City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening.

Good evening.

Welcome to the August 17th, 2026 meeting of the Storer City Council. This time I will call this meeting to order and I'll ask that you all stand and join us in the blood of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

All right. First up today, we have a proclamation in recognition of National Aviation Day. We've got some representatives from our airport here. I'll go ahead and read the proclamation, and then I'll invite you all up. I don't know if you have a long speech prepared, Kelly. I'm sure you do. Whereas National Aviation Day is observed annually on August 19 to celebrate the history, development, and importance of aviation and the contributions of those who have advanced flight and aerospace. And whereas, aviation connects communities, supports economic development, and creates opportunities for education, innovation, and business. And whereas, Stillwater Regional Airport is an important transportation and economic asset, connecting residents, visitors, businesses, and Oklahoma State University to the region and beyond. And whereas the City of Stillwater is investing in the future of commercial aviation and air service through significant improvements to Stillwater Regional Airport, including the grand opening of a new terminal on August 19, 2026, enhancing the passenger experience and supporting our community's continued growth. And whereas the City of Stillwater continues investing in the future of general aviation through both recent and upcoming improvements to Stillwater Regional Airport airfield, including apron, lighting, markings, and runway improvements, enhancing airfield safety, and supporting the aviation community's continued growth. And whereas National Aviation Day provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of aviation while recognizing its important role in connecting Stillwater to the region, nation, and world. Now, therefore, I, William Joyce, Mayor of the City of Stillwater, do hereby proclaim August 19, 2026 as National Aviation Day in the City of Stillwater and encourage our community to celebrate aviation and the vital role Stillwater Regional Airport plays in our future. Kelly? Serge and Devin, are you guys also here? No, you're good? You're coming. Come on up.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilors. Thank you so much for this proclamation. We're extremely excited to be celebrating Aviation and Aerospace Day this Wednesday with our grand opening of the new terminal. So thank you very much for the opportunity, and we look forward to celebrating this day in the future.

Excellent planning for the grand opening on National Aviation Day. I can only imagine two years ago we put this schedule in place so it would be open in time for National Aviation Day, right? Excellent.

Thanks for being here.

Picture time. All right, councillors, next up is the consent docket. Questions, comments, or action on consent?

Motion to approve the consent docket. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve consent. Please vote. Consent docket is approved with a vote of 5-0. Item 7 on general orders. Consider approval of a contract for professional services for pre-design and planning for Stillwater Park System with ADG Black. Christy Driscoll.

