City Council - Regular Meeting

9:30 starts. Good morning. We're going to get started this morning with an invocation um led by Pastor Tommy Merritt of Southern Hills Baptist Church and that'll be followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Councilman Matt Hinkle. Please stand as you are able.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day. And Lord, I thank you that you've woken each of us up this morning, that you've given us breath in our lungs. Lord, we acknowledge here at the start of the day that you are the giver and the sustainer of life. And Lord, we thank you for being our faithful provider. We thank you for giving us everything that we need for life, not only in this life, but also in the one to come. And so, Lord, right now, I I thank you for these folks who are before me. I thank you for all of the ways that they serve our city. Lord, I I pray that today you would give them wisdom, that Lord, you would give them discernment, that you would guide their thoughts, that you would guide their conversations. Lord, I pray that you would help them to serve our city well. Lord, I pray your blessing on them as individuals. I pray your blessing on their families. Lord, I pray that you would strengthen their marriages. Lord, I pray that you would give their children good health. Lord, I pray that you would remind us today of all the ways that you love us and care for us. Lord, more than anything, we pray that you would help us to understand that you really do love us. You really do care for us and you really do desire to walk with us and talk with us. And so, Lord, we thank you for this day. And we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Please follow me in the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. I call this meeting of the city council to order and we will proceed to item three presentations and discussion uh of the fiscal year 27 proposed budget. This continues a series of meetings that will culminate in a vote in June on the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1st. Today we have presentations from development services, parks and wreck and public works. And I'll mostly lean on the city manager I think from this point forward to call up each department. There are no votes today and city manager, the floor is yours. Thank you, mayor.

I just want to um here today, but also all the departments that work on the budget. We have a process that we ask those that are in front of the budget to work on the ones that are in front of the services, the ones who actually doing the services to to help prepare the budget and submit those. and the work that they do um culminates into what we have in our budget. So, I really appreciate that. Brock Row, our development services director, uh will bring bring us the first presentation. As mayor said, we'll have parks and recreation and public works. Um and then two weeks from today, we'll have our final uh budget hearing and then the adoption is scheduled for June the 2nd. So, I'll turn it over to Brock and let him present the development services budget.

Thank you, Craig. Uh good morning, council. Good mayor. Good morning, Mayor. Um, I am excited today to bring you this budget. Um, I get to talk about my favorite subject, which is development services. Um, I do want to acknowledge all the staff that are here today. If you guys are a development services staff member, stand up and wave. I tried to pack it out. I really did. Um, so we're going to talk about our development bar department budget. And go ahead to the next slide, Tony. So, I want to acknowledge uh my staff. I just did that, but I want to acknowledge some more staff. Uh but before I do that, you can find our our budget page is on C33 in the budget book. Um I want to acknowledge my administration staff. So I have Chris Moses here today. He's my assistant director. Um I have Carol Reid, which is my administrative manager. And then I have Tony Mitchell, who's my management specialist, who's behind the computer here. Um and we also want to acknowledge our budget staff that helped us do our pres our budget and uh the hard work that they put into it. We really appreciate all they do. So, our city, our community, our future. I kind of wanted to give you kind of a background of what we do in development services. Not really a mission statement, but a uh what we do. Uh we protect what matters today and we build for tomorrow by advancing public safety, responsible development and compassionate animal welfare with operational excellence, integrity, and steadfast commitment to our community. And to remind you how big Oklahoma City is, uh we are 620 square miles in counting. Um we have 712,000 people in our city and we are we can fit seven major cities in our in our Oklahoma City city limits. I know the mayor talks about that a lot. So what do we do in development services? So we have four divisions in development services. Uh, one division is our development center who has 87 staff members and they provide permitting,

plan review, uh, business licensing and inspections to keep the city safe and occupiable buildings. We also have code enforcement which has 37 staff members who promote code compliance in neighborhoods. Uh, they work to clean up those neighborhoods, remove the nuisance, the trash, and all the grass and all those issues. We also have an administration uh division which is where we lead and we try to make sure our staff have everything they need. Um and then we also have animal welfare which has 61 staff members. And animal welfare goes out and protects citizens from angry dangerous dogs and cats and whatever else may be angry out there. And then they also take care of cats and dogs and other animals in the shelter and provide uh a humane life for them to get them adopted out into the general public. Each of these divisions are led by some great people. Um we have Johnny Sandival. Stand up, Johnny. He is brand new. Um not brand new, he's been here about a month. um in his in his role. He actually worked in animal welfare before that, but he's uh a new addition as our animal welfare superintendent. And then we have Chris Smith who is our code enforcement superintendent. Uh again, a very new in that role, but he's been with the city for about 25 years. And then you also have Scott Weise, who's our development center manager. Scott's been in his role for a little bit longer than everybody else, but uh he's been at the city for 18 years and he heads that division of uh development center. So, our major budget changes for this year, we have about four of them and I want to talk about those real quick. So, our personnel cost adjustment is our salary, our merit, our retirement, all those things that continuously rise. That's an additional $845,000. Um we are eliminating um a position and

this position was vacant uh when Chris uh Smith moved up to his position. Historically code enforcement um really focuses on specialized ideas of you know one group will do the vacant properties, one will do the dangerous buildings, one will do ga uh the grass and the overgrowth. But what we've done is we've actually leaned that out and we've changed that process to improve it to where all of our inspectors are going to be doing all of those things. And we really didn't need a third chief code inspector uh to accomplish that. So we thought that's a good opportunity to remove that position and really lean out and uh make some process improvements. We we are also adding um two elevator inspectors. Now, we are adding these and they they are actually self-funded uh by the inspections they do. Currently, we do about 45% of the annual inspections for the city for elevators and we felt like we needed to do better than that. So, we added these two elevator inspectors to address those issues. We also eliminated two code inspector positions and these have been vacant the entire year of last year, our last um fiscal year. um not because of the lack of trying to get people for those positions, but it was more just an efficiency thing where we were able to maintain what we needed to do, our status quo for for what we're doing currently in the city. So, those three positions were removed, but we did add two uh elevator inspectors. So, this is our a summary of our general fund expenditures. Um the administration has increased to 11.98%. Now, that is mainly due to all of our added costs that we have to do with our IT, all of our software programs, um the different uh other things that we pay for that comes out of the administration budget. Animal w animal welfare increased to 5.68%.

Uh and that most of that increase is due to staffing uh salary increases and things like that. Code enforcement, you do see that decrease because of those three positions we eliminated. And then in the development center, you see a 4.52% increase, which again is going to be those staffing uh in the the salary increases and things like that. So, we're going to start with our first division here. They're they're in alphabetical order. There's not like I have a favorite. I love all of them, but uh animal welfare is is our first one we're going to talk about. Um that picture there you see is is actually Shaye eps who was uh employee of the month and also city's best. She actually went out of her way to to help try to save someone's life and uh uh we just want to we I just want to put that picture on there because that's that's the very best you know. Um so last year in calendar year 2025 we received 40,375 call service calls. we completed 29,878. So, you look at that and it's like, wait a minute, there's a whole bunch of uh calls there that were not answered. Well, people, what we found is that people actually call four or five times about something before we can get out there to get it taken care of. So, that's that discrepancy there. Uh we are completing all of those calls. Uh we've cared for 16,466 animals. That's a tre tremendous amount of animals when our capacity level is 297 um for for dogs and cats. We well cats is a little bit more than that, but if you think about that, that's a lot of animals coming through the animal shelter. We sterilize 4,872. And just to remind you that the animals coming out, we have to sterilize them uh in order for them to go back into the general public. Um, and then we saved 13,486 of those animals that we cared for and

we received 7,730 volunteer hours, which we can't operate animal welfare without our volunteers. So, we truly appreciate our volunteers and all the hard work they do. Uh, they really do change the the aspect of the humanity side for all the animals that come into our care. I do want to point out in that top uh left corner, that is our new logo that we're going to have for uh for Oklahoma City Animal Welfare, uh it was a kind of a shift and since we're going to be moving into a new shelter, which I have a slide on that here in a minute, but um we wanted to kind of get a fresh look at everything. So, that's kind of what's going to happen with that logo. Um but let's talk about dog capacity comparison. This has been really a a big thing on on my heart since I've been here about how we we actually take care of our animals in our shelter. In the past, we would run anywhere from 150 to 135% in capacity levels. Um we would be doubling up animals in in cages. We'd have a lot of issues with that and and so we made a we made a change in what we were doing. uh we actually slowed down our capacity levels by uh really managing what was coming in and how we could take care of that animal. So in 2025 you see that that it went down to 99% and as of as of today we are at 88% of our total capacity. So that's uh that's a wonderful sign that we're moving in the right direction. You can also look at our live release rate. Now our live release rate has always been 90% for our live release rate. We want to have that 90% that is the the standard across the nation to be considered a no-kill shelter. And so we have over the last three years we have increased. Today we are at 84% year to date. Um I contribute that to the hard work of all of our staff really going out of their way to find homes for all the the dogs and cats that come into our

shelter. Um that's a that's a testament to them and their hard work. So field service is one that we've been really working hard on. This has been done through looking at ways to become more efficient, ways to uh really utilize our staff in different ways to make sure they have they have what they need and they're able to get towards those calls. So our priority one calls um which is our highest priority, those are if a human uh interaction happens where it's immediate threat to a human life or a human endangerment. um those went from two days and 19 hours and 33 minutes um in 2024 down to eight hours. Now, keep in mind our staff work 10-hour days. So, they're getting to those within that day. Um let's look at the priority two, which is an immediate threat to to an animal. Um and those are down to 6 hours. Um and then you have the priority three, which is our strays and things like that, which is down to 10 hours. So, we're we're actually responding within one day to all those things. Now, if there is an emergency where it's like a really bad situation, our staff are are immediately going there. The ones that are on call are the ones that are out in the field. Um, these are just the ones that we have that are called in and they are evaluated based on those priorities. So, some of the operational efficiencies for animal welfare. Uh, again, we talked about some of these already, but we've leveraged our managed intake, which has tremendously helped the staff, helped the, uh, the well-being of the animals that we have in our care. We've reassigned our full-time front desk super uh, desk representative to create a firsttime full-time placement coordinator. Up until this point, we had a part-time. So, only about 20 hours of our work week was designed for placing animals into fosters or into homes. Uh, and by having a full-time person to do that, it has tremendously changed how fast we can get the animals out of our shelter. We've also changed our field

