All right, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome. He is that time now for our community connection, the thing that we call city matters, because if it matters to you, it matters to the city.
We've got the whole gang in here. Mike Bailey, make your introductions please.
You're right, we got the whole gang. We brought the Hey crew.
Okay, So we have our newest library director, Kylie. She's not new anymore, but newest, newest, newest, she's almost the newest director, although now Dea is our newest director. Of course, we have our returners. We've got Jason Monager. He's here about once a month to talk about sales tax. And then we have our assistant city manager, former HR director Laura, who's going to update us on Citizens Academy here. Oh nice, got got it coming back. It was really popular. So
we're we're gonna launch another one this fall. So but before we get into all that, we've got a few announcements to make.
In fact, we've got quite a few announcements to make.
So first off, we have the thep off site for tree debris. It's closed now, so hopefully everybody had a chance over the last few weeks to get everything there and get it dropped off.
This is.
If you're not familiar with where the site is, the next time it comes up, you might want to use it. It is actually over by the rodeo ground, so it's just I guess that would be west of one twenty three on frank Phillips and then it's on the south side of frank Phillips, which is actually Highway sixty out there. So anyway, it is a site that is specific for the city of Artlesville.
It's just licensed for us.
But during these events then the state is kind enough to allow us to collect.
Tree limbs for a short period of time. So we were able to.
Do that for a couple of weeks, and we're grateful to the state for working with us on that. And I appreciate Keith Henry's employees, all of our public works guys park streets for help and take care of that. But hopefully everybody's got everything cleaned up. I know we've still got some trees down in the parks and down on the pathfinder, but we'll be coming around.
To those when we get a chance.
You'll be fishing them out, just trying to get.
The grass mode right now.
It's been something so. But in speaking of streets and parks, this is a great This is a great combination of both. At Monday's council meeting, we had an opportunity to honor one of Bartlesville's longest term employees. I think she came here in ninety four if I remember right.
So a couple of years after I graduated high school.
Way last century.
Hut, Yeah, it's it. Last century.
I slipped out of town, she slipped in, and the place has never been the same since. We of course, were talking about Lisa Beeman, who served as Community Development Director, park director, and assistant city manager at one point. Well, no, she was actually the acting city manager at one point. She's been here long enough that I believe she went through four city managers for four of us.
Yeah, it was four.
So Lisa was an enormous advocate for parks and for quality of life in Bartlesville, and we thought a great way to honor her and to acknowledge her was to rename a park street into the Lisa Beeman Parkway. And so that's exactly what we've done. So, if you're familiar with MJ. Lee Lake, the park there Lee Lake. Then the road that goes through there, it essentially connects Adams and Silver Lake. That road will now be named Lisa
Beaman Parkway. So the council was kind enough to honor Lisa in that way, and we were really excited for she is she she meant a lot to this community. She meant a lot to our organization. So it's nice to be able to honor somebody who has the kind of impact that she had.
So it was it was a really good way.
I think it was actually towards the end of the evening in fact, in the council meeting, so it was a really good way to kind of wrap up the meeting. And one other thing, in fact, I saw some comments on next door, which is always an exciting place to be that some people were concerned about some discoloration in their water. That is normal right now because we are
flushing hydrants and so we do that. It is actually a way to clean the lines and so over time that Terry could tell you a whole lot about it.
But he knows things about water.
He knows a lot of things about water. I mean, but there is a build up in the lines. It's called a biofilm, and it's actually desirable, believe it or not. You want that in the lines, but you don't want it built up too much. So every so often we go through and we flush the hydrants, usually about once a year, and that speeds up the water in the line and it actually scours them out, and so what you're seeing in there is just a natural deposit that
was placed in the lines. So it's not harmful. However it is it is. It can just color your water a little bit, and so we do ask people to be careful when you're doing your laundry. So if you're not signed up for city Beat, we would encourage you
to sign up for city Beat. In there, we always announce these zones that we're flushing and so out at the Cityobartlesfield dot org you can find this information or at Citybartlesfield dot org you can sign up city Beat and we'll send it to you, so that will help keep you up to date on when we're flushing and where we're flushing, so that you don't just color your.
