Ay one, the one you trust.
Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It's ten o six and the time now for community connection right here on K one. The one you trust, Amazon or the mayor, Mayor Dale Copeland is in with us today and a good morning to you, sir.
Good morning Tom. It's a beautiful day.
It certainly is.
We've got a nice little forum coming up, and we're going to be seeing you and hearing you tomorrow night at the forum at of course, at our best bank over there on the East Side location. But we got you here today and I want to talk a little bit about being a city councilor as well as being a mayor.
You have Ward one. Tell us all about that.
Yeah, word one. We moved things.
If you recall a few years ago when they did the redistricting. Every time there's a census that's done to keep things balanced.
Word one.
At this time, if you live east of Highway seventy five Washington Boulevard and over to Madison, west of Madison east of Highway seventy five and then north of No Water Road or Highway sixty all the way up to Nebraska, there's a little bit of a jog over and down on the northeast corner down to Ohio over by Wilson School. But basically that area from Madison to Highway seventy five and then from No Water Road up to Nebraska constitutes Ward one.
Oh very good. Now you've been around a little bit a.
Couple of years.
Yeah, yeah, the Golly we moved to Bartlesville. I was actually started started growing up, finished growing up here, but started growing up in Houston and moved up here like a lot of kids in that day and time. My parents, my grandparents worked for Phillips. My wife's parents worked for Phillips or her dad, and we came to Bartlesville and been here ever since. And Golly, I went to Bartlesville schools.
My wife Donna did. That was more than fifty three years ago, because we just had our fifty third anniversary. But both of our sons went to Golly the same deal I did. Went to Ranch Heights, went to Madison. Then two of our grandsons, in fact, one of our sons. We've been fortunate with public service. Tom I have not only had an opportunity to work with the city, but worked with scouting. I had a lot of opportunities there, and of course with my church, but one of our
sons is in law enforcement. One of the grandsons just last year is one of the school teachers here in town.
So we enjoy this community.
Very, very good, a lot of local engagement. Like you say, there, city council manages policy and oversees a ballast.
Budget and finance.
That's a lot of day to day functioning going on there of people.
A lot of times I think we get caught up in a single issue because it's very important to us. It might be our street, it might be something that's happening or not happening in the community that people want to see changed, and that's important. But in the city council, we look at a budget covers a lot of things, everything from streets to parks. You've got we have a cemetery. The community center is actually a subset, but ultimately the city council has oversight of that and water, police, fire,
all of the things that make a city work. And I've told when I work with young kids talking to him about government, a lot of times all they know is what they see on TV, which is a bad place to get your information about government because they dramatize. You want boring government that just works. You want hopefully we're never gonna get there, but we're going to work hard getting all the streets fixed.
You want the trash to be picked up.
You want water to come out when you turn on the tap, and on the other hand, when you push a little silver level, you want the water to go away. And I don't really care. I just want it to happen, and I think that's the best government. If we need police or fire, they show up quickly, they do a good job as ours do. And parks where we can go and have fun, play soccer, baseball, or just sit out and enjoy the day, walk on the pathfinder a lot of things to oversee. The budget covers all of that.
We have all of the employees that make that possible. We have a great staff and Barville and the city Council is a part of all of that. Yes, we go to council meetings once or twice a month, sometimes three times a month, but more importantly, we talk with people every day. You get your packet of information for a council meeting. I think the last one was around four hundred pages that you have from a Thursday when that is released until Monday night to read that, get familiar with it.
But then there's all the other things. I know.
Each council member has a different position right now. I work with the Community Center Trust Authority as a member there, Bartlesville Development Authority, the Vice Mayor Curtin, myself for what are called ex officio, we attend and participate. We do not have a vote. Bartlesville Education Authority. I'm the chair of that Water Resources Committee I chair, the Washington County Bartlesville Emergency Operations Committee I chair, and then the Bartlesville
Municipal Authority. Those are important because they oversee, particularly the debt for the water plant. We're getting ready to do a large sewer wastewater treatment facility upgrade, the biggest in city history. So a lot of things that the council's engaged with. Plus streets. Streets is a really big deal to me. We joke that the most important street is the one in front of your house, because that's the one you're familiar with. Yeah, and then the ones that
we drive a lot now in Barlotsville. We know some of those aren't hours, so they're state highways or federal highways that O DOT takes care of. But a lot of things to oversee and manage, folks to talk with and try to make it all come together as smoothly and as I've already said, as boring as as possible.
Just get her.
Done, my Guinness sixth that's all like going. I see here.
Strategic Reserve was created in two thousand and eight. How many you know governmental entities actually have that.