Good evening. Good evening. So tonight, before I dig in and introduce this, I want to talk one important point of clarification. This is the beginning of conversations. This is not the final step in decisions or any of that nature. This is actually our launch off for to really dig in and open up communications with the community, with stakeholders, our sports associations, and everything as we move the park system conversation forward. So what tonight represents is this contract focuses on moving the parks planning work into a more visionary and also implementation focused phase. This is related to parks, public spaces, and active recreation. Our intent is to create a roadmap that helps the city involve community, make decisions, prioritize investments, identify funding opportunities, and ultimately move projects toward construction and renovation. So before getting into the individual projects, I want to briefly explain what we are asking of this professional services team to help us accomplish. So the city is looking for a professional partner that can assist not only with these initial assignments, but also with future task orders as we continue to develop priorities. The focus is on amenities, facilities, and active recreation assets within seven primary parks. Our selected team brings experience that's directly relevant to the types of projects that Stillwater is considering. When we look at ADG Blatt, we have clear leaders who, through numerous calls and meetings, have confirmed their fit and understanding of not only this project, but of our community. ADG Blatt has experience with a range of projects that are relevant to this effort, including recreation facilities, tennis facilities, sports complexes, park master plan, vision plans, and major community investment initiatives. Their experience is particularly relevant because Stillwater is not simply looking at individual facilities. We're trying to connect facility planning with broader community priorities. One of the strengths of this proposal was the team that ADG Blatt has assembled. When we look at a multidisciplinary team that specialize in components, we have the specialized expertise. Councilman Hunziker brings specialized aquatics planning and planning design. Wallace Engineering provides civil engineering expertise, which is particularly important when we're evaluating site conditions, infrastructure, utilities, grading, and floodplain considerations. The planning design group provides parks, landscape, architecture, and planning expertise. And Merrick Tennis Court and Track Systems specializes in tennis court and track expertise. This approach allows the city to have appropriate subject matter expertise from the beginning rather than trying to address issues later in the process. The proposal specifically identifies the team as strategic partners for the city throughout the planning process and beyond. The proposal is organized around three distinct task orders, municipal tennis facility planning, an outdoor aquatics facility feasibility and concept planning, and a primary parks vision plan. These are not unrelated projects. The intent is for them to work together as part of a cohesive parks system strategy. The first task order addresses the city's immediate need to determine the feasibility and direction of a municipal tennis facility and where Pickleball may fit in. The facility is being planned around a potential minimum of eight courts at opening with future expansion and concessions and other amenities to be included. A significant part of the initial work is stakeholder engagement, particularly with school partners and our sports associations. The team will evaluate existing tennis programming and current court conditions to better understand our community needs. The city will receive conceptual alternatives, cost estimates, and also final recommendations following community engagement. The second task order focuses on determining what a potential new outdoor aquatics facility could realistically look like and what would be required to make it successful over the long term. Community engagement, site evaluation, market and comparable facility analysis is included so that the city can understand what other communities are doing and what amenities may be appropriate and are being requested for our community. Importantly, the proposal goes beyond construction costs and looks at operational considerations and long-term sustainability. While these two facilities address specific needs, the third task order takes a much broader look at our entire primary parks system. This may be the most comprehensive component of the proposal because it establishes the City's long-term parks investment framework. The plan will focus on seven primary parks and the objective is to obtain a 10-15 year roadmap which identifies priorities, estimated timelines, rough budgets, potential funding re-strategies, and includes public input. The team will evaluate existing amenities, infrastructure, inclusivity, programming, and recreation needs as we look at the larger system-wide questions. The approach allows the city and community to explore what the park system could become while still requiring those ideas to be vetted and translated into an actionable strategy. This is a strategic deployment plan across the park system that identifies priorities and the most effective ways to invest across the system. The final product is intended to be something that the city can actually use, prioritized, phased, cost-informed, and connected to the community's needs and desires. ADG Black does have representatives Tim, Julie, and Nate present. Should there be any questions, we appreciate their partnership in the work so far. I'm happy to answer any questions, and I have a staff recommendation when you are ready.

Thank you, Christy. Counselors, any questions?

No questions, I'm just extremely excited, grateful for staff's energy and efforts getting us to this point. I think our investment in our public spaces not only enhances our public health and wellness but also our sense of belonging in our community. I think these projects are ones that our community's been talking about for quite a while and I'm really excited to start in earnest those conversations on some of these specific projects and start kind of dreaming a little bigger with the community on the larger vision plan. So thank you.

Absolutely.

I'm muted, I'm muted. As the Vice Mayor and I have been working together as the subcommittee of the council with staff, sort of getting us to this point because we've spent a lot of time dealing with some of the neighborhood parks and some of the issues in those parks and trying to figure out what direction we wanted to go. We got the input from, there were two or three bids on proposals for how to move forward, and ADG Blatt just blew us away with their breadth of experience, with the depth of their bench, with the knowledge they bring to the table, and frankly, the excitement they have for these projects. And I couldn't be more delighted to be part of the recommendation of saying let's move forward on this.

What's your recommendation for us, Quincy?

Recommendation is approval of contract for professional services pre-design and planning for Stillwater Park system with ADG Black for $157,763 plus $15,770 for contingency, also known as 10%, and approve associated budget amendment.

Councillors?