services to run calls directly through CAD. That has helped with that increased number that you saw in the previous slide. Um before you had a basically it would go to CAD then it would jump to our uh another system and they would have to pull it out of there. And so this is just kind of took out the middleman or I guess the middleman is CAD but um it it made us where we can just directly uh work through that. And then we also implemented our field officers pl placing animals directly into from the trucks the kennels. That seems kind of not that big of a deal but it is a huge deal when you have to have other staff handle another animal. less touches means the dog's going to be or cat's going to be in a better state. It's not going to be as as frazzled and we can get it in there and we can assess it and make sure uh we can take care of it and do what we need to with it. So, those are some of the things I do want to point out. The Fast and the Furious um that's the shelter. It has a really cool car out in front of it. We have a car show pet food bank and so that pet that pet food bank I do want to clarify is not food for the shelter animals. It's for the community so that the community can come and pick up dog food if they need it. Our goal is always to help people try their best to keep their animals in their home and not bring them to the shelter. And so we have that food uh pet food bank out there to do that. So we're really excited about that. Fast and the furious furist. It's not furist. So last year we uh we did something really cool and we were able to acquire two microchip scanners and what those do is those those scan the microchips in the dogs and uh what that has done is allows people to scan those and maybe find where those dogs live instead of coming to the shelter. And so we have we have two of those currently at two different fire stations. We really teamed up with the fire department with this and the fire department was a great partner in this and with with our one city, one team. It's always a uh awesome awesome thing to work with another

department to make things happen. But what this is is you can show up at the fire station and the fire department will help you scan the microchip and then they'll we can find the address and you could you can actually take the the dog back to the where it came from. A lot of times dogs and cats, they just jump over the fence and especially dogs, they just want to run around and and do their business and then try to find their way back. And sometimes we interfere with that. and we bring them to the shelter and and now they're all in our shelter system. So, we actually also acquired four more of these and so we will be adding these to four more fire stations throughout the city so uh citizens are able to use that uh and keep as many dogs and cats out of the shelter as possible. We also still have all of our community resources that we continue to to implement our spay and neuter clinics. We have collars and leashes for dogs, uh, dog houses, ID tags, our again our fet our pet food bank, and then our lowcost vaccination and microchip clinics. And as you guys know, our coming soon is our Oklahoma City Louisa Mune Animal Welfare Center. Um, this has been an incredible investment by this by the residents of Oklahoma City and we are truly grateful for it. Um, it was a it was a much needed change and we're excited about it. We may be moving into that building in September. I say maybe because it's all dependent on how fast it gets done. The total project will be completed in um next year sometime because we still had to build a barn and do some parking lot and some other things and grading. Uh but we are excited, our staff are excited about it to have an opportunity to have so much more space, have the dog runs outside, uh to give a little more more enrichment to the dogs in our care, uh to keep them from going kennel crazy and and they re it really will make them be a better adoptable pet and we can do a better evaluation on those those dogs and cats at that point. So we are really really

are grateful uh to the residents of the city for voting for that. This is something new that you may not may or may not have heard of. Um we uh we applied for a grant um I guess it was back in February uh with the N as much Foundation and we were able to acquire a grant of 22 $2.26 million. And what what it was for is I I applied for it as the Oklahoma City Humane Care Advancement Initiative is what I called it. Um, it's a five-year grant that is going to give us those funds and those funds will support staffing expansion. We will be able to hire one new one more veterinarian and four veterinarian assistance for that veterinarian. Uh, one of our bottlenecks is processing animals since we are required by our city ordinance to make sure that those animals are spayed and neutered before they leave, before they can be adopted. Uh, this has been a a bottleneck for us. We currently have two veterinarians. We have a chief veterinarian and a veterinarian and this will get us an additional veterinarian for that. It also gives us uh funding for uh cleaning the uh shelter which has always been a it's not a glamorous job. Let's just put it that way. Um it's a lot of clean up peoo all day. And so having a having a company to come in and do that and facilitate that every day will relieve the staff that are currently doing that to be able to do a lot more enrichment programs with the dogs and cats and a better outcome for all of them. Uh and and for all the animals that are in our care. It really would be a great thing. So let's talk about code enforcement. Uh first of all, code enforcement is a name that we are looking to change. Uh we are we are talking about maybe t uh changing it to code compliance instead of code enforcement. Um because that's really what we're doing at this point. The numbers there are we've done 83,000

inspections. Um I'm not going to do all the numbers but they're all there about hit the highlights here. Um we've issued uh 2,949 citations. We gave we've given 19,746 uh notices. We've removed 7,512 illegal signs. Um, so our staff are out there working and taking care of that's one of our inspectors there who is posting that property uh because they are in uh violation of the city ordinances. So we are required we well we are not required we have set a goal of 4 days to get to those complaintbased inspections. So currently how it works is a citizen will call into our action center and they will u create a case for us and we we will try to get there within 4 days. As you can see over the years it's it's just kind of eb and flows. It goes up and down. Uh we at 90% in fiscal year 23. Last year we were at 82%. Today we are at 86%. So we're we're having an upward moment on that. I do want to point out this slide because it's really important. staff's worked really hard to make this happen and it's and it has to do with the way we've we've changed our mindset on how we approach our citizens and our residents of this city. Um we in the past have uh been very enforcement. We have we have just there was no gray area. We moved along with the process that we had and we we continued down that. We we started changing that and we've been maintaining a better relationship with our citizens and our residents. And what that has done is caused this this higher performance. It's caused this uh change in how people are abating the issue themselves, which is is definitely contributed to our our staff working with them, giving

them more time, uh trying to help them find resources for them. We need more resources for for people out in our community. We really changed our mindset on that the the resident that we have is not a criminal. They they've done nothing wrong. The only thing most people have that they've done wrong or it's not really wrong is that they just they're in need. And a lot of times people don't have the resources to fix the issues that they have. And so I've really preached that to our staff that they're not they're not criminals. They're just people in need and we need to find a way to help them. And so that number has increased to 86% because our staff has went out and worked that that approach and really helped people uh abate the issues for themselves without the city intervention. I mean, I don't know if you know this, but to have the city mow your yard one time, it's $450 on a just an average lot. Uh plus the um the administrative fees. That's a lot. Um it was not designed to be I mean it was designed to be punitive because it is a we don't want to be the city's mowing service. Um but we have we try our very best not to do that and we want to work with them. So I mean I've been I've been talking about you know this Mayberry approach where you know a lot of neighbors can help each other. Neighbors need to get out there and help each other and help each other mow their yards. Uh they know what's going on in most situations. So working with them and our staff working with them has really increased this number to 86%. And we're really excited about that because before we were at 79%. So operational efficiencies is our advanced we've advanced lean implementation uh to streamline our workflows and reduce delays and eliminate the waste in our in our performance. Uh we've standardized our field operations. We've been really working on our SOPs and making sure they were um where they need to be and our turnaround times for uh accountability

to make sure all of our inspectors are looking at things the same way. Um we're still working on that. That's that's an ongoing process that will continue probably perpetual forever. It's something that we always look at. Um and then our community centered enforcement model. That's what I was just talking about how we are really looking at that and that's where that idea of changing the name from code enforcement to code compliance comes in because I think that's what we are we're co- compliance inspectors not code enforcement officers. So these are some of the examples of things that have been abated. Um you can see this first picture is uh of a house that was burnt out and that's a very dangerous situation in any neighborhood when you have a burntout house or a builtout structure. uh our residents have children that can play in it and we want to make sure that you know that's taken care of. So that's the after is just the vacant lot with the grass and seed. Um you also have the nuisance cleanup abatement which is a bunch of trash and garbage that you can see. Not a good situation for our our for anything. Um so we go in and we have it cleaned up. And then you also this is also a uh a securing of a property. Again an unsecured property can be a very dangerous thing for small children. uh even just for our regular residents um it can you can have a lot of issues happening there. So we go in and we put some plywood up and and closed up that door on that garage and I believe that the door to the front of the house was also secured. So those are things that we do in code compliance uh as like as I like to say. So let's talk about the development center. Excuse me, I was getting dry mouth there. Um, so the development center has completed 126,596 inspections. We have reviewed 2,464 commercial plans and over 5,400

residential plans. We've issued 62,000 permits and 11,000 business license. That's a picture of one of our elevator inspectors there. He's actually doing an inspection on that elevator. That's a newer elevator. Um, and so that those inspections, those field inspections are what keeps keeps this city safe and keeps these buildings to be able to be occupied by our residents. So, our one-day inspection completion rate by trade. Uh, this is something that I've been really working hard on uh with staff to try to make this better across all performance levels. Um, so in building is at 90% uh mechanical at 97% 87% on plumbing and 92% on electrical. There was a time when I first started that we were 18 days out on electrical inspections. So go ahead, next slide. As you can see that we have been working on that by using lean principles and trying to make our processes better. Uh we've hit 92% one-day inspection completion rates. Um that's phenomenal. I don't know if you know this, but that's phenomenal for a city our size. If you go to other cities that are in our in our bracket of the top 20, most of their inspection days are months to six months, many many many days out on their inspections. We take pride in this that we can get to your inspection usually within one day. Um that's a big deal to the development community. That's a big deal because one day can cost you a million dollars. And so we don't want to be the hold up of that. So we've been working really on hard on that to make those inspections more efficient. One of the ways we did that is we really looked at the inspections we were doing and said, do we really need to do that inspection? Is it a life safety inspection? Is it an inspection that we can do with another inspection? And so we've been looking at all of those things and trying to lean all those out. We're still we're still doing that. Again, that's going to be a perpetual thing that we continue to do to look at

it. And one thing about inspections is th that is a moment in time. We're taking a snapshot of the progress on that building to make sure it's co-compliant. So hats off to all of our inspectors who work really hard to make sure that they can get to all the all the developers out there and all the tra subtrades that they have to deal with um and help take care of them and help them get into compliance. So I'm not going to read all of these, but these are some of the operational efficiencies of the development center. I do want to point out the uh lean processes that we are identifying. One of them is is you see is storm shelter plans. Um I do want to point that out because it it may seem like we're not looking at plans for storm shelters, but we are. We just had some redundancies that were built into there that were delaying how fast people could get their storm shelters, and that is not something we want to delay. Not where we live. And so we've been working on that really hard to remove those those inconsistencies and those um things that were not necessary. Um we also um we we automated that process too with our storm shelter location registration. So now that when someone processes a storm shelter plan, we put them on we know where that's at now. We do that automatically now instead of requiring them to send us a letter and tell us where it's at. Um we have we have done um one of the other ones I want to point out here is we we've actually have fleet vehicles for our chief inspectors. Now for a long time our chief inspectors shared vehicles and they um would not be able to go out in the field to help their inspectors if they needed to. By doing that has increased our inspection time frame. Uh they're able to go out and manage their team better. They're able to go out and look at um the inspections that they their team can't get to. And so that's really helped with that efficiency. Uh just a simple thing as a as a vehicle. We can go ahead and move on, Tony. So one of the things that we're trying to do with our development

