City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello everyone. Welcome to our Stillwater City Council meeting for January 12th, 2026. Happy New Year everyone. At this time, I'd like to call the meeting to order and ask you all to stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance 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.

Okay, this brings us to item three, the consent docket. Counselors, any items to discuss or motion on the consent docket? I move approval of consent. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Please vote. With a vote of four to zero, that item is approved. Consent docket is approved. That moves us to item six, public hearings. Item A um is pursuant to 11os section 22-121, the Stillwater City Council will conduct a hearing to determine whether the apartments located at 1815 North Boomer Road in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The dwellings constitute a public nuisance as defined in 50os section 2 and section 18-64 of the city of Stillwater code of ordinances and as designated as a nuisance in section 18-71 of the city of Stillwater code of ordinances. We have councel I think to to get us started here. Thank you so much. My name is Bethanne Child. I am conflict council and outside council for the city of Stillwater. I actually was retained a number of years ago to assist the city with its nuisance abatement pro program. Uh we have made a lot of headway on various projects. This one has been a little bit challenging for a variety of reasons. Um what I'd like to do is Are we all good? Yes. Okay. Is we're going to go ahead and start with a quick presentation. How I envision this working is um we created a pretty comprehensive timeline so that the council and the public is aware of all the actions that have been taken by staff and um also by the legal department and uh working with outside counsel in order to address some of these situations. So we'll do that. Then what I will do is I would ask after visiting just briefly with some of the individuals that are here that the

council does go back to public comment, give them an opportunity to comment if they would like to do that. What we will do and James and I were visiting with them out in uh the the outside area here is I'm going to provide them with my email address and we're going to make sure that we have all of the complaints that are currently pending so that we can work through this. Remington Ranch is actually located at 1815 North K Boomer Road. That's a diagram of them. Um, it is a multif family complex that was actually built in 1969. There are 20, excuse me, 12 buildings identified as buildings A through L. There are approximately 300 one and twobedroom, oneb units. Now, one thing that makes this this uh project a little bit different is the hot water is served through boilers, which is a very very antiquated system. Um it's something that municipalities have to contend with often when it comes to um either multifamily or outdated buildings where I honestly it had been a while since I'd had the opportunity to refresh my understanding of how boiler systems actually work. But in this particular case, this uh this apartment complex whenever anybody has hot water A through L buildings, it's actually served through uh the boilers. Now, I'm going to go back to this just for one second because this is really important. Obviously, uh if you have a residence or if you live in a more modern or updated structure, you're going to have a hot water heater there and that's how you receive the hot water. uh the the copper lines and the other water lines that are surrounding the Remington Remington Ranch uh edition um their their lines are in terrible shape and um not to quote James and he did ask me to do all the talking in case you're wondering why why I'm doing that

but he said it's almost like as soon as uh they fix one line another line breaks and so this really is kind of an ongoing issue. So, what I'd like to do is just very briefly go over a timeline of events. I'm not going to read these verbatim, but on November 11th, I was contacted by uh the code enforcement division and advised that they continue to have lots and lots of problems at this particular complex. Um, we had a phone call and um, we did some online research and were able to discover that Vesta Property Management is actually the company that is is sort of the operator. The owner of the land is Remington Ranch Ranches. RA CHS in Clay in case you're curious um if I don't know how to use spell check, but that was actually how it was entered in in the limited liability company is the owner of the land. But Vesta, they operate uh many multi-family complexes all over the place. So we drafted a letter to the actual owner of the company. We elected not to monkey around with anybody else at the low level because code officers had been working with their on-site personnel for a period of time and really hadn't been able to uh get anywhere with it. And so we elevated it up. Uh we got the legal um letter done to them, advised them that this was a public nuisance, gave them a set period of time, it was very short to provide a detailed plan of action. You may recall that was around Thanksgiving. um throughout this period of time between November 25th up until the current date, we really had received constant updates from them. Now, one thing that I really want to emphasize is the code enforcement officers have been out there almost on a daily basis. They have engaged with the citizens and the

