You still hospital.

They always tell you.

So the tour case for rampant.

Yeah.

I think both sides are right.

Good.

I know I know our side for it.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, we'll go ahead and get started.

It is 5 30.

Um so welcome to the city council conference for Tuesday, August 12th, 2025.

We have two items on the agenda.

First one is the discussion regarding the elimination of section 24308 peeping toms from the code of ordinances of the city of Norman in order to utilize title 21-1171 of the Oklahoma statutes for filing charges.

We have the city attorney here to uh tell us what this means.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, as the mayor said, this is about repealing the provisions in our municipal code with regard to keeping toms in favor of um filing those charges under his state statute on its face, it may not seem like it's that big of a deal, but for some reasons that we're gonna talk about here in a little bit, just sort of get an idea as to why the police department really is in favor of doing this.

Um the first issue is really we can talk about is our ordinance regarding peeping toms is in section 24308.

Um there you see the language of it.

Um the first sort of two parts are not that controversial.

Um, regardless of what we did today, one way or the other, we probably do need to delete subsection two.

And the reason is is subsection two talks about photographic and electronic and video equipment in a clandestine manner.

Um at the very end of it talks about it being a felony.

Um that is true, it is a felony under state law, but our municipal court cannot uh handle felony cases.

Felony cases do have to go to district court.

Um so even if we were to leave this the way it is, we probably would need to amend it to get rid of that second provision with regard to that being a felony.

Um and also that same language you're gonna see here in a second, it's also a felony under state law.

So even if we got rid of this, um option to file those charges under state law.

Um, if somebody uses photographic or electronic or video equipment still exists with regard to that type of conduct.

Um, our ordinance continues, it has number three and number four.

Um, and what you'll find is this language was pretty much taken from the state statute regarding peeping tom.

Um this is 21 OS section 1171.

If you were to go through and compare our ordinance to this particular state law provision, it has the same language except for the very last sentence of those, um, talking about the violation being punished by imprisonment in county jail for a term of not more than one year, or by fine not to exceed $5,000 or by such but a fine imprisonment.

We just adopted this as our language and we took out the last sentence with regard to punishment because punishment in municipal courts not of record is a fine above $750 and or 60 days on jail.

So that's really the only difference.

If you'll notice in subsection B, if you take out the last sentence, it still has that language about being guilty of a felony, and I'm thinking about where that came from with regard to our particular ordinance.

We just took out the last sentence, adopted this as written in the state status, but again, we really can't do felonies and municipal court, so we would need to take that out anyway.

Um and then um that statute continues on and has a C and a D, which is very similar to our ordinance, just takes out the last sentence and C, and then the definition for private area of person is the same under state law as it is under our ordinance.

All right, I've had a conversation with our deputy chief about this particular case.

Um this gentleman named Robert Howard Bruce.

Um he's charged with 19 felonies and can in connection with serial rapes at the University of Oklahoma.

Um, as you can see there, um in Norman, those rapes occurred from 1985 to 2005.

Um 1983.

So from 1983 to 2005.

Um we ultimately were able to capture him.

Um we filed 19 charges against him in Oklahoma.

He had nine charges in New Mexico.

There were a number of charges out of Austin for the University of Texas.

I really can't determine whether or not he actually got convicted.

I know he got charged, but because he had convictions in other jurisdictions, they may not have college with those convictions.

And then the interesting part is, and this is what's gonna be significant when you listen to Deputy Chief Jackson.

He was actually caught in Colorado.

And the reason he was caught was a police officer saw him peeping in a window.

He didn't see the officer.

The officer stopped went on the block and ended up capturing him.

Arrested him for that offense.

That conviction would have resulted in his DNA being taken.

And then you could have compared his DNA evidence to these other unsolved rapes or other unsolved sexual assault incidences.

And he probably knew that.

So he attempted to murder the police officer.

And that's what he ended up being convicted of in Colorado, which that conviction resulted in the taking of his DNA evidence, which resulted in them being able to figure out these other offenses that he was ended up being convicted of in Oklahoma.

But Deputy Chief Jackson was involved with this guy.

So I'll turn it over to him and sort of let him explain his understanding.

Okay, a little bit of history on my background, because a lot of you guys know me as deputy chief or major.

But before I was all of that, I was actually a major case investigator in the criminal investigations division.

And my areas of expertise were financial crimes, sexual assault, child abuse, and homicides.

And I caught, I worked the sexual assaults for a number of years.

Back in 2003, I caught this case in Norman.

It was kind of a peculiar case because of how the person got in.

Very unique MO.

He would he would do things like heat the glass, tap the glass, and get in.

Pretty common MO of his.

And some of the things he did once inside was really bizarre.

And so I'm working this case, and we're doing canvases in the neighborhood and worked it for about two or three weeks, then we get another one, you know, down about uh less than a mile south of where this one was.

And so that investigator started working that case, and then we get another one a few months later in that same general area.

And at that point, I knew we were probably working the serial offender, someone that's that's uh that's taking this as a way of life.