Motion to approve staff's recommendation.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the recommendation. Please vote.

Thank you.

It's approved with a vote of 5 to 0. We're certainly excited to see the work that will happen there. And we do want to just pass along thanks to Vice Mayor Jaloski and Councillor Clark. I really wanted to call you Councillor Hardin, but I knew that wasn't right. Councillor Clark for their work on the subcommittee there for the last several months.

So we're looking forward to the next step.

Item 8 is ordinances. On second read, we have Ordinance 3620, an ordinance amending the Stillwater City Code by amending Chapter 16, Crimes, Miscellaneous Offenses and Provisions, by amending Article 4, Offenses Involving Public Peace and Order, Section 16-83, Loud Music Prohibited, repealing all ordinances to the contrary and providing for severability, and declaring an emergency. Councillors.

Motion to adopt Ordinance number 3620. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt the ordinance. Please vote. The ordinance is adopted with a vote of five to zero. Will there be action on the emergency clause?

I move to engage and adopt the emergency clause.

Second. We have a motion and a second to adopt the emergency clause. Please vote. With a vote of five to zero, the emergency clause for ordinance 3620 is adopted. Moves us to item nine, appointments. We have an open seat on the Stillwater Public Art Committee. And I am happy to recommend or to nominate Jennifer Birchfield to a three year term on the Stillwater Public Art Committee. Would expire in April of 2029. Excited about her passion for our community and her willingness to serve on the Public Art Committee. So I'll make that motion to appoint her. Second. We have a motion and a second. Please vote. vote of five to zero jennifer birchfield is appointed to a three-year term on the store of public art committee thank you for your willingness to serve it takes us to reports from the officers in the ward ms carnley

Request for an executive session pursuant to 25 OS section 307B4 for the purpose of confidential communications between the city council and its attorney concerning all aspects of litigation in Coulter versus City of Stillwater at all. United States Federal District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Case number CIV-26-776-G. It is the opinion of the city attorney that disclosure of this matter will seriously impair the ability of the city to conduct litigation and or proceed in the public interest.

Thank you. Mr. Moore.

yes i'm actually going to go off script i just want to take time to thank staff for a very challenging week with our water line breaks as as we have these record high temperatures and the soil drying that means leaks can happen and we saw that last week some leaks in fact a major leak on highway 51 was accidentally hit by a contractor and we had crews working through the night for a couple nights trying to just get that repaired and keep people in water. I know we had some neighborhoods without water the night before school, which is frustrating for us all. As a utility, we pride ourselves in reliability and resilience and we have a troubled line and staff has been working for two years with an engineering consultant to get that redesigned. It's very challenging. We've talked about it here at Council before. And so I just appreciate all the hours and all the efforts that I saw with our staff last week, some really tired folks. And I'm just grateful for all their work and for our residents, for understanding that we are doing everything to make sure our infrastructure is strong. And yeah, I'm just grateful for those folks. And thank you for the patience of our folks who were without water last week. And we've continued to have more breaks this week. And there's people working on them right now. So just grateful for our team.

Thank you. Vice Mayor.

Cowboy football is back. Heading to an OSU home game? Make game day easier with a free park and ride shuttle service offered through a partnership between Oklahoma State University Athletics, the City of Stillwater, and Visit Stillwater. Shuttle service begins three hours before kickoff and runs every 30 minutes. Pick up and drop off location is the same at 7th Avenue and Lewis Street. Park in downtown and grab some food or drinks and enjoy a convenient ride to the game. For the game day guide, parking information, and more, go to visitstillwater.org. Go Pokes.

Go Pokes. Councilor Hawkins.

We'll see you at the 2026 Payne County Free Fair. Join us on August 26th through the 29th at the Payne County Expo Center and stop by the City of Stillwater's booth in the Expo Hall. Throughout the fair, you'll have a chance to meet city staff from across our organization, learn more about city services and projects, ask questions, and share your thoughts about our community. We'd love to see you, so stop by and say hello.

