Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome. It's time now for city matters right here on K one, the one you trust. Going a little early today, we have we have our city councilor Aaron Kirkpatrick here with is how you doing there, sir.
I'm doing great, tim and good morning Bartlesville.
It's good to be back with you again.
Bright sunshiny day. We got a bright sunshiny future. I guess we're looking at that a little bit here with the strategic Plan. I guess tell us a little bit about that.
Oh yeah, So tonight the Planning Commission meets at City Hall at five point thirty and one of the things that that we're going to be discussing is the long Term Strategic Plan. The City Council will approve that back in November, and then some people wanted to look it over and I guess, you know, suggest some changes and you know, see, I don't know. Basically, some people kind of I guess discovered it about that time and decided
they need to they wanted to look it over, revisit. Yeah, and so we got a it's been redlined by a small group of folks and sent out to the Planning Commission, and so tonight we'll be discussing, you know, the red lines that we're put into it.
Okay, so when we have a strategic plan, this takes a look at things like how the city may grow and how we're going to grow it, perhaps infrastructure needs down the line and things like that.
Yeah, it's really just a lot of guidelines, you know, possibilities. None of us can predict exactly how Bartlesville is going to grow, what it's going to look like in twenty years. But if you don't have a general target, then you're
absolutely not going to hit it right. And when it comes to city planning, when it comes to community organization, you want to make sure that you're not just doing it totally chaotically or sporadic, because that's that is a super easy way to become very inefficient, to waste a lot of money, to waste a lot of time, and to end up with unintended consequences. So a long term strategic plan just helps you say, generally, we want to move in this direction, and then you know, as things change,
of course, it can be adapted. So they're not laws, they're not ordinances. It is just a roadmap. For the future in very general ways.
Now, one of the things you ran on was the issue of homelessness, and now you're on the committee, correct, Yes.
So I have the honor of chairing the Unsheltered Homelessness Task Force. This is a six month action team whose goal it is to understand the homeless crisis that we're looking at and then to propose things that the city can do, that our organizations can do to help people get out of homelessness and hopefully into stable housing, stable economic situations, and improve their lives.
And well, something happened about three or four sundays ago. I'm at this kickoff for a fundraiser for a great cause, and I'm seeing a lot of people from the city council there, and I'm seeing, you know, a lot.
Nobody even brought it up.
As soon as that event was over, Facebook was flooded with We're gonna throw homeless people in jail?
What is that? That was wild.
So I was there with you, and I walked out of that that event, I sat down in my.
Car, pulled up you saw. Yeah.
I pulled up Facebook and I saw a post and it said the Bartlesville City Council is considering ordinances to fine homeless people five hundred dollars or more per day for being homeless.
And like, I'm on that team.
You know, I'm I'm was involved in helping put those ordinances together. I know all the people on that team, and I'm like, this is.
Not in there.
But by the time I saw it, it had been shared over fifty times already, which is about as locally viral as you can go, I mean, as crazy, and I mean the comments and you know, I'm I'm happy to engage people and you know, share information, help and it was way too late. So yeah, so that I mean, if that had been true, I'd have been upset too. And also if that had been true, it would have made the most expensive lodging in Bartlesville outside.
Yeah, that's crazy. So of course that's not real.
There are hotels that would love five hundred dollars.
Yeah, I got Airbnbs, I would love five hundred dollars, not like you can't.
You can't get that.
So and obviously, you know, finding homeless people out of homelessness, that's that is as insane.
As it sounds.
So let me tell you a little bit about this, about this team that we've got together. This team is led by local nonprofit leaders that work daily with our homeless neighbors. It is led by people who work in homeless shelters. The Arrow from the Lighthouse Keith and Christie from Be the Light are involved in it. It is staffed by mental health professionals. It is staffed by a police officer who deals with and interacts with our homeless
neighbors regularly. We have multiple formerly homeless people on our team, Like, this is a team that is steeped in compassion from the very beginning. So these when people read, you know, they saw the number five hundred dollars, you know, as a potential up to five hundred dollars a potential fine for certain violations, things like you can't camp in Sooner Park.
If you're camping in Sooner Park. Here's what actual happens.
The police interact with this person and give them at least forty eight hours to vacate, Okay, So it's not even like we're kicking you out right now. If you're camped in Center Park, like, you can't do that. It's unsafe for everybody. And they say you've got at least forty eight hours to get out of here. If that person refuses, then there's a process for cleaning up the trash because there's always a lot of trash.
In these encampments.
For what happens with our actual police force when they interact with these folks, as they say, do you have a place to go? Can we try to get you into a shelter? Do you need mental health help? They do all of these things. But that five hundred dollars number that people latched onto is actually very strategic. And what that does is that is the jurisdictional limit for
the municipal court. So what that means is if one of our homeless neighbors is, you know, in a situation, maybe they're having a mental health crisis, they can't comply, or they're not complying whatever, we don't want them going to a higher criminal court. We want them to be in our municipal court because our municipal judge already knows a lot of these people by name, and the the finds of the penalties are there, so that he has
leverage to incentivize them getting help. Because we see a lot of people who have a mental health crisis, they have a drug addiction, and so regularly what what are What Judge Gentist will do is he'll he'll tell these people, he'll say, listen, I'm gonna have to find you one hundred bucks. Or if you'll go to you know, one of our mental health facilities that Grand Lake, meet with your caseworker and then bring me back a note, I'll
wave the fee. And it's just it's a way to incentivize people getting the help that they need, because when you have somebody in a schizophrenic break or a psychotic break, they they are they can be so detached from reality that that if you don't give them a push in a helpful direction, they are they're on a path that is really destructive for themselves.