Laundry by accident.
A couple and some really good news actually, we have completed the taxi lane out at our airport This is one of the largest investments that's been made in our airport in decades. It's actually a two million dollar project. And I know it's hard to get excited about a taxi lane, but this is part of the basic infrastructure of our airport that allows us to continue to expand
on the airport. And so the taxi lane was actually paid for primarily by the Oklahoma Department of Aeronautics and Aviation I think is what it is now they've changed their name, it's ODAA and the Federal Aviation Administration. So they paid one point two million and seven hundred and forty thousand, and the city only had to come in for one hundred thousand to make this happen. So it was a great project with a very low local match. It opens up the possibility now of additional hangar.
Developments because we're full out there.
All of our hangars are full, and so that leads us to the next step. And the next step is actually the construction of a twenty thousand square foot hangar where they refer to it as a spec building because it means we don't necessarily.
Have a we don't have.
A tenant yet, but we actually do have somebody in mind out there, but there's no no one signed up, and so this will be paid for. It's a sixty forty split. The ODAA again is paying sixty percent and then the Barblesviel Development Authority is going to pay the forty percent. So this is part of ongoing economic development efforts. So we're we're really excited to have this happening. It's
the biggest change out at our airport. And honestly, since I've been with the city, so super excited about it. Less excited about the vandalism at our parks much les much less excited, but it unfortunately is a It is something that happens in particular in our restrooms. I was sent some photos a couple of weeks ago someone had gotten in and they had destroyed all of the partitions in the bathroom.
And so they.
They kicked the sinks off, they destroy the toilets, they tear up the partitions, and it can cost anywhere between one thousand dollars and forty thousand dollars.
When somebody vandelizes our parks.
We have cameras, but it is difficult to catch somebody to where you can actually identify them and so we're trying a little bit different tactic. So we're going to announce that there's a five hundred dollars reward for any information that leads to an arrest from park vandalism. So we've got one out there right now as the most recent one, and it was relatively small, but we wanted
to get this started. And interesting thing is it actually came from a park employee, probably someone who is tired of having to clean.
Up our park bathrooms.
And Lord, the name has escaped me emply.
Yes, Travis Jones.
Yes, it was Travis Jones. So Travis was the one that made the suggestion. We appreciated that and we actually put that in to put that into effects. So right now there's a five hundred dollars reward for any information leading to an arrest that deals.
With park vandalism.
So we're we are We're not excited about the vandalism, but we are excited about trying this new way to try to cut that down. It is it is a challenge to keep all of those facilities open.
And available to the public.
So that's our that's our hope is that will cut it down and speaking on open and available to the public. All of our pools and splash pads are now open.
Had the had the.
The meat the swim meet over the weekend, so it was to sooner pool was temporary closed, but they all should be open now and everything's running, and so hopefully everyone will all the kids will get out and enjoy that and families.
And just in time, because it started to turn the heat on.
I noticed that just now, Jason, just now, Jason. Jason is one of these disturbing individuals who believes that it the hotter it is, the better it is.
So I think Jasondas I would agree with that.
I think Jason should move somewhere where he can root for the heat out of impacting us.
I don't know what you think.
You like three months, that's three months too long, don't. I don't want three days in the kind of heat that you like. So yeah, it is a it is a good time year to have that going on. So also at the council meeting we had, we had, we had a really long.
Council meeting, to tell you the truth.
In fact, several months ago, the council created rules for how they were going to govern themselves, and one of those rules was that our council meetings were going to be two and a half hours, and they could be an extended. They could be extended to a maximum of three hours. And there are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is the the example that the City of Norman gave to us when they had about a ten hour council meeting and made some really terrible decisions at four am.