Always fun at the fair, thank you. Councillor Clark. Well, I'm pleased to announce that Payne County has officially transitioned to the new reliable countywide radio system. Public safety is now 100% interoperable throughout the county. This important achievement would not have been possible without the collaboration of the county, OSU, Stillwater Emergency Management, Stillwater Police and Fire, and our many partners in police, fire, and emergency management in Ingalls, Yale, Perkins, Ripley, Glencoe, and Cushing. This has been a multi-year effort focusing on improving communication, coordination, and safety for our first responders. Today, Payne County operates with one 911 system, one computer-aided dispatch system, and one radio system, hoping to ensure agencies can communicate seamlessly and respond more effectively to residents and visitors. Special thanks to Rob Hill, Director of Stillwater Emergency Management, for leading this project, and to everyone who helped get this across the finish line. We appreciate the continued commitment to keeping Stillwater and Payne County safe.

Yeah, that's really great, and it's really important. And one of those projects that I think, one, yes, multi-years, and two, I think the public doesn't really have a great understanding of everything that happens behind the scenes there. I didn't until we started talking about it. So the amount of work and the amount of benefit I think we'll see from that is really, really great.

For about three years, every time I saw Rob Hill, I asked for an update on this.

I'm sure he appreciated that. Councillor Hardin.

In case you haven't noticed, extreme heat and continued drought have created very dry and concerning conditions in our community. Stillwater fire has already responded to multiple grass fires associated with routine outdoor work, highlighting how quickly these conditions can lead to a fire. Residents can help reduce the risk of fire by, one, mowing and using outdoor equipment during cooler, less windy times of day, and keeping equipment away from dry grass. How you mow and keep away from dry grass, I don't know. Keeping yards, driveways, and areas around structures clear of dry grass, leaves, and other combustible materials. Having water or a fire extension nearby when performing outdoor work that could create heat or sparks. For updates and emergency preparedness information, follow Stillwater Fire and Stillwater Emergency Management on Facebook and sign up to receive Be Informed notifications. You can get that at stillwaterok.gov slash SEMA, S-E-M-A.

Thank you, sir. I will remind you, as we've already done once tonight, that Wednesday, August 19th at 10 a.m., we're going to celebrate the grand opening of the new Stewart Regional Airport Terminal. And it is going to be a celebration. We are really, really excited about it. We would love for you to come see the new terminal. Explore its modern amenities and help us celebrate this exciting investment in Stillwater's future. Remember, the best way to support our local airport is to use it. When booking your next flight, enter SWO at AA.com and fly from Stillwater Regional Airport. Every passenger helps strengthen air service for our community and region. We hope to see you Wednesday morning at the new Stillwater Regional Airport Terminal.

And this is probably the last opportunity to get behind the TSA checkpoints and look around before you fly.

Very good point, yes. If you don't have a ticket for a while or you haven't been out there or you're not flying anytime soon, this is your chance to go see the waiting lounge and all the really great amenities at the airport. Anything further, or is there, well, at this point, I will move that we adjourn this meeting, or excuse me, I will move that we will recess this meeting prior to item 12 on the agenda. Second.

We have a motion and a second to recess the city council. Please vote.

With a vote of 5-0, the Stoder City Council will now be in recess. This time, I will call to order the Stoder Utilities Authority meeting for August 17, 2026. Trustees, questions, comments, or action on the consent docket?

Motion to approve the consent docket. Second.

Motion and second to approve consent. Please vote. With a vote of five to zero, the consent docket is approved. There's nothing further on this agenda. Is there a motion to adjourn SUA? So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to adjourn the SUA. Please vote. With a vote of five to zero, the Store Utilities Authority meeting will now be adjourned. This time, I will call to order the Store Economic Development Authority meeting for August 17, 2026. Trustees, questions, comments, or action on the consent docket?