residents. They've had numerous conversations with uh the contractors and vendors and also with the on-site representatives. So one thing that I can say is at least uh Vesta we received a response fairly quickly from their corporate office after conveying to them that this this was really not a sustainable situation and if need be we were going to utilize the nuisance abatement pro procedure inherent in state law and with the codes of ordinances in order to get the situation remedied. Um, I've had the question asked of me, what if anything will happen in the event they're not compliant? And we believe that the law allows the city of Still Water to go in to make the repairs and then um file a lean against the property. Um, you may recall that a year or so ago we had or a couple of years ago we had the same situation and we it it was a little bit different because it had to do with storm water runoff and uh we actually foreclosed on the lane and we were able to collect all the money that was previously invested. So so we do we do have that and have done that fairly aggressively and and we have communicated that to them. Um so we went through the next couple of months um trying to obtain compliance. Finally it was decided that going in and simply repairing the water lines and repairing the boilers in order to distribute the hot water was just not sustainable. But again um as I mentioned previously it seemed like every single time they repaired one line that another one broke. They and of course most of these lines are encased in concrete under the slab. Um and so it it really has uh it is going to be a herculean task. Albeit

it's their responsibility to do that in order to get this uh remedied. The long-term plan now is to install hot water heaters in every single unit. And I'm pleased to report that I believe as of Friday that all the hot water heaters were actually present and on site. And so they're beginning of the pro the process. Now, as we were visiting with several of the residents, um they're still having issues with not getting water cold and hot and um so we're going to uh work diligently to get this accomplished. So on January the 12th at VIP began installation of the individual hot water heaters. Right now they're beginning with building A. Um we we have the comments of the citizens notwithstanding. I think that we have seen some pretty um significant action on the part if you go back to the timeline. I mean we really started this in earnest on January the 11th. We understand that there's still a lot of work to be done, but at this point, uh, the code officers, staff, and I are requesting that you please continue the public hearing and the, uh, resolution until February the 2nd. Uh, if everything is not accomplished by that point in time, then we will ask you to approve the resolution declaring it a nuisance. And um we can make that as tight a time frame as you want it to be. You may recall that in times past um when it came to private property owners, the resolution uh gave the property owners between 60 and 90 days to remedy a situation, but that number is definitely not absolute. So you can make

it 10 days, 15 days, 30, 60, whatever. But I do believe that we'll have a better idea about where they are now that they have begun the installation process. Um I do believe that there are some citizens that would like to go ahead and comment on this. And so I think they would appreciate the opportunity to do that. After that's accomplished, I would ask that uh you table the public hearing to a date certain so that we don't lose the notice until February 2nd. Happy to answer any questions. Uh can I just ask one clarifying question? I thought I heard you say that we started working on this in earnest on January 11th, which was yesterday. I assume you misspoke November 11th. Thank you.

Sorry, Vice Mayor. Attorney Childs, if I may, um, no objection to the recommendation. However, if you would consider revising the uh date certain to February 9th, that is the next regularly scheduled city council meeting. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. So just a point of clarification, do we need to table the discussion the public hearing and action to that date prior to going back to item four to open public comment. So although we're not having the public hearing um at this time, I would just um note um for the minutes that we're going to return to item four on the agenda, which is public comment items not scheduled for public hearings. Any person wishing to provide public comment will be afforded three minutes on the topic and at the conclusion of public comment you can return to um possible uh tableabling of the of the item.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. At this time we will move back to item four which allows for public comment on items not scheduled for public hearing. I believe we have three people signed up to speak. I'll just call in order of um the papers. Just as a reminder, you have three minutes. There'll be a timer up on the screen. We just ask that you try to to to watch that. I think there's also a a beep notification of that of that time as well. So, um when you come up, if you'd please state your name and your address before you start speaking. Um first I have Abby Charland Chland. Hi, I'm Abby Charland. I live at um Remington Ranch, apartment L7. L7. Sorry about that. Um so the problems at the at the apartment complex have been there for the entire time that I've lived there for almost two years now. The the water problems um are not something that the Vesto should have been able to be unaware of. Uh it's not a legitimate thing to say, "Oh, well, they just found out about it and everything keeps breaking because what I've experienced is that they don't care at all about the tenants." Um, and only when they were threatened were they willing to take any action. Um, I don't have hot water in my apartment. I reported that to them on um January 2nd. Um well, I reported it on the 5th because it was the holiday weekend. Um, and I got no response and then, um, I called code enforce enforcement and code enforcement came over and then I went in and talked to

