CITY MATTERS

It is a time now for our city matters right here on K one, the one he trust. If it happens in the city, it matters to us. It should matter to you too. How are you doing there, mister be In a long time, No almost forgot what you look like. It's it has been a little while. I was enjoying some time off, yea, And so since I have no idea what's going on, I've brought pretty much all the city staff with me. Everybody but Waterboy. That's it,

and he's on vacation. So everybody that's everybody's working his ear. We're not doing anything other than this. You're our number one priority. Good so well, unfortunately Waterboys not here, But I don't have any better news than he normally did. So what we got cooking here with the city here on our city matters well? Well, thought we would start out with a quick update on the water supply, which is not unfortunately, not a whole lot

better than it has been. So quick up date on lake levels. Heula is forty seven percent, copan is fifty two percent. So that is about where these two have been hovering. They've been up and down around that a little bit. For the last. I'm gonna say four weeks. I wanted to take a moment because we've had a lot of small rainfalls, and so people tend to think that that is sufficient to fill the lakes, or they don't understand why we're still on these restrictions or why there isn't water getting in

the lake. Well, and I don't have I do. We actually do have video here, so we could show it, but that would only be for the people who were watched on Facebook. But for everybody who's listening, just a quick rundown of what's happening in southeast Kansas and northeast Oklahoma. So have no doubt we are absolutely in a drought. Just because we've had some little rainfalls that seem to break that and it kept things green, that doesn't

mean that we're not in a drought. It takes significant rainfall to actually produce runoff to get into the lakes. And so both Southeast Kansas and our area Bartlesville, we normally get about forty inches of rain a year. Where are we Well, over the last three hundred and sixty five days here, we have had about twenty three inches of rain. Oh, that's significantly lesson what we used to. Yeah, so there we're down seventeen inches, which is

almost half, and Southeast Kansas is even worse. And of course that's where the actual that's where the actual drainage basin is for the two lakes in Southeast Kansas. You were showing me the pictures, which folks really can't see here on the cameras, right, but it looked like the black hole of cow Cut. It did right. Everything it was red and it also black right there though unfortunately, right where we need it to be green, it's red.

So Southeast Kansas is down about twenty three inches over the last twelve months. And again they only get forty inches of rain of year, so they've had less than half of what they normally would. So that's what's led to the water shortage in the lakes. We know that it'll rain again and the

lakes will fill up. But what we are attempting to do. If anybody is hasn't, it doesn't understand what we've been trying to do with our restrictions is we're trying to extend that and save that supply for as long as possible. We do not plan to run out of water. I know that that is that's that's the question now, is what happens when we run out. Well, we're not going to run out one way or the other. We're not going to run out. But in order to buy time so that you

can develop plans in these emergencies, that's why you use restrictions. So the restrictions are not intended as a punishment for anyone. The restrictions are intended to reduce the amount of water that we're using so that we can preserve the amount of water that's in the lake. And that's really where we are right now. So we are developing contingency plans and there we've got several of them that

are that are in the works. None of them are far enough along for us to talk about publicly, because as soon as we talk about something and then it falls apart from that, everybody wondered why we didn't do it. So, but we've got several things in the work. We've done this before. You're right, you're right. So, but we do have several things in the works. We're not going to run out of water, it's' that's not in the cards. Bartlesville, Oklahoma is not going to run out of

water. However, we need time to develop a contingency plan to ensure that we don't and so these restrictions are here to stay until we get enough water to lift them. I've had a couple of questions about the swimming pools. I would love to open them, and I understand that that is that sucks.