And so uh for the next several years we worked this guy, and it's interesting because as I reached out to my uh peers from across the country, across the region, who had dissimilar cases where this guy had committed his crimes in Texas, New Mexico, um, they were struggling with the same things we were struggling with, couldn't figure out how he was getting in, how he was getting out, why we couldn't identify this guy.

And so that went on for a number of years.

And in 2000 and seven or so or five or so, I think it's Rick kind of told you guys how he got caught well in Colorado and all of that.

Um what I have learned over the years, and I'm gonna add a bunch of stuff I was gonna kind of cover and go over, I'm gonna skip a lot of this.

But what I learned over the years when I worked sexual assaults and sex crimes, was that uh when I caught these types of guys, I like to talk to them.

I was curious as to why they did what they did, you know.

And majority of them would actually talk.

You'd be surprised how many would actually talk and give you a little bit of insight.

And what I found was that all of the guys that I talked to, you know, that were peepers, um, I realized that not all of them escalated to the crime of this guy rising up and breaking in the houses and doing this.

But the individuals that I investigated that were serial sexual assault people, um, all of them had a history of peeping.

And the problem, what took it so long for us to catch this guy, is that because when he was arrested for peeping time, he had been arrested for a number of peep and tom cases, but they were filed in municipal court, which is not a court of record.

So we couldn't run a, I couldn't, I couldn't run this guy on the street or investigate him for sexual assault and then run triple I, run a triple I report on him uh to get back his information, what he's done across the country criminally, because municipal courts don't report into that.

Those are only state charges.

And so I wouldn't be able to track and track what he's doing.

So that's why he was so successful, nearly 30 years of Norman.

His first sexual assault occurred in Norman in 1983.

And so uh he targeted women for almost almost, I think 24 years.

There was a period where it stopped to start it up again, because unbeknownst to me is I read some of the old case files, uh, some of those detectives before I was back there in the 1980s, then they knew they had a serial rapist as well back then, but they weren't able to um figure out who was doing what.

Then there was a 14-year break, and then I caught the I think the second thing.

What's interesting about that 14-year break, if you look at his history, he actually moved out of Norman, but then he would have business trips to Dallas, he would fly to Dallas, rent a car, come to Norman, commit one of these acts, and then go back to wherever he was from.

So you can kind of sort of see how difficult it is to piece all that together if you don't have the triple I to be able to run the criminal history to be able to piece that together to make those come as well.

And he knew these things, which is why when he saw that there was a state, he's looking facing the state charge because those officers argued with their supervisor, it was sign and go, sign and go.

That's the that's the standard.

The reason why they said that and did that, because I'm explaining this to you guys, but even police officers who didn't work the type of cases that I work, patrol officers, you just respond on the scene.

It's it's like uh really tactics, they hit and they go.

They they make an arrest, book that person in, and then out to the next call.

Whereas back in the criminal investigations division, we have to work and build and develop cases that we can present to the DA's office.

So we took more time with these things.

So when I talk to officers about peeping toms, they think, well, it's just a peep and tom look perfect, we just write the document sign and go.

Then I have to explain to them, no, this is why you don't sign and go on those on those on these types of individuals.

As long as I have a municipal charge, sometimes guys will take the the easiest route, the less path of the the easiest path, less path of resistance, and they'll go to a docket and file that versus filing the state charge, you know, and getting a getting a court getting that person into a court of record.

Again, not all peepers gravitate and involved to this guy, but everyone that these guys that I talked to, they all were peepers, every last one of them.

Councilman.

I was interested.

Didn't we have somebody in 2020 that was breaking into people's houses all over Norman and watching them while they slept?

Oh, yeah, that's another case that was mine as well.

And actually before 2020, it was uh actually we had let me back up.

We just arrested a guy a few months ago for doing the exact same thing.

But I had a guy that did it back in the early 2020, 28, 29, uh 2009, that was doing the same thing, just like this guy, you know, but he was 16 years, 17 years old when we called him.

And he was breaking in the apartments, watching people sleep, and I won't go into everything he did inside the house while they were in their own sleep.

You know, it was this he finally got caught because he sexually brutally uh sexually assaulted a young girl that was seven years old, and that's how he got caught.

But he was a peeper.

So these guys you gotta take serious, you know, you really have to take them serious.

Any other so yeah, so what the police department is suggesting is if we repeal our peeping tool, then the option for our officers would be to file all those under state law.

And the the process is this OSBI is the one that keeps your criminal record for the state of Oklahoma.

Some charges in municipal court get to go to OSBI, some don't.

The only ones that get to go to OSBI from municipal court are the ones where the person is arrested and fingerprinted, because that's the information that goes to OSBI.

The majority of our citations, and a police officer at Oklahoma can't arrest somebody for a misdemeanor not committed in their presence.

So if I'm peeping into someone's house, that person sees me, they know who I am, there, but the officer didn't see it.

The officer can't make that arrest.

Now the officer could write the police report, send it to the DA's office.

If the DA's office thinks there's probable cause for an arrest, they can issue an arrest warrant for that person that results in them being arrested.

But as a general rule, if you just wrote them out of municipal court docket, as long as they appear in municipal court, they're not going to be arrested.

They're not going to be fingerprinted.