Motion to approve consent docket. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Please vote. The vote of five to zero, the consent docket is approved. Takes us to general orders and the highlight of the evening, a Visit Stillwater semiannual report from Christy Morrison and her team. I don't know why everybody left right before you spoke, Christy. Do what? I don't know why everybody left right before you got up. I know.

Don't take it first. It's OK. It's OK. Oh, he did.

I have stories about him from college I could share now.

Christy Morrison with Visits to Water. This is Nicole Horn and Madeline Cowan. The third member of our team. And we just thought we would bring up a color copy of this report. Remember, I know this report is somewhat lengthy. We do the report in this manner because that's what it takes to keep our accreditation. So everything that we need in it is in it so that when we have to renew that every year, we have to make sure and prove that all of those things are in our reports. And also just as a side note, all of our business plans, semi-annual reports and annual reports for the current year and the previous two fiscal years can all be found through links on our website in any given time. So anybody, in fact, your parks people, Kevin and Amy, they wanted to go in and look at those too. So I thought that was kind of cool. So just as an overview, Visit Stillwater is the destination marketing organization for our community. And we like to say that we're a member of the economic development team, but also the quality of life team. We really encourage thousands of visitors a year to come into Stillwater for state, regional, local events, but also we promote about 250 hospitality-related businesses a year. That's every retailer, restaurant, museum, attraction, lodging, property, anything within the hospitality realm. We do everything we can to help them get the word out that they do exist. Obviously, in marketing, your websites are most important, really, item that you put together, but what is really challenging for us right now is The organic search traffic has declined industry-wide because of Google AI. And we've been spending a ton of money to come up to the first of every search. And now that's just not going to happen. However, like the mayor's heard me say on the radio many Monday mornings, please use your trusted source for information. You can Google events and a lot of times that information will be correct, but it'll be correct for 2025, 2024, not for the current year. So please use your Visit Stillwater website when you're researching events and things to do in Stillwater.

Our guide to the local scene has been extremely well received for many years.

