On Tuesday, August 26, 2025, the Norman City Council held a conference to discuss two agenda items: the reassignment of the contract for the Adult Wellness and Education Center operator and the transition of the cafe at the Young Family Athletics Center (YFAC) to city operations. The meeting began at 5:30 PM. City staff presented updates, answered council questions, and outlined next steps. Both items received supportive discussion.
So we will see that Jason's too much. Yeah. Actually, I think she said she would probably be a little late. So okay, it is 5 30, so we'll go ahead and get started. Um sort of logic to join us here shortly. But we have two items on the agenda for the city council conference for Tuesday, August 26th. The first item is a discussion regarding resolution R 2526-38 between the City of Norman and Healthy Living Center Norman L. And we have city staff here to talk about that. Catherine's here to break up my my awesome storytelling. And hopefully I don't embarrass myself too bad. That's the reason she's sitting next to me. So we're going to talk to about the adult wellness and education operator. Uh we are gonna um tonight you're gonna have a resolution to reassign the contract from one organization to another, but they're basically been operating pretty close, and you'll find out there's a lot of similarities between the the group. Uh before we head too far into that, let's go over some key dates with our operator, especially um as it has to do with our adult wellness and education center in November 2020. We put an RFP for an operator. At that time, the project was called Senior Wellness Center. Uh, in April of 21, we signed an MOU with Healthy Living and Fitness Incorporated. They were the selected operator for uh the what was also still known then as a senior wellness center. Uh, as we started getting closer in May 23rd of 23, we did sign a contract uh with uh it was still held healthy living and fitness, but they set up an LLC to oversee their operation in Norman so that they could separate entities between their Oklahoma City operation and the Norman operation. Uh in on November 11th, 2023. We opened the Adult Wellness and Education Center right before that. I think a few months before that, our ad hoc committee did settle on that adult wellness center name. Uh and then December 2024, uh, we did get notification from uh Healthy Living Center Norman LLC that they wanted to form a different uh uh incorporation to further separate themselves from their operation in Oklahoma City and Norman. Uh at that time uh they did try to uh put a lot of uh members uh of their board from Oklahoma City. Uh then we um then eventually got to the point where we thought it was best for both partners for uh our residents of Norman to be operating that facility, and that's kind of where we're leading today. Uh we finally got to that point um as we're talking about assigning the contractors, not to the terms in the contract are aren't changing. What is changing is who the contract is assigned to. Uh and I wanted to go over a few of the details before we got into the what we're talking about contract assignment. Uh very high level details, what's in that contract? The uh the operator will operate and manage and uh maintain the property for five-year terms. We do have uh the option to extend that for three additional five-year turns, terms, excuse me, utility assistance. Uh the city will uh assist with utilities for the first three years of operation. We're still still in that window. Uh it is a tier system that we use with a lot of our contract, especially our new operators. It's 100% uh utility assistant that first year, and then it goes down by 40% um each year until it gets to basically zero in that fourth year. We're also paying for janitorial services uh right now, and that's for the first three years of operation. Uh landscaping and uh lawn services is also uh we're paying for uh poll maintenance, which is a big one for us. Uh and and we learn from talking to Oklahoma City with the same organization, um, um healthy living that it is very important for the the city to take a ownership in that pool because if something goes south, uh it can go south very, very quickly. I always like to compare to a polls to like weddings. Anytime you throw the word poll or wedding in front of a service, it like triples the cost of it. So that's the reason that that we want to uh make sure that we stay involved with that. But that's for the first five years of operation uh and that first section of contract. So all that stuff could uh could change as we go in there uh or talk about the second five years. But the uh this is what we're kind of hitting on today. So uh contract assignment, we're taking it um from basically where the Oklahoma City uh Incorporation is gonna hand it over to the Norman New Incorporation, and they're also gonna um eventually be a uh nonprofit as they're working towards that status. But uh section 710 of the contract they sign, and this is pretty much norm in any of our operator contracts. This gives the ability of an operator to reassign the contract to another operator with the permission of the city, and that's kind of where we are tonight. Um we have uh got a resolution from both the what would be the Oklahoma City of Corporation and the newly formed corporation in Norman. They are both agreement in reassigning it, and uh the city is very supportive of this move. And uh you're gonna vote on it hopefully tonight after this meeting.