I think good morning, Welcome, welcome, welcome. It's time now for city matters are part of our community connections right here on K one, the one we trusted. We've got Larry East from Ward two City councilor here in Bartlesville. What now for you, Larry?
Yes, definitely, you know, I do appreciate that our reservoirs are staying full right now, so we're not having so much issue with water supply as much as just trying to get it dispersed a little bit.
So I wouldn't mind a little break.
Oh, I think we're getting it. I think we're going to go right from you know, monsoon to.
Ninety Yes, I think it's it looks like it's on its way here.
We'll turning that corner towards summer.
Welcome to Oklahoma. As I tell everybody that you get, you can get all four seasons to one day. We've got a lot of new ordinances that came about here in the last couple of city council meetings. The one, uh that I think a lot of people were familiar with is the new one on homelessness, And can you tell us a little bit about how that went? Because you heard from a lot of people.
Yes, yes, we definitely did.
I'm grateful just to be able to come and sit in on the meetings that they have a couple times a month, and actually that it's gonna revert to only once a month as we kind of extended the term of the the committee. It was supposed to only be a six month committee, but it's gonna extend for at least another six months.
But we'll just.
Probably go to once a month meetings and we're going to try to also communicate about these ordinances, which actually won't take effect until January first. So and you know, really I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but I just kind of wanted to reiterate some things because I know people still have questions, still.
Rumors going around.
Had had a gentleman just this week asking me about it again and about the five hundred dollars fine thing, and so I just wanted to touch on that again. I mean, as far as the well, we'll go straight to that five hundred dollars fine dell uh.
And And also, this ordinances is not specific to homelessness.
Although it's a lot of activities that are often associated with homelessness. Uh it's really just about acts prohibited in public spaces and also aggressive solicitation. Uh so those were a couple of items specifically addressed.
I'm glad I've lived in the cities where they allowed aggressive panhandling in my gosh, fear for your life half the.
Time, Yes, it doesn't doesn't feel safe for for citizens at that time, and and so, uh so it it defines some more around that, just really tries to clarify some things and make sure that we don't have uh well, specifically you know, camping out in in the public parks or public bathrooms. There's been yeah, well there's been a lot of you know, vandalism of of all of our
public park bathrooms and that sort of thing. So they've, in fact, recently even I think, put out a reward that would lead to you know, catching people who are actually doing the vandalism because they've had so many thousand dollars worth of damage, thousands of dollars worth of damage
to our public bathrooms. And so this really just clarifies, codifies everything that as far as the penalties or potential penalties around that, and really the intent is to work with the individuals who might be doing that.
Maybe they didn't know they.
Weren't supposed to camp right there or whatever. So you know, giving them if it's not specifically in a public bathroom or other space that would make it unsafe for others, they're going to post something there that gives them at least forty eight hours.
To get things cleaned up.
And so this is really hopeful to encourage voluntary compliance and uh and also that will help too. I know people who've had you know, local businesses or otherwise in this area that you know, they come out and somebody's been camping out there, and you know, they might report it and and the police would come and say, hey, you can't camp here. Well then they would just leave everything there and a huge mess for the business owner to clean up.
And so that's right.
So so they clean up all that, and then uh, you know, they come back on Monday and there it is again. Uh, and so it's uh, it's really been a hassle. There're so we're hoping to help encourage that voluntary compliance and and them.
Just cleaning up.
Really just holding people accountable, as we would expect to do with any of our neighbors, right.
Yeah, indeed, the law has to be equally applied to all.
That's right.
I mean, that's all this is saying, and it's bringing special attention to things that have maybe going through the cracks. So yes, I think it's a good spotlight to kind of let everyone know that we all have to live here.
That's right, we do. And again, as far as that five hundred dollars fine, that's never an intent to ever get to that point really levying fines at all if we can avoid it. And Judge Gentis says he serves on this committee with us, and he's talked about that. I mean he wants to work with him to help them and and really that's that's the idea, is to try to give people more of a hand up and not a handout so much and so.
Kind of carrot and stick right there.
You know, it is a little bit I understand.
He said, don't give me a minimum because then we'd have to give me a maximum so that we can work toward compliance.
That's right.
And the five hundred dollars helps keep it here in municipal court with him and not going over that misdemeanor.