And that information is never going to make it up to OSBI.

So someone like this could get multiple dockets like that.

And from an investigative, from an investigation perspective, the police don't really can't really put together that pattern, because the only way to do that, you'd have to call every municipal court in Oklahoma to find out does this person have charges there.

But and that's just too burdensome.

That's just not gonna happen.

Most people are gonna go to OSBI, get that record, and if there's something there, if there's not, they're just gonna move on to the next one.

That's the first institutional background.

Are we the only city that does this?

Or would we OKC did it have to repeal when that was written for like this?

Or OKC is a court of record as his toll, so they're the only two in the state that are courts of record.

We're not the other small municipalities are not courts of records, and they sign and go and do that all day long.

So we can't keep track of these people.

And that's the reason why I'm here today, because once I leave here, whoever we decide today, I'm moving on to the state level and try to get some changes on that on that on that side as well.

Yes, so and what he's saying is Oklahoma City and Tulsa have courts of record, so their better information does go to OSBI, or a court not of record as ours does not.

Um so you know, that's the thought process is if we don't have it, and our officers have to go to have to go to district court, or likely night, you're gonna result in convictions that are on their OSBI records that that builds that record so that some law enforcement officer investigating something in the future would have a better idea whether or not this is a suitable person or not.

And then again, like for this guy, remember the reason he got caught is because an officer caught him peeping into a house and was able to take him into custody because of that.

Of course, that result that would have resulted that conviction would have resulted in if DNA being taken.

So we tried to kill the officer, that didn't work, and he gets arrested for and convicted of attempted murder, which does result in the DNA.

And there's some videos online.

If you search this guy's name, there's some are some videos online of his confession.

And when he got caught, like Detective Jackson, he talked, he told him about everything.

I did this in Norman, a couple of ones in Norman.

The scary part is the last paragraph over there, he was known as the ether sort of person because essentially he would break into your house, he had chloroform with him, um, he would use that to render a female unconscious, and then do whatever.

Um they would wake up not knowing where they were or what happened or so on and so forth.

But again, the difficulty is putting that information together.

If if if they're allowed to slip through the cracks by being able to engage in that type of conduct, just get a municipal citation for a what is considered a petty misdemeanor.

Um it's difficult to put together that information in terms of when the investigative officer is looking into that person's criminal history, it's really really difficult to put that together.

Um, and like Detective Jackson was summoning Deputy Chief Jackson.

I go back to four.

If you had those going to district court, that does help sort of then put some together, so this can be stopped from Rebecca later.

Um, you would like to think that if any of those 19 instances had resulted in a district court action, he would have been able to put that together a lot faster.

Um, and this is like really it's like a 30-year deal.

Number one, he said 83, so this goes from 83 to 2013, is we actually got caught in Colorado.

So it goes from Oklahoma to New Mexico to Arizona to Colorado to Texas.

They were all college age girls.

And um, one of the things that I think was interesting when uh again, I wasn't in on the final interview of this individual in the Pueblo.

It was uh the uh Hopkins, who's Lieutenant Hopkins now and Jim Parks.

They were uh uh they were they took the case up after I uh promoted out of the other unit.

But they asked the guys two things.

This guy went from a disorganized offender to an organized offender, and that's if you're ever curious about it, give me offline, I'll tell you that it's with this organized and organized offender.

But this guy probably evolved to an organized offender.

And when they asked him, two things these ladies say, first of all, I'm not gonna talk about any murders.

That's that makes us go.

That's an odd thing to say.

You investigate these types of individuals and then bring up the murders.

I'm not asking any questions about any murders.

Then the second thing he said was when Parks told him, Hey, you could have been anything, you're a very intelligent guy, you could have done it, you could have done anything you wanted to do.

And he looked at him and smiled and said, I did.

Instead of the creepy just when your scan just started to crawl, you know.

I'm sorry.

I was gonna say um in favor of changing this.

Um, my other question was when you have a juvenile or whatever, is what is the course of action for that kid?

Uh, and is it the same as the adult?

Like well, district attorney's office is my experience with the DA's office and those types of choices, they work with particularly younger individuals, they'll work with my kids to keep them out of the system.

Um actually they'll work with even adults to try to keep them out of the system, you know, because again, like I said earlier, not this is the worst case scenario, this guy like this, you know.

Uh, there are a lot of people that forever, whatever peeping the peepers of opportunity uh opportunity, you know, never evolve or graduate to this level.

So you're saying he's an outlier, he's not a good idea.

He he is the the worst case scenario because uh most of these types of guys, and you know, that Idaho, I think the murders in Idaho.

I want to remember I read somewhere what that guy also was a peeper that killed those seven students uh I think last year before last.

So not a lot, uh very few of them rise to that level is like very few people rise to homicide and murder, you know.

But those are the worst-case scenarios, and he's lived up to the cracks because he was municipal, yeah, municipal charges, not court of records.

And uh counsel, the courtroom remodel that was undertaken uh our city clerk and our court clerk, the design that went into our new courtroom, it is designed to accommodate a court of record, so we are prepared, and at some point in the future, when that decision is made, um the building's already ready to go, it has all of the components necessary to to be that court of record, and and there's a whole bunch of steps and pieces that uh Mrs.