process as we look at it, you know that we've been looking at that for several years now. We had a consultant come in and talk to us about it. One of the things that I would like to do and that we are doing is we are going to take um and put a group of inspectors, a group of plan reviewers, maybe one plan reviewer. We only have 10, but we want to we want to put them in each council zone based on the growth of the city. We think this is a more ideal approach. That way, when our development community comes along and they say, "Hey, I need an inspection or who's my plan reviewer." It's not random anymore. Before it was a random guess of who your plan reviewer was. It was it was like a like a log of of plans and they would just pull from the top and each individual in uh plan reviewer would would just have you know whoever they got. And so now if you build in in in Councilman Carter's area, you know who your who your plan reviewer is going to be, you know who your inspection team's going to be. And we're going to continue to do that. I think it's a more efficient way to do that. Um and as the city grows, we will we will have to probably modify a little bit. But what's great about it is in most of our groups, we have at least 10 inspectors or 10 plan reviewers. And so with the eight council zones, we'll have two floaters that can help out if there are excessive plans or or inspections in those areas. So it's a it's a really good approach. Um it's a way to conquer the city and to be uh set expectations for the general public and for our our development community. Um I think that's the last slide I have. Do you guys have any questions for me today? Yes, I thank you so much. I do have a few questions. Um, I really appreciate the presentation and kind of the comprehensive overview of kind of all of these efficiencies you all have been putting into place. Um, you know, and I I think similarly to what I said with transit, I feel like you all are a department that often is doing trying to

figure out how to do the most with very limited resources. Um, and so I I part of me is curious because you know hearing you say that some people and can we maybe even go back a few slides to the animal welfare because this is a issue that I know I get a lot of calls about when I'm out at meetings or events I hear, you know, about um, you know, people frustrated that they've called about a ha, you know, a hazardous dog um, a dangerous animal sort of thing and they're not getting a response as time as timely. Can you which uh the slide that has the call response time? I think it was one more. There we go. Um and so it's nice to see that you all have done some things. um like you said, kind of some of those efficiencies to try to bring those times down. But, you know, in my perspective, there's especially with a city our size, there's only so much like efficiency you can do um before you just really need more people to respond like right that it's amazing that you all have been able to bring some of these response times down so much. But um I guess I'm really just curious to hear like what staffing level do you think it would take to get to the more ideal response times of like if it's a priority one people are coming within

5 to 10 minutes or even honestly I I think one of the calls I get the most that I hear a lot of frustrations about is something that maybe seems lower priority like a loose dog but maybe could escalate into you know people aren't sure if it's maybe aggressive um or they're just worried for safety of wandering around in a neighborhood. Um, so even call responses like that being, you know, especially because the the thing that the thing that I hear is like, "Oh, well, they showed up and then the dog was gone." Or, you know, like um so I guess I'm just curious to hear like what staffing level do you think it would take to get those call responses to something that um felt more um immediate to, you know, uh to quick um not kind of like a a business day.

Yeah. Well, I will I would like to point out too that this is not a work day hours. This is 24 hours a day. So, the calls could come in at midnight and then we don't get it until 8:00 a.m. So, you're looking at the time frame of that. Gotcha. Um, so that's part of the numbers there. Um, so keep that in mind.

You know, our staff, we we've had some staff that have been injured and things like that and so we've we've been working through that um to be able to help them get back on the road to do that. Currently, we have 21, I'm sorry, 15 animal welfare officers that are out there working right now. Um, I would have to go back and look and see how that would play out if we did have more staff. Um, again, I I do want to stress that I mean, you're you're looking at whenever those calls came in, that's the how long it took us to get to it. So, that's a that's a variable that's not really shown in the slide.

Um, but I I would I would always take more resources. Absolutely. Um, but we would have to get back. I'd have to get with Johnny and we'd have to figure out what that would look like if we were, you know, responding immediately. Like if we had people working 24/7. Um, that's what it would take something like that. Uh, to be able to get those numbers down to 1 hour, two hours, you know, in that aspect. A lot of bites happen, you know, after after 5:00. You know, people get home, they're out in the yard playing, things like that. Um, so that number, it's a 24-hour clock, so it's it's rolling that way.

Yeah. I I'd be curious to see that because I do even think that like to your point about the hours of like is it you know that you do like different if could you have another shift of people that covered those times right that to kind of prioritize an area that maybe we're getting a lot of calls but we're not able to respond because it's kind of outside those working hours that we currently have. I think that's kind of, you know, again, cuz that's I mean, I hear I hear you when it's like people are calling four or five times and so maybe that number of like, oh, it seems like we're not getting to a lot of calls, but that's also a frustration that I've heard is that people call and they

aren't they don't feel like they're getting a followup. Um, and and recognizing that that is also a difficult thing to do, right, of like maybe you all did respond but didn't have the time to call that resident back and say, "Hey, we responded and this is what the outcome was." And you know, I with all distrau I I I get emails too about issues and things that have already been resolved. You know, our staff's already been out there and taken care of it and we get the email, you know, the next day or somebody sends an email immediately and and because they want response and and our staff get out there and take care of it. Um, so I mean,

I'm not trying to dismiss those by any means. I mean, they're very important. Uh, but I I I would have to figure that out if you know it was a 24-hour shift. We do have staff members that are on call for those emergency situations where you know we had a we had a horse on the loose. So we uh you know we we had emergency staff going out there and helping with that. We had a I think there was a buffalo or a cow I think it was you guys remember that and our staff were out there trying to help wrangle that. You know those are those emergency situations I was talking about that are not really reflected in this slide.

Um but I but I would have to get with Johnny uh and just talk about that and see what that would look like. if you could provide that for us, I think that would be really helpful to see. And then my other question was about this grant. I think it's a slide or two ahead. Um maybe more than that. Where was it? Maybe it's after this one. Go back. It was related to the veterinarian. Veterinarian. Okay. One more. Yeah. I don't remember where it was either. Maybe it was after the shelter because I think it also Oh, the In as much foundation.

Yes, the In. Yes, I can remember. Um, so you know, I hear that this is 5 years, which is really lovely because that is seemingly a long amount of time, but also like 5 years goes fast. And so I'm just curious to hear what kind of the plan because it I hear that this staffing expansion would be hugely helpful, but kind of what is the plan for after that fiveyear point to make sure that we can keep up that level of staffing. So I've discussed this with leadership and you know we we made a commitment to over the five years it's going to step down by 20% over five years and the city is going to pick up the rest of it over five years. So after 5 years it will be to totally funded by the city.

Gotcha. Okay. That's great cuz yeah I would hate to see Right. Yeah. See that that dip or like it be dependent on like grant dollars to be able to to keep it going. Um so wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks for your presentation and your work and I share councelor Hammond's uh sentiments in terms of just the gratitude. I think I have about three or four questions and one of them is to kind of drill down a little bit more in something that councelor Hammond asked. I seem to recall a couple years, maybe a year or so before you came into this role, uh I want to say it was your predecessor stood there and said that we would be heading in a direction where at my request uh a consultant to kind of do a bit of a staffing inventory u assessment.

Uh where are we with that? I did not know that. Um, we are we are we have not done that. That is probably something we could look at doing. Um, and you're talking about a staffing assessment on animal welfare. I am specifically Well, now I was going to get there in a second, but it's both. It's coded. Well, not both. I understand there's different services here, including development services. But just sticking with animal welfare. Uh, yes, that was the request. And then I do have a similar request with code enforcement, but we'll start with animal welfare one bite at a time.

H. Yeah, we could we could look into doing that. Um I I was not aware of that in aspect of uh it was a request from you. Um but yeah, we can do that. We can do an assessment of that. Yeah. And to be clear, it was an ask I had and at budget just I cannot remember which budget, so forgive me especially because we're coming out of

finals week. Uh, so my brain's a bit mush, but I do recall your predecessor. I want to say it might have been their last meeting, like their final one, but it was uh them responding to what I had had requested. And this really drills down into what Joe Beth is councelor Hammond, sorry. uh something that she has brought again to our attention which is that as maps 4 is heading into reality with the the new shelter. my understanding of the goal of the shelter like why why not just voters supported it but why the council and then the staff was so supportive of it was you know we have a capacity issue right in terms of space

and so by expanding the space we can house more of our uh furry friends um now that was one approach was expanding the space, but the other one is staffing and specifically the staffing. Please, you're the expert here. I'm I'm I'm the student, but uh so correct me where I'm wrong. So, it was space, but then it's the staff who can go out and respond. Not just respond, but be proactive when it comes to spay and neutering. So, if we can reduce that number of uh of creatures who are out there that are not, yeah,

you have that. And so it's like a one-two punch. And so getting that staffing number right is critical, right? Because we're getting it seems like the square footage of the new shelter right now. It's got to be that staff. So I just really want to emphasize

Yeah, I do have I do have Johnny working on that. Um his his dream goal for staffing. It wasn't really a consultant coming in looking at it, but it's it's kind of where we landed on the the new veterinarian and the four veterinarian staff members. We were looking at our bottlenecks and what we could do to make that a better approach as we move into the new shelter. Um, again, also the cleaning services was another aspect of that to help with that, which would give which would free up our animal care specialists to be able to do other jobs that we need them to do. Um, so those are those are two things that in as much is going to be helping us with, but Johnny's working on that right now on his his goal of what it would look like for our new shelter uh for staffing levels. But a consultant we have not engaged in.

And again, if you can save money by not hiring a consultant, that's great. If you can do this in house, but I just think that assessment that council counselor Hammond is requesting and that I have requested, I think is is critical. And again, I think of my mom who is on Facebook and she just in her news feed just this barrage of, you know, animals in need. Yeah. And I'm telling you, anytime I go to dinner with her, this is like a good half hour of her concerns. And I'm guessing she's not alone.

So that would be one thing. And then would you mind walking us through this new approach that we have where if um and I just want to preface this by saying I had reached out to you all about a year or so ago around Swatk Park in War II where there was a loose dog and called you all at late too. I want to say like 8 or 9:00 and you all were actually out there. You reached back out to me. But I I do want to better understand what the new what's new in terms of if there's a stray. Yeah. And a resident reaches out and the comments I'm to understand that we give is keep that animal there.

Well, go ahead.

Well, let's let me explain that just a little bit. Uh I think there's a misconception of that. Um, what we've done is we've eliminated or limited the amount of animals that come over the counter to the shelter where citizens or residents bring them in and they they bring them to us and they're a perfectly healthy dog that they saw in their neighborhood, they picked it up and brought it to us. Um, we still take all the dangerous, injured, um, sick animals over the counter. Um, and we also pick up all animals still through our field officers. So all of the loose dogs that are out there, all the strays, those are our priority three calls. We still do all of that, but by limiting how many res how many the residents brought in to over the counter, the good citizen, good Samaritan bringing them in. Um, we have really reduced our numbers on our capacity where we could now single house animals and have the ability to have a better quality of of life for the animals in our care. Um, but we still do pick up all animals that are out running around if they're called in from our field officers. Um, we've never stopped doing that.

