Well, good evening.

We're gonna jump right into presentations tonight.

And we're starting out with a presentation from representatives of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority regarding updates to I-344, John Kilpatrick, and I 44 Turner Turnpikes.

Good evening, Mayor Nash and Council members.

My name is Jeff Garter, and I'm the director of construction for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.

I first just want to say thank you for giving me the time to come spread the word of a few upcoming improvement projects that OTA has planned as part of our Access Oklahoma Long Range Bond program in the North Oklahoma City South Edmond area.

We're really excited about these projects and hope to share some information ahead of them beginning, so I'll hop straight into it and feel free to stop me anytime if you have a question.

I think most people are aware of the Access Bond Program, but for those who aren't, I'll touch on it briefly for context.

It's a just over $8 billion and 15-year long range program that's aimed to advance and connect communities and economies safely statewide by adding interchanges across the turnpike system and widen and add capacity to existing turnpikes such as the John Kilpatrick Turnpike, Turner Turnpike, and Will Rogers Turnpike.

This program also builds new routes south of Oklahoma City to address and provide alternate routes for the growing traffic problem in that area.

So with that brief introduction of the access bond program, I'd like to highlight just a few projects in the South Edmund area and I'll let you get back to your agenda.

So the first project I'll touch on is the widening of the John Kilpatrick Turnpike to six lanes between West Wilshire Boulevard and just north of Northwest 122nd Street.

This project will also include the widening of the bridge over Northwest Expressway to accommodate six lanes.

The John Kilpatrick Turnpike has the most rapidly growing traffic of all turnpikes in Oklahoma.

Widening will help accommodate this growth and allow for better flow of traffic.

During this project, we'll also remove the existing mainline tolling infrastructure that is left over from the cash tolling days within this extent and install new tolling gantries to account for all six lanes.

This project let to construction in November 2025 and is awarded to do it construction at the December 9th OTA board meeting.

This just more than $23 million contract includes incentives to encourage timely and accurate completion of work.

The contractor may earn up to $15,000 per day for up to 20 days for early completion of the project.

And construction is expected to begin in early spring 2026, weather permitting with an estimated completion date of spring 2027.

As for traffic impacts with this project, the John Kilpatrick Turnpike will be slightly shifted but remain open throughout construction with two lanes eastbound and westbound, so no reduction in capacity from the existing condition.

When bridge work occurs at Northwest Expressway, motorists can expect some short-term night closures to allow for beam hanging demolition.

More than 40,000 vehicles per day travel this section of the John Kilpatrick Turnpike.

And it's estimated that more than 90,000 vehicles per day will travel this section by 2055, so it is rapidly growing.

The next project I'd like to touch on just east of there is the interchange modification at North Council Road and the widening of Westbound Memorial Road.

The North Council Road Bridge over the John Kilpatrick Turnpike will be widened to add a protected turnaround lane for those traveling on westbound memorial and looking to get back on the John Kilpatrick Turnpike going eastbound.

This has been a problem area for a while now, specifically due to the traffic outside of PACOM and all the development in the area.

Along with their protected turnaround, we'll also be widening and adding adding an additional lane to westbound Memorial Road between Rockwell and Council and adding a new on-ramp from Eastbound Memorial Road to eastbound John Kilpatrick Turnpike at Council.

This 12.1 million dollar project was awarded to Allen contracting this month by the OTA board and is expected to begin construction by late spring to early summer.

It's a 310 calendar day project that is anticipated to be wrapping up in the first quarter of next year, 2027.

So the next project is also on the John Kilpatrick Turnpike that I'd like to highlight, and it is at uh County Line Road, a mile west of Council.

This project adds a brand new fully directional interchange at County Line Road with both the eastbound and westbound on and off ramps.

We'll also extend westbound Memorial Road, which currently dead ends just west of Council, all the way to County Line Road, which includes a bridge over the Deer Creek Tributary.

We'll also continue the six-lane widening of the John Kilpatrick Turnpike between Council Road and Northwest 122nd, where the previous widening project I mentioned terminates.

This project is estimated at $61 million and is also anticipated to begin fall of this year, 2026.

So the John Kilpatrick is getting busy.

The last project I want to highlight is on the Turner Turnpike, just a half mile east of I-35 near Arcadia Lake.

The split bridges over Arcadia Lake on the Turner termpike between I-35 and Midwest Boulevard will be replaced with one widened bridge to accommodate the six lanes.

This nearly 22 million dollar project will realign and straighten the Turner Turnpike between the current split alignment.

At completion, this bridge will still be striped for four lanes, but following completion of the widening projects on either side of that bridge, the bridge will be restriped for the six lanes of traffic.

OTA's agreement with the contractor includes an incentive of 10,000 per day for up to 45 days for early completion, and construction is expected to begin mid-2026 and take about a year to complete.

And this project was also recently awarded to Allen contracting.

There's a little video here of where that area is today to give a little context.

If I can get it to play, that is.

So with that, I want to thank you for the time to discuss and highlight these improvement projects and uh hope you're as excited as we are to get them delivered.

And mayor, I'd be happy to take any questions or hand the mic back over, either way.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Thanks, sir.

Item 2B is presentation of sales and use tax collections.

Kathy Panis.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

So this is a review of our January check.

And the sales tax only, we were down 1.22% over this time last year.

The difference is about 155,000 dollars between last January and this January.

So the growth for January alone, though, was a positive two 2.08%.

So that is good.

So we're we're on a good trend here.

But year to date, this is for the whole, all of sales tax down 1.22%.

In our use tax collection, we were we're up 7.29% for the month only of January.