Ronda Guerrero, our court clerk can talk us through and tell us what that means and at what point she thinks that would probably be viable.

But the two largest cities in the state have courts of record, and we're the third largest city.

So it is conceivable that we will eventually be a court of record here in Portland 2.

All right.

And then the last thing, we had our municipal court sorted.

Go back and tell us over the last five years how many peeping tom charges we've actually filed.

And we've actually filed three.

One was for a gentleman named Cody Plunkett.

That was March of 2023.

He was allegedly looking through a window of some college-age girls.

They were able to substantiate their statements.

But in that file, there is a report from a PhD that showed that this gent this individual had a significant developmental disabilities.

Very, very low IQ.

I think he was in his 30s.

Because that person didn't seem like this was something that you needed to escalate that further because of the issues that he was having with regard to his developmental disabilities.

March 2nd, 2024, a gentleman named Alan Hooper.

This happened over at food and shelter for friends.

Allegedly, he knocked on somebody's door.

They didn't answer.

He pulled out his pants, stuck his rear in the window, and she thinks he was looking in.

He did get cited.

He probably would be a person that sort of Deputy Chief Jackson was talking a little bit about because when we looked at his history, he has 14 indecent exposure reports between 2018 and 2024.

Homeless up in the area around the Quarter Campus.

A lot of reports of him.

I think he was in a wheelchair.

A lot of reports from people over here.

Right.

Being having his pants down and laying in the grass.

A lot of welfare checks, a lot of reports along those lines.

Unfortunately, he did pass away in September of 2024.

But he did, I don't think he necessarily fit the MO of what you would call a serial rapist, but I mean he did have some of those issues.

And then the last one, that individual's from May 22nd, 2024 was caught trying to take photos, upstart photos of somebody who donated them there from the store.

And then again, she caught him.

She took actually took his phone and gave it to the officer.

So if we repealed our peeping town ordinance, we're not really giving up a whole lot.

I mean, you could file each of those cases over the district court and let them handle it.

And again, at least you would be carrying some record.

I did look to see if the first individual and the last individual, they do not have any additional offenses, either in our municipal court or in district court after the date.

Now that is Mr.

I don't have any citations or any of those any subsequent offenses since they were arrested.

So talking to Deputy Chief Jackson, he's like maybe maybe they learned.

The other guy, it was really a lot of homelessness issues, uh, like I said, a lot of welfare checks, things along those lines.

Yeah, a lot of undiagnosed mental illness also and everything like that was our main.

It was more that he was he was deaf on our main lit and one of our main lists.

And of course, with the hospital setting and everything.

The course would work with a person like that.

They realize it's mental, I mean, yeah, they work with person like that.

Yeah.

So we think we will be if I mean if the consensus is nobody has any disagreement with moving forward, and we're just repealing that particular ordinance to allow all those cases.

They got a district depending on your agenda within the list.

Correct.

Thank you.

Any uh final comment, question, suggestion, anything, objection?

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, Rick.

I think that is uh the direction you desire.

His next deal that will be good legislature to see if we can get something done there, address some of those other issues.

Okay.

Thank you, Deputy Chief there for sure.

All right, item number two is a discussion regarding Red Canyon Ranch stormwater infrastructure.

And uh City Attorney's here to talk about that too.

All right, Red Canyon Ranch, stormwater infrastructure.

Give you guys a little bit of orientation to what we're talking about.

Red Canyon ranch development is Northeast Norman uh intersection of Tecumseh and 12th Avenue Northeast.

If you go about a half mile, not even a half mile, maybe about a third of a mile back to the north on 12th.

Um, the development is on the west side of 12th Avenue Northeast.

The stormwater infrastructure that we're talking about is where that star is at the top, right there in that development.

That's what it looks like.

It's that the area where all those trees are is a detention pond.

And it's owned by the Red Canyon Ranch Property Owners Association.

It's actually in the Red Canyon Ranch Edition section number two.

Red Canyon Ranch has multiple sections to it, and this was actually the section two plat that included that drainage infrastructure.

We've had concerns raised by two individuals that live to the north of that drainage structure.

If you look on the right side, the very bottom corner is the corner of that drainage structure.

One of the houses right there is at 700 Riverview Drive.

That's the Wilsons.

It's in a different subdivision.

It's actually in the Woodland Hills Estate section subdivision.

And then on the other side is where the bells live.

Again, at the very bottom is the drainage structure, and then their houses just right there.

Kind of, I guess that's on the east side, the bells live on the I mean the bells live on the east side, the Wilson's on the west side of that structure.

All right.

Here's how drainage is supposed to work from that detention pond.

The red lines are the pipes that carry water out of that detention structure.

They go a little bit back to the west.

The pipe then goes down between the Wilsons and the Bells property.

At the very end of the Wilson's property, there's a drainage structure there.

It goes into that drainage structure across the street to another drainage channel back to the west to a tributary of the little river, and then that drains into the little river.

If you see at the top, that squiggly line, that's where the little river just goes south down to like Thunderbird.

