City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh, wait a second. We've been emailed.

All right, everybody. It's 5.30, so we'll go ahead and get started with the City Council study session for Tuesday, June 16, 2026. We have two items on the agenda. The first one is continued discussion regarding updates to ordinances related to city parks and camping on public property. It looks like we have City Attorney and Parks Director here to discuss that with us.

Yes, we do. Thanks, Mayor. All right. When we were here before, we talked about a bunch of issues that were related to public parks and some possible updates to our ordinances. The first sort of bite that we've taken out of that project was to talk about amending our ordinances with regard to conduct in parks. And what you have that I passed out, you've got two potential ordinances. The first one we're going to talk about, and it's this one, the one that has all the whereabouts clauses on the first page. is really an amendment of the existing ordinance with regard to activities in Sutton Urban Wilderness. And that is section 24-507. Currently, as written, that ordinance only applies to Sutton Wilderness. And what we are proposing is to amend that ordinance to make it apply to all of our public parks. So what we've proposed is dividing that ordinance into two sections, the subsection A and subsection B, Subsection A would apply to Sutton Wilderness, kind of sort of as it's currently written to a certain extent. Section B would apply to our community and neighborhood parks. And our ordinance defines community parks as Griffin, Reeves, Andrews, Sutton, Urban Wilderness Area, John Soxon Park, and Ruby Grand Park. And the neighborhood parks are all the other public parks that aren't listed in the definition of community parks. So for Sutton Wilderness, sort of what we've done that ordinance is we have Sutton Wilderness as written and you'll see that on page number two has a provision number four it's a number four that prohibits camping and we've taken that out because we're going to propose another ordinance that specifically applies to camping not just in our public parks but on all of our city problems so we've deleted that particular provision again because we're going to put it in another provision subsection one TALKS ABOUT NO PARTICULAR ENGAGING IN FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES WITHIN SOUTH NEGRO WILDERNESS EXCEPT BY WRITTEN PERMIT FOR SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES OR ISSUED BY THE PARKS AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT. THE ONLY ONE THAT THAT REALLY APPLIES TO IS COLLECTING SAMPLES. SO WE'VE TAKEN THAT LANGUAGE AND JUST MOVED IT FROM THAT PROVISION THAT'S ACTUALLY THE FIRST PART OF IT IN A AND MOVED IT DOWN TO THAT SPECIFIC PROVISION WHICH IS A8 THAT TALKS ABOUT COLLECTING BIOLOGICAL OR GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. Proposing to number nine, subsection, which would now be A19, had to do with operating a boater canoe. And talking with our Parks and Rec director, we were talking about things like, well, is a float tube for fishing considered to be a watercraft? And by some stretch of that definition answer is yes and what we were after was essentially not just boats or canoes but keeping anybody out of our our ponds and our parks so we revised that language to talk specifically about operating or launching any watercraft including unlimited boats canoes kayaks rafts float tubes paddle boards or similar floating devices just so we make sure that it's not just a boat or canoe and somebody could get in a float tube and say well i'm not in a boat or a canoe We want to be able to keep everybody out of our ponds that we have in our parks. Proposing number 11, initially it was written to prohibit use of or possessing a bow slingshot, air gun, firearm, or other such device that control projects. The problem with that today is the legislature has preempted municipalities with regard to regulating the discharging of firearms and air guns. So the only things that we can really do based on that statutory provision under state law is we can regulate transporting it in a dangerous manner, we can regulate discharging an air rifle in a negligent manner, and we can regulate discharging any firearm unless it's for some authorized reason. So we're proposing to revise that provision, really to make it more consistent with Oklahoma state law. Instead of just possessing those particular devices, discharging any firearm, bow, slingshot, air gun, or other device capable of propelling a projectile except as authorized by law. The authorization by law includes protecting yourself and others and other people's property. So it goes from simple possession, and one of the things that we've struggled with a little bit in the past is the concept of a bow and arrow. I've had calls from citizens that were upset because during hunting season, a lot of times hunters that hunt with bow and arrow will set up like a target practice in their backyard. And the question became, is that something that they can do in a residential neighborhood? And the answer is there really isn't a clear answer because there really isn't a a good definition that I could find statutorily of whether you would consider a bow to be a dangerous weapon or not. I probably would consider it. There's probably a lot of people that would, but there really isn't any statutory definition for that. So we've struggled with that a little bit. But when the legislature preempted us, they didn't preempt us from just firearms. It also includes knives and other weapons of that sort. I could see them potentially amending that provision that brimmed us from, because there are a lot of bow hunters in the state, I could see them brimping us from even regulating that. So we're just not prohibiting you from carrying it. We're just prohibiting you from discharging it unless it's authorized by law. And again, generally the authorization by law would include protecting yourself or others. There's a provision in here with regard to hunting. You can't hunt in our public parks. In general, in Norman, you can discharge a firearm. You're prohibited from discharging a firearm. One of the exceptions is hunters in area zone A2. Well, most of our parks are not zone A2, so you wouldn't be allowed to hunt in there anyway. But this does, if you were carrying a boat, I would assume you'd be using it for hunting. But again, because you can't hunt, specifically in parks, and again, because you really can't hunt in areas that are not zone A2 anyway. That does help clarify that a little bit. We're proposing to amend... Yes.

I heard on the hunting, I was just curious, do we allow people to do any kind of target practice in our parks?

No.

So no archery, no city properties other than like, you know... We've been talking about that with Ryan Riddell because

During the medieval fair, they do have an archery deal set up.

Is there like a special permit?

There is a special events permit that they would get. And that's one of the other things that we'll talk about that sort of comes up with the issue of camping. So there is that issue. And that might be the exception of except as authorized by law. We would permit that type of activity for entertainment. Number 14 is a proposed amendment. It's a new provision. It talks about violating Coastal Park rules. The way that that process currently works is the Board of Park Commissioners, under our ordinances, they have the ability to propose rules. And then staff is charged with putting those rules into effect if they think that they're appropriate. So this particular provision, There are a lot of things that they have established as park rules that really aren't in these ordinances. They're probably not necessarily appropriate for these ordinances. But if there is a park rule that's posted, then it would be a violation of this ordinance for you to violate that park rule. And one of the things that is posted is the park hours. So if you were in a park after the hours that are posted, you could be in violation of this provision. Specifically, it would be A1-14. And that's for Sutton Urban Wilderness. And then we're just renumbering number two and number three. Number three, the proposal with regard to that is it mentions a Georgian Sutton Urban Wilderness Advisory Committee. Apparently, that committee doesn't exist anymore. So if there were some issue that they would need to be consulted for, they don't exist. and we just proposed amending that to the Board of Park Commissioners, which I think sort of took over the function that that committee used to sort of take over, and that would be the appropriate place for that. We then propose a subsection B, and subsection B applies to community and neighborhood parks, which would be all the other parks in Norman that are not considered to be, they're not suddenly, terms of what we talked about how those parks are defined and we may need to go back and review it. But for all of our other parks it's pretty much the same with the exception of number two it would be B1II specifically with regard to motorized vehicles or bicycles. We don't want any are mainly for pedestrians, not for bicycles. They're not wide enough. So we have always prohibited bicycles from being inside in urban buildings. With regard to our other parks, the issue becomes I'm fairly certain there are probably kids that ride their bike to the park all the time. And that is probably not something that we want to prohibit in our parks. And then we started talking about the issue of, because now you don't just have regular bicycles. And the question there was do we really want to prohibit those or do we not want to prohibit those? Our state provisions in Title 47 have a definition of electric-assisted bicycles. There's class one, class two, class three. Class one is it's not electric-assisted unless you are pedaling. So in order for the bike to move Class two is you don't have to be pedaling for electric assist, but it also stops the electric assist once the bicycle reaches 20 miles an hour. Class three, you don't have to be, I think you don't have to be pedaling and it shuts off at 28 miles an hour. So what we were talking about is, Jason and I got into this argument about, well, what if I'm Bicycle or is it an electric-assisted bicycle? What do we want to prohibit? What do we not want to prohibit? And I think ultimately we came back with We also because we also talked about we talked about when you're talking about what is a motor vehicle the issue came about a wheelchair. Somebody's in a wheelchair or somebody in one of those scooters. Those technically are electric-assisted motor vehicles And we those are some of the things

On that wheelchair, it falls under ADA. Right.