It's kind of a rare it is.
We've had other cities contact us to ask us how that.
Is structured and how it works.
I bet you have.
We not I was.
Not on the council, but the city council at that time made a very wise decision to begin setting aside, like any homeowner or any group, set aside a rainy day fund basically and put away some money. And then when we have a downturn. You know, one of the problems you have the time that you need government the most locally is when there's a downturn, maybe there's a lack of jobs, or there's some issue, could be a big storm like we saw in make Oh Boy. That's
when you need government. And yet government's supported by tax money, and there may not be as much of that. So the strategic reserve is that Raindy Day Fund. We have funded that now for a number of years. I believe last report I saw it was just a bit over fourteen million dollars or getting close to that, so that when we have those times, we don't have to pull
back the very time that we needed the most. I'm a big supporter of financial resource and dependability and taking care of business and planning ahead to be able to continue to deliver services.
I want to look.
Ahead to the next council term. There are quite a few things in the big one we mentioned it already. Streets and again it's very important.
People don't understand Bartlesville has about five hundred lane miles.
Wow.
So if you do the math, prices have gone up. Milk and eggs and gas and everything has gone up. As we know, well, so has the cost of building streets. And it's between five hundred thousand and two million dollars a mile.
So if you apply that to.
Two three four hundred miles, it's a very large number. So we're going to prioritize. We have the Streets and Traffic Committee. We have a thing called the Pavement Condition index. We throw around letters the PCI and we want to improve that. And so they look at this and I've had folks say, well, why not my street, My street's terrible. Well they look at that and say, what is the
traffic count? You know, a street that has three cars per day is not going to demand the attention that one that has five thousand cars per day five hundred. Then they look at the condition index. Is that a forty sixtieth seventy three point five? And then they look at how much money they have and they pick a list and they say, we want to do these streets. They're also careful to spread that across the community so
that all parts of Bartlesville have streets. I know, for instance, I've been working to get Yale between Frank Phillips and Adams repaired and fixed for several years and that's just that's getting ready. It's going to happen, but we don't get all of them at the same time. So streets we're going to have to. Now, the last bond issue, the voters approved over seventy percent of that seventeen point
whatever million dollar bond issue. They approved. Seventy percent of that is going to streets a little over twelve million dollars, about twelve point three million dollars, and that's going to allow us, along with some CIP sales tax money, to make a dent in this road repairs and start gaining some ground, we hope.
Very good. Yeah, Well, we talk about the bond issue and everything else like that.
This is where the citizens vote and they have a say in this we do. City council has got governing with the iron and saying this is what we do.
Well, by golly do no. The property taxes are approved by the voters. Marlinsville City Council has held our share of the property taxes at about fifteen mil for as long as I can remember, at least twenty years or more. So they approve that, sales taxes, they approve Economic Development Fund taxes, they approve all of that is approved by the voters. The city council then works with the funding
and gets those projects done. We don't always get them done the first year because it's a five year bond issue. But everything from Sooner pool to the street repairs we talked about, to water plant upgrades, buying a fire engine. Expensive fire engines have gone up to but all those things are a part of the City Council's oversight to not just set policy, but to monitor and maintain the budget.
Oh there you go. Now, water is a big issue. It's always been a big issue. If necessary for life, And.
Yeah, that's putting it mildly, but we've had our flirtations with water supply shortages.
Water is a history around the world throughout history of being a challenge and we want to try and improve that. We have improved that. Are we finished yet, No, Tom, I don't know if we'll ever be finished. Long after I'm gone, they'll still be working with water. It is necessary. I think though that if you look at some facts, it is encouraging. In two thousand and two, we got down to believe seventeen percent capacity at Hua Lake and it
was a crisis, no question about it. We began planning and in that period of time we have upgraded and improved the intake pump assembly at Johnstone Park. We have gotten additional storage at Copan Lake. That was literally an Act of Congress. Senator Enhoff Shepherd died that through and got it done. And we also have completed the hard scape, if you will, the pipeline and all the systems to
do water reuse. We are not doing water reuse. It's still going through process for approval by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality od EQ. But those are steps that have been taken. Looking at the options we've talked about in the list as long, but the ones that come to the top is heula.
According to the CORPS.
Told us in two thousand and seven, it's called a Performance Assistance to States. I think a PAS study the core suggestion was your number one option should be reallocation.
Of water levels at Hewla Lake. And so we're working on that.