So that's the drainage structure, and that's how it's supposed to operate.

There is a drainage structure, a concrete box inside of the detention pond.

The way it's designed, it's of a certain height, it's open at the top.

Once the water level reaches the top, it drains down into that concrete box and then out through those pipes.

That's how it was designed to work.

At the very top of that drainage structure, there's also a dam to hold the water in until it can drain out.

There's a low point in the dam to where if the water actually topped the dam, there's actually a swale that runs between the Wilsons and the Bells property.

You can kind of see it here.

Back at the top left is where the detention pond is.

And then if you look sort of by that tree, there's a swale that runs down between the Wilson and the Bells property, and then it runs back to the west.

And that concrete box you see there on the right of the picture is where that drainage structure is, it then goes under the road, and then into the other drainage structure and then to the tributary of the um little river into the tributary of Little River.

What the concern here is, I mean, it's two primary concerns.

One is in that drainage area over time, silt has built up such that the capacity of the actual drainage structure is not what it was designed to be.

So 75,000 cubic yards of silt has built up in there.

We actually went feet cubic feet.

We actually went and sort of looked at it, and there's actually around the concrete box, a little bit to the south of it, they put up a fence that's that hopefully is supposed to catch all of the rocks and sticks and stuff that may try to inundate and get into the drainage structure.

Um they said that when they initially put it up, it was four feet tall.

Right now it's about two feet tall.

It's about two feet off of the ground.

So that's the amount of silt that is built up over time in there, which is lowering the capacity of the drainage structure, which is making it operate less efficiently than it was designed to operate.

Um there's also an issue with the drainage structure, the way that it was designed.

Again, it's the concrete box open at the top, water's supposed to rise and then go out.

Well, as a result of the complaints by the Wilsons and the Bells, someone has come in and cut a V in the side of it, which now means water starts flowing out sooner, but that's not how it was designed.

It wasn't designed that way.

Um, and somebody should have came and run those plans past the public works department, the engineering division to make a determination as to whether that was an appropriate way to do that or not.

That did happen, so that is another issue that's potentially exacerbating the problem here.

Um we've talked with both the Wilsons and the Bells.

Um, one of the things that we talked about in terms of how do you get this fixed?

Um that drainage structure is owned by the HOA, so arguably it's their responsibility to make to do the maintenance and to remedy whatever the problems are.

We talked about it from the perspective of if you can't do it, if you can't get them to do it, and you were going to file some cause of action against them in court, what would it be?

Well, you probably could try to file a negligence claim.

The problem is the elements for negligence are a duty breach causation and damages.

And currently, neither the Wilsons or the Bells have suffered any damages.

Um they're concerned there have been occasions when the water has sort of risen to the level where it's approaching their property, but it hasn't really gotten to the point where it's actually causing the damage to the property.

So they would have tremendous difficulty proceeding with a negligence claim because again, they can't show the element of damages, and that's the same for the city.

I mean, we haven't been damaged.

Both of those areas, both the detention area and the Wilson and the Bells property are all private property.

So none of it's public.

We don't really have any responsibility.

It really comes down to a dispute between private property owners about the maintenance of this drainage structure.

Um but there is this provision in Title 11, um 47107, and it says if any building structure or land is in violation of any municipal ordinance or other regulation, the proper local authority of the municipality, us, or any other person affected thereby, which would be the Wilsons and the Bells, in addition to other remedies may institute an appropriate action or proceeding to prevent any unlawful erection, construction, reconstruction, alteration, repair, conversion, maintenance, or use, or to restrain, correct, or abate any violation.

Um again to prevent the unlawful occupancy of the building or structure or land or preventing any illegal act, conduct, business, or use in or about the premises.

So this provision would give the bells and possibly the city if the city chose to do that, the ability to see conjunctive relief to prevent or to require that that drainage structure be maintained appropriately.

For somebody needs really needs to go in and remove the silt that's built up over time so that the capacity is back to where it is and so that it's operating like it's supposed to operate.

And again, there's also an issue with the with the drainage structure that probably needs to be amended.

So this provision would give the city again if it chose to the ability to do that, but it also gives those private property owners the ability to do that.

And notice that it doesn't have the element of damage.

You don't have to show that you've been damaged to move for that relief.

What you have to show is a building structure or land is any violate is in violation of a municipal ordinance or regulation.

So we talked with our public works staff about if we were to look at this from the perspective of what ordinance or regulation could you use to pursue one of those actions.

The first thing that we talked about was, and this is our uh engineering design criteria, and it's section 5001.3.

It is responsibility to own as a property where they're undeveloped, developed, or undergoing development, to not alter or the waste chain design and installed still on the management control system.

So the existing you look here at the bottom picture, this is sort of how that's designed, and the front part of it's missing.

I understand that.

But the way that it's designed is it's a concrete box like that, it's open at the top, so that once the water level arises to the top, water goes over, will spill into the box and then out the pipeline, and then you saw that the direction that it goes when it gets into the pipe.

Um what has happened is imagine that front area has the way that it was designed will be closed, it will be as one solid concrete side.

They've cut a V in it and put bar across it to keep sticks and things along those lines from getting in it, but it just it's making it lets the water go out at a faster rate.