That sucks for the kids in Bartlesville and for the people that use our swimming pools, But it doesn't suck quite as much as us actually running out of water, and so that not filling the pool is just part of this strategy to extend the water as long as possible. So the next major threshold is once we dip below fifty percent. Good news is is we haven't gotten down there. We've been up in that fifty eight to sixty percent for the

last four weeks. We hope that continues because at fifty percent and the council will have to consider additional restrictions to preserve what water supply we have left. So but again, I don't want anybody getting scared and thinking they got to move out of Bartlesville. We're not gonna rune out of water. One way or another. We will provide water to the citizens of Bartlesville, I assure

you, I don't. We don't know exactly what that will look like, but there are there are a lot of ideas and a lot of plans that we're developing right now. So we'll we'll want everybody to be confident that, yes, we'll be fine. But at the same time, that does not mean that you can go back to using as much water as you did last year. No. Part of part of being fine is all of us doing

our part. So I just want to encourage everybody and thank them for the for the for curbing their use as much as they have, and to hopefully that they will continue that bear with us. We don't control the weather. I think the Chamber does, but apparently they haven't been much help for us. So and call Sherry. Well it should be on Wednesday. I'll ask, Okay, you call Sherry. That's what's going on with the weather. I don't have anything to Larry Glass seems to think we do it. We

do not, I promise you. So and a couple of announcements here while we well, we've got everybody listening for businesses who have a business license with the City of Bartlesville, or who need to get a business license with the City of Bartlesville. There you go. Tom May has one. Let's right you and you have your own. You're a business owner. So for business licenses, those all expire on June thirty, and so you will need to

renew those. Renewal notices will go out, I believe, Larry, we still do those electronically, so people should not expect to get invoices or anything in the mail. We will send renewal notices electronically. However, if you don't get one, you still need to renew your business life. Sure, they expire on June thirtieth, and you renew in July. So we'll look forward to getting that started. It is. It is busy time in July

when all of those come due. Also, speaking of July, this is let's see next week will be Independence Day on the fourth of July horse which is Tuesday. So the city all of our offices and operations are open on the third as an however, on the fourth we will be closed. And so if you normally would put your trash out on the fourth, your day will actually be the fifth, so it'll be the day after. So that's the good news, is is I always hate it when the holidays fall on

a Thursday or a Friday, because your trash day came earlier. It's one thing. It's a lot easier when it comes later. So, and we have one road closure to announce, and this is twentieth Street between Johnstone Avenue and Dewey Avenue. It will be closed June twenty sixth, today the thirtieth, which would be today, And Mica, are we still still on for

this? Okay? So we will. We'll have that closed down. This is our guys doing the work, and so it'll be closed and detours will be in place, and it will be closed from seven thirty am to four o'clock pm each day until the repairs are made. So hopefully they'll be done by the thirtieth. If not, we'll keep the detours in place until we can get that rafft up. You know. And we I knew that brood even existed was when I was covering the fires out there, trick them out

and found it. Uh, they told me, get going gone, get gone, go ahead, get gone gone. Yeah, I taught you, and I had a similar experience. I also drove out that way and I was kind of told going get yeah, Yes, sir A while ago, I don't believe I'm helping here, So all right, So that's that's pretty much all the announcements we had. As I said, I've been out of town, so we've got a crew full of folk here to to to actually handle the news and what's going on around here. But two of them are

actually new to their current positions, I say new. I haven't had a chance to introduce them on the radio yet. I promised them I would make up really cool stories about them, and it turns out I didn't. I'm gonna disappoint everybody. I don't have any cool stories because frankly, they're both cool enough. So but the first one we have Troy, and Troy has been with Parson Police Department year seventeen years, and Troy is our newest deputy

chief. And you actually were promoted to that position after our new chief was promoted, so we Tracy Rowells was promoted to assistant city manager, Kevin Eackleberry, who was a deputy chief, was promoted to chief, and now Troy has been promoted phil Kevin Aiackleberry's old position at deputy chief. So welcome, congratulations, Troy. I've known you for a long time, think a lot of you. Yeah, I think you are. Your appointment that was a

great one. I look forward to to seeing your the rest of your career at the City of Bartlesviol, which is gonna be long. Right, you know I'm not going anywhere. Okay, you heard it? You record this, right? I did? Okay, Okay, it was actually hurt on the radio. We could play it back, so we've got him on a record. So well, Troy, thank you for joining us, and again, congratulations on your new appointment. You were you were captain before this,