We're also working and we have our congressmen and our Senators. I've spoken with them personally, both Congressmen and Congressman Burkin this month, talked with the staffs regularly. Senator Langford, Senator Mullen have been very connected with this to get what's called a Water Resource Development Act a word, a bill through Congress. It's being processed now that will allow us to buy affordable and I stress affordable. You're gonna hear me say affordable a lot. You can do anything with
unlimited funds, but we don't have unlimited funds. We have to make this affordable, and we're looking at the remaining water available at Copan Lake to get that at an affordable price. The worda bill should accomplish that for us, and we just have to see if that can get through and get approved like the one that sander Anhoff did several years ago. So all of those things will help us. Now we've continue to look at Callake, but there's questions there about not just the amount of water.
They have a lot of water, but what's the quality of the water, what treatment challenges might it present? And especially what does it cost to play a pipeline from here to there? Distribution's going to be the big question all the way across Osage County, which is a big county. We've looked at a number of other options. The eight of Vermosa Aquifer, which people may not even heard of. I had not heard of it before we started this in Osh County runs down to southwest Oklahoma. Is that possible?
How much water? Again, what's the quality of the water, what would it cost? So again the thing of making it affordable and not just spending a lot, because we're spending taxpayer dollars. And I'm very very sensitive to spending because I'm a taxpayer just like you, and that's that's important. So I think all of those things we will get there the end that discussion perhaps time, because we could go on for a long time. We were down to
seventeen percent in two thousand and two. We've had the worst drought in one hundred years according to Messinet in the last several months, and yet our capacity the last time I got the report was at eighty one point six percent of our total capacity, much better than seventeen percent.
Not only has the city learned to manage and control and work better, but I think all of our citizens it's always a good idea to conserve, not just during drought, businesses and residences as we develop those habits, whether it's electricity, whether it's water, it's just a good practice for everybody, and it'll save us all money.
Well, we have an election coming up.
We do.
People should vote.
They should.
It's a sad thing when election turnouts are six or ten or twelve percent. It's a privilege to vote. There are people in this world that would love the opportunity to vote. But I think it's also a responsibility to vote. And in Bartlesville, we have a good system. If you watch the news, you could get really depressed when you hear about all these other places, but Oklahoma, Barnisville especially, I'm a little biased. But you can go vote, You visit with free a little bit, and you're in and
out in a very short time. It's a good system. It's been a dependable system. It's a model I think the rest of the country could look at. So I'm encouraging people to vote. Take a few minutes. You can vote early starting Wednesday. You can go downtown to city Hall, but you go up the fourth floor. They call it sweet flour, which is a little confusing. It means fourth floor. Get on the elevators, go up to the fourth floor.
They'll get you through there and back out. Might see some folks you know and catch up on some news. So please vote. Vote early Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from eight to two, and let's move forward. We've got a lot of opportunities. We've got a lot of big projects. We've got some new employers coming to town. We've got new retail opportunities that we're looking at. And I'm involved with all of that. I've worked with a city, I
work with the Scouting programs. I work with church. We had a business here for fifty one years and so we're invested in Bartlesville. I want to see this continue. I want to focus on street repairs. I think that's critical that we've got the keep hammering street repairs while we buy new fire trucks and do all the other things that we need to do. And we need that constant attention, that constant focus on affordable solutions. Sometimes that's not the fastest solution, but we want to find the
best solution. And Bartlesville is special, special to me, but the people I talk to. One of the coolest things is to drive in from the west and as you come down the hill, especially at night, it's just cool. It's amazing to see. It doesn't look like any other city of thirty eight thousand i've ever seen.
No, you look like you're coming in to paradise.
This is an amazing place to live. It's not a perfect place because we've got humans here. I'm here, you're here, so it can't be perfect. But it's a great place to live, and we just want to keep building that. I'd like to keep working to do that. So I'm here today to ask the people to call me anytime you can. Look, I've got a Facebook page Copeland for Bartlesville. You can call me, you can send me email and.
Tell me what you think.
Tell me which questions are a lot of times Tom, you and I have talked about it. People say well, this is this and this, and I said, well, did you know? Because there's so much detail, There's no reason people would know the hydraulics on a trash truck. Don't mean who wants to know that? But they just wanted to work. Yeah, did you know? And if you can visit with people, they'll tell me things I didn't know.
That helps.
I can hopefully share things with them that they might not have known. And at the end of the day we find out we're really all trying to go the same direction. We just want to keep this a good place, as we say, to live, work and play, not just for me or for you, but for my kids and for my grandkids.
Very good ladies and gentlemen. We've been speaking with that Dale Copeland City councilor and also mayor. He represents Ward what and we'll see you tomorrow night at the forum at our best Bank Eastside location and right here on the air Kaway
Thank you, thank you,