them at the office and they told me that, you know, the wrong kind of pipe had been installed by um, the people who had repaired it before, that it was um, not their fault, and that they were thinking of possibly putting hot water heaters in every apartment, but that they didn't want to really do that because it would require them to shut off all the water to buildings K and L. And I live [clears throat] in L for five whole days. And at this point, I in order to bathe, I need to um carry hot water from the kitchen down the hall to the bathtub so I can bathe. And I am a 65 years old woman. And I've been doing this now. This is the third time. This is number This is the third time I've been for an extensive period of time without hot water. Um, so I I really, you know, I understand that they want to fix it now and all that, but I don't have a lot of confidence in in people who really didn't care about the people. And when I spoke to them about this last, I sent them an email this morning about the matter and they didn't respond to me. And so I don't feel like anyone's communicated with me. I had to call code enforcement and talk to them. Nobody I don't get the I get the runaround from the people in the office and and you know, I know they're probably doing the best they can, but I have a life and I want to have hot water because I'm paying for it. Um so you know I'm going to seek remedy myself to um exit this situation because again it's the third time in two years and it's just plain unacceptable. It's unacable to expect people to live like this while they figure it out and feel all kinds give them all kinds of

leeway because we don't have any leeway and it's really unfortunate. It's very disappointing.

Thank you. Desiree Pierce. My name is Desiree Pierce. I live at 1815 North Boomer Road, apartment B28. Um, I don't have hot water right now. I over the last two months almost exactly three months, two months, sorry. Um I've maybe had hot water three different times for four or five days and then it goes out again. Um every time I've made contact, I get told it will be on in the next day or two or two weeks. You don't run into that.

Okay. Um, and usually then they'll send an email out notifying everyone about the situation. I have lived there since March of 2023. In May or June or July of that that first few months, I moved in in building F. Um, over a six-month period, my apartment flooded four different times. They had to remove sheetrock that had mold. They removed the pad under my carpet, and I had a toddler in my room. I couldn't use one bedroom at all. I had furniture mold. Um, I couldn't I couldn't move out under other circumstances. Um, they finally moved me into B in February of 24 saying that they had had a water issue with that apartment, but they thought they had it fixed. Since I've been in there, I had master bedroom roof leaking that's been fixed. I had fiddle back issues. I had black widow issues. Um, I'm a single mom. I work 50 to 55 hours a week. I do have a housing assistance, but I pay a majority of the rent. We pay for hot water telling us to boil water or that they have one apartment available for people to shower in that I've went into a few times and it's dirty or it's clogged and me having to travel 15, 20 minutes to the closest family members to bathe me and my child really tears into my schedule because I still have to cook dinner. I still have to get my kids to bed and I get up at 4:00 a.m. It's been extremely stressful and I feel like it's not something we should have to worry about. I understand this is mostly about the water issue, but in the 3 years I've been there, it

is hard to get them to work on anything and to work on it properly. Um, I do think it should be considered that maybe we should get a portion of our rent back that since the water's included in that. It's been inconvenience and I feel like, like she said, I just feel like they don't think it's a big deal because they don't have to deal with it. That's all I have to say. Thank you,

Ronald Balderson. My name is Ronald Balderson. I live at 1815 North Boomer Road at Remington Ranch, F-17. I'm not unfortunate like a lot of these other people. They have they don't have hot water. I have a hot a tankless hot water heater, but my issue is there's been a standing order since we've moved in on uh May 31st of 2025 that my upstairs neighbor. Their tub likes to uh flood my bathroom. I could be sitting on my toilet and when they take a bath or a shower, I get rained on. Uh, I went up to the We've notified the apartment manager that was working there that quit here recently. We've notified her multiple times and they have not gotten the stuff to fix it. They thought it was the company thought it was more important to get more people in the apartments than fix the existing problems. Uh, I went on December 30th to talk to the new management. They said they would have somebody out Friday, January 2nd afternoon. And I waited, me and my wife waited around all day. Okay? We didn't go grocery shopping that day. We didn't do nothing, pay none of our go pay no bills or anything because we were told that they were going to be there. Well, later I found out that the new maintenance man left early. The office people left early. There was one maintenance guy and when I talked to him about it, he said they never seen anything about our apartment on their agenda. They were told to go do make

readies and I just want it fixed. That's all. I pay good. I pay money to live there. And we also pay money for pest control every month that's added in our rent. We have not had pest control in months. We me and my wife has been buying all of these stuff to combat to fight roaches that are taking over these apartments. And it's kind of sad. That's all I got.