so it was just it was just one step up. But seventeen years and you're now the deputy chief of the bart City of Barstool Police Department. It's quite accomplishment. So absolutely, congratulations, Thank you. I'm thankful for the opportunity. I also just want to say thank you to Chief Roles for how he moved us forward, and he sure did, and it put us in

a great position. We hated to lose him, but I think moving forward we're in a great position to be where we need to be and I look forward to serving under Chief Bickleberry. Yep, and Tracy, you didn't lose him, You just got to share him, right, we spread him a little thing, or now it's he's got the fire department, so we've we've kind of spread him around. But anyway, so well, congratulations, and I'm glad you where you are, and I'm glad you're sitting right here so

you can talk about a couple of things. So one of the things we were going to talk a little bit about was the union agreement. And I know that Kevin Eickleberry was actually going to be here, so you might not be as familiar with with the agreement as he was going to be. But we just came to an agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police that represents our

local policeman and it's it was a good agreement. It's actually for two years, and we like two year agreements because negotiations are they could be difficult at times, so this was a good agreement. One of the things that we did and is always our goal, is to ensure that we pay our officers or firefighters, or our street workers or our office workers. We try to pay them a competitive wage, which of course means something different in every position.

For the police department, a competitive wage means that we try to pay you all in accordance with our peers. And so we establish our peers by looking at five larger cities, five smaller cities, averaging that out and then trying to make sure that we pay you in the average of that. And

we were able to accomplish that with this contract. It required a little bit of work to get there, and I think the most of the I think most of the ranks received about a twelve percent twelve percent pay increase with some of them, I think the captain did they receive six percents of what that was? Yes, so, yeah, so we some pretty significant pay increases. But it puts us in a great position where we can continue to recruit and retain the best and we want to be one of the best departments.

We've got. We got to hire some of the best officers, so I feel like we do a good job of that. Was there anything else in the contract that was noteworthy that you can think of? Not right off any and I think it was a great contract. Contracts probably the best one I've

seen since I've been here. I thought it was a really great one in everything the city offered, and it was it was kind of interesting because most of what was in the contract that we did was frankly, it was almost agreed upon when we came to the table, and so that really helped things. I know that Tracy and Kevin worked closely with union management and were able to establish there were a lot of changes that were made to the contract.

There were some changes made that actually were suggested by the FOP as far as our fitness standards and rewarding people for fitness standards, but establishing them and requiring them. So I think that was that was important for looking forward at what you want to be is a department and trying to ensure the health and longevity of our officers. But yeah, there was there, There were a lot of little things and it was Frankly, it was an easy negotiation, and

I was grateful to the FOP for the way that they handle it. And I'm glad that we have glad that we have the agreement that we have. So now now we just have one more and we're close, I believe with with fire department as well. So we're we're looking to close these out for the next year. But we I specifically brought you on because of course we have fourth of July coming next Tuesday or a week from tomorrow. So, uh, the fireworks laws. I know not everybody abides by the fireworks laws,

but Detroy, what what are our fireworks? Neighbor got shot firework? That this game you play every now? It is so even though that fireworks are legal in the state of Oklahoma, they're prohibited in the in the Bardsville city limits. And if if you violate that, then you could be so object to a citation, which is about two hundred dollars, so they can be issued to you. And so usually we try to first talk to people and give them a warning if that is the necessary or the way that we

need to go. But you could be fine for that if you violate that, and generally speaking, it would be generated by a complaint by the neighbors or perhaps damage or something of that nature. So people need to be aware that it's just because there are other people doing it, it doesn't make it

legal, and you could still suffer consequences if you do it correct. And some of the novelty items like your sparklers, your snakes, you know, smoke balls, some things like that or are still legal to have in here. Just be courteous of your fellow citizen. Dispose of them properly and pick up your trash. Yep. So that's we'll find out exactly how affected the speech was. We've given it previous years, I think I know, but

nothing worth stepping on a US sparkler. Wow, that's still high. Yeah, they stayed hot for a while, all right, Troy, Well, I appreciate anything else you want to let everybody know about the laws. We've also got Brady here who's going to talk about firework safety specifically, so I think i'll let him have it. All right. Well, for the second of my introductions today, we have Brady Watson here with us, and Brady is the uh is the fire marshal for the city of Bartlesville. And Brady,

how long you've been fire marshal? A little over a year now, over a year now, so still finding your way into that position? Absolutely? Yes, correct. It was a new position that was created a little over a year ago, and it was prior to that the deputy chief was the fire marshal and the deputy chief right, yes, So it was it was a little much for one person, so we split that into two and and Brady, how long have you been at the fire seventeen? Years.