So, in other words, if whenever someone reaches out to us and they see a stray dog or cat, we are spay and neutering. We're responding. Do we spay and neuter them when this happens? We if we pick up the dog, we bring it to our shelter. In order for it to leave, we have to spay spay and neuter it. And so our vetinarian clinic is doing that. Um I think that answers your question what you're asking. Yes. So what about the person who brings uh an animal to the shelter and we turn them away? Do we do the spay and neutering before we turn them away?

We do not. In most cases we don't have capacity for that. Um so uh we are working on the animals that are in our care. A lot of times I was I was just telling our our city manager about this the other day is that you know a lot of times you pick up a dog on the side of the street and all it did was jump over the fence and it has a family and now you've picked it up and you bring it from you know your your ward all the way up on the northwest corner uh to the shelter. We only have a about a 7% return rate for strays that we get in our shelter. Um, so we that's the that was kind of the idea and the concept for the microchip scanners was so that people can return those dogs and cats back to their owners instead of bringing them to the shelter. That was another aspect of that, trying to to find that change that need out there in the community. Um, the last thing we want is for your dog to end up in the shelter that he was just out because he jumped over the fence, right? Um, that's your that's your family member, you know? we don't want to give your family member to somebody else and just because you didn't know about it. And so a lot of times residents do that um in good intentions, but it's sometimes it's a bad intention. A lot of times dogs will go back home if you just leave them alone. Um and that that was kind of the concept behind that. If they're a perfectly healthy dog, um give them a chance to go back home, you know. Um the shelter, I mean, it's it's 45 minutes probably to drive to the shelter from your ward. uh Councilman Carter. And so that is a that is quite a traverse and a lot of people won't think about to going to look for their dog at the shelter, you know, that far away. They will think somebody just picked it up or something. So that was kind of the idea behind that. And what that did is it reduced our intake. Uh we were no longer at 150% capacity. We were able to get down into the 80s. Um and that was that was a wonderful sign. It was a wonderful relief to staff and everything. And so

all we asked the community to do was to basically don't pick up dogs that are perfectly healthy. Call us. You can call us and report it. But we we really feel like that the majority of the dogs that we get that are healthy in good shape. I mean, we had we had one come to our shelter that has had a jacket on, a red jacket, you know, with a little hoodie on it. And, you know, that was somebody's dog. Um, and so we want to make sure that people keep their dogs. And the less dogs we bring into the shelter, the better chance that dog, if it's a healthy dog and it's not injured or sick, uh has to getting back to its home.

Thanks for that walk through. And then yes, city man, a very similar question in terms of uh what's the demand when it comes to code enforcement calls versus what to councelor Hammond's question like what would an I wouldn't say like a utopian ideal world but what would an actual like you know if we had what would needed what would you need for animal welfare node enforcement well we'd have to look at that code compliance

code compliance that's right we'd have to look at that as well again we we would always take more resources. Um, one of the things that that we with with that, you know, I think a lot of it is is education and really reaching out to our our residents and saying, "Hey, you know, what you have is not in compliance." A lot of times you have someone who just doesn't know. They don't know that that's an issue. Um, mowing your yard, everybody knows that. But, you know, having too much stuff in your yard, um, those are those are the things that we see where it's more of an education thing. And once our staff go out there, that's why we have that high level of owner abatement. Um because once staff go out there and they educate, that has tremendously changed that. I think that that's probably a better approach even than just hiring more people and people to go out there and do that is just to have more of an education program for the the residents of our city to make sure that they understand what is co-compliance, what isn't, and how they can get there and how we can help them. We need to have a clearing house of of different um programs and different things that we can do to help help our residents. It's it's again it most of the time it's people that are in need and they just don't have the the capacity to change it. Um in most cases it's it's Bob or Sue. They they uh they had a a medical emergency. they couldn't mow their yard or, you know, Joe over there just got overwhelmed with too much stuff in his yard and he didn't know what to do with it. Um, didn't have the capacity to pick it up. You know, there's there's all kinds of things that we can do. And I think really looking at that aspect of it instead of looking at more people to, you know, have the club and beat you over the head, which is not what we're doing, but you know, that's kind of the aspect of it. If we can educate people more and really help them, I think that's a better approach. But we will definitely look and see how that would work. And that might be some other idea of of of staffing that could do something like that.

Well, and I appreciate that approach. And yeah, I would I do think having the staff to be able to get out there to help, you know, again bring people into compliance, bring them into that awareness, that education, I think is important.

Finally, and I'm not really sure if this is for you or for city manager, but you know, someone came up to me recently. I was having coffee in the ward and they asked me when it comes to abandoned properties uh how not just abandoned properties but like uh if someone has you know a piece of property maybe they had an old burndown structure now it's gone maybe they've had a dilapidated uh structure I've seen other cities and I believe the economist Adam Smith even talked about this but like a land value tax. Like I just think it's wild that there are people who again private property. I I get it. But I do think it's wild that somehow people are able to own a piece of land and let it fall into such disrepair as you mentioned where children can get into all kinds of dangerous situations. Uh I mean not just children but you're talking uh rodents etc. And often, maybe too often, someone is sitting on that land for no other reason than it's going to appreciate, they believe. And the longer they sit on it, and the more it appreciates, someone's going to come buy that from them. And meanwhile, the neighborhood and the community suffers. It might even be bringing down the value of someone's home or their business. And again, I cannot stress enough the safety, whether it's public health or it's, you know, potential crimes that might occur.

And I'm just curious, why have we I mean, I guess I understand why we haven't done it cuz someone's going to start, you know, no, you can't do that to me. But the neighbors, when I hear from them, they're like, well, what are they doing to us like as a neighborhood, as a city?

Yeah. I mean, right now I'd say our perspective right now is that we use our code enforcement approach that if it really is a property that's in disresp if they aren't repairing it, we're taking care of it and then we're charging them for that service. So to try to at least keep it I mean as much of a motivation as we can provide then we're trying to keep that in a place where whether it's mowing debris or maintenance on the property or securing the property trying to make sure that we're staying on top of that to ensure it doesn't become too much of a blight in the area. Um we haven't really explored looking at a tax of any kind or um I think it's a legal question I'd probably have to get through as well in terms of what we can do. You know, I think probably we'd lean more towards fees as opposed to a tax um for the property, but I think it's it's you know, we could look to see what other options we would have. We have explored, I can't remember if we're doing anything with it right now, but like where there's frequent fire and police calls that go out to a site because that site is a problem like we've had fire set and things like that where we're charging for those services. We've explored that um as well. So, it's more we would probably look at it more from a fee perspective of what is it costing the city? what are we having to do in terms of our responses? Um, and that becoming a motivator because ultimately if you don't pay those fees, then you know when we're mowing it or we're boarding it up or whatever it is, then that goes as a lean against your property. And so now now it starts to impede the ability to sell that property if that's really why you're holding on to it. So that's been our motivator that we've provided so far.

Yeah. And I appreciate the way you're describing that because literally as you are walking through those in those those examples that's that's what I'm see that's that's what the resident was bringing to my attention. You know we have I won't even name the intersection but there is an intersection in war 2. There's a property and code enforcement. I had you all go check it out but you all can't go in to see what I am to understand are some really not well conditions. We can't go in. Meanwhile that entire building covered in graffiti that we're going to have to go abate. It's going to cost taxpayer dollars to do that. And I just to say nothing of all the again the concerns that we don't know what sort of negative outcomes could come because we're not inside that building. So

I just want you to know that's that is something I hear not just one or two times from W 2 residents, but like why is this building able to sit here and just keep accumulating things and and skirt by in terms of compliance? So, just wanted to bring that up and in and public I wanted residents to know that I've at least voiced this for them. So, I appreciate any work we can do toward improving.

I will say that, you know, if somebody does have a structure like that in their community or in their area, let us know because a lot of times we don't know that it's there. Again, our city is 600, you know, square 600 square miles and um there's we are complaint based and so we don't know if it's there and we don't we can't help if if we don't know it's there. Um we we always want to board up buildings that are dangerous. We always want to take care of that property to make sure that that blight doesn't happen in a neighborhood. And so please, you know, make sure that the res the the residents of our city know that, you know, they need to contact us if those those areas are there and we will take care of it.

Great. Thank you and thanks again for your work. Thanks, Brock. And I want to say again, thanks to all those employees that came from development services. Appreciate the work that you all do every single day out there um serving in challenging circumstances. So really do appreciate the work that you all are doing. Thanks.

Thank you. Appreciate Um, as Melinda's coming up, Meinda McMillan Miller is our next presentation with parks and recreation. As she's coming up, I do want to acknowledge as we have the discussion around animal welfare and code enforcement and staffing, even if we went into inspections, same issue that I just remind and evaluate that in our workshop each year. One of the things you see is the population growth is on a trajectory that's upward and our staffing growth is basically flat. It stayed flat for a long time. So, I could do this in every single department that we have of like go to a staffing study, where should our ideal staffing be? And I think we can continue to evaluate that. But again, it's just like we're trying to manage that in our priorities as we have the opportunity to be able to add staff back. But every single department, including what you're going to see with parks and recreation today, could use additional staffing with further services. So, Melinda, I'll turn it over to you and let you uh give the parks and recreation presentation.