So it'd be allowed no matter what. So, yeah, that's why we have, we sort of amended that instead of just prohibiting any motor vehicle. It prohibits operating any motor vehicle, which would be motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, things along those lines. Provided, however, that bicycles, electric and sit-to-bicycles, wheelchairs, and other power-driven mobility devices used by individuals with whom required by the law. So the concern has to do with people driving their regular vehicles into the park without appropriate permission and creating sort of problems there. So in our other, that would be prohibited in Sutton World and it's also prohibited in our neighborhood and community parks except for wheel out bicycles and even the ones that are elected assisted

there so that's a difference with regard to with regard to subsection B in terms of our community most of the commercial like places we talked about geofencing last time we talked about that for scooters for so for like Lyman Bird

things along those lines like they owe and the other like commercial bikes they would be geofence for that but like if somebody owned one privately they wouldn't be correct um the way that the ordinance is currently written as for southern urban wilderness um subsection b prohibits organized groups exceeding 35 people that the Parks Department. We did not include that with regard to neighborhood and community parks. I mean, that kind of sort of raises First Amendment issues. If they wanted to meet over in Andrews Park for whatever reason, we probably don't have to necessarily issue a permit. And then the permitting issue tends to raise First Amendment issues, and it can potentially get you in trouble because it depends upon some people view it as you're doing it for the purpose of allowing certain groups to be able to meet over there, while not allowing certain other groups. And neighborhood parks, I don't know. I mean, Sutton is a bit of a different animal. There really isn't a place where you would be exercising a whole lot of First Amendment So, you know, our advice would be it's just that's not necessary for our neighborhood parks. They're kind of meant for that. I mean, they're larger parks. That's kind of what they're meant for.

So in this, our recommendation, AIM kind of went in there and went a little bit more definition than what we currently have in our ordinances about parks. PROBABLY WOULD RECOMMEND US FOLLOWING WHAT WE DID IN AIM PLAN, WHICH DESCRIBES COMMUNITY PARKS, NEIGHBORHOOD PARKS, SPECIAL USE PARKS, WHICH WE ACTUALLY MOVED SUTTON WILDERNESS IN THE AIM PLAN OUT OF THE COMMUNITY PARKS TO A SPECIAL USE PARK. THAT WAY WE COULD HAVE DIFFERENT RULES LIMITING HOURS THAT ARE OPERATED THERE COMPARED TO COMMUNITY PARKS, AND WE ALSO HAVE cultural centers and community centers which were all within that so if we go through there and if we're updating that portion i would probably recommend to add that in there so that we can match what we have currently in our parks master plan yes i was going to ask about legacy park slash trail and legacy park is it ours is it technically So Legacy Park over, you're talking about over in University of North Park? Yes. Yeah, that is a Norman Park. And that's under definition under a special use park. Okay. In the AIM plan, not by ordinance.

I don't know where the trail falls into that. I'm thinking of downtown.

So trails is one of the categories I forgot to throw in there, but trails are also described in the AIM plan.

This park rules ordinance?

It's not in the ordinance, but it should be if we're matching the AIM plan where we go for further definition of parks. That would be in there. And trails are the only ones that we keep open 24 hours because it's a mode of transportation.

Yeah. I don't know. I was looking through this ordinance. the ordinance languages. I noticed a part that talked about obstructing sidewalks and things like that. That's in the next one.

OK. Legacy Trail takes people to parks and through them on a bike. So I guess it kind of depends, too. And I agree with that. I think people riding bikes around the park is fine. I can see where there could be things that are an issue.

We talked a lot about there's some things that probably should be in a purview of staff or parks. A lot of our trails, depending on where it is, we would... probably post no bikes on these trails. And we're talking about Ruby Grant, Saxon, Sudden Wilderness, those are just kind of blind corners. You really don't want to go through there and have trail bike riding in there because you could seriously hurt somebody. Now, if you go out to the bike park where we have jumps and things like that, there's trails out there for bikes that are included into that area.

And Legacy Park seemed like an appropriate place to ride a bike around, and it's almost all concrete, right? So, yeah, I think that makes sense to me to do that as well.

All right, and then the other park that we talked about a little bit before, and this is what Jason was referring to in terms of park rules. because there is that provision that says any others are violating posted park rules. These are the rules that come from the Norman Water Park Commissioners, their proposed rules. And we probably need to revisit some of them with them to sort of go over figuring out if they need to be massaged a little bit. The ones that are highlighted are the ones that I thought that came across to me that needed to be highlighted. The first one, do not place signage of any kind in a park. And we talked about, well, what if you were having a birthday party? Can you put up a sign that says happy birthday? It would seem as if this particular rule would prohibit that. And what we talked about with the legal staff was the issue of maybe it's unattended signs. We don't want you just going out and posting a sign for your business. But if you're there for a birthday party, that sign would be attended. We wouldn't have that issue. Actually,

Yeah, that was, I noticed that immediately. The signage one, I only speak on that because the other day in my neighborhood park, someone had, I won't say who it was, someone had a sign posted because they were selling lemonade. So it was very temporary. They sold lemonade, it said lemonade for sale, and then when they left, the sign went with them.

Right. And that would be the is like, if you're attending it, you're there for no reason. I don't see that being a problem. So we probably would want to go over that with them to see if there's something in particular that they were trying to get at or whether that may be something that needs to go away. No animals in parks, trails, or green space unless leased. Our animal ordinance only requires that dogs be leased. It doesn't require that cats be leased or any other animal be leased. So the thought process was, we've been down the road of cats on leashes before. Don't recommend it. I see people over in the park with animals on occasion. Some of them sometimes are leashed, sometimes are not. But like I said before, the only thing our ordinance currently requires is the leashing of dogs. And if you had some other kind of animal, I mean, I don't know. I guess I think I saw somebody over there with a snake one time. I was like, no. Based on the way this is written, what's that? It's a reptile. Yeah, based on the way this is written, you wouldn't be able to have that unless it was on a leash, and I don't know if they make leashes for snakes, but we probably would want to revisit that. Restrooms only in designated areas. Jason and I had a conversation about, we've got those Frisbee golf courses, and if you're on hole number nine and you're way back away off in the woods, there really aren't any restaurants. So... Is that something that we might want to revisit to talk a little bit about? I understand what the concept is. We do have our ordinance with regard to outreaching public decency does prohibit urinating and defecating in public places or in a place where you're likely to be seen from somebody in a public place. But I suspect that when I see, I used to go fishing at Northeast Lions Club and I see those guys out there a lot of times and they're playing frisbee golf and they got a case of beer with them. I'm fairly certain they're not finding a restroom to go to when they're back off in the Frisbee Golf area. We might want to revisit that. The no unauthorized vehicle, that's pretty easy. Although we did have the question about what do you consider to be a vehicle? Because powered machines and some that are self-propelled are considered to be vehicles. And the way this is written, it would almost conflict with the provisions specifically if they relate to bicycles. No alcohol consumption. No alcohol or consumptive alcohol without an event permit. Again, like I said, when I used to go fishing up at Northeast Lions, I would see frisbee golfers with cases of beer all the time, and that's sort of what they do. Our ordinance prohibits people under 21 from possessing alcohol. It does not prohibit people over 21 from possessing alcohol. So we might want to revisit that in terms of what it is we're trying to accomplish. No glass containers. I understand that with regard to swimming. Again, if you're having a birthday party and you bought something at Walmart and it comes in a glass container that you're going to use at the party, is that something that we're really going after or do we really even need that or what are we trying to accomplish? The last three are the ones that are most difficult for me because they appear to be fairly vague and possibly not necessarily enforceable. Jason and I were talking about it from the perspective of playing basketball over here in Andrews Park. I can see some games getting heated every once in a while and Arguably, is that something that's prohibited by one of those last three provisions? And if we're trying to do this in a manner to where it's actually going to be a rule that gets posted that's enforceable, we probably need to look at that a little bit harder to make sure that the language that we're using can actually be enforced. Specifically, the one about no use of profanity. We've had an issue up on 12th Street because you've got those pickleball courts and you've got a resident that's pretty close proximity to that, and she would get upset because people would be cursing at her every morning. That probably isn't anything that we can do anything about. We're the government and we can't prohibit. I mean, you've got a First Amendment right to express yourself in that manner. So we probably would need to look at that before actually pushing these rules in the park so that they would be enforceable by a law enforcement.

I was going to ask about the harassment and intimidation tactics and cluster that with bullying, aggression, unsafe behavior. That would be where if somebody felt threatened, they would probably just call the cops.

You would think.

I don't know that saying that is going to prevent that. Maybe an all are welcome sign.

Yeah, it's almost a matter of perception. Jason and I were talking about it in the perspective of What if I'm playing basketball in the park and he fouls me and I call a foul and he says he didn't foul me and we get into an argument? You might be able to argue that that violates one of those last three provisions, specifically if, you know, profanity is used, something somebody would consider vulgar, something somebody – I used to play basketball in a league at Crosspoint and in their basketball league you were not allowed to use expletives. And I missed a shot, and I said, dang. And the referee gave me a tee. And other people from the other team said, he didn't say, damn. He said, dang. So he sort of backed off that. But it can be a matter of perception. And that's why I say some of this stuff can be kind of vague. I mean, from a constitutional perspective, we want to give people an understanding of what conduct is out of bounds so that they can limit their behavior to be to be lawful and those are kind of i'm not so sure that in a part i'm not so sure that those are clear enough to be enforceable i could also say that it's easy to say no and then list out all the no's and it's another thing to

reframe it in a way that you're promoting behavior you want to see. So again, all are welcome. And then again, who's enforcing that? Unless it escalates into a situation where you feel unsafe or you're witnessing somebody being severely bullied enough that you're concerned you're going to call the cops and they're going to come and they're going to figure out, you know, what is happening.