Because imagine as that water level rises, the head pressure for the water going out is going to become much faster.

Um per our design criteria, you're not supposed to discharge water faster than it does pre existing.

So by doing it the way they did it, it's causing water to exceed probably what it was originally, what the natural discharge rate would have been absent cutting that V.

Um, so you one of the violations could be you've altered the alpha structure, and that's a violation that you probably could sue them for.

One some of the problems that we looked at is um in our engineering design criteria.

If you look at section 6,000s, section 6,000 talks about stormwater specifically, and there are penalty provisions in section 6,000 specifically related to stormwater issues.

It allows for municipal court charges to be filed, the maximum fine is a thousand dollars, and it's a violation for every day that that um whatever act or omission is in existence to occur.

Unfortunately, there is not a similar provision in section 5000, which deals with um these drainage type structures.

Um, but we also talked about even if you brought an action that involved the issue with this outfall structure, it still doesn't address the maintenance issue.

Even if you fix that the way that it was originally designed, you're still gonna have the issue with um the maintenance and the silt um and the capacity issue that is potentially could potentially cause um harm to the bells and um the Wilsons.

Um we also looked at it in terms of 5001.4 um and that requires property owners, developers or their legal agents upon receipt of notice by the city of Norman that repair and maintenance is required of privately owned stormwater infrastructure shall be responsible for effecting such repairs or maintenance within the time specified, or the city shall have repairs and maintenance performed at the expense of the property owners.

So that is another provision that you could use to say they're in violation of this um provision in 5001.4.

We know that the developer has been given notice of the maintenance issue, but again, the property is actually owned by the HOA.

Um not sure if the HOA has been provided with notice of that.

But if you look at the covenants for that particular development, um there's a class A and a class B.

Class A is the property owners, class B is the developer.

Um the HOA is under the control of the developer until either one all of the property outline exhibits A and B become subject to the covenants, and A is the land area that um covers Red Canyon Ranch.

B is all property within a 10-mile radius, or the alternative is 40 years.

So the HOA, the developer is probably gonna be in charge of the HOA, probably boost by that four-year time period, which is 2030-ish.

Um, so that becomes an issue between the property owners and the developer to figure out hey, who's gonna fix and pay for this?

Um, for us, it just becomes a notice issue once we give them notice and told them you need to complete this maintenance within a specific time period.

Um, if that doesn't occur, the city could take on that obligation at the expense of the property at the expense of the property owner that would want to address the maintenance issue.

That seems to be the bigger problem.

The issue is I'm not sure how we would collect the cost from the HOA.

If we went out and did it, um, we're supposed to be performing it at the expense of the property owner, which is the HOA, but then the question goes, how do we collect those expenses from the HOA?

A little bit different.

I mean, the way we usually think about things on Title 11, specifically section 22-11, um, that talks about code enforcement and our business, our ability to abate weeds and trash, and it specifically allows a municipality.

If we give you notice about weeds and trash, and you don't you don't comply, we can go out, abate the nuisance, and then we can put a lien on your property.

Um there isn't a similar provision with regard to private traded structure.

So when I say I'm a little bit unclear on the issue of should the city decide to go out and perform the maintenance at the expense of the property owner, I just don't know how we would collect that problem.

And and on that since all of its private property, there is no public easement.

That's correct.

Do we have do we have the authority to go on to private property and cause such repairs without a public easement?

There is a drainage easement around the pond.

That it's a public listed, but it's it's common area, and and there's a note on there that's drainage is the responsibility of the HLA.

I was gonna ask about the lead first.

Thank you for answering that.

Um is there the opportunity to do like a property tax assessment through the county?

Usually when we do those improvement districts, it has to be that the land property owners have to consent.

Okay, and again, not knowing, I don't even we don't necessarily even know what the HOA knows about this issue.

We don't really even know what the property owners think about it.

I mean, if they chose to, the HOA could impose an additional assessment on themselves to raise the money to take care of this.

And of course, the difficulty a lot of times with these HOAs, specifically in a newer development, is that the developer controls the HOA because of their interest in the development.

So usually we would go to them and say, hey, this is a problem, you got to do something about it.

And you just don't know whether that information would get passed along to the actual residents, who ultimately probably is their responsibility, their financial responsibility.

That was gonna be coming to my next question.

If this were to occur, uh property were to get flooded as a result of this, what happens then?

What's the uh they would be suing the HOAs?

Thank you.

Councillor, um I know with Ward 4 and some of the older areas with flooding, we know what causes that stuff, but we're kind of seeing that in new developments, new neighborhoods, how they affect maybe older neighborhoods and the surrounding areas.

Do we have other issues like this that we've identified?

Um where maybe a new development's come in and the retention detention portion hasn't been perfectly engineered or changed along the way to not meet criteria and it's caused damage.

Yes, um, and Mr.

Sturz and his crew, and typically the stormwater people are the people that wind up responding in those scenarios in and to have an engineer do the paperwork, show you the design, show you the math calculations to say this will handle the appropriate amount of rainfall.

Um it gets built, we inspect the boxes checked.