In the morning. There are no really good decisions meet at four am.
I would agree with you one that's that's now.
Maybe if you're Kevin Potter and you got up at four am, that's.
I'm still sleeping in thought, there's something.
Wrong with you as what.
So.
But anyway, we had at a lengthy council meeting, honestly was a really good council meeting. Had a lot of great discussion, and one of the more important items was to consider an ordinance that had been suggested by the Unsheltered almost task Force, and so the council did. They had great deliberations on it, and then ultimately they unanimously elected to adopt this ordinance. And so I won't go into the ordinance in a lot of detail, but just
so everybody knows that this is. This was the result of a lot of discussion amongst the Homeless Committee and that Unsheltered Homeless task Force.
I think it's worth.
Mentioning who's on there because of the sort of the qualifications and the depth of who's present there. This is not This is not a group who's uninformed about homelessness. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. So on the task Force, we have two council members. We have Aaron Kirkpatrick and
Larry East, both of them. We have Keith and Christy McPhail, which they are the they run Beat the Light YEP, which is a it is a just recently opened homeless shelter and also a sort of a homeless recovery center. I don't know exactly what the right term is, but that sounded sounded pretty good. Don't be mad at me, Keith. I'm sure I got it wrong. We have jud Strong, he is our state representative. We have Rachel Shaller or Shoulder Dang. I knew I was going to get it wrong. I've shoveler Shoulder.
I did it both ways. Tom, I was wrong. No matter what I did, I should have just stopped.
I should have just stopped it, nobody would have noticed except for poor Rachel. So anyway, Rachel is the executive director of Grand Mental Health. So we have someone on there who's very familiar with mental health and Bartlesville. Sierra Compton. She is a police officer, but more importantly, she's assumed she is assigned to our mental health coresponse to him. So actually she is paired with a social worker from Grand Mental Health and they have a lot of interactions
with the homeless people. Errol Hada is part of this group. If you know, I'm not familiar with Errol. He runs Lighthouse Shelter. Tom Gorman, So Tom Gorman is a former mayor, very familiar with city government. But he also he also operates Gorman Management, which has a lot of a lot of properties in Bartlesville in particular, some of them are low to moderate income properties, so he has a lot of familiarity with this issue.
Sherry Smith.
She is the founder and operator of a gape that provides two warm meals a day.
So Sarah Rowe.
She actually comes from Barlsbow Public Schools and she is their homeless specialist, a little different situation. Most of the homeless children she deals with they're not unsheltered, but they are experiencing a lot of the same issues, so she was able to add all perspective Dustin Ainsworth. Dustin Ainsworth is a veteran and he also had been homeless at one point in time, and he's very open about his story. It's very powerful, it's very informative when you have someone
like him in there. And then we have the Municipal Court judge, which is Alan Genties. We have the executive director of the United Way, Lisa Carey, and then I believe she's a nurse practitioner, a family nurse practitioner, So this is amberview, so we brought somebody in that could talk to about the health aspects of this. So really it is a very powerful committee. They've done a lot of work and so anything that comes out of there is first off, it was rooted in compassion.
They've ensured that that's the first thing they talk about.
And I think once you see this list, you realize that, of course it is because that's literally what most of these people do. They're in the business of compassion. So they adopted a model early on. They refer to it as a golden circle, which is who why how and what Everything leads to something else, And the real purpose of it is is who are our homeless neighbors, why are they homeless, how did they get here?
And what can we do to help?
And so those four sort of guiding principles are what has led to this. Now, the other side of that is is recognizing that we have to be able to help them, but we also have to have accountability for everybody. It doesn't matter whether you're homeless or not. There's accountability. And so we talked about vandalism in the parks in the past. The forty thousand dollars that I mentioned earlier was actually caused by a homeless person who vandalized and
he actually committed arson in our park bathroom. And so you don't think there's that much in there that burn, but I promise you there is.