Thank you. Is there anyone else that has not did not sign up to speak that would like to speak in this matter? That will close item four and come back. Thank you. We'll come back to item six. And I would like to say one other thing. Um obviously the landlord tenant act is um a vehicle for the individual tenants and um code enforcement officers are very good about providing that information to citizens when they call and so in addition to giving them my email address and forwarding up on the additional issues we'll make sure that they have information and resources in that regard. So once again it's our recommendation that you table the public hearing until February the 9th. I did have one question if it's okay just to understand um I understand that code enforcement is in pretty constant communication with um property property management. What does that look like now that they're actively working? Is that still a a daily process? Is it and is it reactive only? Are we only responding when or touching base when there's um a complaint that comes in? How does that work? So, since this came up, we've

Tell us who you are.

Oh, I I'm James Moore. I'm the code enforce supervisor for the city of Still Water. [clears throat] Um, since these complaints have have come up, it's started as a walk and now it's a run. We've uh like Beth Anne said, daily we try to get out to the property, at least myself or uh code enforcement officer Leaport or both of us. Um our daily visits to the plumbers, it's kind of two steps forward, one step back. It seems at times like Beth and said, they'll fix the line. It's 50-y old copper lines, so hot water running through it, they wear out. They fix one hole, the weak spot comes up, and then uh for the longest time, it seemed like management was trying to figure out, okay, well, we got to pay for it. It's going to cost x amount of dollars, and I understand it's going to cost them money, but we got to make sure the citizens are are taken care of. They've got hot showers. They've got and that's what we've been trying to do. and the uh on-site representative I've been dealing with uh seems pretty sympathetic empathetic to to the plight going on, but at times it seems like she's constrained by people above her slowly. It seems like we're getting to where we need to be. It's just been a long drawn out process.

Thank you. So, a follow-up question. Yes, sir. You said that the hot water tanks were on on premises now, correct? The first I believe 20 have been delivered and more on the way. And how many apartments are we having to deal with? There's right now there's approximately 300 units on premises and is my understanding about twothirds of those are ready or live I say live habitable where that are occupied. Uh the other one-third are offline where they are not able to be rented at this time. And how fast can we get hot water tanks installed? How many a day?

Um talking with the plumbers. Uh Richard, remind me. I think uh look at four units at least per day. Now they're starting as they go it'll get quicker. And then the electrician, I know that the electricians are were saying they can only get one done a day, but the plumbers are working to set them up to where they can come in a day behind and start disconnecting them. Um, and then we have uh the building inspectors have been notified and the permits have been pulled so that they can get the proper inspections to make sure they're done correctly. Thank you. So, we've expedited on our end anywhere we can from the city side to help support

Yes. I I spoke with uh with uh Cindy Gibson, David Barth, and all them, made it aware, and they're making sure that the permits are getting uh pushed through and the inspections will be as soon as they start calling them in, the inspectors will be out there to do their job. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Do all of the units is the intent to put hot water heaters in all of the units? And you said they had like 20 right now. That leaves, if I'm doing my math right, 280. Yes, it does. But they they're limited on storage space. So as they clear out, they will get more and just keep it running uh inventory until they're complete.

Any other questions? Councilors, can I just from the chair um state that we'll table Yes. Uh, Attorney Childs recommends a motion to table this item to the February 9th city council meeting. I move to table this item until the February 9th city council meeting. Second.

We have a motion and a second to table the item. Please vote with a vote of four to zero. The item is tabled until the February 9th appointment. I just wanted to thank everyone that took the time to come and um make us more aware of what um challenges you're facing um and that you were able to to spend a little time listening to what the city is doing in support of that. Please continue to um stay in communication with us. We appreciate it. That we will move to item seven, general orders. Um, first up is item A, a presentation and discussion of proposed downtown intersection improvements, including possible action to approve the conversion of the intersections of South Main Street and 7th, 8th, and 9th Avenues to four-way stop control and authorize total project expenditures in the amount of 88,000.