The question for us is if we write this to say it's a violation of this ordinance for you to violate any posted park rules and the rule that's posted says no use of profanity, that's not something we can enforce. So we probably need to go back and revisit with them what behavior were you trying to get at

you came up with this language to see if there's another way that we can articulate it to where it's really more targeted to that specific behavior as opposed to something that appears to be pretty broad and open-ended and then in that vein uh you answered council member blodgett skipped over me i'm going back to the signage but also wrapped up in that glass containers and leashes i was just thinking about like summer breeze and there's like dogs off leash Definitely there's glass containers. I would assume that when we're special event permitting summer breeze, they're also telling people no glass containers or is there an exception to the rule on that?

I doubt they are because that's one of the things that I talked with Sarah about a little bit and it's going to come up with the camping part of it. what goes through my head is which I still have is those root beer bottles you get at medieval fair you can go get refilled for a dollar I still have a bunch of those and people are carrying those around in the park I mean that's part of the experience and I think with those they're not being discarded or broken and left you know to create a hazard which is why I assume no glass containers exist so again and like

reframing that, just thinking about events like Summer Breeze or a birthday or a protest, working with city staff and saying, we want to do this thing. Maybe they could get help from the doers on picking up signs or whatever related. Same for the glass containers or things that happen with a Summer Breeze event versus a medieval fair. Just thinking of ways to

going to do with their trash or whatever it is i'd be really interested in is there an event that caused somebody to put that particular to propose that particular rule because if there is like i said before yeah which one the one about glasses no glass so glass containers one is you know

Kids walk around without shoes on. Two, when a glass breaks, it is, when you're talking about maintenance, picking up a plastic bottle compared to a broken glass container, a fraction of time. Also, traditionally, they had only been within the past decade or so, we started allowing alcohol at events in our park, and so they're not really... necessary within that time frame.

So, Jason, I think about, like, Campus Corner on game day. And we don't wind up with a bunch of people walking around with a bunch of glass containers on Campus Corner. Everything's aluminum. There are great alternatives, and it's just a matter of can we get them to think about those alternatives early enough in the process?

We also recycle glass, so, you know.

And that's the issue of Campus Corner being covered. And I always have to explain this to people at the bar when they want to leave a bottle. And I'm like, you can't. And they're like, what about, say, on game days, you could take it out in a plastic cup or an aluminum can. But if we let you take glass out, there'd be busted glass all over Campus Corner every night. But yeah, so it makes sense that I wouldn't want to allow it that way.

And then just to end on the leashes, I do think that one's important for dogs. There are some preventable tragedies out there between dog interactions. So I don't know how to reframe that to get more people to do it. I've also seen people get in fights over a dog running up on their non-friendly dog. And they have a leash that even warns people, hey, this dog is not friendly. BUT, YEAH, THAT WAS MY THOUGHT ON THE LEASHES.

I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY ON THE GLASS, I'M GOING TO TRY TO SAY THIS WITH NOT USING A DOUBLE NEGATIVE, BUT COULD WE SAY like non-reusable glass containers prohibited or something? Because kind of to the effect of the root beer bottles at Medieval Fair, those are refillable and they can be sealed.

I've had very, very preliminary conversations with Sarah about, because the issue that we've talked about in terms of sleeping in the park or camping in the park, one of the things that came to my mind is, When we have fairs, those people have their tent and they have all their merchandise in there. What happens overnight? And some of them do sleep in their tents. So we talked about the issue of, well, do our special events permits allow for that? And the answer is not specifically. I did. have a conversation, a short, very short email conversation with the lady that runs a medieval fair. And I did ask her, do people sleep in their tents? And she said, yes, some of them do. So the issue became, well, if you're going to write an ordinance that prohibits camping in parks, you want to make sure that you're not You don't have any unintended consequences of things like, well, when these people come and set up their stuff for a fair, if they want to. She said some of them bring RVs. I suspect some of them stay in hotels. Some of them hire security to come out and watch their stuff overnight. But some of them do actually stay there. You probably wouldn't want to be prohibiting. I remember when I was little, it was a bicycle, a long distance bicycle race or something that came through Holdenville when I was a kid. they let those people camp in the park. And I remember driving by the park and there were just tents everywhere. So it's events like that, if you had a strict nobody camping in the park ever, period, you would prohibit that. So we've talked about the issue of maybe we want to also look at some potential amendments to the special events ordinance that would also give people the authorization in those cases where you've got a medieval fair or a Mayfair, if those people wanted to stay overnight in their tent in the park to watch their merchandise, that they wouldn't be prohibited from doing that. But that's something in the next one that I have some language in there that sort of addresses that particular issue.

On that one, though, it would be technically like when we go do big events, it's paid spaces and you have like space number 10, space number 25. You have 10 by 15s, 20 by 40s. So wouldn't the ordinance technically say you would be staying in your said space A25 and your 10 by 15? So it wouldn't be the same as just popping up a tent anywhere because you would be specifically allotted that one area.

The way that it's proposed is no camping in public parks or public areas, with the exception of events either sponsored by the city or approved by the city. So if the medieval fair is an event that's approved by the city, then, yeah, under those circumstances, for that three-day time period, you want to stay in your tent to watch a market. Then it would be permitted. Right.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Councillor Bruce. Rick, on the additional language B on the committee-enabled You know, fire. Now, I know in my park there in Cambridge, it's a neighborhood park, and one time there was grill places. Yep.

I think they've all been taken out of the city parks. I believe so.

From time to time, though, there are events in different parks, neighborhood parks, where they call someone and say, yeah, we'll grill a bunch of hamburgers, we'll bring in our mobile griller for the neighborhood, and we'll have a neighborhood, you know, gathering, and police will show up, fire departments show up, and If anybody wants to do that in the future in their neighborhood park, where they're going to have burgers and hot dogs cooked by a third party, usually it's a bank or something like that that comes in.

So in that scenario, that would probably be captured in a special event permit, because kind of go to your food truck licensing and things like that.

Because special event permits are limited to instances where you expect more than 1,000 people.

or food truck licensing or whatnot like that. We have little caveats that are set aside of that, like for neighborhood barbecues, currently in the park rules, if you go through there, there's a, if you rent a space, so along with if you're renting a shelter, it does come with a option to bring a grill with you.

For example, and once again, in Cambridge, we have a annually, probably do this twice a year, we used to do it twice a year, but different gatherings, For example, 4th of July, don't be afraid. You have to pray everyone gather at the parks and have their snow cones and people are cooking hot dogs, you know, on their large grill. It's a commercial grill, you know what I mean, on wheels that they brought in. So I would hate to see that go away in other neighborhood parks if it's happening in the place of Norman, but we can look at that.

And we worked on park special events, which were lower than the $1,000, 1,000 person threshold.

All right. On the drone part, just because it's remote controlled, it's like someone can fly a kite in the park, right? Yes. Because it's a tethered, maybe not because some drones are tethered too, I guess, but because it being robotic.

I looked at that from the perspective of, those devices. We really don't. But the information that I found did seem to indicate that we do have the ability to control use of those devices on property that we own or are in charge of. Of course, the public airspace is 500 feet and above. I thought about it from the perspective of if you wanted to go drone your kid's baseball game. I guess on some level, it's But if you had multiple drones and they were all competing for the same airspace, how would that be resolved? But that's another thing we can look at with regard to why that's there and what exactly is it that we're trying to do.

on that drones one reason why I would personally think we could not allow them also compared to some like a kite is the capability of them being able to record at all times and everything and some people in the public space might not be wanting recorded or it to be used for whatever that person uses it for and everything like that also a kite it does raise a safety issue and when drones first became sort of

I got a frantic phone call from the then Oklahoma University police chief. I mean, what she was saying is somebody could fly a drone into the stadium and do damage, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. And the answer is, you're kind of right.

We were just talking about that today, that apparently something like that was thwarted at USC.

We're going to fly drones into the thing and then we're going to storm 15 of them.

It's also a first amendment thing. I don't think anybody has the right to ex-privacy in a public space.

That is true. But you have a right against your image not being used without your permission.

I mean, you could find who's got it, but I'm just saying this is a First Amendment thing. It's not that I necessarily agree with the way people use that, but...

I mean, you'd have to... Hopefully, if you had a drone, you'd be licensed, so you would know what airspace and what is restricted, because I suspect a lot of our airspace, specifically to the extent that it's around the airport, is probably restricted anyway, and you wouldn't be able to, but we can definitely look at that.

It's also a safety issue. We want to make sure people aren't flying drones and accidentally hitting people or trying to do remote control airplanes and trying to land them in parks and things like that, won't you? There's a safety issue that goes behind that.

And there is an airfield for remote control airplanes on South New England's, I think. South of the Lower North.

It's a good video watch if you want to go look at some rails about airplanes just taking out people, like remote airplanes.