It'll burn.
And so these are very expensive. That is not a problem of a homeless person. That is a problem with someone who's committed a crime. And so we wanted to balance out assisting our homeless neighbors with at the same time holding them accountable for their actions.
That wouldn't be acceptable for anybody.
And so that was the purpose of the ordinance, which I thought was extremely well thought out. And as I said, I won't go into all the details, we won't have time for it, but there is it is. It was a really well thought out and compassionate piece of legislation. So thus far this group, they have conducted a census so that they know who are homeless are, they know where they came from, they know why they're homeless, they
know why they're here. And the good news, I guess it's good news bad news, I don't know which way to look at it is that almost all of the unsheltered homeless people in Barblesviellt are from this area. There was a rumor early on, of course, that they were being bust in and that's not.
You and I both and that is not the case.
And so over eighty percent of these people are from our area and so they are our citizens. So I think it changed the minds of some people on the task force once they realized who it was we were dealing with. Gathered information on all the nonprofits who are referring to them as helping agencies. We've identified the services that they provide and the gaps that are in the gaps that are in there, we were trying to identify what the agencies need and then of course they had
the ordinance that they that was adopted by counsel. So really the next thing for this committee is to focus on ways that the organizations can collaborate, determine where we have resource gaps, and try to figure out how we can help and we not just the city, but how they can help each other. So anyway, it has been a fascinating process. I think they have gotten to know each other better, these agency directors, and so there have already been some collaborations that have come out of this
that that didn't exist prior to it. So one of the big ones will be transportations, so you hear a lot about that coming up.
But yeah, it is a.
Monumental task and I truly love and appreciate all of these people have who have taken this on as their life's mission. So to choose to run a shelter or a food pantry or to provide meals to homeless people is it is a calling and a passion that, as I said, I love and I'm grateful for people like them. So but that expect to hear more out of this
task force their goal. They have a two part goal, and number one is to reduce the number of unsheltered homeless people in Bartlesville, and they're trying to help their homeless brothers and sisters to get out of homelessness.
And then the other thing is.
Is to protect the community from some of those damaging effects of growing homelessness. So we'll be hearing a lot more from them. The committee was actually extended. We'll continue meeting through the end of this year, and then it may be extended beyond that so that we can continue to measure.
The metrics and make sure that this is accomplishing what we'd hoped it would.
But with that, talking about community programs, we have Miss Kylie here with us, and as we said, Kylie is our library director, and this is the time of year to where the library really kind of gets moving and there's a lot of programs that are offered, including our summer reading program.
That is true, it is officially summer at the library.
It may not be officially summer everywhere else, but it is summer reading time at the library and we are in full swing.
This is the most exciting time of the year for our library because we offer.
Dozens and dozens of programs for people of all ages, and then the big piece being the Summer Reading program. So we've changed things up a little bit this year. In the past, it was a little bit convoluted. You had to track the minutes and some other things, and it just got a little complex, and we want to make things as easy as possible to encourage that continued learning, continued reading throughout the summer months.
So this year we have four different programs.
So we have our ages zero to five and you know, those are our little biddies that we know may not be fully reading on their own just yet. So for that age group, we just ask that they have a caregiver read twenty five books to them and that is their completion of the summarine program. They can be board books, just picture books, you know, anything counts. Our first graders through fifth graders we asked that they read twenty five books by July twenty fifth, so it's you know, they
have plenty of time. Our sixth to twelfth grade we asked that they read six books by July twenty fifth. And then we do not leave out the adults because it is so important that we set those examples for the kiddos in our lives and our communities. So we ask that they read four books because we know those books are a little bit bigger. And this counts for ebooks, audiobooks, print books, comic books, anything counts.
It all counts.
The third of the way through one book, I don't think I'm all.
Right, you can do it. We will fantast.
Nothing worth mentioning if I read it.