Thank you, city manager Freeman. Melinda McMillan Miller, parks and recreation director. You'll find the parks and recreation budget on page 117 in your budget folder. And the parks department is pleased to come to you today to present our FY27 budget. It seems that when I was going through all of my files, this is the 12th year of presenting budgets and I'm really excited when I found out it was actually 12 budget year. I thought, wow. But looking back on it, I am incredibly proud and thankful for the staff that we have here. Um, Scott Fairman's in the audience with me behind me as our assistant director and Mike Smith of course as our business manager. Lisa Hubble as our recreation manager, Jacob Webb as our um grounds manager and all of their teams that help keep our parks and recreation facilities and programs running and smoothly. And not to mention kind of the silent warriors is our administration team that um not only did Carrie Jacobs and and Cara help create this presentation today. I couldn't thank them enough for their professionalism um but all of our behind thescenes admin team are just super supportive of of helping us keep this moving forward. So thank you. We'll jump right into the 27 proposed budget. The budget numbers you'll see there, there's a big goose egg right next to natural resources. Do not panic. Do not be alarmed. What happened in their natural resources team is that Scott Copeland, if you many of you know, um, retired. And so we had this opportunity to really analyze our overall structure within our department and decided to take the natural resources division and split it into two and move those people and those um, uh, funding allocations into the recreation and wellness division as well as the grounds administration division. So that didn't go away. Don't panic. Um but it did get reallocated to two different structures. You'll kind of see how that structure happened with this slide. The administration team um grew about by two positions with this. This includes a new

golf marketing coordinator 2 position that is supported by the golf system um as well as an overage position that became full-time. the um again natural resources um funding got split not exactly equally in half but it got split pretty proportionately between recreation that absorbed those positions and then as well as um grounds management that absorbed positions as well but in as overall go ahead Mike net changes to our budget redu came to about a 5% reduction in positions overall um as well as um those that was pretty much the bulk of our um cost savings to help meet our target budget reduction of 2.4% 4%. Um, but we also recognize the impact of new um, capital improvements that we've made to the parks department. So things like um, Dewey Park, Edwards Park, which we'll highlight a little bit later in the presentation. Um, there's some funding allocation that was added in order to help support and maintain those facilities. So that's the number stuff. I like to get into the stuff that really excites me and gets our staff really motivated and to help really moving ourselves forward. When Craig and city leadership and decided to, you know, really dig in and create the city's core values, we were excited because, as you know, the parks department created their core values back in 2020. We've been working on those core values of our own for about five years and they have evolved. As the city has evolved, so have parks and recreation. So, now that the city has its core values, we also have our core values. So, we work dug in this year and really um created strategic plan phase two um that we have now. And um on your um at your computers, you probably also have a copy of the 20125 um kind of just a recap of all the different achievements that we did in parks and recreation that year as just some good highlights. So, making sure that we are pledging to partner, we are accountable and have utmost respect within our team as well as knowledge and

service to our residents. um we cannot do anything as a department without the ton of collaboration with all the other departments in the city. So between working with development services and animal welfare with um helping promote puppy days and adoption days, we partner with them to do that. of course public works and my partner with Debbie Miller and anything capital um working with them very strategically but it's really a huge effort between all of our departments to work together in that one team one city is incredibly important to help the parks department be successful. So how do we do what we do? So as a department ourselves we are more than just mowing grass and taking care of swimming pools. We have a great team of over 170 people that help take care of our parks. the parklands that we have, the lands that we are responsible for, not to mention the trails that are just growing in popularity and size to all the different community centers, recreation centers, pools, golf courses, senior centers, senior wellness centers, our fish hatchery, events, not to mention all the sports. Let's go sports, right? Go Thunder. But we do all of this in support of your priority. The council priority of your fourth priority in all of your pillars is about enhancing recreational opportunities and community wellness. So our department can really dig in and dive into the three priorities of that uh by providing quality recreational opportunities, promoting healthy living and community well-being as well as providing convenient, attractive, and well-maintained parks and recreation facilities. In order to comply with the provide quality recreational opportunities, we really focus with our aquatics teams, athletics, our performing arts camps, and our recreation centers. This is a way that the community can really get out with residents and meet neighbors or to learn how to swim. U building stronger neighborhoods as well as just building a stronger fabric across our entire city. A lot of things that we like to talk

about a lot is just how do we get kids involved in sports? We know the outcomes from sports that collaborate or that corroborate educational outcomes. We really focus on helping our partners across the city that that really inspire our children from whether it be um the soccer programs or it's our pal leagues or anything like that. We really focus on helping our communities become stronger through any recreational opportunity we can provide them. A healthy city is a strong city. So, we help with healthy living opportunities for all the community to be able to get out into the community and enjoy things like beautiful parks, doing landscape management to help make sure things are enhanced and beautiful so that when either we are our our uh company comes to town to visit you, whether it's your parents or your grandparents, aunts, uncles, they can come and they can see a reflection of the dynamic city that we have through beautiful landscapes, through Bigtown Canal, First Americans Museum. Not only to mention that, but fishing is one of the most popular recreational sports and it's a very low entry or low barrier sport to participate in and we get kids involved very soon. Um, and being proud that we have one of the only municipal fish hatcheries in the country. It's one of those that's exciting when kids can come out and learn how to fish with our partners in the police athletic league. They can learn to fish. They get a pole, a rod, a reel, um, and they get to catch all sorts of bluegill. And believe me, the squeals is very exciting to listen to each time. Martin Park Nature Center. If you haven't been for a while, they have some new furry residents. Please go check it out. They're pretty cool. Um, but not only Martin Park is our only nature center in town. So, it really does give a break from um the more of the congestion to have the residents and especially school children go out and be in a more rural type of environment, but right in the middle of the heart of our city. So, it's a really great opportunity that is really very unique. Not to mention that, but also Will Rogers Gardens. That's one of the most Sleeping Beauty Cinderella stories I

think we have in our community that it's a older garden. It's an older park, one of our cornerstone parks for the city. But the gardens themselves have really taken on a renaissance and gained in popularity not only with new programs, but also just the landscape itself has been really enhanced and it has becoming one of the most popular spots for things from wedding photos to right right now, especially um senior graduation photos. And again, all those programs and opportunities that we provide just really helps enhance the community so that they have a healthier opportunity for cleaner air, ability to be outside, exercise and recreate and also just to make meet their neighbors and create a stronger community. Maintaining the parks and facilities is probably the number one call we get the most often is how can we, you know, get more responsive and get out there quicker to take care of our parks. So, our park maintenance team, they take care of and inspecting over 111 playgrounds that we have in the city. Um, each of those playgrounds are going to receive some TLC with maps 4. So, we're really hoping that with those improvements through the community and neighborhood um initiative that we'll really see um the long-term or long-standing issues with maintenance on those playgrounds be completely changed. Um also then just not the playgrounds inspected, but the trails that we're building. As you know, we have almost 100 miles of full trails and those are be just getting more and more popular every year. With all the new um really large world level events that we have coming up, whether it's the world championships um at the riverport or the Olympics coming up, people bringing and coming to Oklahoma City, they're bringing their bikes. They're, you know, hide on the back of their vehicles and they are using our trails. Um we'll meet people on the trails and they're from a completely different state and you'll think, did you cycle here? But no, they just came to visit, but they brought their bike, they bring their dogs, they come and they really love using our trail system to exercise. With our grounds maintenance team, of course, they're mowing over 15,000 acres

of land, 174 parks, and they're doing that within two weeks or less. And that is a record for us. Um, we have at one point time in my career with the city, we were at three weeks plus in mowing a park, and the grass was getting really tall. If you had a small dog, you were not finding your dog amongst the weeds. So now we are at two weeks. Um we're actually in some of the days we are getting down to like 10 days. So it really is um getting much um more frequent in our mowing rotations. We're very proud of that and that's really due to the leadership of the team um that can really find those efficiencies and really dive in and motivate our team to do work extremely hard. And those well-maintained parks is not just about um taking care of the playgrounds. It's also replacing bridges. it's replacing um going out and doing that snow removal when it does snow um downtown for our city. But again, it's about making sure our parks and facilities are maintained the best way we possibly can. Like I mentioned before, we couldn't do anything without our partners. So, um with our community partners, whether that's the Civic Center Foundation, First Americans Museum, Mary Gardens Foundation, Riverport, or Scissor Tale Park Foundation, those are the bigs. I call them those those bigs. they you manage a lot of our big facilities that are parks and recreation allocated but we have so many partners that are um maybe smaller in size but just as mighty when we have our civic foundations um working with the maps three service providers whether that's the YMCA Boys and Girls Club with the youth centers u we really could not do anything without having our neighborhood groups and I think when we brought our volunteer hours report u back to you probably I can't remember five six meetings ago now um that volunteer impact through all of these different partner organizations is incredibly important to all of our success. So, like I mentioned, the back of house that we don't get to sing about as often is just department operations. So, when we're not physically outside mowing or or we are um taking care of kids in different summer camps, we're doing all

the back of house management. So, with our contracts, I think the other day I looked at the number of contracts that we actually have with different entities, doing all sorts of various things. uh we have over 155 contracts. So just imagine that that's relates back into those partners. So managing those relationships and ensuring that we have a great quality product for them to use and um to help our residents is very important. So all the facilities um just the budgeting the financial management um as well as HR but then our commissions we have a great volunteer group of commissioners um from our five different commissions and trusts. um all of them are very integral to helping lead and guide um and provide insight but also a strategic connection back into the residents so we hear from them directly on what issues they see or um are experiencing. So pivoting slightly then I want to kind of highlight some of the capital improvements that we completed in 2020 five. So Dewey Park um is what is also I think a Cinderella story. you know, we had the school that the school district had an a building there, Dewey Elementary School, that had not been used as a school for quite many years. Um, and had just been sitting there. So, it was a great opportunity for us to purchase the property and repurpose it into a neighborhood park. And I can tell you that every time we're there, the neighborhood will come out. Um, the neighbors come out in force and tell us how excited they are about having their park. And there's always the sound of laughing children on the playground. um they are extremely happy with their park and it's just a great Cinderella story of how we can really turn a property that is not being used at its capacity to a full capacity and really make a big impact in the community. WY Post Park is just about to open its gates um here in gosh I think really by the end of June we'll have it open. Um I was just by there yesterday but having two new play areas um to really help enhance the riverfront as well as then of course the USS Oklahoma City will come soon. Um

it'll start construction this year and it'll be complete in about 12 to 18 months and that whole north shore of why they post park will be completed in Edwards Park. So Edwards Park used to have three football fields that were semi-lighted, semi had benches to sit at, semi had some security. Now it's four full regulation uh football fields. It is all lighted. It's all irrigated. Um that's part of our budget request this year was to help maintain that facility with a little bit higher water cost. It's going to have some fertilizer. It's going to have some over seating to do, but to really create this as a tier one athletic facility on the east side of our city. So, we're excited to be able to have football being played back in Edwards Park this fall. Looking forward into FY27. We're really excited to um be completing the Early Wine Golf Course at the Turn Grill. Um that is just going to be wrapping up here. Probably by September we'll have that fully open and operational. This is the first of its kind in our golf system. It was really important that when we built the covered um driving range hitting bays that we had some type of service there to also provide not only the golfers as they make the turn at the nine but also to provide um food and beverage service and restroom service. So if the golf clubhouse has a um alternative golf activity happening like a rental or anniversary party or something like that going on inside the building and the ballroom is taken up in time and space. the golf arriving range can be fully open and operational and has its own food and beverage service or restrooms. Conversely, if the clubhouse is closed for the night or it's in the middle of January, for example, and the clubhouse closes at at 6:00 because it's dark, you can't golf any longer. The the driving range is open because it's fully lit. So, the driving range can stay open, continuing to provide a service to the residents until 11 o'clock in the evening. Lake Hefner Clubhouse. Um, you guys saw us kind of complete the phase one ribbon cutting not too long ago. It was exciting event and it's been extremely wellreceived by the community,

but phase two begins in 2020 in 2026 this fall. Uh, we cannot wait to get that second um half of the building completed so that we can again keep hosting large public events um on the north side of the city. And then personally from if you talk to any of my staff, we are really looking forward to getting our east maintenance facility um created. Again, this is the 25 geo bond um that will be able to consolidate six different maintenance locations into one. So, where we have some of our staff that are operating out of facilities that literally have a hole in the ceiling and a raccoon living in the attic, um we will be able to get them all consolidated into one spot, which just increases overall collaboration among team members, but also really increases our efficiencies. So, we're really excited about getting that facility um scoped at this point in time. The staff are engaged in that um process to help them create their own um really safe, unique, and um special place for them to come to work every day. And with that, I thank you for your attention and I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Yeah. Thanks for your presentation and of course your work. It was great seeing you at the ribbon cutting for the Yeah. uh golf recreation center. Uh the clubhouse. Someone called me yesterday uh requesting an update about the Deeport Trail and I just thought I would ask in public where are we at with you mentioned we still have some trails to complete.