All right. We did remove that particular provision regarding camping from the Ordinance 25507. And to substitute it with what you have as the second ordinance that I gave you, proposed ordinance, and this specifically would create a new section in Article 24. It would be section number 5. It would be 24.5.10. And it's camping on public property. And it went to where we just followed. The first... Subsection A includes definitions, one of camping, one of campsite, one of public property. Subsection B prohibits No person shall camp or maintain a campsite on public property, should be public property, except in connection with a city-sponsored or city-approved special event. That's what we talked about a little bit earlier. When you've got those special events where we do know some people stay in their tents or even have some other event, I know that Boy Scouts on occasion will go camp in the park and things along those lines. As long as it was city-sponsored or we approved it, they would be able to do that. No person shall store personal property on public property in a manner that constitutes a campsite or interferes with the intended public use of the property. TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SUBSECTION C, TALKING ABOUT PUBLIC ACCESS, SIT, LIVE, SLEEP, PLACE, PORTION OF PROPERTY, OR OTHER LEVELS OF CONSTRUCTION, PUBLIC SIDEWALK, TRAIL, PUBLIC ENTRANCE, EASEMENT, OR ADA-ACCESSIBLE ROUTE AND AMENDMENT THAT POTENTIALLY INTERFERES WITH A CONDENSED TRAIN OF PASSAGE. AND A VIOLATION ONLY OCCURS WHEN A REASONABLE TAP OF TRAVEL IS OBSTRUCTED. SO WE'RE NOT, YOU KNOW, JUST USING THAT FOR PEOPLE THAT MAY BE SORT OF STOPPED SOMEWHERE, BUT THERE'S ANOTHER WAY FOR THEM TO GET AROUND. Shall not apply to permits authorized by the city, city approved recreational community activities, emergency response, people experiencing a medical emergency, conduct expressly protected by a federal state law, including lawful expressive activity does not otherwise violate this ordinance. Usually when we have those issues, we do have ordinances that prohibit, that you can enforce that prohibit things like blocking the sidewalk. And when those people wanting to express their First Amendment rights and those matters, come and talk to us. We tell them that. And as a general rule, they're willing to comply with that. And it really has not been that much of a problem. Subsection 8 talks about notice and outreach prior to removal of kids inside the city should be practical and consistent with public safety. Provide notice and opportunity to volunteer to remove their personal property. can coordinate with other service providers, shelters, outreach organizations, offer available assistance, but nothing shall prevent the immediate action when necessary to address an imminent threat to public health or safety. Enforcement, any person violating may be issued a warning, notice of violation, citation, or other lawful enforcement action just gives that law enforcement personnel a little bit of discretion with regard to how to handle the particular set of circumstances. The city may remove authorized campsites or associated debris from public property in accordance with ethical laws and city policy. So that would be what we would propose in substitution of that provision regarding camping and public parks, to have a provision that, I mean, we don't really own a lot of property where it is. I mean, we're on parks, obviously on buildings, streets and sidewalks, and most people probably aren't going to park, aren't going to camp But the thought process was to wrap that all up in one ordinance so it would be easy to find, easy for our guys to enforce and address not only camping in the park but camping on other public properties.

Okay. Questions for staff? Council Member Lewis?

We don't have a special definition of special event, and when I'm reading over that, we might take out the special part and just say city-proof event and make that a little bit clearer. Usually, when we think about special events, we think about our special events where you've got to get a permit. You have to go through a process. I think this should be a little bit broader than that in terms of, like we talked about, what if that... bicycle group came through norman and said we want to stay in the we we're going to stay in the park overnight are we allowed to do that you probably wouldn't need to go through the whole special event process it requires a fee and you have to go if you're going to have a street closure you have to get signatures from all the effective businesses you have to have provisions for sanitation and provisions for security probably is something that's not necessarily that that rises to that level, that you may want to say, under these circumstances, yeah, for a short time period, you can camp in a park. Does it really make you feel comfortable?

Because I can be city sponsored with that, and city approved, it just takes a majority of council to say, it's okay to sleep in that park.

I think there are some, well, number one, there's some provisions I mean, council has enacted a special events ordinance that says as long as you comply with all these provisions, you can have your special event. Fall Festival downtown, you've got the game day stuff on Campus Corner, Medieval Fair, the fairs we have in the parks. Those are all items or events that council doesn't have to specifically approve because you've already approved a process that allows those events to occur. Some of what we're talking about, and I think Jason mentioned it a little bit earlier, working on more of a special event provision for events that aren't intended to attract a thousand or more people. It may be appropriate for that.

I haven't quite scratched the edge, but I understand. The same thing with C1, where there's an or. I think it should be an and or. And then exceptions, it's number three, emergency response activities. I would submit to you that homeless camping that we had here on the park, to me that was an emergency. In some people's mind, that was an emergency. Oh, so it's okay. So it's okay. Well, hold on now.

But that's not an emergency response. You might say that it's an emergency, but this is really more geared toward police and fire response and not just believing that you have an emergency so I should get to camp in the park. But we can definitely clarify that just a little bit somehow.

And then E, a notice of outreach prior to removal of a campsite. Well, why would we have a campsite prior to removal of a campsite? Well, I'm a non-authorized campsite. I get that. Non-authorized campsite. It's not associated with a special event.

I mean, that probably is going to apply to a set of circumstances that maybe you didn't know about until it reached the point of where it was a campsite.

And what's a fair notice? A fair notice, 24 hours.

I think it depends on the circumstances. It depends on where it is. It depends upon. There was people that were camping in the drainage channel over on the south of Alameda. If it's going to come a big rain, you don't, you may not have And that probably goes to the issue of when reasonably practical and consistent with public safety. We may give you the ability or notice an opportunity, but if it's not reasonably practical or consistent with public safety, you may have to leave the panel.

It's good to know the public property, so if it's personal property on this land and I have someone camping on it.

You can trespass them now, and if they don't leave, you can tell us what is the consequences.

On that same one, notice and outreach, I know there are definitely circumstances, but I wanted to make sure that notice and an opportunity to voluntarily remove is really prioritized. And then I know there's, like you said, there might be an emergency thing. They're in a ditch that's going to flood. Got to get them out. May not have time to coordinate. But even in that instance, I would think there could be a call made to somebody, right? Somebody, Amanda, Kara, Lee, anybody, somebody that could possibly assist. And then part two, or number two, the city may coordinate. And again, I know there could be circumstances, but we'd like, I mean, I'd My initial thought is the city shall coordinate with service providers, shelters, outreach organizations, and other agencies to offer available assistance to individuals affected. And I think three addresses that nothing herein shall prevent immediate action where necessary. But I don't necessarily want it to be an option for us to not coordinate.

We need to.

again i know there's some things to consider about shall and may and what that does but i definitely want to that to be a priority is notice an opportunity to voluntarily remove and then prioritizing that we will coordinate with service providers shelters all that um And just making sure, too, that when we remove unauthorized campsites and associated debris, that we don't do it like the state does it. And I know that can be a challenge to hold on to people's property for 30 days and if there's a bunch, but something where it's... We're not just, okay, it's going in the dumpster. There's a way, some period they can get it or have time, I don't know, but definitely don't want to do it the way that other entities have chosen to do it that way. So, Council Member Grant.

Yes, I echo Mayor Holman's thoughts on number two. And with May versus Schell, I would prefer to do Schell, and I think it's in alignment with our home base. action plan and study because number seven, if memory serves, says that we need to come up a few levels on that. And then, and I think we've also put some infrastructure in, obviously, with having our outreach.

I'm going to say department. They're not really the department. They might not be.

And then I was going to say in alignment with the property aspect, I feel like when we did the CART ordinance that we kind of came up with a method of addressing people's personal property. I'm looking at the time order. Not really. Not really. I thought they were given information where they could pick it up and there was maybe a timeline on how long that stuff would stay.

We have talked about really trying to come up with a citywide policy. The police, when they take your property, have one set of rules. But sometimes it's not the police that comes out and cleans it up. Sometimes it's the Department of Rec. Sometimes it's the Department of Works. And they're not subject to the same rules. They talk about things like, even down to the point of, what do we have to say? What do we not have to say? For example, if you've got a can of happy food that's going to Is there a class of property or possessions that we can immediately dispose of and a class of possessions that we need to hold on for some time?

When you say medications or surgical diabetes.

We talked about trying to come up with a Citywide policy so that everybody's operating under the same rules because the police are much more is Significantly stricter because they tend to have to book all the stuff in a property custody Whereas parks and recs or public works their maintenance workers don't have that same don't necessarily operate under those same Requirements we are adopting Citywide rules.

What is the length of time the police department holds on to personal property? 30 days. 30 days?

I mean, that's the minimum. They're probably going to hold on, depending on what it is, going to hold on long enough.

I was just really honestly thinking about the really important things like medication, IDs, birth certificates, those things that cost us when people have to go get them again. And then honestly, with that documentation, doesn't take up that much space, but I can understand thinking about the space and the liability, all the things that go with holding onto people's property. Right.

There's probably some concern too about going into someone's property. So if there's a bag left somewhere, if you start going through that bag, are you violating some kind of privacy? And then what if you to clean something up, if we encounter needles, that's not something we're prepared to deal with. So there's some concern there, too.

Okay. That's good to think about. Thank you.

Let's see. Councillor Kirby. I'll just go down that line.