And the community around them. So it's a steering Mechadi. Yeah.
And and the goal from start to end with this thing is to treat individuals with dignity, to treat them with compassion, which is which is being able to empathize with what they're going through, but also then saying I want to help. The challenge is and where where you tend to start to find disagreement. And I think we saw some of this on that Facebook blow up, was
people feeling like, hey, you're not helping the individual. But we have to balance the needs of the individual, the health of the individual with the needs and the health of the community. It's fine for me to be a hoarder. I can hoard stuff in my house. I can fill my house with stuff, yes, But if I fill up my house with trash, it's not okay for me to start throwing my trash over the fence into your yard.
Right.
I can't externalize the negative consequences of my choices. Once you start doing that, the whole community structure begins to break down. That's not different for our homeless neighbors. So it's not that we don't want them to. If you want to live outside in a tent, I'm fine with that, assuming it's not in a place that's going to become dangerous for the people around you. Our city crews or
police officers sometimes are firefighters. They end up interacting with these folks when there's a fire in the woods or a homeless encampment that is sprawled and spread out, and they deal not just with trash. They deal with drug paraphernalia and needles. They deal sometimes with sharp objects and weapons. They also deal with like you know, five gallon buckets of human waste.
I mean, like it's really this stuff.
It's not like there's no consequence if this stuff just is allowed to spread. So we are balancing trying to help the individuals get help and get off the street while also making sure that the rest of our community is also protected. And that's a tricky balance. But the group that we have put together, this team is Man. I walked in the first meeting really not sure, Okay, what can we accomplish and how's this going to go?
And that group is phenomenal.
I've walked away every single time from those meetings feeling so filled up, like man, this group is getting it done, Like these are the right people having the right conversations, and we're making breakthroughs and coming up with ideas that have never.
Been shared before like this. So it's just really, really, really cool.
I'd encourage anybody to come to We meet on the second and fourth fridays of the month at eleven o'clock and we have a drop dead of no later than one, so it's two hours maximum, and we have new people there every time, watching the commonversations, and every time I talk to somebody.
Afterwards, they are encouraged by the progress or making.
One of the things I imagine is that everybody knew something, but not everyone knew everything, and putting those pieces of the puzzle together had to be, you know, a big moment.
Yeah, you know, I assumed that these organizations just always communicate.
Well, surely they must. Of course they don't. I mean, it's now that I know they don't. It makes perfect sense, right.
You know, I'm a pastor, you know, and I've got lots of other friends and connections in the community to do similar work. But you know, if we don't force ourselves to get together once a month, we're all working, you know, ministering to our churches. Well, the same thing is true for these helping organizations. They are nose to
the grindstone day in and day out, helping individuals. So what this team has been able to do is put these people around a table sharing information and resources and perspectives that have not been shared in this way, at
least to my knowledge. And I would say that pretty confidently because I've seen people around that table light up and they go, oh, like the data that I have and the data that you have, Like they didn't seem to line up and then somebody comes in with a third piece of data and all of a sudden, everything clicks and we go, oh, man, if that's like there's real potentially here. So for instance, and I'll use myself as an example of you know, I'm always learning, like
these people are the experts. I just get to facilitate, which is fun for me. Last week, as we were talking about okay, where we started looking at what resources does Bartlesville offer and where do we have gaps? You know, are their hindrances to getting to the resources, for instance, And so we kind of came up with, like with five just right off the bat that we're big, But the one that was at the top of the list
was transportation. Our homeless neighbors spend a lot of time walking from place to place, waste their entire day just trying to get from one resource to another, because even though most of them are on the west side of town, they're still spread out.
And we have you know, great resources like.
City Ride, but we're finding that that it doesn't always match up to the to the.
Movement patterns that people need.
So one of the things we're looking at right now we're explore or is there a way and we're learning, like this is research still ongoing. Is there a way to streamline the ability for people to use public transportation to get from place to place so they can meet the needs, so that our resources can meet the needs they have, and that maybe through a public entity, you know, something like city right, or it may be through volunteer organizations or churches with veh because we don't.
Know, Like it's just once you get, once you see the need. I have this a hot on.
Wait, I'm here and everybody say, like, transportation is really a challenge, and like the entire room with yeah, I'm learning. I didn't know that because I had not been sitting around a table like this with people who are working with these folks and go, this is a need.
So now we're looking at that need. I don't know what will come of it, but it's.
The right people having the right conversations, making progress hopefully on the right issues.
All Right, Folks want to get a hold of you, ask you a question or maybe offer some advice. How can they do that?
Let's see.
You can always email me at Aarin Forward four at gmail dot com. I've got a website Aaron for Ward four dot com My Facebook is Aaron for Ward four as well, and then of course you know my phone numbers on the city website or actually tonight at seven o'clock I will be out at Oak Park, the Methodist Church out there doing a town hall.
Anybody who'd like to come participate. Love to have you.
There, all right, see you then, take care, folks. You've been watching and listening to our community connection.