So no, yeah, you keep it local and we'll take care of our own. Pretty darn good. Pretty darn good. Sounds like a lot of work.
Yes, it's been. I've really been very impressed with the committee.
Uh. Just a great team of people, you know. I I'm only on there. I'm not even a voting member on the committee. Mister Kirkpatrick, who is heading that up is but and he's just he's done.
A great job. Everybody on there is doing a great job.
And they're all from uh these various charitable organizations around town that work with these people every day, as well as uh, you know, representation from our police department. Uh and of course judge gentists.
Uh and uh. I won't get all the names.
I shouldn't even start naming names because I won't get them all out there.
But but there's a ton of folks, a ton of.
Folks, great team working together, lots of experience and just been really is this whole city council gig has been a very educational every day.
No, we've had some storms right now we're just getting with calls of passing shower. But we had that one that just knocked the limbs off trees and everything else. About three saturdays to go through four saturdays ago. How's the storm clean up coming along?
Yeah, I think it's coming along real well.
And I just wanted to give a shout out to the city for the crews that have been out there working and taking care of all of that, and and especially also just asking people to be understanding when we have these kinds of storms come through.
I know a lot of people will say, well.
Man, they you know, they cleared this road or they cleared this path, but they left all the brush land at the side of the road. Well, you know, they're just trying to take care of the urgent needs immediate, like let's let's get these paths and roads cleared and get stuff off the power line. Well, actually the power line stuff would be would fall to that's right, They're going to be taking care of that stuff as well.
And that's the other thing I think sometimes there's a little confusion around some of that and who's responsible for what. And generally, as far as taking care of tree damage, if you have a tree that's that falls, that's on your property, even in the right of way that would be on your property up to the curb, that's really your responsibility. A lot of times the city will come through, they'll at least, you know, clear that path off the road.
But there if there is anything that is their responsibility to clean up, they're probably going to come back later after they've gotten all these urgent matters taken care of and whenever they can fit that into their schedule.
So work big and then go down to the small.
That's right.
Yeah, I understand that you're always looking for people to work on committees and in boards because we got a lot of them, because we love citizen input.
That's right, we do. Uh, there's a lot of them out there.
There's enough really that you know, each of the five council members serves on four or five or more of those boards and committees, whether it be voting or just advisory capacity. But but we're out there, so you know, that would put us at having what you know, at least twenty five or so boards of committees, and you can see all those on our city website out there, and right now there's there's a few openings we've got.
We've got one on the Street and Traffic Committee. Now you know, you hear the names of some of these and you might say, well, that's you know, going to be obvious what that's about, right, you know, Okay, streets and traffic and but you.
Know, what do they really do?
I mean, they're generally most of these are advisory boards that are going to be oftentimes giving advice either to the organization they're representing or in this case like street and traffic, it's going to be coming back to the City Council eventually if there's any significant movement or or.
I get the feeling there is there is always going to be.
That could be. Yeah.
So so you know, they're they're going to recommend to the city Council plans and programs from improving the streets and traffic issues that are faced out there. Uh, there's a there's a couple of openings on the White Rose Cemetery Board and they're an advisory capacity to the city in connection with the preservation, beautification and everything of the cemetery out there and making sure that it's taken care of.
There's there's one opening on the Bartlesville History Museum Trust Authority. Now, you know, I would always hear these before, these these trust authorities, and I would think, well, what is that really? You know, well, they're generally having to do with a trust a fund that's been set up at some point to help, Yes, and they're going to help oversee plan, finance,
develop and maintain in this case, the Bartlesville Area History Museum. Uh. And there's also one opening on the Bartlesville Library Trust Authority, which is there's a library endowment fund. I didn't realize that existed until I found out I was on that board as well, and so it's kind of neat to see them trying to manage that. And some might also say, well, wow, if they have this fund out there, this trust or whatever, why do they need city funds?
Right?
Well, they the city funds that are provided aren't enough to fund everything that.
Needs to be done operationally, that's right.
And so uh, these are trusts that that people have set up in the past and those have to be managed invested in everything.
Well, so yeah, we can find out about that at the city at Bartlesfield dot org.
Right, that's right.
And you can read about each one of those boards and committees if there's a little link there just to click on each one of them and you can drill in and find out the details about each one.
So very east, thank you for being with us today, and thank you for all your information,