That's the magic number. Well, Brady, you you're also I don't know if you still are. But we established an honor guard, correct, yes, and I am the commander of the Honor Guard, Craik. Yes, I knew that you were prior to and I suspected you first. Yep. You actually helped to build that and to establish it, and we started that in twenty seventeen. Yes, correct, And I don't I don't. I don't believe we'd had one at firepart. No, we have not, I

know. Yes, So that was that was quite an accomplishment and we appreciate that. Thank you all are able to do to provide services for for a lot of people who weren't able to get it before. So thank you appreciate that. And you guys look pretty dart and sharp, and they looked pretty good. That's a long walk, isn't it is? Yes? It is? Yeah, The parades are a long walk, that's right. Yeah,

but I bet the coats are more appreciated at Christmas than that. And absolutely, yes, yes, absolutely, that stopped for water breaks and that this time. Yea. So well, Troy talked a little bit about the firework laws and so but let's talk just a little bit about firework safety. Okay, today I'm gonna talk about fire safety. You brought a couple of notes with me here. What we're gonna talk about is, first and foremost, alcohol and fireworks do not mix. You need a designated shooter, somebody who

is not going to partake an alcohol. First and foremost, we want to put that out of That's where a lot of accidents happens. If you are going to go outside the sibling on it's to shoot fireworks. We ask for a good, clean, flat surface, something that won't catch fire very easily. We want you to have a garden hose, a fire extinguisher, something available to snuff out any little small pop up fires or mishaps. We talked

about sprinklers sparklers earlier. Those burn at two thousand degrees. Oh, they hold heat for a long time. You know, we think they're kid friendly, but they may not be. So if you do have those fire, kids, exactly, put those in a bucket of water, let them cool off, disclose them correctly. A lot of times trash can fires can spark from that, so make sure you extinguish them, DAWs them in water. When you do fireworks do one at a time. Do not put your body

over the top of the device. Light it and get back. Space and area is going to be your biggest safety value there. Get back, get away, keep family away, keep young kids away, keep pets, the dogs, especially away from that um. Do not try to manufacture your own Sometimes people them beyond I have a manufacturer that's going bad. I've seen that. Yes, yes, we all handed back right right, We asked that you do not do that. The other thing is bottle rockets. They said

to look at Michael on that one. Do not shoot bottle rockets o each other. They will put an eye out. You can't lose fingers, So be safe with all those points, right, No, please please now listen, listen, listen to the expert. But we do have two shows going on July first at Dunga Stadium around nine thirty they're gonna shoot them off. And then on July fourth, by Sooner part Freedom Fest, they're gonna shoot them off too. We recommend you go watch those professionally done. They're gonna

be a great show. So we highly recommend you go watch those. When you say design need a shooter, that doesn't mean hey, hold my beer, right no, no, please, don't not that guy that when you're drunk past the punk. Yes, I don't think you step out of it, was ad hear me. No, I don't know whether that good or not. Keim got any slogan for for fourth July. If you're drunk past the punk, don't stick somebody with the punk as well? All right,