Good evening. I'm Bill Milis, director of engineering. On December 15th, I updated you on the status of um multiple downtown intersections that staff has been evaluating. [snorts] And so, regarding 10th in Maine, um based on the input from that December meeting, we'll return with estimates for the rehabilitation of the roundabout and also for the conversion of the intersection to a four-way stop intersection. For the other three, um that's what I'm here to discuss tonight. And so, uh, staff would like to kind of confirm the guidance from the December meeting, um, and request authorization to move forward regarding 7th, 8th, and 9th. [clears throat] Here, this slide shows just kind of a reminder of the proposed improvements. Um, essentially the same at all three intersections. LED enhanced decorative stop signs, removing existing uh, traffic signals and replacing them with pedestrian scale street lights. adding uh stop legends and in the and in advance of the stop bars, refreshing the striping and installing the pedestrian signs which has already been done. Um so that's the summary of the prop the improvements we propose. Um separately from my report at the moment is Still Water Electric would um do the actual conversion of um traffic signals to street lights. And so there's a separate budget amendment in the amount of 85,000 on the SUA agenda this evening. Um and Stillwater Electric would plan to do the install of those lights in house to save money. Um but I can try to answer questions on that as well, but that will be separately on the agenda. Um I'll mention also that if you've been downtown, you may have noticed we have some full depth repair,

basically some street patching. We've started at 8th and we've got a couple at 8th and at 9th. Um but those those are moving forward. Um and I have here um a proposed motion but also happy to stop and try to answer any questions. Councilors, any questions? Yes, this [clears throat] might be for for city manager, but I had a discussion with city manager about the four-way stops, and they're going to be solar with the LEDs flashing. Correct.

So, some of those around town are so bright, you can see them from miles away. I think of the stop signs out around the New Catholic Church. You can see those from 19th Street, which is amazingly bright. I would hate to think that we're going to have flashing red lights in our cute little quaint downtown area that are that bright and that obnoxious. I'm not opposed to stop signs. I'm not opposed to flashing lights. I am opposed to having lights that are that are just really obnoxious. Mhm. Can they be dimmed?

They can be dimmed. um you know whether dimmable is is enough to meet everyone's definition of obnoxious I can't say and we have there's multiple vendors and you know there's different you can synchronize them you can dim them so there's different options and not every vendor has every option um we definitely I definitely hear what you're saying that we want to to maybe get a sample and to look at these things and make sure they're not exceedingly bright

well we've done done a lot of work to make our downtown area look nice, including with block 34 and all kinds of things. I just would hate to think that we're going to have these giant flashing stop lights, stop signs, um that would detract, I think, from the looks of our downtown area. That's my That's my input to Is it something that we could I don't know if lumens is the right unit or not, but that we could look at kind of what the output of lumens are and other lighting around downtown and block 34 and try to find something that's in keeping or consistent with those that same output.

Yes, that and that's a good a good starting point of of comparison by lumens, but also maybe we just want to see if we can get a a sample. So, you know, it's it's can be hard to compare lumens on paper to what they [laughter] really look like when they're out there. So, that's right. So, I appreciate the input. Definitely valid valid concern. Yeah, it's great input. And I think, you know, as we discussed on the 15th and December, you know, safety was the priority of this conversion.

So, staff was airing on the side of safety. We've been using the flashing reds. We wanted to bring that same safety component to these four-way stops as it is new. Um, I agree with Councelor Harden. I've seen those stop signs out on Country Club Road and they are quite bright. So, I know that it was a priority when they were selecting the vendor that dimmable was a a key component probably more than this synchronizing, but I agree we should see a demo. Um, but I know that staff was just airing on safety.

Are there any other questions from counselors? Staff have a recommendation. Yes, ma'am. Recommendation. It's on the screen. I'll read it if you want. I just counselors. We have a motion on staff's recommendation to proceed with conversion of the intersection of South Main Street at 7th, 8th, and 9th Avenues to a four-way stop control. Authorize expenditures of 88,000 and approve the associated budget amendment. Motion to accept staff recommendations.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Please vote with a vote of four to zero. That is passed. Thank you. This brings us to item eight, which is resolution. Um this was referring to um the matter that we spoke of earlier for a public hearing that's been since been tabled. So we will skip this. Yes. No action is needed on the resolution. We will notice it on the February 9th agenda again.