I wanted to address the going through people's property. I like to watch a lot of the cops show up, and too many times they touch something and just fall out because of fentanyl or something. And like he was saying, I mean, the less they have to go through, the less risk we offer our officers getting hurt.

I mean, it's not just officer members. You've got city parks and every single person. They probably don't have the level of training that an officer might have. They probably don't have that on the recovery.

We try not to touch most of the stuff. Usually, there's a method of getting it to wherever we're taking it without human hands touching it.

Council Member Gansby?

Within a hospital setting, have we kind of differentiated between, okay, this person's that they own right now, we're itemizing it and everything, to oops, we just found this suitcase in the lobby and everything, and it's not a bomb now, but how do we handle that process and everything? I would think it's probably kind of saying that when we come across just something that, yeah, we probably don't want to just throw this away. Somebody might be missing it. We just take it as it is and put it as one number. It is what it is and everything. Try to give a brief description of what it looked like from the outside. And if the person calls, the person calls, and then that can be even discarded even fewer days than what the one that we know the person for and everything, you know. And then on the one that the person's for, we literally list down anything of value that's in that, you know, thing at all, down to the IDs, the credit card numbers, all that stuff like that, that makes sure that they get everything back, you know, from them. But that's a big risk, just opening up random things and going through it. It's a big risk for the officers for that, for sure. I understand the need to be a little bit nebulous in providing notice.

I would get ahead of your cycle time and move about every two and a half days to a new park. Every three days, I'd just move. And restart that 72-hour clock. Does that make sense? That would be me, I mean. If I'm in the business of living outside, and I like these parks, I'd just move every... Right before. I get a heavier cycle time. Does that make sense?

Your notice cycle time. I think, I think that once they give them a trespass forbidding the city park and have their name and everything the first time, they tell them any city park. Okay. Put that in your rules.

But I think what, hopefully the point of this, doing it this way is, you don't have to deal with those standards. The way that it currently operates, which is rules, because officers, a rule established Recommended by the park board established by city staff isn't a violation of an ordinance So we would have to trespass you and the trespasser we have to give you notice If you make it a violation of an ordinance, I don't have to give you a notice If you violate any of these rule, I mean if you violate any of these ordinance provisions For example, if you're in the park swimming The way it is currently as a rule I have to catch you, give you notice to trespass you, you can't be swimming in the park. So if I catch you again, assuming that I'm assuming that the person that catches the second time knows that you were actually given that notice, then they could cite you for trespassing. If you establish it as an ordinance, when I catch you swimming in the first pool the first time, I give you a citation and I don't have to go through the whole notice process. That's the benefit of having it memorialized as an ordinance violation as opposed to Well, these are park rules that are established by staff, because then you wouldn't have to do it. Doing it as an ordinance, you don't have to go through that process. Council going through the process and enacting an ordinance puts everybody on constructive notice that this is a violation. And the way that I talk about it sometimes is, I've never read the state statute on murder. But if I murder somebody, I can't go, well, I didn't read the statute. I didn't know you couldn't do that. No, you're on constructive notice by virtue of the fact that those provisions have been enacted by the legislature. And if you engage in that conduct, you have the ability to impose the appropriate sanction. That's why the proposal is to do it by ordinance, because you wouldn't have to worry about the notice part.

Any other questions for staff? Comments? Okay. Next steps?

We will try to, I'll go back and look over some of the comments that were made specifically about some of those language potential changes, and we will try to get this on for first reading. Probably not necessarily the next meeting in June, but maybe the first

Might give two new council members the opportunity to weigh in on that before we do that. But yeah, sounds good. Okay. Any other questions, comments? Okay. We'll look forward to further discussion about this. All right. Item two is a continued discussion regarding the Sooner Mall sales tax rebate agreement.

And we're going to see if Catherine's in there.

have some fun things to pass around.

Can you raise your chair to stand up?

Yeah, please. Sit, I need it as high as I can.

That's why you wanted to sit over there, isn't it?

No, I'll give it one time. I got Jason. He's just paid back for the last seven years.

Okay, I think we're really here to listen more than anything today, but we did want to give you some information just to kind of help with the discussion, if that's helpful. We've got the visits trend that Sarah Kaplan pulled for us from Placer from January 1st, 2019 to May 31st. Kind of gives you sort of the comparison of Sooner Mall with some other malls in the area, Shawnee being a little bit smaller and a little more unique. And then Quail Springs Mall and Penn Square Mall are obviously quite a bit bigger, but you can see the visits trend. You can see that very large dip in 2020. No surprise there. And kind of see where they are now. Sooner Mall's on that bottom line with less visits than Shawnee Mall.

Catherine, I don't know if everybody's got that page.

Oh, Rick pressed this one around.

Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. It's two-sided.

We've got more coming.

That comes from our Placer software, and it basically just tracks visits. that the visitor was there for more than 10 minutes.

We're trending less than Shawnee right now.

Right. I mean, you can see everyone's sort of following the same ups and downs, but at different levels. And we are seeing less visitors at Norman Sooner Mall than Shawnee Mall is seeing there. That's been a long time since I've been to Shawnee Mall. It's smaller. I believe it has, at least last time I went, at a Walmart. attached to it, and so.

That's the one thing I always remembered about it as a kid is that it had a Walmart.

Yeah, it's a unique experience compared to our most here. But we wanted to give you that information. I've also handed out examples of retail incentives in the Oklahoma City Metro. This is not exhaustive, but you can see sort of from 2006 and more and central with their big deals since, and then Oklahoma City. outlaw Cabela's Costco things like that just just so you have that for comparison and then I finally I think the last thing I handed you was the Oklahoma City retail policy they just updated that in 2025 and the version they attached to their agenda was annotated so you can kind of see what they changed appear to be fairly targeted. It's got an application which might be of interest. Attachment D is the application. Beyond that application, additional info may be required, market studies, feasibility studies, things like that. And it's reviewed by a retail advisory panel, which consists of the assistant city manager over economic development, someone from the municipal counselor's office, the planning director or designee, the finance director or designee, and then a staff member from their chamber of commerce. They've got some priority things they provide incentives to, and then they limit their retail incentives. And this is just retail incentives outside of tax increment financing. So they limit it to destination retail projects, regional retail projects, project providing retail in underserved areas, and then projects in redevelopment areas. So you can kind of see that. Their fiscal analysis is in Section 2.2, really just looking at the cost of the city and the cost of the incentive versus the benefit. And you'll see that in their agreements, where all of these agreements really, because they're tied to specific developments, specific retailers, they're able to estimate the amount of revenue and then determine the appropriate level of incentive. Sometimes it's based on public improvement costs. Sometimes it's just a portion of the new revenues, but they're all focused on new revenues, public improvements, and then... What's more, Grant?

With this public improvement and whatnot, and I was also looking through the stuff in it and saw some red lines. Is that like... This is a new version?

Yeah, they amended it in 2025. They had not, I don't think, amended it or done anything with it since maybe 2008, 2009. And so retail environments changed quite a bit. You'll see some language in there for different kinds of developments beyond the traditional shopping center and shopping mall. They favor performance-based incentives, and you see that in the more agreements as well. and pay for performance incentives. So similar to here, you generate revenue before you get anything, or you provide proof that you've spent that money on improvements before you get any rebate or incentive.

When I was talking to a couple members of EDAB, one of them had definitely said that good policy is having specificity in the economic development agreement. So being able to tie it to things you're going to for sure do. So for example, for our Sooner Mall scenario, it could be improving the play area and maybe partnering with the libraries to do the reading portion of it. But you would want that firmly outlined. And I did speak to Mr. Colwell earlier about where I'm at. and some of the feedback we heard in the downtowners meeting about making it an equitable process and not being forced to come behind him and have to pass a higher bar. So I'm leaning towards actually having a retail incentives policy that is equitable so that other areas of Norman can also use the same process. And then also in talking with him, we recognize that for 2025, he said he's not going to hit that mark. And then depending on this anchor tenant coming in or not, that's still about 18 months. It was my conversation with Attorney Walker about what realistic timeline there is for him to actually get those rebates and So now we're in a scenario where we go from five years to two years where he can actually get anything And so is asking him. I know he doesn't love this idea Because he's put so much work into this But I also think he wants to be able to get something passed and so he did indicate that he'd be willing to sit down again and depending on what we come up with, reconsider or put things in writing that had been nebulous before. But anyways, I just wanted to talk about that, tying it to specific things that will be done.

Yeah, my understanding, if it is all about this anchor tenant, I think he said Tuesday night he anticipated an announcement in the last quarter of 26th. And then he's told us previously that's about an 18-month construction process. And so you're really looking at a couple of years before it's open and generating the sales tax that would generate a significant rebate. If they could earn a rebate, you know, if the stores – and probably we would see our sales tax overall going up in that scenario if everyone's just sort of starts performing – and bringing in more sales tax dollars. But to get something significant, it probably will take filling an anchor spot or a large vacancy.