We print and distribute 100,000 copies every year. We went from 44 to 48 pages two years ago, and this year we're going to need to increase another four pages, so we're going to 52 pages. And a big part of that is because of the information we want to get out, but also we have limited amount of space for advertisers, but people obviously really want to be in it because 100,000 copies and a lot of exposure. We're going to add four more pages because it doesn't increase to our mailing cost, frankly. We have just under 42,000 followers on Facebook. We have over 9,000 subscribers to our monthly e-newsletter. We mail out 400 postcards to our hospitality partners letting them know approximate attendance at local events for the upcoming month to help them plan staffing. We do a TV show most weekday mornings, radio three mornings a week, blogs, news releases. Madeline's been great about getting a bunch of news releases out recently about different things that are going on and a lot of the events that Nicole recruits into town. We do a monthly column for the news press. We've been doing that for probably, I don't know, 15 years now, which we really appreciate that partnership. We do at least four rack cards a year, but this year we did six. We also helped Still Wonder do one for the Children's Museum. We do monthly 60-second promo videos, four quarterly 30-second commercials. And last fiscal year, we put up 84 banners and 466 event flyers in our 24-7 event center or information center. We love doing our Fly Local Shop Local campaigns, like crazy days and the holidays, but we also do 405 Day, that is on April 5th. We do National Travel and Tourism Week, and then this year we did four additional, well actually two, and we're gonna do two more for America 250. Thought we would do a couple more. So we've done President's Day, Memorial Day. We're also going to do Labor Day and Veterans Day this year to give people more of an opportunity to shop locally and a chance to win American Airline gift cards. We designed a Fly SWO America 250 t-shirt. Actually, that was a request by our friends at TSA. They said, hey, we'd really love to be able to promote the airport at the 4th of July celebration. You can't give them to us, but could you design something so that we could go buy them? And so we just mentioned it on air and it's immediately sold like, Two dozen of them so we did reorder those if anybody's interested the real cozy fun t-shirts We as a primary partner on the economic development team. We work with Carrie Moore at the Chamber on activities through the Oklahoma Department of Commerce Also, we are this breakfast sponsor for the Manufacturers Council meetings and we attend the economic development and infrastructure committee We just went online this morning at 8 o'clock so we can get all the really cool things to help promote the airport in their conference room, on the back cover of their publication, and a lot of the different activities that they host throughout the year. We worked with OSU, OSU Athletics, the city on the Stoked Week Music Fest, which was great. This year we provided four shuttle buses free of charge to our visitors. And it went from Boone Pickens Stadium to downtown to the Strip, Campus Corner, and Elm Street. We gave them all the driver's clickers, and we had almost 1,000 passengers for that one day from noon to 1 in the morning. And we're going to kind of... do some of the same things that we did for that for the park and ride for football season this year to help get the word out about what's going on throughout the community. In fact, Madeline came up with a really cool idea to encourage shopping on Sunday after football games. So we're just asking some of our particularly downtown and boutique shops, please be open six more days a year because we're going to really be trying to get people in your shop that day when you have thousands of extra people in town. Seems a shame not to be open so that we can help get some people through your doors. Super excited about the wayfinding and signage program. That's going to be a game changer for us. That's something I know the Visit Stillwater Board has really wanted to help make happen for 25 years. A big thank you to Brady, the city manager, for enabling us to go down that path. And also a big thank you to the Visit Stillwater Board for going to to help get the tax increase to be able to fund that. So we're super excited about that, as well as banners, signage, and way finding. So that's going to be great for our community. At the end of the fiscal year, our visitor tax was trending 11% behind the previous year. But that was doing great part to one of the short-term rental companies catching up two and a half years. So it kind of skewed last fiscal year to the fiscal year before it. Now we should be kind of evening out to where it's kind of more comparable apples to apples. Since 19, or 19, since 2023, when the visitor tax increased from 4% to 7%, it's generated just over $8 million. $2.4 million of that is for visitor development amenities. And then above and beyond the Visit Stillwater contract, there's $1.1 million that's going to help us make this signage program happen. Entryway signage, park signage, a lot of things that, We need to have a cohesive look and I'm super excited about it. And I love that Brady, Donna and I kind of have the same taste in design because it's gonna really kind of emulate Block 34, the new airport, some signage that's really going to look nice and be very visible, but also really show a lot about our community and obviously that we care about our community. I think the visitors will be able to see that as well. Then in addition, the city also collected about $4.6 million in sales tax above and beyond the visitor tax. So obviously those visitors are making a great impact and significantly impacting our quality of life. One thing that Nicole works on very, very closely are the grants and the sponsorships that we provide groups to get them to come to our community. Generally, those are used for facility costs. So we provided about $146,000 in grants and sponsorships last year. Which equated to just for those particular grants and sponsorship events almost for fifty seven thousand day visitors thirteen thousand five hundred overnight visitors and equated to about twelve point five million dollars, so one hundred forty six thousand dollars Equating it to twelve point five million. That's a pretty good return We assisted about 1,200 meetings and events. Those are meetings and events, not leisure events necessarily. And that was about $1.2 million in services we provided to local event planners. On our geolocation data, I will tell you that while the visitor spend is down nationwide, we still trended better than most of our comparable communities, thank goodness. But what it showed was about $41 was spent on average by a visitor. But if you take out chains, gas stations, grocery stores, nationally known hotels, The visitor spin at local businesses only was about 34%. Visitor spin at local restaurants was about 26%. Visitor spin at local retailers was 31%. And then, of course, this makes sense. Arts, entertainment, and attractions was 57%. That will almost always be mainly visitors. But that's a big percentage of sales at our local business partners being from visitors and not necessarily from residents. Do you have any questions on the visit Stillwater portion of the report?