Yes. Yes. That's the last two little bits that we've got to complete and it's a very much on high of mind for everybody. Um again through collaboration with public works with Debbie Miller um we are working on getting the last report finished. So the report for the reroute of the the the trail pathway um we've gotten the initial engineering um report back and we're analyzing that with them now. I actually have a meeting about Deep Fork um tomorrow um to talk with the consultants about some questions that we they're outstanding. So, between um and reviewing back through their current report and then working with um public works, we're hoping to be able to get that, you know, under construction at the end of this year, first of next year. But we'll be doing some public meetings coming up um and with park commission as well to get the public updated on those outcomes. We're really just waiting for the preliminary report to be finished.

Okay. Do we have any sense of a timeline of when we would receive that report and when those public conversations would begin? Might have to ask my friend Debbie Miller. Yeah, we'll get that information for you for you. Yeah. Okay. I'm just not sure. That's kind of in the that's that quasi relationship where we I have my public works colleagues help me with all those things. They manage that process. Yeah. Like I said, there was literally a a call to our office yesterday and so I reached out. We're all anxious. Believe me, we are all anxious. Cool. Thank you. And thanks again for your work. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions?

Yeah, I just want to mention um the uh cutting ribbon cutting for the Lake Heavner Clubhouse uh for golf. Uh what a wonderful event. I was impressed with James knowledge on Perry Maxwell, the architect on the North Course. But uh we had so we enjoyed it so much. We went to dinner there that night. And the reason I bring it up is if people have not been to Maxwell's, the restaurant that's upstairs, it it is a great place to go. The view is incredible. You look out over the golf course and out over the lake. You guys did a tremendous job on that and I just want to thank you for it. Thank you very much. And I'm going to do a shameless plug that we're starting dinner service in June. Just a shameless plug there. It's a special place. Thank you.

Thanks, Melinda. Thank you to you and your team and all that they manage. Um, are there residents that signed up? We do have some residents who specifically signed up for parks and wreck and so we might go ahead and let them speak um so they can be on with their day. I think there's some others who've signed up more generally about the budget. Okay. So, we'll start with Christine Otisc.

Hello. Good morning. Um, I know Melinda talked a bit about the importance of sports, so I'm excited to get to talk right after her about the importance of the performing arts and the performing arts uh, recreation centers and programming through the city. Um, I'm speaking to you this morning as a mom of two students at NWO, which is what we affectionately call the Northwest Optimist Performing Arts Center, a citizen, and the vice president of Backstage Players, which is uh a nonprofit organization that supports the performing arts programs. As a mother, I can tell you firsthand the impact that building and that staff have had on my children, and not just as performers, but as people. Through these programs, they found confidence, belonging, discipline, and community. They talk about their futures here in Oklahoma City now. They want to attend state schools. They see a future for themselves in the performing arts community that Oklahoma City has to offer. As a citizen, I can tell you that when my husband had the opportunity to relocate for work, it was this community that kept us here. The relationships and opportunities we found through parks and recreation programming mattered more than a new zip code. When we bought our home, one of the first things we looked at wasn't the commute to our jobs. It was the commute to the community center. As the vice president of backstage players, I can tell you that these programs ripple far beyond one stage or one building. They impact hundreds of families, volunteers, students, and audience members. This season alone, our organization printed 340 show season shirts. While some of the uh students are in multiple productions, this number helps reflect the sheer volume of kids and families who are actively participating, showing up, and investing in these parks and wrecks performing arts programs. These programs are often talked about as enrichments or extras, but for many families, these are where community actually happens. They are where kids find belonging, where adults volunteer,

and where friendships are built across neighborhoods and generations, and where people begin to feel invested in this city. The performing arts are not separate from our community. They are one of the cornerstones of it. I am deeply grateful for what has been built through parks and recreation, but I'm also scared, and I'm exhausted watching programs that mean so much to so many people constantly fight to prove their value. I'm one voice this morning, but there are countless others who have similar stories about the impact of these probing. I'm asking you to protect these programs and ensure they remain accessible and supported. These programs change lives, keep families here in our city. 30 seconds remaining.

They help people feel connected to their city and to each other. They enrich and improve our city. Please don't let programs that keep families rooted in the city be the ones that are always fighting to survive. Thank you.

Thank you, Eleanor Watisiac. Northwest Optimus Performing Arts Center in Oklahoma City may look like just another building from the outside, but to me it is so much more. It is a place where people can grow, learn, and truly be themselves. A building held together by glitter spray and safety pins. It is truly a place of magic. The first time I walked into Optimus was for a ballet class. I had recently moved to the area and was looking to meet new people. Luckily, I had found a way to make friends while continuing my passion for dance. I remember flowers and vines strung, costumes and scripts on tables, and pictures of smiling kids hung all around. It felt chaotic, creative, and completely different from anywhere I had ever been. But what stood out most was the people. Everyone welcomed me like family and within minutes all my nervousness washed away because I knew I was in a safe and welcoming space. A huge part of what makes Optimus so special is the staff. No matter your age or background, you are treated with kindness, respect, and acceptance. They encourage every person to be fully themselves in a world that often pressures people to fit in. They genuinely want to spend the time to get to know you, help you, and make sure you always feel heard. The staff have become role models I look up to and hope to be like as I get older. If it were not for Northus Optimus staff, Optimus would not be as amazing as a place. Although I have not spent my whole life at Optimist, it has been one of the most impactful places I have ever been. It has given me friendship, confidence, creativity, and excitement for life that I hadn't felt before. My passion is dance, and thanks to Optimus, my dance network and future is here in Oklahoma City. I'm here today to ask you to ensure other kids get the same opportunity and experience. Please protect the parks and recck programming,

Northwest Optimus, and the staff that make it all come to life. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrea Maher. Good morning. My name is I'm going to be emotional. Uh my name is Andrea Mau, president of Backstage Players. We are 501c3 nonprofit volunteerrun organization that donates our time, talents, funds to the programming at Northwest Optimist and Sellers Performing Arts Centers. Backstage Players has been around for over 13 years providing sets, materials, props, costumes, makeup, glitter, and mustaches. If you have been to Northwest Optimist to any show, you know we all love the glitter and mustaches. We have made improvements to the building such as rebuilding a raised seating area because there are also never enough seats at any show. We have acquired equipment for our use at NWO. We make sure every participant gets a show t-shirt and has a nice cast party. We do everything we can and we do it gladly. We do so because we are incredibly grateful to the programming established and maintained by Toby Tobin and the staff. It has been nothing but positive for our community. Kids and adults of all abilities and backgrounds walk into NWO and sellers and are given a chance to grow in classes to belong with the friends they make and to make have purpose in performances. Optimist is full every semester and that is due entirely to the talents, skills and magic of the staff. They have a passion for their work and they have such giant hearts for every person that walks through these doors. They have created a true community. I'm here speaking today because I have concerns about changes that have been coming from downtown that could have a very negative impact on the performing arts department. For example, as recently as the past two weeks, it is my understanding that HR made the decision to change a job requirement across all parks and wreck mandating that everyone recer and higher have a driver's license. That's fine. I get it. However, those that did not have a license were told to change and were told of the change and then terminated a week later without warning. While there is an expedited path to re-employment

available when they do get their license, I believe that this should have been handled much differently without anyone losing weeks of income, such as a grace period to get their license and waivers for those and waiverss for those that are unable to get their license for whatever reason. NWO lost two critical employees in the middle of show season due to this. Additionally, NWO is being asked to cut some of their fall programming because of budget cuts despite being told this time last year there wouldn't be any program cancellations. I strongly disagree with these choices among others. My hope is that the city will reconsider its priorities and then and until then, I and my fellow backstage players will continue to put in the work to keep as much of the optimist magic alive because we know how important this programming is for all of the participants that show up without fail every season. Thank you for your time and consideration. Also, I also graduated in 98 from Pen City North.

Oh, very cool. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our residents who signed up to speak on the parks and wreck budget. Thank you for coming down, Mr. city manager. Mayor. Yes. Hi. Uh can I ask director uh just two questions? One, uh tell us a little bit more. I'd like to better understand the proposed cuts that they're talking about for the fall. That's one question. Then I have a followup.

Right. Thank you for that. Um Councilman, no, the there is not a budget cut. That's that's not a that's not the words that we have. It's it's not a budget cut. We're reallocating people and reallocating programs in order to be efficient. So, we may have one less show. We may have one less production, but it doesn't mean that we're not still doing full productions. We're still doing programs. Um, and also like for um our homeschool programs, they're still just as robust as ever. We're just using two facilities versus one. Like sellers um well, well, let me back up a little bit. So the Mlinburgg um campus at Meckllinburgg Park that's where like our PE program is at. We shuttle the kids from Northwest Optimus Park or Hefner Park up to Mlinburg and back. Um and then we also expanded to sellers um community center for adult programs and some youth programs down in Sellers, but then with North Austin being the the primary target. So

Okay. Um, do we ever work to connect like NWO or Taylor, wherever there's recreation stuff, whenever we're facing these sorts of budget cuts, are there ever conversations about connecting uh those entities with, you know, nonprofits like in as much or other community like they haven't have a stake in supporting u these sorts of this sort of programming that we just heard. Yeah. Folk like Eleanor are quite important.

Exactly. Right. So for especially for like backstage players has been an incredibly important piece and component of making sure that we have all that supportive structure underneath the programs themselves. Um the budget supports the staff, the budget supports um the uh oh what do you call them? The programs the um the performance programs, the play bills, the costumes, you know, purchasing that kind of thing. But we really do um rely on backstage players to help us with the fun stuff, but the the glitters and the mustaches and the big eyelashes. Um we really do rely on those partners to help us meet the fun stuff and the middle things that really help us with those after uh program parties and things. So leaning back into the grant application process, looking seeking for sponsors and advertisers to help us fund the the meat and potatoes of those programs. Um we're actually working on bringing to this body in a couple weeks hopefully um a new policy for the parks and recreation department to pursue sponsorships and and advertisers in order to support our programs. So that's one key that we're getting ready to launch into here in just the probably before the end of the year that um will really give us some new opportunities for funding that we currently don't have.