Okay. This brings us to appointments and I think Brady I have a second email from you. Um we have openings on our audit committee um on our audit committee. We have a um a reappoint and a new a new application for appointments. Um this time I would um Daniel Thrasher is a a new applicant. I would recommend Daniel for um appointment to his first term and then a reappoint of Randy Murray and he would be serving his third term on the audit committee.

Second. And I would I'd also like to add uh I I have the privilege of being the city councelor who serves on the audit committee with with them. And um we sit here periodically we're given something to read to to beg people to come serve on our committees. And the reason there's an opening for Daniel Thrasher to fill is because Kelly Cox is stepping down after 18 years serving on our audit committee. Uh about 15 of those, we can't nail it down for sure. He was the chairman of that committee. And um I just want to express my appreciation to Kelly for almost two decades of serving our community for free uh in a very important role auditing and and going through the process of of making sure that that that our finances are in order. So Kelly Cox, thank you very much.

Certainly a tremendous public service. Thank you. Um with that, I think we have a motion and a second to Do we need to do them separately? Can we appoint both? No. Uh it's fine how it is. Um, however, yours was a recommendation. Um, did you intend it to be a motion? Yes, I'll make So, we do have a motion and a second. We have a motion in a second. Please vote. The vote of four to zero. We have those appointments and reappointments in place. That brings us to item 10, reports from officers and board. Anything from the city attorney? Nothing to report.

Mr. Moore?

Yes. A couple reminders that can help our residents best prepare in case of emergency. Please remember to apply or renew your burglar or fire alarm permits registrations with the Stillwater Police. Permits are $6 per alarm and free to government entities and also to residents who are 62 years a of age and older. Um, if you also if you live outside of city limits but within the Stillwater Fire Department's response areas, please consider purchasing a rural fire service contract. The annual fee is $200 and the contract provides asurances that can save you thousands. We want to help in all ways possible to keep you and your family protected and safe. And for more information, go to stillwater.gov. Thank you, Councelor Hawkins. Did you know we have a citizen request tracker on our website? This is a way for residents to report concerns regarding drainage and flooding, street light outages, trash collection issues, animal control requests, and more. Please consider using this system for non-emergency concerns that we need to check out. To get started, go to stillwater.gov/report.

Thank you. I had a somebody that was worried that their street light was too bright the other day after some of those replacements. I sent them there. So hopefully that that pops up. And on that note, actually I'm proud of our electric department. We have responded to requests like that and we actually 3D print some special uh in-house we 3D print some special shields that help with that. So I knew that we did some shielding for that. So, but that's a it's a great tool for citizens to kind of to to make those requests and alert us of those things. [clears throat] Councelor Clark,

one of my favorite events is the meet your legislature event at legislators event at the library every year. Uh it's coming up on January 29th hosted by the sto League of Women Voters and the friends of the public library. Um, and it's not just the legislators because city councilors will be there and schoolboard members and county commissioners and a whole bunch of other elected officials will be there. And so it's a great opportunity to engage leaders in your community. So I encourage you to be there. It's it's going to be on January 29th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Stillwater Public Library. It's an annual event. Please come and be ready with questions. Thank you, Councelor Harden.

Yes. With possible severe weather, making sure you're Make make sure you're following Still Water Emergency Management on Facebook. You may also want to opt in to receive important notifications on your phone. This will provide you with latest emergency notifications, warnings, and watches. For your one-stop shop for all weather related emergencies and to be prepared, go to stillwater.govsa. And I will say that when we had the storms the other night, I got like six alerts came through on that one. I was tired. I was tired. I turned off my phone cuz I was tired of getting them. [laughter] But it's nice to know we have it if we really works. So it does work.

I will remind everybody that Stillwater Community United will have their annual unity event to commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, January 19th. The commemoration kicks off with an opt optional march at 5:30 p.m. from Southern Woods Park to Mount Zion Baptist Church. The program will begin at Mount Zion at 6 p.m. Everyone is invited to join as we celebrate Dr. King's dream and continue the journey. For more information, go to visit stillwater.org. Please also note that city offices will be closed in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, January 19th. Trash, recycling, and yard waste will be collected as usual. And with that, I would take a motion to adjurnn.