What we recognize in these scenarios, and Mr.

Sturz and I have been having a conversation about how do we how do we not do it that way anymore?

Um from the time the original construction takes place, the hole is dug, the the berm is put up, the infrastructure is installed, to the time the last house is sold.

Topography can change pretty dramatically.

A whole bunch of red dirt winds up filling the hole long before the last house is built.

Probably because all of the land to be developed by you know the the house, the home builder, it's it's it's disturbed, it isn't stabilized, and the stormwater is designed to go into this place.

The homeowners, once the builder says I've achieved X, the HOA is now yours.

Here's the checkbook.

We haven't seen where they hand off.

Oh, and here's your your annual maintenance calendar.

Once a year, you need to call a contractor who does this kind of work to do that.

Every five years, you need to call this kind of contractor to do that kind of work.

Um, it's things that developers and builders, they understand it, they they know it, they have those people on the Rolodex.

When you hand it off to the HOA, this guy could be you know your dentist, and now he's supposed to know who to call and when to call them and what to ask them to do so that the infrastructure continues to function like it was originally designed.

And over time, council uh will remember the efforts undertaken for like the summit lakes.

Could there have been maintenance activities over the last 20 years that would have made the dam more resilient to damage and or loss?

The vineyards, um, yep, that one was designed properly.

Another one was designed properly, they weren't envisioned to operate together.

Houses at the bottom of the hill flood, they all turn to the city and say, help us solve our problem.

So if we can get better at what we require, uh, along with the submittal of the plan, um, and this was uh an idea Mr.

Sturz had it get when the plat gets recorded, there's a bunch of information on the plat as to who's responsible.

When you buy a house, you may sign 400 pieces of paper.

Uh, you may see the plat, you may never see the plat.

It's recorded, you could go look it up.

If we get to a point where developer, you you create the HOA in your HOA documents, you will include the maintenance program to ensure the sustainability of your infrastructure.

Homeowners are more likely to be able to access their HOA documents than they are the original plat, if they would even know to go look at the plat.

So I I think Mr.

Sturch may be onto a different way of us doing it, and one more requirement on the department part of the developers.

You you we know what you know how to build.

Now you also have to include the maintenance schedule so your buyers aren't left in a lurch at the end of the day.

It's in a in the HOA covenants, at least the officers of the HOA, again, reading those covenants.

Again, we're reading those covenants.

Uh they're gonna want to know what the responsibilities are.

So at least we're gonna be getting to somebody associated with the HOA in the neighborhood through that kind of a route.

Um, but yeah, filing it on each property would be extensive.

Filing with the final plat's fine, but that may not show up and may not get handed to you in a title search for your property.

But this is one way we think we with a minor change in some of our regulations and ordinances, we could get that put in.

So that would be a moving forward solution, not a retroactive solution.

Okay, so I like how I like where that thinking is being proactive going forward, but how do we be proactive in a sense where we're mitigating an issue that's been identified before damage actually occurs?

And I think that's where we're here with this.

And all right, here's what I think your options are in terms of this particular issue.

One, you know, you can direct the city management divide the bills and rules that they have standing to sue for injunctive relief under the provision in title force at time 11.

I mean, like I said, they it does apply to people affected by this particular issue, and they do have the ability to go over district court and seek whatever relief that they think they're entitled to under that provision.

Um authorized the notice for file by 5001.4 the DC.

Again, I know the developer knows, I'm not sure if the HOE knows and how the repairs are made as performed at the expense of the property owners if the owner does not affect maintenance within whatever time is specified.

And again, that issue goes back to the issue of how do you collect the cost once you go and do that maintenance.

Um again, the provision in Title 11 also authorizes the proper parties of the municipalities, so the city attorney's office could commit that litigation under title 11 for the alleged violations of the EDC if we thought that was appropriate.

Um the thing that I like more than anything is to amend section 5,000s of the 5000s of the engineering design criteria to provide for the same criminal profit criminal penalties that are provided in subsection 6,000 or section 6,000.

Um, because that then gives us the ability to say we're giving you the notice, you haven't complied, instead of us coming out and doing it, especially if we don't have the funds to do that, we're just gonna go start filing charges against your municipal court.

Um, and usually that tends to give people's attention fairly quickly, such that they're willing to do something to come into compliance as opposed to letting those charges rack up over time.

Um again, we do it for stormwater.

I'm not really sure why we didn't do it in section 5,000, but that is another option going forward with regard to how to get some of this results built by center.

So I know about an identification of this specific problem.

The original plan was built and approved to design criteria.

Correct.

And since that time, it has been altered without permit or notice.

Well, but the box has been altered without permit or notice.

The other more significant, the other more significant issue is the lack of maintenance.

If somebody had come in and scooped out that silt every once in a while, I mean, it probably would not have risen, I mean, wouldn't have built up to the level it's up to now.

And that's it.

I think that's a big major part of this.

I know I understand that the developer understands it's gonna be expensive to go do that, but it's kind of one of those deals that if you've been doing it over time every once in a while, it wouldn't have reached the level that it's reached now, and you wouldn't have that big gigantic expense.