So in other words, being able to connect our friends who just spoke with opportunities to shore up their capacity. Exactly. Right. Okay. So, we have all this opportunity that we're just we just needed to get the administrative alignment created and the policies created and approved and so that we can, you know, get get launched. We're really excited to bring that to you here in just a couple weeks. Thanks for that update. U my other question is I pulled up here the 2025 bond and I know there's $12.5 million in improvements heading to our NWO. Would you mind walking us through what that would look like?

Yeah, so we um are closely scoped. Um we still have um a lot of ways to go yet to get meetings with stakeholders specifically with the students that are Northwest Optimist now and as well as parents backstage players and homeschool groups um for the expansion of Northwest Optimist to include a real theater, not just a a a room that has been converted to stage and some chairs for and lighting um that will be a real theater. And so we're excited to be able to get that built and constructed working with public works. um it's going to be really dramatically changing I think for that whole program for children's theater will be really impactful.

I would encourage well first also well thanks for your walk through there director and then uh thanks to the residents who uh spoke. I would encourage you all strongly uh to make sure you're in conversation with um parks regarding what your vision is for that facility. As counselor Hammond said a bit earlier, you know, five years suddenly just poof goes by. And so you might think right now adding your voice to something that doesn't quite exist, it's like, oh, that feels so abstract and so far away, but suddenly it's it's a reality. And so make sure that you add your voice to what improvements you all would need there.

Uh, voice them. I just think that's a very critical thing. and keep me posted when there's opportunities to come. I know you've invited me when I'm I have teaching evening responsibilities, but I I will I will be there when I can. So anyway, just thank you for walking us through what those improvements could look like. The stakeholder engagement will be incredibly important for that facility all the way around. Always is. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you again. As Debbie Miller, our public works director is coming up for the next presentation. And I do want to acknowledge too that with with Belinda and her team, how many partners they work with and we have so many volunteers who make so many of the programs really effective in the different parks and that's true in a lot of different organizations. Animal welfare is another one with the shelter. The zoo is another one. So we've got a lot of areas where we have a lot of volunteers who help really provide the services in our community. So it's we're grateful for those partnerships. Um Debbie Miller, our public works director, will present the public works budget.

Good morning, mayor and council. Debbie Miller, Public Works. I'm excited to be here today to present our budget for fiscal year 27. Um, our budget begins on page C 157 of the budget book. Um, I'd like to um thank my staff who helped prepare the budget and the presentation. Um, Brandon Bundy, Barry Lodge, Shannon Cox, Billy Little, and Mike Miller. Thank you very much. So, um, we are one city, one team. Our mission is to provide construction and maintenance, private construction review and inspection, and emergency first response services to live, work, and play in a safe and supportive community. So, this is public works at a glance. Here you can see out of 620 square one square miles, all that public works is responsible for. Um, I'll highlight the 817 signalized intersections. We do have 450 of those converted to the LED lights and with 130 equipped with battery backup. Uh, we have 108 miles of drainage channel that we maintain. And as a comparison, there's a total of over a,000 miles of channel within the city. Um, and we also have 9,000 lane miles that we oversee. This slide shows our line of business in public works. I have seven divisions. Um, and this aligns with our strategic business plan that was updated in the fall of 2025. So, this shows our divisions with proposed personnel. Um, we range from 165 in our streets and drainage division, which is my largest, um, down to 30 in our engineering division. So this budget shows a comparison

comparison of our current budget with what's proposed. Um you can see our total operating expenditures are about equal and our total is um a little less. We are reducing the better streets safer cities by getting some projects complete. So that's one reason our our total budget is lower. Um we did show on the previous slide we had 398 employees and we are going up to 400 this year. Um our major budget changes what we did is we met our 2.4% budget cut as requested by the city manager's office in the general fund. Um and we had to reduce seven positions and do some uh reduce some of our materials budget to make that cut. Um we do have other programs that we're responsible for. um the geo bond program. Um we handle the utility repairs streets. We handle once they fix a water line, we go in and we get the street fixed and they reimburse us for that. And then our drainage utility, we're adding another position at the river. So we're adding a total of nine positions, which shows a net of gaining two. And here's an example that kind of explains why we are having to do this with the new 2025 geo bomb program. Um we are having to increase our staff with the reduction um where the completion of the 2017 um we had reduced our staff and project managers. Now that we have the 2.7 billion program it's two and a half times larger than what the 2017 is. And so this is support staff to help us get those projects going. So this shows our budget funding by uh funding source. Um we have several different programs that we are responsible for. We have the storm water drainage utility fund. We handle the

implementation of all the impact projects for trails, parks and streets. And we are still working on the better streets safer cities program. Um and this does not include any of the geo bond program in this budget. So this shows our operating budget at 62.5 million. As you can see, as you would expect, the streets and drainage maintenance um is our largest at 33% and uh the remaining divisions um circle around. Um our lowest is our storm water quality at 4.5%. So we'll go to our administration uh division. And um this has like financial management, human resources and records management. And they provide uh comprehensive support to all the divisions throughout the entire project life cycle guiding initiatives from concept planning through design development and ultimately to final construction and completion. Here is our engineering division. Um this division oversees 681 bridges and 9 9,000 lane miles of paving. Um they provide support to all divisions throughout projects that we have and they also provide support to other departments. Uh their core functions include developing and re reviewing bridge maintenance strategies, conducting pavement condition assessments and coordinating replacement and rehabilitation plans. Um, the division ensures that the infrastructure projects that are planned and designed and delivered efficiently, safely, and in alignment with our long-term asset goals. So, this is this is a slide I'm really excited about. Um, we are getting closer to a total pavement management program. This kind of shows how we go. We do the

maintenance, then once it requires to be forwarded to engineering, we do design, we analyze and plan, and then we go into construction and collect and implement. Um, I'm excited that we have a company that's out driving our streets right now to give us new PCI data and with improved PCI data, um, it will help us make more informed decisions and optimize our resources. So technical review is another section within the uh engineering division. Um they review all private development plans and an example of this is a developer comes in and he plats a piece of property. Um he wants the streets and drainage to be public. So we review those plans, make sure they meet all of our standards and are and meet the ordinances and are in compliance. So, this next slide just shows the amount of work that's coming through that department. Um, this year it's estimated to have over almost 6,300 uh permit reviews and those are right-of-way uh revocable um forgetting one. And then they are estimated to have a reviewed 500 private development plans. Um, our LFR goal is to be at four weeks or below for returning plans when they're submitted for review. Um, we've had some turnover in that section. Um, we are hiring some new people and getting them trained and we're hoping soon to get back to a 3-week review time. So, our project management division, um, this is contract administration, grants, infrastructure, and our facilities. Um this division delivers uh construction related services that support the um geo bomb projects and impact projects. Um it

includes guiding initiatives from initial project inception and early planning through detailed design development, construction, oversight and final project completion. This team works with all of the divisions within public works to ensure projects are efficiently managed um technically sound and align with the city's long-term goals. Um this shows over the years um the geo bond and the sales tax program. As you can see um the sales tax program is winding down. We have two streetscapes that are currently in construction and we have two that are remaining to be bid and that would be the northeast 23rd Street and the Portland 23rd to 36th Street. Um so the better street server city is is very low but we do expect to have $200 million worth of projects on the street this year from the geo bond. Uh this is our I went too far. Uh this shows the number of miles we resurface. We always strive to do a 100 miles a year in resurfacing. Um with the completion of the 2017 that has gone down and we're slowly starting to ramp up and we expect this to get back up to 100 once we sell additional years in the bond. So this shows the condition of city streets. Here you can see in 2017 we are at 65 and we've been able to maintain a 70 for the last three years. Um we we think this is from the 2017 bond the sales tax and um which has caused this to rise up. Um the annual survey it's it's extremely important to the residents. Streets are always a high priority and um the national average for streets is at 37%.

So we'll go on to field services. Um this division delivers construction related services that support all of our construction projects, both city projects and uh private development. Um they conduct inspections of infrastructure projects and provide precise professional surveys. Uh through consistent expertise, coordination and project leadership, uh the division helps maintain safe, reliable and sustainable infrastructure for the city. Um they do private inspections, public inspections, and utility locates. Uh they are estimated to do almost 9,000 rightway inspections which are driveway and sidewalk. Um and then almost 27,000 inspections this year. They've completed 150 surveys and they also complete our traffic locates. Um with OKI we're required to go out and mark where our traffic lines are and so we have a crew that goes out and they take care of that for us. So this shows um inspection work orders. We expect to have 450 work orders issued this year. Um this does compare with the technical review plan reviews at 500. Um we expect to have almost 40,000 of annual inspections and we have 44 construction inspectors who complete that. Storm water quality um they provide inspections, enforcement, technical services designed to protect the public health, safety and the environment. The division also delivers public outreach to educate residents and businesses of best practices for uh pollution prevention and responsible waste management. Um we offer household hazardous waste collection and disposal services. We ensure that these materials are managed safely and kept out of the storm water

system in the landfills. um staff. They coordinate uh emergency response efforts with um spills, elicit discharges, and other environmental hazards. Um together, these services help the community navigate the regulatory requirements and maintain a full compliance with the Clean Water Act while promoting long-term environmental stewardship. So, this slide is from the uh annual report that's recently been submitted to ODQ. Um this shows that we have collected 2.6 million pounds of floatable deb debris and this is from the rivers and from all the creeks. Um we have 11,000 newsletter subscribers and almost 1100 volunteers who participate in the adopt a street and curbs to creek programs. This is the the HHW or household hazardous waste facility. It's located at 1621 South Portland. In uh 2025, they collected 800,000 lb of waste. Um you can see here the different items that they collect. Um batteries, pesticides, and flammable liquids. Um the great thing is that we haveus with all of the surrounding communities. So those residents are able to come and drop off at the household hazardous waste. Every year we have a special collection at the fairgrounds. This one was held April 11th where we collect items that aren't taken at the HHW. Um ammunition, tires, computers, and prescriptions. This year we had 468 residents come through and we collected 181,000 pounds of of items.