And counsel, at the choice to, I could have requested that this incentive be tied to successful recruitment of this tenant or any other tenant. I know when I first met with them, my initial reaction was I don't want to tie this to you attracting any specific tenant. And I definitely don't want it to be an incentive to attract a tenant that would be viewed as a competition with an existing corporate entity we already have. And so I was pretty adamant about it not being attached to any specific attraction of a business. But we have the ability to do that. We could say, We would only agree to this if you actually land that tenant. Pushback from others is, well, what if they're coming already to a different area of town? Why would we incentivize them to come to the mall if they were already probably maybe coming to another spot in Norman without an incentive? But we have that ability, though, to say we do want it to be attached to a specific thing. Or in this case, we were like, well, really just general public improvements to the mall. which lifts up all the business.

I think the hard thing, and there's certainly pros and cons to both, but if we want to identify the impact, it's easier to do with a store when you have some sales data and things you can use and you can make some pretty informed assumptions. But when we're talking about just general improvement to the mall, which we know will improve the mall, but it's harder to predict. How do you quantify what that does for it?

I assume a nicer public-facing area, nicer restrooms, I assume helps.

very cool that was kind of my thought about not tying it to a specific tenant because ideally I would like to see other parts of Norman whether that's individual businesses or bid districts or anything like that be able to apply for this and not have it be contingent on them bringing in a tenant like if they were just gonna make things better and bring sales up that way that would be fine but I definitely wouldn't want it to rely upon being a tenant but the mall didn't bring this to us as part of an economic development agreement they just brought us this plan outside of that we've yeah we've put it into that box well they brought it to us just as a proposal they weren't aware we had this economic development incentives policy which as I've said

several times, doesn't apply to retail, wasn't designed for retail. We've tried to just do our due diligence on it and bring it forward to you guys in the form that you guys have been discussing with them all over the last year.

And honestly, that conversation gave us the reason to start doing homework to recognize what other Metro

cities do uh in similar circumstances yeah i want to ask about this one number eight um because this is a very similar kind of package is this the incentive over 10 years maximum of two million dollars at a maximum of two million dollars per year no two million two million total and that's actually to renovate the parcel not to improve common areas right right von marr purchased that sears parcel

is there are a handful of tenants, Costco Cabela's, for example, that if a Costco or a Cabela's knocks on your door and says, hey, we're thinking about building in your fair city, here's the incentive we require. And it is a take it or leave it kind of a scenario, because they will gladly go next door, where you'll find a willing agency to make the deal. So you'll see... some of those retailers in Oklahoma City's offerings, and those are similar deals to what you would actually see coast to coast.

And that's what I'm recognizing with these things. Like, I think, especially Moore's List, those have had a positive impact. I don't go to the outlet mall. It's like, might as well be in China for me. Wellsprings, Cabela's, Costco, you know, those are all... large retailers that bring a benefit, but they came directly to the city to ask for a lot more than what a common area update for a 50-year-old tenant is asking. And this is a retail incentive. This isn't a rebate. They're going to get this whether they do anything or not. We've got to generate $20 million to be able to get $300,000 back. So this is really coming off the top of the... cup versus something that is, yeah.

This one looks like it will come out to 200,000. A maximum of $2 million over 10 years. $200,000 a year. So it's a little bit less than ours.

But that's actually to build out the Sears parcel. That's not to update the common areas. So what we're looking at with the rebate is a rebate to update the common areas, not to build out a parcel for a potential new tenant. That's not what the proposal is.

And they require, and there's documentation of additional jobs over what CEDAR's employed. That's interesting.

Yeah, if you look at each of these, although they have the policy and certain things they need to analyze it and look at, they are... catered to this particular situation, you know. So the Oklahoma City Outlets one was the most interesting one to me because they first did that in 2008 when it was coming in to be built. They knew it was going to generate a lot of sales tax revenue. They assumed 50 percent of that would be new. The city contributed some public infrastructure and then they reimbursed them for their marketing. after a certain amount.

Is this all the after result, too? Do we know anything about how all these deals worked out?

Yeah, I don't have data on that. I can see if they've got that in Oklahoma City. I will say the Oklahoma City outlets, they came back in 2021 and did it again. They didn't do it for as long of a term. They just did five years and a little less money, but by then it had already been built, and they were just recognizing, I think, that the pandemic had... a pretty big impact, and so they reimbursed for regional marketing expenses.

And Moore, I have to wonder, you know, they overextended themselves because, you know, they had to ask their voters for a 1% tax increase, which failed. They're struggling to pay the bills in Moore right now.

But again, Moore gave that money up front, not as a rebate.

I know, just incentivizing those businesses, though, hasn't resulted in a budget windfall for them.

Moore typically will do theirs over five years. And they have hit some sales tax targets to achieve that.

And we got a bunch of the businesses. I saw Paul Wilson or someone complaining about it. But we got a bunch of those. Like in the original University of North Park, there were no direct incentives to lure a specific business that I recall. It was all public improvements and higher standard of architecture, and that will lure in the higher end retail. So we got a bunch of that. corporate chain stuff that other towns have had to heavily incentivize to try to get. And we have had to. Even Edmonds having to incentivize.

We did a lot of public improvements, I think, that benefited that area. And that was... largest part of the city's contribution. We did have the lifestyle center incentives, town center incentives later.

Similar, making the general area nicer.

Yeah, you'll see that in some of these. Yeah, the city's focusing on public improvements that benefit the property.

That's kind of what the mall is. Public improvements would benefit the entire property instead of one single.

They're private, but certainly accessible to the public and

That's where I kind of get into it, too, is like it is a private property, but it's for 50 years been a public gathering place for, I mean, I guess at any time they could say don't come in, but I mean, we can close the park at any time, too, right? So that's where it's been like it's a private, but it functions and feels like a public place for so many ways. But anyway, Council Member Grant.

Yes, two things. One, to that point, in talking with one of our newer EDAB members, it is accessible to people who are low income. And this particular person was talking about being a single parent at the time and being able to take their child to the play area. And I recognize that not everybody can pay for the play pit or gymboree or any of those things. I'm sure they have access to rec centers and whatnot, too. But it's dependent on what your kid wants to do. And then you have seniors who do walking during the day there, or the morning. And that's another instance of the adult wellness education center, or the Y may not be accessible to everyone. And then thinking about the improvements to the bathroom, there's a nursing room. there's benefit to everybody in improving those. But I also wanted to circle back to these retail incentives and just remind folks that some of these deals didn't necessarily mean that if we had done this as normal, we would get these things. I'm thinking of the Warren Theater and Costco. And I also will not name this store, but they've been interested in us. because the vote ought, they're not going to set up shop here anytime soon. So I think retail incentives are part of the picture, but also is it a good fit for the site that people are interested in.

I don't think they'll even talk to you if they don't have the demographics. So that's always the biggest piece.

Council Morgana, the various members.

Yeah, on the paper that was supplied with all the other things around us and stuff. Like we said, that's all upfront money and everything like that. And that's upfront money to get this person in your town and everything like that. It's not a rebate. to maybe or maybe not spend it in certain areas of the mall or not is only the Sears ain't going to be the one getting all the remodeled stuff in the bathrooms and everything like that when a big business comes in. The big business that was mentioned online, I don't know if he said anything here or there of what it was or what, you know, agreed to it or not and everything like that. But, you know, that big business that it could possibly be out there in the world and everything like that. I still don't see where the cost of the incentive that we get that in return. I feel like, especially if there's certain big stores that went in there, we lose two of our businesses that are currently in the mall because of it. We also heard this week that we're losing our cookie company in the mall. So if they thought that brighter things were coming, They've been there forever. You'd think they would have stuck it out for the brighter things are coming kind of aspect.

Yeah, but still another store in the mall closing and going out of business.

It still is that. So I just don't see where 100% rebate makes sense, especially if it hurts that other person or different people in multiple businesses within the town also, and when we lose even more taxes from those places because they took a hit of 10% to 12% on average when that company comes into town.

Council Member Bruce?

It's definitely a community space. I believe COMMUNITY SPACE, NOT ONLY FOR CHILDREN, YOUTH, BUT ALSO SENIORS, PEOPLE WHO SHOP. I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG IT'S BEEN SINCE WARD 3 HAS RECEIVED ANY TYPE OF ECONOMIC INCENTIVE

We don't really do economic assistance. We haven't really done that. Through the TIF, yes, there are areas in Ward 3 that qualify, but we do a lot of public improvements in areas.

What I'm trying to say, whether it's TIF, which I know most of Ward 3 doesn't qualify for, not all of it, but any type of incentive like this, I don't know of any past history associated with Ward 3. I really don't. There may be something out there, but I don't know. Sears, how long has Sears been closed?

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They say they'll listen to you. It's been sitting vacant for quite a while. The thing I don't want to happen is what's happened when it's at the crossroads. I guess we're kind of at a crossroads here in the United States. So it's a major thoroughfare, right? It's a major thoroughfare, at least coming out of Ward 3, coming to Ward 3. I would hate to see the property degrade any more than what it is as far as visually. It has gotten a little better over the last probably three years, but there was a time when it was pretty rough. But when I think of an incentive, I think it's great having a performance-based incentive. There's one owner now associated with sales, increasing sales over time compared to a three-year average. That average is froze. It's not a moving average. We could probably adjust that a little bit, but that's something to consider. But also I think about, hey, what's really important to me is that capital investment increasing over previous years. I don't want them to go down the ownership to not increase his capital investment over a period of time. So in my mind, it's almost an additional thing. The first part is increase your retail sales, which builds your pool, and that pool is paid out based upon how much you expend in capital expenditures, as long as it's more than the previous year or previous average. Does that make sense?