I was going to share a little bit about the airport as well Well, I was just going to comment that as I was going through both of these reports It struck me yet again that it's sort of remarkable to me how much visit Stillwater gets done with three employees You crank out a lot of work and I appreciate that. Thank you.

We appreciate it These two are maniacs Anyone else? Okay, so this is really cool because we obviously incorporated FlySWO into our marketing plan 10 years ago. But officially, last fiscal year was the first that we were the official marketing arm of the airport. So we've really strengthened that and have Done a lot just to promote the airport in some of the ads, but really kind of both. Once you get here, what do you do once you get here? So it kind of makes sense that we kind of cross promote. In fact, I know that from just the calls and emails I'm getting, there's a lot of other communities that are trying to get their DMO to do the same thing for them. So we'll see if we'll be able to help with some of that. But to make it read a little easier, we separated it into advertising, promotions, public relations, social media, website, and campaigns. And it's a challenge. That's everything we can remember. And I'm sure that we've forgotten some things. But we really were cranking out the fly swow message over the last 12 months and super excited about the direction that we're going to go the next 12 months. We have visitor information stands at the airport. The ones from the old terminal moved to the new terminal. But I'll tell you, I'm working with the interior designers who actually know one of them's husband through our industry. He's in my industry, so I've known him for quite a while. She's helping us locate some literature distribution stands that have built-in storage so that the information is right there. And we can help get the word out. And one will be in the baggage claim area. And one will be in the, well, it's kind of where you come in, but also where you're departing. Because we want to give people a reason to come back. And that's why we're going to have the information there and work with Kelly on some of that. She may be able to use some of it as revenue generation as well. So we'll help her with that. We hosted four quarterly marketing team meetings to brainstorm our partnership ideas. That's what the city, the airport, the chamber, Cowboy Sports Properties, OSU, OSU Athletics, OSU Alumni Association. And so now they're seeing the necessity and what a partnership is. So a lot of the things that we're doing, we are paying for that advertising or that marketing, but they are also doing things as a true partnership. helping us out with things it's not a cost but it's clearly a benefit to all of us so I love the way this is headed in fact the Alumni Association reached out to us and we helped them with a brighter origin North Texas scholarship gala in Dallas they put club seats with we paid for two round-trip tickets so we did that together we also did a carry-on suitcase and chock full of fun travel things for the posse auction that they just held. So we do a lot of those things just to remind people once again to fly SWO. We attended two shows with Kelly, the airport director, to stay in front of different airlines to make sure they know we're the real deal. They're going to love this new terminal for sure. And just make sure American Airlines knows that we love them and let other airlines know that there might be potential future partnerships with them as well. We received a TSA certificate of appreciation from the national headquarters, or the Oklahoma headquarters, because we provided all of their employees with some gift cards during the government shutdown. We realized that they were going to work. We were super lucky and we never had to worry about that. We provided just under $700,000 in earned and paid marketing services for the airport over the last 12 months, which is Crazy. We could very conservatively assign value to things like a conversation on the radio or talking about it on TV or things that aren't really costing money but do have value. And then what I'm super excited about is we've just contracted with a group called the Quotient Group and they work very closely with A. LeVon who is Kelly's data collection organization. And they specialize in marketing in the aviation world. And so they are developing for us a SWO-specific website, a standalone website. It's going to have its own feel, its own look. We will obviously all link to it, and it will link to all of us. But it is industry best practices and standard that an airport has its own website. So we're going to work toward that. And also, they're very knowledgeable in what works in aviation social media as well. So we're going to work with them on that and then just kind of go down what's best practices route and make sure that we're hitting all of those things that we need to be doing. I know everybody's brought up the grand opening on Wednesday. We're super excited about that. Is that this week?

Yeah, it's this week.