Uh streets and drainage. Um I call them the backbone of public works. Uh they do drainage, railroad maintenance, snow and ice support, uh response, and they even uh event perimeter security. Recently, we were asked to help um the police department by barricading some intersections for a visit by the vice president. So, we're always willing to jump in and do whatever we need to do. Um they maintain and repair streets, bridges, and unimproved roads and drainage structures to ensure the reliability and safety to the city's transportation network. In addition to the routine maintenance, the team responds to emergencies and natural disasters, restoring critical infrastructure, and ensuring safe access for residents, businesses, and emergency services. Um, through these efforts, the division plays a vital role in preserving essential public assets and enhancing community resilience. Um, so this is a quick video. This is kind of our own the outcome, one of our goals. Um, this is the Whitewater facility. We had a deadline to get this open March 1st and we bid out the project and it just came in where we couldn't afford it. So, we came up with a plan. We worked with the boat house district where they they removed the existing system. We went in, we cleaned it. We um placed the pads that you can see there, the white pads that the blue columns will sit in. And so streets department did that here. You can see my crews out there. They really had a great time doing this and it was an exciting project. We did have a contractor that came in later to do a little bit of concrete work, but I'm really proud of the guys. They did a great job. And here you can see we filled the facility, and we'll see some

white water here in a minute. This system actually has columns instead of blocks. How many public works departments have built an Olympic venue? That's pretty cool. Pretty cool opportunity.

That's awesome. Um here shows um some real road maintenance. We'll go out and we'll do bar ditch work. Um we'll work on bases. We do a lot of chip seill repair. And this shows the number of potholes. um they have been going down. We have a goal, we have an annual target of about 60,000. Um we think it's lower due to the pro to doing so many uh streets, getting those resurfaced in better condition. Um our LFR measure for this is to complete the potholes once we receive them within 5 days. Um this is a drainage side of the house. Um they have 108 miles of channel that they maintain uh both concrete and natural. They do inlet cleaning and they do some pipe installation. Uh this shows on Northwest Expressway they're working to put in a new replace actually some old corrugated metal. This is actually really an old facility that was constructed by ODOT and they use corrugated metal pipe for this for the drainage. And so it's deteriorated and we're having to go in and do a lot of repairs. But we were glad that the streets department could step in and help us with this. and they expect to have uh over 2,000 drainage repairs this year. Uh traffic services um traffic engineering, traffic transportation and traffic operations. Um a couple of years we combined the traffic operations with our traffic engineering and so created the traffic services. Um they review um the design and construction of traffic facilities to ensure that they meet the safeties, operation needs and regulatory requirements. Um they maintain all regulatory signs like stop signs, yield signs, no parking signs. They do some roadway striping and they maintain the traffic system, the signals. Um they provide timely repairs and coordinate

replacements to support that safe and efficient travel for the residents. Um, in addition, they manage uh day-to-day traffic control infrastructure, and they collaborate closely with the state, regional, and federal agencies to plan and coordinate and deliver transportation improvements that address the city's growing mobility needs. So, through these combined efforts, the department helps to create a reliable, well-connected, and accessible transportation network for all. And I wanted to highlight um a program that we have. This is the ASAP program, the alternative speed abatement program. And uh this is a program where we have residents, neighborhoods, they submit, they um go through a permit process and petition process. Um once they're approved, they pay 50% of the facility or the item that they want installed and then the city picks up the rest and we do the installation. So you see there's a street alerts where you put on the pave pavement stop ahead. We've got driver feedback signs, speed cushions, and many roundabouts. And so far we've installed 36 speed cushions, four driver feedback signs, and six stop alerts. This picture shows um our crews actually going out and doing an installation for a speed pump. As can be seen, the department continues to strengthen infrastructure, enhance public safety, and advance sustainability efforts. We do this through street improvements, plot hole repairs, and construction inspections and the collection of more than 800,000 lbs of household hazardous waste. These accomplishments reflect the department's continued commitment to reliable services and improving the quality for our residents. I'd be glad to answer any questions you

may have. You mentioned the uh pavement management plan and the new PCI data. When will that be forthcoming and can we receive that by ward? A breakdown by ward? Yes, we hope um that we have our first submitt uh next week. We expect to have everything in this fall and then we'll be updating the GIS. We'd be glad to provide that information to you. Thank you very much. Great job, Debbie. I don't have a question. I just want to thank you for always answering the phone because 80% of my calls are road related or drainage related and Sunday night at 9:00, you're still returning my call. So, thank you.

You're welcome.

Yeah. Uh same kudos. I just want to drill down on something. Uh make sure I'm understanding this right. when when I looked back uh there was a non-doc editorial I wrote when I was first on Kappa back in 2017 and uh Fox 25 local news had cited that uh there was a trip a national highway research group that had released a report this was again in 2016 and 17 saying that 79% of the streets in the city were in poor mediocre condition am I hearing you right that that statistic we've really taken a huge chunk out of and that we now have an average PCI of 70. Help help me and then help residents understand that improvement. Is that improvement correct?

Yes. Um we in 2017 the residents um approved the geo bond and it was like 967 million and then also 240 million in uh sales tax. We had a 1 cent sales tax for I believe it was 21 months. Um so we were able to focus on roads and the resurfacing and we believe that that is what's really helped us.

Ire just really want to highlight that is an incredible achievement like and I know you know that but we just have to speak that into the public u record right now. I mean, I can assure you, you know, I have a list and I'm sure each of us do, but that is a huge, huge marker and I just want to commend you and your team for that, especially because when I look at the same data, you know, when those streets aren't in good conditions, it cost us around $832 a year to get in there and do that maintenance on our vehicles. So, that's that that that's good work what you're doing. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Um, yeah, and then thanks Councelor Stone Cipher for asking that question about getting that data to us. So, That's all I got.

Thank you, Debbie, and thanks to your team and all the work that they do. Thanks. So, that's all the presentations that we have today.

All right. Thank you to you and and your team. That brings us then to item four, citizens to be heard. Uh, if everyone would state their name and address and keep their remarks to three minutes or less, we have Chris Shbert. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, good to see you again, Mayor Holtz. Last time I saw you, you were up for reelection and it was re-election day and you were here. My name is Chris Schobert. I was one of the victims that uh was washed out in Adrew Square. I have experienced a lot of things. I nearly lost a leg baref foot because of it. Moving out uh after I left here two days later they found a spot for me at uh Hillrest Senior Center. Moving out. I got stung by a scorpion. nearly lost my foot and uh there had been mixup on payments and stuff. I hopefully Lana in the office has got things straight, but one thing I do not appreciate was the behavior of management there. I tried to get straight the dress going straight to payment of of a Oklahoma City Housing Authority and hopefully those are straightened out. But there at the management when I mentioned that I was coming here uh because things could things were get straight. I was uh kind of shunned and I was even

looked on and I was threatened with a a bill on inspection and this is the third third time in less than three months. They tried to use that as an intimidation and I had been ordered to the doctor, you know, to try to stay off this foot as much as possible. I when I left yesterday, I was going down the hall and I noticed some things she tried to write me up for and I called I told her the office. I said, "You're worried about my dog that drilled on the floor. You ought to see this line uh going down. And next thing I know that's posted on my door. You know, that's not only that was meant as intimidation and also retaliatory

for what I was doing. That's not only illegal, unethical, is petty. I think something needs to be looked at. Thank you very much. Thank you, Aurelius Francisco.

Good morning, council. I really Francisco Ward 7. Uh I'm the executive director of Foundation for Liberating Minds and one of the organizers with the people's budget coalition. And we have been engaging in the budget process for the last several years, calling for a participatory budget here at the city, a budget process that engages citizens and residents from the very beginning that budgets are developed instead of for solely a 30-day period. I am here to restate the demand, the request to ask uh the urgency for a participatory budget here in Oklahoma City. Um, fortunately today all of the uh departments uh don't involve social control or policing residents for the most part. So in favor of parks and recreation, more and more investment into parks. want to also speak directly to uh the importance of recreation centers uh and community spaces like parks uh and recreation centers uh in places like where I'm from, the east side of Oklahoma City for our youth to be engaged. You all may have seen the headlines uh from a couple weekends ago of the mass shooting at uh Arcadia Lake uh that left over uh 20 people injured and a young person unfortunately lost their life. Uh and the reality is uh is that certain things are being invested in at our city and at other cities uh and other things are not that would actually potentially prevent this violence from happening or intervene on this violence. And so I believe two weeks ago uh James you asked city manager if CVI would be uh funded in this budget and the answer was that because of budget cuts uh that would not be possible. Um community violence intervention is one of the recommendations from 21 CP from 2021. So

we're still here today asking for investments in in community violence intervention uh and violence prevention. The reality is is that all of us as a community have a responsibility to our young people. You all as elected officials have responsibilities to all of our young people, even if they're not from your communities. Um, and if we do not invest in uh youth engagement, if we do not invest in CVI, community violence intervention, if we do not invest in education and housing and public transportation, uh, targeted in areas where violence is most likely to happen. 30 seconds remaining.

And things like what happened at Arcadia Lake will continue to happen, right? And our young people's blood will be on our hands of Oklahoma City. And this is something that we have to reckon with and we have to face. It isn't as pretty as the Olympics or as a new sports arena, but the reality is is that our our young people's safety should be priority number one for each and every one of us. So investments in CVI must be in this year's budget. Thank you. Thank you. Tevin McDaniel.

Tevin McDaniel. He him ward 7. Um I'm also a organizer with Foundation for Liberated Minds, a co-founder and an organizer with uh the people's budget coalition. Um you all have seen me very often come in to speak um at these meetings. Um and like my colleague said today um really showed what can be invested in, what is helpful. We saw people come up and speak about how performing arts um has not only been just a positive thing in their life, but something that has changed their life. And in our um home base within thinking about what a participatory budget looks like, it is these opinions. It is these voices. It it is these people um who are going to be able to come up and tell you what is actually good um for them. Again, this is another meeting at city council where there's not a lot of citizens here to be able to speak on their behalf. Um, and every year we run into this problem of people um things happening in their wards, things happening in their neighborhoods and they have no idea about it. Um, and they are asking for other things. And so what we will continue to ask and what I will come up here and ask um is that we need something that is more participatory for people who cannot make it to these meetings on Tuesdays at 8:30 a.m. for people who have to go to work because um resources are not there for them in this current moment. And I want to go back to what developmental services said earlier and how their approach um to talking to people is not to treat them as criminals um but to understand that they are people who probably are lacking resources and those are resources that this body can give. Those are resources that we can be having conversations about to prevent the harm that our release was talking about that happens in Arcadia Lake to prevent the harm that happens in other places around this state because again this is a large state. people live um across a wide area of places that need different sorts of

resources. Um and so we have to be able to say we are going to include the people who you are are representing in these conversations. Um, and we have to do it intentionally and have to do it with care. And we cannot continue um to let cuts um and to let um other bodies where people don't necessarily feel safe um to get those funding to get the the urgency that some of these other departments get um instead of sometimes right um our transportation, our public works, our developmental services, um our parks and recreations. And so we'll continue to be here to ask for participatory budget for you all to be more engulfed within the people your constituents of Oklahomaans um to build something better here in Oklahoma City um and a better life for people who don't have it. So thank you.

Thank you. That concludes our citizens to be heard which brings us to item five adjournment and we are adjourned. Thank you all.