Well, thank you, Brady. I appreciate that. Speaking from experience, I think I have literally experienced every one of those errors at some point, every one of them, I think every one of them. Yes, there were there were memories flashing as he was talking. So yes, and we kid and fireworks are a great time and I have always enjoyed putting on fireworks shows and since I was a kid, and I Brady is entirely correct. They are extremely dangerous. And the older I have gotten, the more I

have realized because act like how dangerous they were. And so now I actually do most of the things that he said, or I don't. I don't do most of the things that he said not to do. There we go take most, most, most sometimes. But thank you, Brady, I appreciate that. Thank you. All right, and with us we have Larry Curtis who actually normally is the newest person in the booth. Now look at him. Have you been here seventeen munch yet he's seen He's been in his

position longer than almost to anybody in this room. Now, time's changed fast, don't they. Larry, Yeah, but I still introduced myself as the new LEAs. Yeah that way everyone. Oh yeah, I could go both ways, by the way, I have discovered that as well. So Larry is our community Development director, and he's gonna give us a quick update on sidewalks, quick quick. He's gonna give us an update on starving guns. And Michael would be Michael would be perfectly content to sit there and not have

to say anything. But you've already, you already kind of did the mic drop with the past the punk very very quick on its feed. So yeah. Council a couple of months ago allowed for a temporary moratorium on ordinance that was passed last year, Ordinance number three five five five, which was a new ordinance that went in place for sidewalks and putting new ones in um So. It specifically stated that for any new development that would be happening on in

the city is that sidewalks would have to be installed. It also incorporated anytime that there was a change of land like love splits, loot combinations, h lot transfers, things like that that would require new sidewalks to go in. And so taking a quick glance of what was going on with that, I know there was some concerns with some citizens and things along those lines that we

were wanting to have a more in depth analyzation of that. And so the ordinance also said that the Community Development Director, at his all knowing behess could waive those requirements. And I was like, oh, yeah, put that pressure on me. Yeah, that's where it all came down to, really, like I didn't want it. Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly exactly because do guy, Yeah, I can be their best friend that yeah. Anyway, so looking at all, so council allowed us, but that moratoriument plays

to do more in depth analysis and potentially updates to that ordinance. And so staff has discovered, with the help of Mica and his team, that we have about one hundred and forty miles of sidewalks within the City of Bartlesville. But it is, it really is. But unfortunately, the average age is about fifty eight years old. We've got a lot of them that are in for repair. We do, we do. But the other thing is that about only half the city of sidewalks, so and that can be by design

or development. You know, back in the nineteen fifties, sixties, you know my subdivision, we don't how many sidewalks in it, because that was the trend at the time, and so you know, the city's had big booms and with that, there were some sidewalks that were put in, some sidewalks up or not. But I think the biggest thing that a lot of citizens see within our community are those missing sidewalks, aka the orphan sidewalks or

sidewalks to nowhere. And so a lot of people are like, why is this out in the middle of nowhere exactly exactly, And so you know, the curtain ordinance kind of pushes that and as you know, with the expectation that eventually other things will connect. But you know, staff has been really looking at this as an opportunity for us to kind of reach out and find

out more information and see what our citizens really think about that. And so we're going to be looking to come up with a new game plan, but first and foremost with our citizens inputs. So it'll be a survey that'll be going out hopefully within the next month, that'll go out digitally to everybody. You know, we'll give k one. We'll really push it out so that

way we get some good responses back. But the goal is to you know, get new game plan in place, help really analyze the sidewalks to nowhere, see what we can review and our access points so that way where we have higher traffic along our materials, we could be focusing on ada accessibility look at you know, like I said, public engagement, but more importantly has

to come up with a maintenance plan. You know, we the state law currently stays and so it was our ordinance that when you a butt a sidewalk, you the property owner, are responsible for the maintenance of that. But we want to come up with a game plan to where we can work to you know, hopefully update those fifty eight year old average sidewalks. Some of them are one hundred and four just letting you know some of them are completely under dirt at that too, that too, exactly, So we want to

make sure that we get a good game game plan in place. And so now that we're past kind of data analysis move mode, like I said, we're going to be pushing that public input portion and you really get some insight from the public on what their thoughts will be. This does not include our trails, by the way, so that one hundred and forty miles is not include the fantastic pathfinders. So anyways, that's kind of what we're going on there. I will do one more plug if I can go right ahead.

