City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the city council, Norman Utilities Authority, Norman Municipal Authority, and Norman Tax Increment Finance Authority reconvened meeting of March 10th, 2026. Madame Clerk, will you please call the role? Council member Gandisberry here. Council member Peacock is absent. Council member Bruce here. Council member Grant present. Council member Noire here. Council member Hinkle here. Council member Blahett here. Council member Dixon here. Mayor Hullman here.

We won't do the pledge. Sorry. And item 21 is consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and/or postponement of contract K-2526-139 by and between the city of Norman and the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority for the East West Connector Utility Relocation Agreement for the relocation of water wells and water lines generally between generally located between 48th Avenue Northwest West and 24th Avenue Northwest. I'll entertain a motion to approve, reject, amend, or postpone the contract. Motion uh to postpone. Second.

Second. All right. The motion on the floor is to postpone contract K-2526-139 to the next regular council meeting of March 24th, 2026, where it will be heard in regular order. Are there any questions or comments about the postponement from council? Council member blah. Council member Grant. Oh, no.

Okay. Anyone else? This is an opportunity for members of the public to make comments regarding the postponement of this item. Is there anybody that would like to speak about this postponement? See none. Are there any final comment? Please.

Hello. Uh Miami Wler Ward 2. I think it's a good idea to postpone this because the reconvening there's not so many people here. So I would rather have a lot more people here to you know say what they need to say about this. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Are there any final comments from council regarding this item? Seeing none, the motion on the floor is to postpone the contract. Council members, you may cast your votes.

All votes have been cast and [clears throat] the motion to postpone contract K261 139 passes unanimously. Okay. Okay. Item 22, consideration of approval, rejection, amendment, and/or postponement of contract K-2526-156 buy and between the city of Norman and the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority in the amount of 2,200,000 for the construction of 36th Avenue Northwest phase 2 project from 700 feet north of Franklin Road to Indian Hills Road and relating to the East West Connector and associated maintenance and access agreements. I'll entertain a motion to approve, reject, amend, or postpone the contract.

Motion to postpone, second.

The motion on the floor is to postpone the contract to the next regular council meeting of March 24th, 2026, where it will be heard in regular order. Are there any questions or comments about the postponement from council? See, this is an opportunity for members of the public to make comments regarding the postponement of this item. Like to about the postponement. Seeing none, final comments from council regarding postponing this item. Seeing none, the motion on the floor is to postpone contract K-2526-156. Council members, you may cast your votes. All votes. All votes have been cast and the motion to postpone contract K2526-156 passes unanimously.

Thank you. I know we had um at least one council member that indicated they wouldn't be here. I was under the impression there might be others that might not be here and I know multiple people from the public reached out saying that due to spring break they would not be able to be here but did want to speak on this item. So, um, that would be the reason I think for the postponement. So, um, with that miscellaneous comment, do we have anybody signed up for that?

Mayor, I still have the sheet from the May 10th meeting. Um, if you would like, I can go down the list and see if there's anybody present or you can open up the floor and just ask if anybody would like to speak because there's there's about 30 people here and I don't believe I have that many in the chambers. Would anybody here uh like to make any miscellaneous comments?

Please come on. Council, Mayor, Carlinda Gravel, Ward 4, First Courthouse. That's new. You're going to hear me say that each time I'm here because I just found some amazing things about our city and I'm excited to share them with you. So, as you know, I've been coming to council for just a little while and I didn't know all these wonderful historical things that we have about our city. I just didn't know. Just never looked them up. Never went to anything that told me about them. So, I live in First Courthouse, as you can imagine. We had the First Courthouse. First courthouse. Now, I haven't been able to find a photo of that. Apparently, we rented initially, which wasn't uncommon. We rented some offices on Main Street. That wasn't uncommon for our Cleveland County, which wasn't named yet to rent offices across the street uh on Main Street. So, our Cleveland County courthouse was uh the location that we do have a photo of was on the corner of Gray and Panka. Um it wasn't talked about positively because it was talked about as an adobe shack because the house there that was used as the uh re refurbishing of those stones is still on the corner. They took the stones from the fire and uh rebuilt a house out of them on the corner of of Gray and Panka. As you can imagine, we've been working for a very long time in First Courthouse. First Courthouse is a CDBG neighborhood community development block grant. So, you can only guess we're important. We're one of the neighborhoods that help bring in a million dollars a year for our city. So, we don't want to mess that up. So, as our uh city manager recently stated, we can use that money as a revolving loan, it sounds like. So, we've got a pretty penny just because we exist. So in 198 uh74 the federal government made the CDBG money available. So they came into