So, Council Member Bruce, we might describe that as a maintenance of effort on their part so that we just don't substitute. We want to add to, not replace.

I care about that corridor. I care about looking like Norman should look. Maintained. I want to see the malls, except I want more than one anchor. Maybe three. That'd be really nice. But I just don't want to see this go the way of Crossroads where it degraded, failed, no early involvement.

The case of Heritage Park Mall in Midwest City is probably even more of a... Scary. Because they've taken it over because of the problems they were dealing with with it being abandoned for 10 years. And I think there have been infrastructure improvements. Main Street's been widened and improved in front of the mall. 36th Avenue's been redone and widened next to the mall. Things like that. And that's the case for most wards. I think there's an impression, Norman, too, that we have a long history of using TIFs in Norman, but really Campus Corner, the original UMP, Center City, and now the Entertainment District. We've got four in the last 20 or so years and none before that, so we haven't really used it a lot in Norman as far as that goes, and then like you mentioned, there's parts all at Noel Parkway are not in an enterprise zone, they're not in a grandfathered enterprise zone, so they don't qualify for a TIF. And Ward 3, like word two and word four has completely developed out pretty much and now you're looking at mostly redevelopment and infill and things like that going on but i have that same concern about the mall property having multiple years of slightly negative downtrend and if that continues what happens right now we bring in almost 2 million a year in sales tax revenue from the mall property If the mall were to continue to decline, that's a guarantee that we'll lose potentially $2 million a year in sales tax revenue. Because there's no guarantee that that revenue will go back into the rest of Norman. I don't know how much of the revenue from the mall is coming from people who only come to Norman to shop at the mall. And if the mall wasn't there, how many of them would then go to... Ed Noble Parkway or UNP or downtown or wherever? Or would they just not be shopping here anymore if the mall isn't here? And so that's one of my main concerns is can we prevent that from happening by stepping in and doing something local like this? And that's really been why I've been interested in entertaining it for sure is, is there something local we can do to keep that from happening to that property? And if they have to generate new revenue above what they're currently bringing in to get anything, that seems like a really good backstop. But there's additional things I know, but that was a big important thing to me was, they would have to increase sales of the property to get anything that we can't afford from a sales tax standpoint, general fund standpoint. We can't afford to give them an incentive if the mall were to continue losing revenue. So that's just some of what I've been thinking. Councilor Bruce, do you want to follow up?

I just want to echo that, the retail aspect of it as far as performance metric. I think it's great. You've got to increase your sales to have this pool. Now, to cap that off and to earn part of that pool, you have to have a one-for-one relationship or something, dollar for dollar, that I want you to increase your capital expenditures in order to capture dollar for dollar that pool that may be out there, whether it's $300,000 or $200,000 or $150,000, based upon their sales, that they've spent more than the preceding years.

Councilor Hinkle.

I think this is getting lumped into one item and it's really not one item. We're talking about a rebate for the mall and for the common areas and the proposed anchor tenant in Sears is not contingent on this rebate or not. So even if we do this rebate and the proposed anchor tenant doesn't come, That's still more appealing to the next person that's looked at it, because we've made these updates and contributed to them all. Whatever's going in there now isn't the first thing that's looked at going there. There's been six, yeah, I was going to say at least eight that I knew of. So again, we're trying to lump this in saying that if we create a tenant that takes away from another part, I don't think that's fair to the project that we're looking at.

And even to that point, if they don't secure the tenant, they still have to increase their sales tax by $13 million a year to qualify for the max incentive.

So they are going to, by virtue of the whole program, they have to increase dramatically where they performed pre-COVID even. So I'll be honest. To me, it's a no-brainer. I can't believe that we've spent, like, five meetings talking about this. But it must be in the seat I'm sitting in. Kim, Council Member Golodzic.

Sorry.

I just wanted to say I really liked what you said, and that has been a concern of mine as well. It just seems risky to me. But talking about that it could maybe take away from another business is also a concern of mine. And because I researched the business that they're saying it could, I mean, even was put on Facebook that it was going to be. And correct me if I'm wrong, but if it is that place, it would be a place of like you go in and like play and do things and play sports and things like that. So that made me think of, again, heydays. So to me, I was like, here we are. Like, I really love Hay Day, so I'm always going to speak up for them because we got main event. And so I feel like that's probably taken away from Hay Day. And then if we get this, they're hit again. And so I just don't want them to go under. I love them all. I take my kids there. We play in the play area. So I don't want it to go away, but also I don't want Hay Day to go away. So it's just little things like that I'm torn on.

kind of on the same event. It's going to affect multiple businesses around. It's not something that we don't already have. Likewise, businesses. I'm hard because it's not a 50-50 tax deal. It's like 100%. And then, you know, as Councilman Bruce brought up is they want to keep the area looking good. Well, you know, you can go to Rock Creek and Porter, Robinson and Porter, Lindsay and 24th, Alameda and 24th, half of Ward 2 down Lindsay Street. All these businesses have always struggled for the last 50, 60 years. They come and they go and they do it on their own. We don't bail them out. We don't give them huge incentives. And it seems like every time, speaking for my ward, but also noticing Ward 2, 6, 7, 1, we're always the ones who don't get nothing. I mean, y'all got the brand-new art center over there off of Indian Hills and 36th or whatever that could have went over here near Irving, really needed it. It's easier for people to get back and forth across town.

That's not a city building. That's a Norman Public School.

What I'm getting at is... all the east side, anything east of the railroad tracks don't get the same offers that west of the railroad track yet. And if we're going to be, and as a town we're suffering, so My biggest thing is we're giving away tax incentives to billionaires while we have companies here on every aspect in this town that are private-owned local residents, and it seems like when you're a local-owned business, we will never help them as a city. Maybe we do, and maybe I just don't see it, but it seems like we help people who are coming in to put out our local-owned business more than we do our locals.

Councilman Gansbury, anything?

Talking again about looking at not other stores or any other businesses other than the mall entity as itself and everything. And like I've said before, you know, I'm really, really am thankful for the landlord that's there and everything for that facility because they have invested almost $5 million in the last three to four years into that place, you know, to keep everything up and going. But once again, that's what a landlord's supposed to do for his tenant. You know, they pay rent for a reason. They expect it to be upkept while doing that. If there's an issue with not being able to upkeep the place and everything like that, maybe it's an issue with people aren't paying enough rent that's there. But at the end of the day, we're going to ask our Norman business owners in that store to send in their sales tax only to come around and go back in this door to their landlord. And to me, that's just weird that the landlord is getting cuts all the way around this equation and everything like that. And it just doesn't seem right.

To those with concerns, would you be supportive of an equitable retail rebate policy that other businesses throughout Norman could also apply to and have him go through this process? I'm seeing questions. Councilmember Blodgett, nod yes.

Is it going to be for more than 50% of our sales taxes? Because with us being four fire stations and so many fire and police, sure, no. If it's going to take 100% sales taxes, I will never support it.

To clarify, because I can see Councilmember Hinkle. So it would be 100% on top of what we already get. And they have dedicated... Funding or, you know, transit fund, public safety sales tax, Norman Ford, the capital improvements is also part of those dedicated funds. So those are not a part of the 100%. But in developing a retail policy, we could outline what our preference is.

But understanding that if you do that, it's fine that all those other things are getting their taxes, but our payroll and everything else is not getting any taxes in it. If every business's town is getting it. It's not getting anything out on an empty shell of a box either.

I would just say that, again, it's the base that we're getting, so it's not like we would see a reduction in the general fund, and that if we develop a retail policy that's equitable for all businesses, it would be anything new that they generate for a set length of time. Excluding the dedicated funds.

I wouldn't personally be able to commit to that until we see the next council see where their mindset's on it also.

I understand that.

Because that will affect their whole entire terms.

But I was just curious if we do do this process, if we might get to a place where we could support that type of tool. I would just say, structurally speaking, not a lot of tools we have we have tips we have rebates um and mentioned in the downtowners meeting was also that the county does an ad valorem uh rebate uh which i would talk with city attorney walker about just going down that rabbit hole because we could point people in that direction if city funds are not enough and they could approach the county about that but Before we go down this path, and I do think another council may also be of a similar mindset, that there is an advantage to having these tools. It's just how they're used.

Tonight's about Sooner Mall, and you're talking about incentivizing other things and stuff like that, so that needs to be a different discussion and everything else for that.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, I did speak to the Derek Colwell about this.

I understand that, but this is about Sooner Mall, not about that stuff.

Just let Council Member Graham continue.

So, anyways, I'm kind of hearing that, yes, going down this path, we could explore it and potentially reach a consensus on whether or not we're going to do this, because right now I'm not hearing it.