Now the expense is gonna be spread out over all of the um houses in that development, but the developer doesn't carry any bond insurance beyond the development of the area.

That's correct.

They don't have an overarching this is just me asking you to speculate if you know uh that there's not an umbrella liability policy or a general bond that they would have there might be, but the issue then goes back to well, who would have standing to go after the developer?

It would be the HOA, the homeowners.

You know, if the homeowners were put in a position to where we're gonna have to pay for this, well, we think the developer has some potential liability, then the homeowners would be offered the developer to help cover the cost of that.

Um we were have I've been thinking about this, and you see some really weird, unusual provisions and covenants.

And when we did Ashton Grow, their covenants had a provision in there that said if the homeowners sued the developer, the homeowners had to pay the developers legal fees.

Um, which I think the court ultimately said that that was unenforceable.

But the issue back to the difficulty I think we struggle with is it really is an issue between private entities.

It's either the HOA, the developer, and the girls and rules, it's all private property.

Um we really don't have an obligation to go do maintenance, but other than the provision that says if you don't do it, then we can go do it and charge and and charge the expense to you, but then the question becomes how do you collect those property taxes?

Um, we really don't have an obligation to go do many, but other than the provision that says if you don't do it, then we can go do it and charge and and charge the expense to you, but then the question becomes how do you collect those so I guess you could go to district court and file some action saying we did this, we want a judgment against the homeowners, which they would then have to put that proper back judgment or go to their HOA dues and they would pay you back over time.

Well, I would be in support of either three or four, uh, depending on.

I mean, I like moving, I like being able to amend something that helps us down the road.

I think that uh a lot of us with newer developments probably face this issue.

Uh and it just seems odd that we would have to spend city resources on things that we've learned our lesson from how older things were developed, and now we're having to fix the same problem on newer things, and it's taking away from resources and other parts of Norman.

So that would be my rec my ask of you guys would be to consider three and four.

And and bless you recognizing through the aim process that the easy places in Norman to build houses are full of houses.

The places left to build houses have more challenges like this.

Soils that are more challenging, slopes that are more challenging.

So boy, now's the time for us to figure out how to protect the group that's gonna sit here 10 years from now and have those potential same problems show up on their plate if we don't get it right.

Council.

Yes, uh I like number four.

I actually made a note that it wasn't enforced in section 5000.

My question is could you pursue four knowing that you would actually be able to do something in three, and also two be a diplomatic route to get the process started and let the property owners and developer figure it out and maybe get it fixed before it escalates to commencing litigation.

I almost think you'd have to do three for I mean you have to do two first.

Okay, because the issue goes back to remember that particular provision says if you give a notice, you gotta do it within a specific time, and then if you don't do it within that specific time, then the city can do it and charge you.

So we could be working in parallel here.

Yeah, I I almost think you'd have to do because you're talking about a violation of the provision.

Talking about you have to show a violation of a municipal ordinance or regulation, and embedded in that municipal regulation is the notice part.

So again, like I said, I know that I know the developer knows, I don't know what the HOA knows.

I don't know what the property owners know.

And it would be helpful to put them on notice of you're about to get this big bill to go clean out this freaking Jannel.

And you guys can do something to resolve it however you want to resolve it.

If you guys want to, you know, impose this.

If you guys want to come up with a way to do this that doesn't impose a significant financial impact on you, you want to spread it out over how however many years or whatever, we'll let you do that.

But you guys need to know this does need to be done.

Yeah, that's right.

Same same line of thinking.

I think you got to give them the opportunity to cure the default or cure the issue.

Um, and then if they don't take that opportunity seriously, then you move forward with litigation.

So that's what I guess for.

And we do need to update amend our stuff so that there's actual something that we can.

I just feel like in this scenario, uh, yes, going with two, I would be fine with that.

But I think we've identified in this scenario that they changed the design criteria and what they wanted to do without giving notice.

So we don't know who did that though, that's a problem.

I think we think the developer did it, but that's another.

I mean, that kind of goes back to the issue of look at your covenants and it's telling me who's responsible for what I think we think we know that but the litigator in me says if you go talk to the judge, you're gonna have to some give something better than I think I know.

It's gonna have to be this is the person that did that.

Is also fixing the V notch repair and silking, dredging the silt down, so it's not just the one or the other, it's yeah.

I think that puts us in the position of showing we're not being heavy-handed.

Absolutely.

So trying to work with you, you gotta work with us.

I agree.

And that record setting April and record setting May rainfall we had really exposed.

Uh, it wouldn't surprise me if that much rainfall added another four inches of silt into what we saw out there in the bottom of that basin.

Um, and the tree canopy, it really is an amazing piece of real estate.

But every time another tree sprouts, less capacity exists in the pond.

And um top of silt, the homeowners could buy more time by removing a bunch of the growth right in the middle of that ponding basin.

Okay, got just a couple minutes left.

So, any final comment or suggestion for staff on that?

All right.

Good.

And uh good point about, you know, we've had developers over the years say that newer parts of Norman shouldn't have to be part of the stormwater utility because they meet current standards.

But we have many examples where newer neighborhoods have stormwater problems for various reasons.