It's hard to believe. We've been working on it, I think, for months, but super, super, super excited. You're going to want to be there because we're going to have some really cool logo items, new rack cards, new magnets. We have commemorative boarding passes, stickers. We're going to have really cool custom-made cookies. snack boxes that emulate what you would get in an airport or on an airplane. We're going to have some red dirt music there. We're going to have really cool balloon columns and card your yard and just all kinds of really fun kind of photo ops inside as well. Madeline helped us. She just got married two weeks ago. And they had her new last name in big lit letters. She's like, let's do that with SWO. So those are going to be out at the airport as well. So there's going to be a lot of fun things. I just want to remind everybody, too, though, is our 10th anniversary with American Airlines is on Sunday. So I'm really excited because I got to go out on that first flight with Kerry because he and I had worked so closely. getting that air service, but I'm so excited too because I'm flying up for work on Sunday. So if anybody is on that flight Sunday morning, I will too have a bag of swag to hand out to everybody on that flight with me on Sunday morning. It'll be fun. Do you guys have any questions about what we're doing for the airport?

I was interested. You mentioned airport social media with the new partnership. I saw an ad on Instagram, I think, for the Tulsa airport that let us know that it's really easy to park just across the street for just $9 a day. And I thought, man, we need to screenshot this one and put it in our app.

I did screenshot that. I think we'll use that at some point.

because of course SWO still has free parking and will continue to have free parking and so I mean I know that the work that you all are doing to spread that word especially around the surrounding communities I love to hear what you're doing in North Texas I think that and I know Kelly and her team will be at lights on Stillwater and Because that student population and hoping those folks understand that, hey, you're from North Texas or anywhere else, you know, you can get home and your parents can get here. And all of those folks outside of Stillwater are hearing more about this. And I think the visuals of the new airport are going to be really, really great for those folks who have never been here to sort of see, oh, there's an airport there, right? And so, yeah, really appreciate the work that you're doing there and continue to get that word.

Everybody knows that I'm not a big fan of that term, you build it, they will come, because I feel strongly that you really have to market it and shamelessly promote it. But I do think in the example of this airport, it's true. You build it, they will come, because that is just going to change everybody's perception in a big way. There's no doubt about it. It's unbelievable.

Yeah, I've already gotten several messages from folks who have flown in this week and like, wow, I just came into the new airport. I love that. So yeah, just seeing it, I think, is going to help.

I do too.

What we've accomplished with the airport in 10 years with the quality of the facilities we had, because it's basically a portable building, right, is pretty remarkable. I think the next 10 years is going to completely reshape our aviation in Stillwater.

Agreed, and it's going to be up to Visit Stillwater to a large degree to help make sure that happens. I mean, like you said, I agree. The building is definitely going to help, but what we do with it and how we get the word out and how we tell people about it and getting more folks to recognize that they can come in and out of here is really going to lead to that change. Really important and glad you guys are on the team making it happen.

Thank you. Anything else? OK. Thank you.

That's it. Thanks for being here. Thanks for your work. Nothing further on the CETA agenda. Is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adjourn. CETA, please vote. With a vote of 5 to 0, the Storter Economic Development Authority is now adjourned. At this time, I will reconvene the Storter City Council meeting. Prior to item 12 on the agenda, is there a motion to enter executive session for the reasons requested by the city attorney? So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to enter executive session as the Storter City Council. Please vote. With a vote of 5 to 0, the Storter City Council will now be in executive session. We're back. Is there a motion to reconvene in regular session?

Motion to reconvene.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Please call the roll.

Mayor Joyce?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Delosky? Yes. Councillor Hawkins? Yes. Councillor Clark? Yes. Councillor Harton?

Yes. With a vote of 5-0, the Storrs City Council is back in regular session. Was there any recommended action from executive session?

No action.

There being no action, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved.

Second. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adjourn the City Council. Please call the roll.

Mayor Joyce? Yes. Vice Mayor Jaloski? Yes. Councillor Hawkins? Yes. Councillor Clark? Yes. Councillor Hardin?

Yes. With a vote of 5-0, the Steward of City Council is now adjourned, and that concludes our meetings for the evening.