So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second to adjurnn the city council meeting. Please vote. The vote of four to zero. Our city council meeting is adjourned. That will bring us to our Stillwater Utilities Authority meeting. I will call that meeting to order and move to item two, which is the consent docket. C trustees, any items or discussion on the consent? I move approval of consent.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the consent docket. Please vote. The vote of four to zero. The consent docket is approved. And that is our only item of business on the SUA. Um with that, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adjurnn. Please vote. The vote of four to zero. The Stillwater Utilities Authority meeting is adjourned, which takes us to our final agenda, which is the Stillwater Economic Development Authority meeting agenda. We'll call that meeting to order and ask the trustes um item two, the consent docket. Is there a motion on the consent docket? Motion to approve consent docket. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve the consent docket. Please vote with a vote of four to zero. The consent docket is approved, which takes us to item five, general orders. And we have an update from Elaine Zenady on the Chamber of Commerce quarterly report. Good evening, trustees. Um, yes, uh, Elaine Zenady with the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce. I'm standing in today for Carrie Moore. Um, she has a little one who has just gotten over RSV and is home from the hospital. So we wish her well as she is continuing to improve and do much better. So you guys are stuck with me tonight giving the report. Did want to clarify we did send two things in for this meeting. The first one is kind of the report. Um the Stillwater Chamber has a different fiscal year than the city. So I wanted to clarify why it says uh Q4 or quarter 4 on our report because for us that is the end of the year December 31st but understand for you guys it's it's quarter 2. So just wanted to clarify that. We wanted to kind of give you guys a overview of the last year. Um, and so the word document in there kind of gives a highlight of things that we've accomplished in our city contract as far as the matrixes um that was expected. Those are done in yellow. We've highlighted those in blue that are ongoing continue. And then we did highlight those in red that we just knew were not going to get accomplished. And I'm happy to pause there and take any questions from that document if you guys have any trustees. And then the second document is one that is a little bit more fun to look at and I will bring that up. That is more of a kind of a overview if you will of the last quarter and kind of those things that we um wanted to highlight. Um and the big thing for us is the mission of the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Division is to promote and support economic growth by attracting, retaining, and expanding diverse and sustainable businesses. and we work in partnership with community stakeholders to create quality jobs, enhance quality of life, and ensure long-term prosperity

for Stillwater through responsive, transparent, and communitydriven initiatives. We really take this to heart and try and follow this and couldn't be more proud of the partnerships that we have um in doing so. Kind of the milestone things for the last quarter 4 was the ribbon cutting for Kingspan roofing and waterproofing. We are so excited that they are open for business, so to speak. um they actually are going to have this um location also be their distribution site which will be the first one they do here in the United States. So we're very excited about that um expansion that they have decided to use since locating here. So it was a big celebration to be able to welcome them to Still Water. The other thing is we've had a lot of people ask us about the construction going on at the data center and are they actually utilizing local businesses and what kind of money and dollars are they bringing into the community. Um, SWIA is kind of the acronym that all of those entities that are working on site of the data center have put together. I cannot tell you what that stands for, but I can tell you that it's the group of all of them working together on the database. And they did a presentation to our economic development committee in November to kind of let us know what they had done locally. And so, we thought we'd share that um with you guys. And it's amazing that they've almost contributed $4 million in local spending um alone. They try and use as many local businesses as possible. um as it comes to um utilizing things here in Stillwater. Um then uh that includes the community cost of work, donation, hospitality, and then the office. So we are very excited about that. In addition to that, there's more than $38 million that's already been spent um with partners when we see the impact as many jobs and livelihoods and things that are happening. They estimate that in um there will be about 10,000 workers that will go through that site by the time they um finish phase one and phase two. So just wanted to give you guys a little bit of that information. We were excited to um the chamber has more land out there by the hub and um Kingspan that's called Commerce Place. We do have some vacant lots that are for sale. We were excited that Meridian