Please control the grass population. Please have your ones clean and trimmed. We need it more than ever. It's that time of the year again for your property up to snuff well, and it's it can be a safety issue as well. We've been talking about fireworks and so if you have tall, dry grass and weeds or trash in your yard at this time of year in particular, could be at risk. Yeah, exactly. I've seen a few places where it looks like they're ready for the helicopter to land in order to cut

the grass. It doesn't work that way. There's there's a couple of them, unfortunately, and of course the city does go out and debate some of those, and we're probably the most expensive lawn service in town. We are. We do file that lead against your property. There's better ways to do it, I promise. Yeah. Now I will say the new policy is

in place that we enacted. You know, we pushed down on a city beat about how um you know, instead of waiting for the grass to grow six feet tall, you know, we're notifying everyone ten days that they can that they need to take care of their property or we'll be out to take care of it for them. So well, and it's it is unfortunate. And there are people who are in circumstances where they can't mow their yard.

And so I would also ask that if your neighbor, if you know that they may have some limitations, rather than calling us, perhaps call them. Yeah, So start neighbor, Start be neighborly, try to help your neighbors out. I had an elderly neighbor that I mowed his grass for years and he was he was very grateful. I thought my son that when we shovel our driveway, we also shovel some of the neighbors. So I, you

know, I hope that people will do that. But yes, if you have a neighbor that is just determined not to mow the grass, and they're perfectly capable, and we will address it. Yeah, and as always, you know, we do realize that those situations are out there, so we encourage those people that may get that notice but may not be able to physically handle it, please let us know we can. We can try to connect

them with a nonprofit that may be able to assist them. So we'll be glad to have help and try to resolve it one way or the other. Exactly prefer that to resolve it amicably. Always amicably, believe it or not, cities would much rather do things amicably. Yeah, so, hey, look, two minutes to go. Two minutes. That's it. Two minutes. What's the biggest I didn't have much to say that this is a good

thing. Now you gotta loop back in. I'm filling in for water Boy, but I'm not talking about Now. We got the Civitan Park shelter. I think that's number two on everybody's concerns, Civitan Park. So we did get a contract awarded to lead construction last Friday and a special city council meeting at three third, four o'clock, four o'clock, and we got that done. And so they essentially have committed to trying to have that structure down taken

down. Removed UM by the fourteenth of July, so that gives them a couple of weeks to get their ducks in a row and get that done. UM. Once we get that taken down, we will start addressing the footings. UM. So the ideas we can remove that structure get the park open back up those because right now it's currently closed down. So so we'll get that removed and we'll get the park open back up. We'll do some work on the footings. It'll either be with city staff or we'll contract that workout

as well. Essentially, we're going to extend the footings up, get them level, UM, get the reinforcings and get the reinforcing and the bolts right. Yeah, address the installation errors and then UH Lead Construction is also on contract then to reinstall the structure. So that was the basis of the contract. We awarded them that contract for seventy six hundred dollars seven thousand and six

hundred dollars and UH local contract with where they do good work. We're looking forward to it then UH and want to get that park open back up and so kids can can use it. To get it open as soon as we can. That is the fact it'll probably be without a shade structure for most if not all. It's it should be, Yeah, it should be. So I'm not sure how quick we can get the footings turned around on that.

But there's also some repairs that have to be made to the structure itself true while it's on the ground, and makes some fairs the structure as well, so there'll be there'll be more to do, but we look forward to at least getting the park back open. It's most popular one it is, Yeah, and it's eighty a accessiful that is our one that was a truly designed to accessiful park. So it'll get done. You get to have that open, back it up, So thank you, Mica, I appreciate that.

And Tom thanks for usness as always. All right, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, you've been listening and watching City Matters right here on K one the one you tried stay tuned. CBS News comes your way next. Thanks for listening to one on one with a professional. A paid presentation in fourteen hundred K one Dignity Compassion Excellence Stuff Funeral Home in Crematory, Bartlesville, Nowada, Barnstall, ky Wn Bartlesville K two twenty seventy Q Bartlesville KY two thirty six ct POSCA