our city and they started doing historical surveys. A lot of our uh houses in old silk stalking uh got into the historical survey. The uh facts surrounding our first courthouse uh are in the historical documents. Uh we've worked really hard all these years. You need to go back and look. You're about to have something come on your agenda. need to pay very close attention to that. This neighborhood has worked very very hard to create boundaries to the business district. It's been a challenge for uh single families and I know that our our neighborhood is a highly soughtafter uh first house for a lot of people because with the CDBG money we can give them a little bit of a break. So we want those families who whoever they are, whatever makes up a family, we want them to move into our neighborhood and create a neighborhood full of residents. So, we've worked hard to create the boundaries that separate our business district that was destroying our neighborhood. So, when the surveys came in and they went in to find out about our neighborhood, they found out that it was very, very important that we keep the businesses and the residentials very, very distinct. That's the reason we have to build those sixoot masonary walls now. if any more businesses go in on Porter, whether that be for Old Silk Stalking or First Courthouse. Very, very we've worked very hard to be a residential neighborhood because what was happening is when a border resident would come up for sale, the business would buy it and make it a parking lot, impervious surface. So, the businesses have continued to ooze into our area. So, we want to keep what we've got. We're working towards that. We're working on beautifying our neighborhood. I have keys to some of my neighborhoods houses now. That's how close we are. We know each other. We wave. Everyone's welcome to come say hi and sit on my porch with me. We usually have pets. We have a highly walkable neighborhood. So,

please keep that in mind and I'll send you some documents in email. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else like to speak? Miscellaneous comment. Good evening, council um and uh Norman residents who may be watching this. Um uh again, I want I want to reiterate um uh to be aware of your ethical and uh behavior. Um there have been some that have been very busy on social media. um uh talking smack um on different issues uh including uh particular podcast rabel rousing troops. Um we've had uh council members um pushing to have a particular ward called the horde which I find extremely offensive. um even when as far as designing t-shirts that say the horde for that particular ward four. Um and so it's real disconcerting to have this type of um behavior pushed by council, pushed by members of council. It's disgusting as a matter of fact. So, I want you to be aware of your P's and Q's because I find it very offensive and I'm sure lots of other people in this city find it offensive when their members that are supposed to be representing them treat them like something less than. Thank you.

Thank you. Trey Kirby, Ward Five. I just wanted to say thank you to all y'all who came in on St. Pattage today to address the Turnpike, which is going to address multiple wards and putting it off until we have more people. That's all.

Thank you. Uh hello again, Miami Wler. Uh word two. So, I've been reading on the book of faces and there are some ideas that the economic development agreement for the tiff was not actually like valid because if the ordinance wasn't passed as an emergency ordinance then it would have to wait for two weeks but then that didn't happen whatever. Um, so on the amount of money that this whole tiff is getting, I know there's the reluctance to repeal it, but can you modify it? So right now it's 100% of sales tax and adalorum tax. What if you just cut that in half? 50%. That's all they get for 25 years. Does that make it easier to, you know, to amend it rather than repeal it? Um, I was looking at my property taxes the other day. So, when I bought my house, like I guess it was 27 years ago, something like that, property taxes were like $800ish dollars a year. It basically equaled, you know, my mortgage payment at the time. Um, and when I paid it this year, it was almost $2,000. So, how much is it going to go up, you know, with the 100% advorum tax diversion? Um, what is the city, what is the county

going to have to pay for with that money that will no longer be there because it is going to the tiff? That's it. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else like to make any miscellaneous comments? Seeing none. Okay. Any final comment from council? Council member Gansbury. First foremost, I'd hate for us to leave night and not thank the Norman Tigers for winning the state championship. Bringing a lot of pride to a lot of us in this town. And if then hopefully maybe with the help of somebody we can write a proclamation or something like that to honor them and their great achievements. I also would like to thank the U women's basketball team for securing homec court game showing that the Lloyd Noble can hold an NCAA tournament first round game. also like to extend a thank you to the University of Houston for choosing OU's practice facility to use while they're in town for the NCAA tournament which will be in Oklahoma City, thus possibly helping out some of our hotels and our hotel tax here in Norman also. And I wish the OU boys would accepted the NIT tournament cuz then they would be hosting a first round game here in Norman, Oklahoma. Also in that great Lloyd Noble that we all love and adore. That's all.

Any other comment from council? Save mine till next Tuesday. Okay. Then with that, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.