Technology Center actually purchased two of those lots. They thought it would be a great opportunity for them to do a safety training facility out there right there in the middle of that Perkins Road manufacturing site. And so they plan on doing that. We couldn't ask for a better partner when it comes to what is appropriate for that land. And as we think about moving forward for the rest of those lots, um Carrie and I are being very deliberate in thinking about what would make the most sense to locate there and not just have any business do that, but what would make sense to keep that corridor growing and doing well. We definitely continue on with Department of Commerce tours. Um we try and get as many people as possible involved in seeing what is happening at USA Rare Earth, um Kingspan, those types of things that are happening. But it also helps us get out within the state. Carrie has done a tremendous job of establishing really good relationships with the Department of Commerce and in fact you'll see in the next thing that there'll be some things that we'll be partnering with them on and actually hosting some things here in Still Water. So look forward to having those um continue in 2026. Um this is the one thing that I I wish Carrie could be here tonight. This is really um because of her. I know at the December 15th meeting um you guys passed an opportunity for us to be a film friendly designated um location. So we thank you for that. We had a film uh crew here uh two-eek production um for the 13 folds and $250,000 was invested locally for that. And so I think that opens the door and provides some new opportunities for Stillwater to to be kind of in that film um film area. So very excited about that. Coming soon for 2026. Just kind of wanted to give you an update. Back in the day, that's going to age me. We did have a Stillwater area manufacturing council. And I am pleased to say that Carrie was approached by the current manufacturers here in Stillwater to bring that back. Um we find that very useful for them to be able to collaborate and unite together as they think about their workforce um their growing um um areas and just having that relationship and partnership. So we will be doing that in 2026. We'll partner with Meridian Technology Center and Department of Commerce in order to get

that done. So we're looking forward to that. The other thing Carrie and I thought was important was for all of those surrounding communities that utilize Stillwater um whether or not they have workforce that comes into Stillwater or we um um partner with them is to kind of do a central Oklahoma economic development 101 with some of our smaller communities as we think about what's happening here in Stillwater. We want to be able to help support them. So, it's the Perry's, the Yales, the Cushings, um, bringing in their city managers, their economic development, and other chambers if they want and talk about economic development because we figure what's happening with us, we want to be able to share with them and and have those partnerships and relationships. So, if there's not a good fit here in Still Water, maybe these smaller communities that might be a good thing and that just helps everybody all around. So, we are going to do a a basic February 12th economic 101 just to kind of um establish those um um partnerships. The other thing is all in for Oklahoma. This is an opportunity for this uh Department of Commerce to hold a quarterly meeting and I'm assuming you guys will all be invited. Um it includes those that are in economic development, chambers, main streets, city officials, elected officials to kind of talk about what's happening in the state of Oklahoma, the things that the Department of Commerce does do to provide um incentives or things to help businesses locate. It's just a a great opportunity um to learn information about what it is uh the Department of Commerce does for everyone that's involved. And last but not least, we are all eagerly awaiting the hub to open. One of the things that is part of what we think is important is to kind of start that workforce development early at the fifth grade level. So, we thought it'd be great before all the fifth graders um leave their elementary schools and go to middle school where it can be overwhelming is have an event at the hub where they talk about and have an opportunity to meet each other. But then we also do some career exploration and partner with Marian Technology Center about the things that could happen here in our community as well as just get them out and no better place than the hub. So, a great way to um get them um acclimated to to the community as well. So, we have already met with Stillwater Pioneers um with superintendent and then also with Meridian Technology Center to

kind of begin that. So that'll be end of April or beginning of May that we'll do that this year u when the hub opens up. So key things to start um start them young and hopefully help with the workforce and economic development. Real quick to interrupt, what's the latest start date for the hub? When do we expect it to be open? I hear that it's pretty soon. That's about the best I can tell you. [laughter] November. We just don't know which. I know exactly. Yeah. I I do think that they're looking at probably um hopefully by February. Okay. And that's it. Any questions? Thank you, trustees. Any questions? Thank you for the update. Thank you for the update and the partnership and just your continued intentional engagement with

the city and with all of our partners um around the state. We really appreciate and value the work that you do. You bet. Thank you. With that, I would take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second to adjurnn the meeting. Please vote the vote of four to zero. That adjourns this meeting and our concludes our business for today. Thank you everyone.