It's for pure entertainment, and that's all that matters, because that's what we want to see people doing in the summer, is just continuing their learning to you know, have fun. And you know, this also is a big part of bridging that learning gap and that summer slide that we see a lot in our kiddos. When you're out of school those couple of months, you're busy focusing on other things, and it's great to take a break, but then that beginning of school year gets really tough again.
When you have to jump right back into the thing.
You lose quite a bit of time, a little bit.
Yes, So if we keep people reading, we keep people engaged, it's you know, really better for their outcomes as they start the next school year. So the best thing about This is that after you complete these programs, you can come in and you get a prize, which is really exciting. It's not something we've been able to offer in the past. We've only been able to offer some grand prizes, which
is still really great. But this year, everyone who completes the Summer Reading program will receive a prize which is a fun little tote bag that they can carry their library books in and within the tote bag there are going to be some coupons for all kinds of fun treats and experiences from some of our incredible.
Local businesses here in Barlosville.
That donating those.
So come and get a free ice cream cone, a free cookie, you know, all of those fun things as your reward for.
Doing all your summer reading.
And on top of all of just that piece of it, we have a bunch of programs all summer long to keep everyone engaged and to offer some of those indoor activities when it's super super hot outside and you don't want to run to the swimming pool, you don't want to get a sunburn, so you want to be inside. Today we have a storytelling event. Yes, we have storytelling events. The Tulsa Zoo is coming on June twentieth and bringing
some fun animals. Tomorrow actually we have our giant Bubble party that's going to be a Unity Square, so we will have.
The library bubbles.
We didn't want to do the bubbles inside.
I feel like we could have gotten in the library.
It would have been big. It could have been big. That's right.
It'll be perfect for our teens. And these are all different age levels. We have some baby programs for like story times and stuff. We have children's programs like the bubble parties, and then we have teen programs. One tomorrow we're making T shirts and they're going to do some fun TIEDI and design learn to some like sew and embroider and all.
Kinds of fun designs on their T shirts.
And then we have some adult programs too for book clubs and crafting classes.
And things like that as well.
All of this ends with a really fun grand finale pool party at Frontier Pool and will be on July twenty fifth, And we just encourage everyone to participate in these amazing, free, awesome programs and you can.
Find them all on our website. It's at the.
Library there you go four they'll be in city Beat as well.
They will be in City b and they'll Facebook page. They're all over the place.
Follow us on Facebook, sign up for city Beat.
That's right, all that good stuff.
Kelly doesn't miss anything, no sense there, she.
Doesn't, and if she does, Kelsey gets it. So one or the other, all right, thank you, Kylie. So Jason sales text doing. Tommy hasn't even told me yet, by the way.
So kids would say it's mid it's mid at best. So I think that's good by about a quarter percent.
So that equates about five thousand dollars over last year's collection, and.
As we had budgeted for a one percent decline, anything above that ahead, but that.
Is ahead of budget.
It is for the year we finished about half a percent over whi's about one hundred and thirteen hundred and fifteen thousand over last year's collection. But for the year, we finished, you know, one point almost one point seven percent over budgetary expectation, which is about three hundred and eighty thousand, So sitting pretty good. I mean, it's about where we thought we were going to be. Obviously, you know, you can't predict where it's going to be. Just try
to get close. And we got pretty close.
We'll take level over a decline any day.
Oh absolutely, and especially as we budget four declines just then.
But that's what happens.
So level, yeah, level or slight increases, you know, pretty good. So use tax. The only thing to say about US tax, it's highly volatile. They were going to get some history on this scene, may be able to trend it. No, well, it's if you look down through this. We've had this month in particular, was forty six percent up, which forty six per sounds like a lot.
One hundred and fifty seven thousand.
Yeah, but it is a lot.
Yeah.
Uh, you think forty six tent be a lot more than that. But we've had you know, minus twenty percent down this year, thirty percent up, twelve percent.
Down rock range that it can fit.
