take that. Possibly, I know Walmart will take used motor oil. There may be some.

Other entities that do that, but a lot of it you.

Just have to hang on to until we do that annual hazardous waste disposal event, which I think typically is in theah so you just have to kind of hold tight with that and then dispose of it through that mechanism.

There it so.

Well, we are going to well before we jump into water.

Uh.

We certainly want to kind of touch base about the city council meeting that was held last week, so that we did have three new council members that were sworn in, uh, so we want to congratulate them on their new uh their new term or their new service. So that was Larry East, Tim Shehrrick, and then Aaron Kapatrick.

So those are the three new council members. They the council.

Did elect to uh to put Jim Kurt as the mayor and then as Trevor dor Say as the vice mayor. So that is your counsel for this h at least next two years, I believe is their term. Uh So they're h they have hit the ground running. We did have an orientation for them last week on Thursday to help get them up to speed and help understand kind of the diversity of the city government and all the things that we that that they now have some some responsibility for. But I think it was a good event.

Then a little topic wow.

Yeah, So it took a lot of words to get there. So anyways, as many people know, we had a drought about a year and a half ago, well started a year and a half ago. It finished really early this year, kind of January February of this year.

But I always like.

To touch base on a little bit of the history of our water supply and what we've done and why we've done it. But our our journey really started back in two thousand and one. Two thousand and two, we had a moderate drop for a few months, but our water supply at Hue Lake fell down to less than twenty percent. So that's if you're familiar with our water

That we use.

But in one oh two that was down to below twenty percent, and so that really started our long journey looking for different sources.

So we have done a number of studies.

One of those studies was to look at how much water do you need, how much water will your existing sources provide, and then where do you find.

That extra water to bridge the gap.

So that sudy was done and completed in two thousand and seven, and what it recommended was to secure the water storage that's available at Copan Lake and then to reallocate flood control to water supply at both Hula and Copan Lake. So when they talk about reallocation of flood control, the water supply. Those lakes, which are both owned by the corp of Engineers at Hula and Copan, have certain

Gets stored there. They release it at a reduced.

Rate to mitigate downstream flooding, and so those lakes have that as a major component of its operations. So when we reallocate flood control the water supply, we actually raise that water level so that the water there's more water stored there during the normal events or during normal usage, and then that makes more water available.

For us for a water supply perspective.

So those are the recommendations from that study. And it took us literally took us twelve years in an Act of Congress to get the storage rights from Copan Lake.

That's what the quota price was from the corp.

Of Engineers, and that's what they held firm to and when you visit with them about negotiating a price, because it's a lake that's already built, already paid for by tax dollars, there's no other entity that's clamoring for that water supply. So one would assume that we can negotiate a deal that would provide them cost but maybe be a little bit more cost effective for us to pursue. But the Core unfortunately doesn't operate that way. It's this

To do that.

Is this where they go from the Army Corps of engineers to the Army Corps attorneys.

That's one of the yes, yeah, the acronyms that we've heard just to get numerous times through that. So, being a water utility, any cost that we have to spend for water supplier, you know, capital provement, that cost gets relayed to the consumer, and so we want to keep those costs down as much as possible. So looking at not only what the cost of Copan would be, but as well as the cost of those flood control reallocations

More affordable terms for us.

And so that resulted in going through Congress actually with federal legislation to do that, and so that took us twelve years to get that first trants of water supply at Copan Lake, which was in twenty twenty. So instead of paying seven million dollars, that ended up being two hundreds out two hundred and five.

Thousand dollars, so quit substantial savings, just.

Savings, but we are continuing to look at and pursue reallocation at those lakes as well as there are some additional water stores available at Copan Lake, but that again takes an Act of Congress for us to access.

So we are.

Pursuing those water supply and water storage contracts through those entities, and that's really all through federal legislation. So we have been working with Senator Langford, with Senator Mollen, Congressman Boukin and their staff in order to craft legislation to put through a Water Resource of Development Act is typical mechanism.

That that legislation routes through.

So we have been working with the Senators and congressmen and their staff to craft that language and get that in so that we can get the federal legislation needed to move forward with these items.

So we believe that we have that in the twenty twenty four were to act as far as to access.

The remaining storage at Copan Lake, so that language is in that bill, it is yet to be signed in the law. They're still working out the differences between the Senate and the House on the disparity between their languages. So hopefully they're able to reconcile that and that will be signed in the law. We're hopeful sometime in twenty

So we're somewhat beholden to.

Uh all of that legislative body to pass that that act that would.

Facilitate us moving forward with that very good.

So we have we have met with the Water Resources Committee and we've looked at a number of other options as far as water supply.

UH.

So we've looked at call Lake, Birch, Lake Skytook Lake, the Ooligau Keystone, as well as uh aquifer finished water or treated water from the Tulsa area. And so we've we've gone through and looked at to see what's available.

If I understood you right before, and I've heard you talk about it. So the CORE releases water from Heala and Copine daily that we have no control over a certain amount and we pick it up down here the river.

Basically we get free water from that. Is that right or.

It in a sense?

Yes?

In a sense, yes, So Heala and Copine when they were built, the Core had a policy that they had to release a certain amount of water between those lakes for environmental water quality issues or concerns they had downstream. And so that results or amounts some eleven million gawns of water a day at a minimum. So when they've got water in the flood control they release more, but as a minimum, they have to release eleven million gawns of water a day until there's no water left in

Every day every day.

So what we do, and part of is how we've changed our operation on how we manage our water supply, is that we used the original water supply at the Caney Rivers. That's a little dam, low water dam and intake structure right next to Kitti Park. So we pull out of that every day twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, full year, and so we use that every day, which can supply water really for about six seven months of the year solely and it's by itself.

One point four million gallons of water day.

So it's just not a very a very porous aquifer and not a real high yield type offerer, so that probably won't really suffice us to make a substantial improvement with our long term water sources. We've also completed a study looking at Call Lake and so those prices range from about two hundred and fifty million to three hundred million to build the pipeline and pump station to.

Get that water at Call Lake.

The one good thing at Call Lake is it more water than we will need for the next two hundred plus years, so it has a lot of water storage available. The problem is just the cost and the distance to potentially go secure that hula and copin it's going to require additional congressional acts to get some traction and move forward with that. Heal is by far the most cost

Add to our portfolio.

But we're still looking to get at least ten to sixteen million goawns more of water day which would suffice us for the next one hundred years.

Very good gentlemen.

I want to thank you for coming in and bringing us up to date on all things city, on city matters.

Thank you very much for having yourself a great week so