Because, yeah, it would mean that the mall may want to be a part of that new policy if that is developed. Council Member Bruce.

Once again, I'm going to echo. I would love to see performance metrics on earning. I mean, to perform above this level to earn something. I would love to have two or three performance metrics. That's great. One is, you know, I can do that really easy. Two makes it a little more difficult. But ouch on opportunity costs. I agree with you as far as empty spaces everywhere. You see empty spaces, man, the opportunity costs associated with space, not only the owner, but also the city. But I think, well... There's missed opportunities, missed opportunities when it comes to revenue related to not only the owner, but the city.

In downtown, you have a campus corner, you have nowhere.

Opportunity costs. And so I feel like anything we can do as a body to encourage business and development, not all the time, most of the time, is a good thing. I would hate to miss this opportunity because... It's not 100%. Yeah, I know you're in money. You're thinking 100%, 100%. Well, it's 2.3%. 2.3% of the sales tax. Again, I've got to earn. I've got to beat my past performance. It doesn't exist right now. Yeah. And then if I really care about capital improvements, I'll match you dollar for dollar above your previous year's baseline. So there's two performance metrics. Sign on that. It's like, okay, I've got to perform. I've got to perform. Now, We have a callback. Businesses move. They're excluded. They're excluded from the competition. Now, with any business environment, you're going to get situations where certain customers are going to shift. They're going to shift their spending. Not that a business moved, but I shifted my spending. That's competition. That's competition. What would I do to earn that customer back? What do I do? So, you know, once again, it's a major corridor. I would hate to sit empty for 20 years. How long is the model of 240 sitting empty for, you know, past and past and past and past? That would be a crime.

To Council Member Bruce's point, when we recognize your neighboring agencies are competing against you for opportunities, When a retailer recognizes Norman as a possible place, they also recognize, well, Moore's just right across the street. So they will be looking for those incentives. If a business locates in a neighboring jurisdiction, it has the same impact on Norman Retailer's as it would have had it located on our side of Indian Hills. So the competition is happening, and you can see that more in Oklahoma City are doing battle, and we have not yet entered that competition. So just something to keep in mind. Can I just say one more thing?

I hope that future councils do support the type of mechanism. Obviously, it'll be after my time, but I think it's a great idea. This is something that I think would make common areas for business districts just exceptional. to the same point that you have, to where we're competing with everybody that's competing with us, not just for the mall, but for downtown, for Campus Corner, for anybody who wants to organize and make the same type of request. I think it's a benefit. But where we are now, we have a backstop of if they don't perform, they don't get anything, and it's a rebate. It's not an incentive up front.

Interesting factor here, even though this, again, isn't related to that retailer, is that more already has that retailer.

A flavor of it. Right. A lesser flavor. Which they paid a pretty hefty incentive to get apparently. And we can track leakage from Norman to that retailer.

Yeah.

And we see it. So you can stop the leakage and keep all those dollars.

Yet UNP does twice the visitors and revenue as 19th Street. And didn't incentivize a single business to be there.

And he said, he said himself, that they're looking at the mall and UMP for this business.

Again, we've got to separate the question that we're talking about from the anchor tenant that's being potentially proposed. Because even if that anchor tenant doesn't come, any updates that we help them make will benefit whatever does go there in the future.

And because we decided not to tie it to that. That was it.

Mayor, can somebody else speak for just a second?

I don't take public comment in this one, this meeting unfortunately, but there will be a public hearing next week, potentially. This is still on the agenda.

Yeah, just postpone to the date circumstance. We'll be on your agenda next Tuesday.

Next Tuesday. conversation counselor grant had with with the mall manager that they're already past the year one so now it's a four-year deal like you mentioned and I don't know there are the questions about an application about some of the standard stuff And if we do approve this for the mall, are we going to come in and, I say the next council, so anything could happen, but come in and change the policy to where it is harder for the next batch to come in where the mall gets it approved by this on-the-fly policy that didn't really exist to address this request. And then we change it to address the rest of the city and the...

the steps are different, or maybe we create a higher bar, or maybe it's lower, I don't know.

And then we made the mall jump through a higher hoop than we made everybody else jump through, so. I'm interested, I'm gonna follow up with him too on that conversation about that, but I do wanna have a actual policy in place so we can avoid this happening again, where it's clear that, because there were questions in the downtowners about How would that even work for downtown? Downtown buildings are all owned by individual people, and some of them own a bunch of them. Would an incentive just go to the building owner and not the businesses downtown? Yes. Or to the bid. We need to make a policy that makes that clear that is it going to the business owners directly or is it going to the building owner? Because there are property owners downtown that have raised their rent in the last few years for sure. We've heard businesses complain about that. Campus Corner, for sure, has seen increased rents and different interests at play there, but that's the question, too, because one of it was, I asked Daryl, could we draw downtown district and apply the mall rebate formula to the downtown and see what would that look like and then if that were distributed amongst every business in that district what would that look like for each business or if just the EDO that one block wanted to apply for it, what would that look like? And who would get it? Would it be the majority property owner on that block, or would each individual business get it? So that's part of that policy that I definitely want to work on. And whether it's 50% or 100% or whatever, that's definitely up for debate. But I think we need to have a policy about incentives for retail and how that includes something like the mall that's like a quasi-public And if we're saying it's an enclosed building and we're wanting to make public-facing improvements to it, what is that?

What does that mean?

Because like we said, we make improvements to Main Street, Gray Street, Porter. We've invested millions of dollars in public infrastructure, which helps businesses downtown and Campus Corner. But none of those businesses got, you know, a new sidewalk doesn't guarantee that it's going to improve the business. fire lines.

They could put sprinklers in them at a very reduced cost. And they didn't have to pay for them. Council will recall our conversation when there was interest by some of the business owners to establish a business improvement district, which we saw great value just in terms of having an entity. Now it's a body. And we talked about, well, there are 61 businesses in the mall. Are there 61 businesses in downtown? Plus or minus that the vehicle, it would be hard for maybe a small retailer. What could I invest in that would grow my sales big enough to even qualify for a rebate versus as a business improvement district? Yep, we could track that and through combined effort, organization, how do you choose to market yourself? We see marketing as being a huge component that business improvement districts can be used for marketing that destination, that we can track it. And Mr. Mercer, our finance director, has the ability to see retail sales by mailbox going right down Main Street to say, yes, their sales for this district went up by $13 million. And in that scenario, the incentive would go back into the business improvement district. They would get to choose how they invested those dollars IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE THEY CREATED THEM THROUGH THEIR EFFORT. AND WE DO SEE VALUE IN HAVING ORGANIZED RETAIL BLOCKS. SO THERE WOULD BE MECHANISMS IF COUNCIL SAID HOW DO WE APPLY IT TO CAMPUS CORNER, HOW DO WE APPLY IT TO MAIN STREET, OR HOW DO WE APPLY IT DOWN 12TH.

COUNCILOR BRUCE.

JUST ONE QUESTION ON THE INCENTIVE. WHEN WE TALK ABOUT FOOD SERVICE IN THE MALL, IS THAT RETAIL OR IS THAT EXCLUDED?

I think it includes some self-stacks, right?

Chick-fil-A and, yep. I, too, would like to see that food service there somehow improve from where its current baseline is. I appreciate the current baseline, but I'd like to see performance over time in that area.

Well, and that's, again, the challenge here. We get a good amount of sales tax revenue from the mall right now. And if we do nothing, if nobody does anything, and maybe some of the expectation that a multibillion-dollar corporation that owns it should step in and do whatever it takes, I don't think they're going to. I don't feel real comfortable wanting to rely on some out-of-state corporation to come in and keep our mall from going into decline and closing, especially if there was something we could do locally to stop that. And the risk being that if it continues to decline, we are at risk of losing the revenue that that mall generates and brings to the city. Again, how much of that would be people that just go and shop somewhere else in Norman? Some of it, but how much? I don't know. So that's something we're going to keep thinking about. Are there any other questions or comments from staff about this? Just one more.

If you talk about the businesses downtown and how that could work for them, you're basically saying that all those individual business owners would at least have a say in where that money went that they got, right? Correct. But these business owners are not going to have that say of where their money goes.

I think they do. They do? In terms of there's an organization of the businesses in the mall, and they actually have conversations about potential lessees. So Mr. Caldwell, yeah, he described kind of how that association works on the inside with all.

And that there's 17 locally owned small businesses in the mall. So it's, again, I know there's a perception that it's all just a big corporate thing and they're all corporate businesses in there that have no Norman connection, but they do. And so that's the struggle I'm having is I have concerns about this, but I also have concerns about not doing it too. So anything else from anybody else about this, Council Member Grant?

Last thought is if we can get to a rebate policy and the mall can go through it and we're all supporting it, I do see, too, because we don't control what the property owners think of their portfolio, that for having made this investment through a rebate mechanism, that that could get us some redevelopment like a hotel or, you know, like we've attracted their attention and trying to improve that property and could get some good things in return.

Okay. All right. Nothing else? Okay. All right. Thanks, everybody.