I said, you know, it's forty hundred and fifty seven thousand dollar over the previous previous month of June for the year was about four percent up over what we had received last year, which is about one hundred and eight thousand. Budgetarily, we're ten almost eleven percent. I had a budgetary anticipation which puts us over about four hundred ninety three thousand.
That's great.
Yeah, but like I said, highly ball and I don't know that you can predict this one as well. You know, it's got the component which is online sales tax, but has the component that's traditional use tax, and I think that's probably business tax probably where that volatility comes from.
That's the business side, correct, it is it is deploying equipment that they didn't pay sales tax exactly. Oh and by the way, then if they don't fully utilize it.
It has useful we use tax back. So that explains a lot of that volatile.
So I think you can't really can't.
I mean, it's one of the things, whatever the useful life for the asset you brought in town, we could over refund.
Back on it. Yeah and half and that's so yeah. All right, well, thank you, Jason. Sounds like the year when pretty well, well will we'll take it. So we mentioned this earlier. We got another Citizens Academy.
Yea, Laura, good morning.
So we offer a lot of services and programs to citizens, but one of my favorites that we offered last year was the Citizens Academy. So this was the first time that we had done it, and we took twenty citizens through our Academy, and we took them all over the city to show them how city government operations works on a daily basis. And so I think it was a hit with the people that we had in the program. I think we had all good, good things about it,
and so we're ready to do it again. And so we are going to start accepting applications in July and that that process will run through July thirty. First, the program will start in September, so September fourth and run through November thirteenth, and so we're excited to get that going. And as soon as we have the application ready in July, we'll start promoting that and pushing it out there. It'll be out on our website. And basically, applicants must be
eighteen years of age. They must be able to provide their own transportation to and from the Citizens Academy. They must be a resident of Bartlesville, a business owner in Bartlesville, or employed full time in Bartlesville. And then of course, the primary form of communication from city officials to the participants.
Must be by email, and so you'll have to have email to get going.
So those are the requirements, and we do ask that if you're accepted into the program that you attend to all of these sessions, so there's very little criteria for you to apply to and so we asked that if you're interested, to apply when the time comes.
They did.
It was a great cross section of our community last time. Yeah, I thought so too, But regardless of what people's prevailing opinions were, when they came in, everyone seemed to really enjoy it. And then we have a graduation for them and council meeting and so they're actually able to come up and be recognized in front of the council and in front of anybody who happens to be watching the
council meeting that day, and it really was. It's funny because you meet people in these processes that you don't that you hadn't seen before, and then you begin to see them constantly. And so I believe actually Rachel was one of them, and she's the executive director of Grand and now she's sitting on a committee. So don't listen to what I'm saying, but we are looking for volunteers and this is a great way to recruit.
I didn't say that, but that's the hope that people will be engaged he'll be inspired to maybe sit on some of our boards and committees and I think be more involved.
I think once they get to see what the city does and the difference that we make in people's lives, and people get really passionate about I'm very excited. So hopefully we'll collect continue to collect some good volunteers through the years.
And you know, I had somebody asked not too long ago.
They said, you know, I've been a part of I don't know if they were a vendor for the city or something, but they said, I have a pretty good understanding of how the city opts rates. Do you think that I would be you know, i'd learn something from this? And I said absolutely. I think even directors learned from other departments, and so there's always something to be learned by attending this.
So yes, I appreciate you heading that up and Jason helping you out on it. So you two are the coachairs, my co facilitator here. Yea, yeah, I remember i'd never been to the wastewater play. Oh yeah, yeah. First, and believe it or not, it's really cool to see it is. Don't get me wrong, it's gross, it's wastewater, but it's really cool to see.
Oh, you've been watching and listening to our City.
Batters program, the Tea Compassion Excellence stuff you in your home in Crematory, Bartlesville, No Water Barnstall
K w N, Bartlesville, Ky two twenty seventy Q Bartlesville, K two thirty six C T Pausco