And get started with the City Council Conference for Tuesday, December 9th, 2025.

We have three items on the agenda.

And the first one is background and discussion regarding a restoration agreement between the City of Norman and Barber Energy Corporation regarding the plugging of the Norman number one te well in accordance with applicable law and remediation of the surface for future use by the Norman Utilities Authority.

And we have uh Beth from the uh legal department to talk about that with us.

Thank you.

Uh so I just wanted to speak briefly.

It's item 21 on your consent agenda, the remediation agreement.

Uh, because we don't see these every day.

Um, this well was drilled back in 1967, and that was about 15 years before the Oklahoma Surface Damages Act became law.

But for that act, um, well operators were only responsible uh for any damages beyond quote reasonable use.

The damages act created um right to all damages and and included basically a process where you enter into an agreement that would talk about how that gets remediated.

Well, so we don't have that agreement, and this well has been in place for uh a long time, uh over 60 years.

And so Harbor Energy has been the operator of that well for a great deal of time.

You saw that um in the staff report if you had looked over that.

And so uh they came to us and said, we have now plugged this and they followed the normal procedure.

We've gone and we've looked at the OCC wells uh website to ensure that they filed all the applicable forms.

The OCC saw, oversaw the plugging of the well, and so they reached out to our oil and gas inspector, Jeff Freed Potti.

He has a good relationship with both the OCC and with the well operators, and so they wanted to work together to make sure that they remediated the surface uh where it was acceptable to us for our future use.

Now, this property where the Norman 118 is located is utilized by the Norman Utilities Authority.

And so our um environmental and sustainability manager, Michelle Laddenbach, she participated in the remediation process and she oversaw it to ensure that it was done well.

In fact, she saw some stuff that she didn't like.

We went back to the well operator and we said we want you to do it better.

The well operator was actually really surprised that their contractor hadn't done a better job.

So they worked with us to go back to the contractor and make sure it was done very well the second time.

And so that's why it took a little bit longer for this to finally get to you.

This was kind of churning for a couple of months.

But uh, they've got it to the point where we want to incorporate it into the city's network of ecological and community use sites, which uh would be similar to Leaf and Lahoma Grove.

And so the agreement itself, as you saw, is a one-pager.

It simply acknowledges that we are accepting it in what we believe is an acceptable condition, and it confirms their um affirmation that they followed all the applicable regulations that the OCC has in place regarding how these sites are to be remediated.

So that's it, and I'm here for any questions you might have.

Any questions, council?

Councilor Dixon.

How long are they responsible for the PA on that?

Is it kind of in perpetuity?

Like if it starts, if it starts leaking in 10 years, is it on them?

I mean, I know that would really be the question.

OCC would be the right of that.

I'm just curious if you had that off the top of your head.

It's not in the still know that off the top of my head, but that's a very good question.

Now I do there is a point where after the OCC um might take something onto its orphan well list and ensure that it stays you know uh good going forward, but that sounds like a great question that I can follow up with our oil and gas inspector um and get you an answer on.

Okay, thank you.

That's a good question.

The other comment question.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

All right, item number two is a discussion regarding possible amendments to the guest room tax ordinance.

And we have some rec and legal here.

Just try to take out the park director.

All right, the uh let's talk a little bit about the the gas tax.

We presented this uh at finance meeting or committee last time, and uh we thought we got some uh a lot of thumbs up, so we wanted to progress the talks, and we also wanted to throw in there uh the RV.

So we're gonna go back over what we talked about in the finance committee since not all of you were there.

Uh no, you can't see the presentation, but we gave everybody printouts, and we'll try to post this as soon as we can.

Uh so just to talk about the guest tax and everything associated.

First, kind of want to start uh if we do talk about raising the gas tax.

Maybe we could use a portion of that or two percent or 1.25%.

You'll see the the totals of that uh maybe go to to parks and give a little bit of background on how parks is funded, what we could use that funding for, and how it could help uh the city and other situations.

But first talk about the assets that parks have.

We do have 1,160 acres of parkland, uh, 55 parks that have playgrounds, 69 total playgrounds, or 69 total parks, excuse me.

Uh we do have a few parks that do not have uh playgrounds, which are Griffin and Saxon.

There are uh a few community parks that need replacement.

Uh Lyons and Little Acts are two of those parks.

Saxon is about ready to get a playground um replacement.

Uh Griffin does not uh I said Griffin, but um Griffin uh does not have any any plans.

We have a site for one, but there's no funding set aside for it.

And of course, uh we have uh Reese Park that does need uh uh kid space to be replaced.

Uh we also have uh in our existing um assets at cultural centers, which are Sooner Theater Historical House, uh Santa Fe Depot, which we had a great event out there this uh past weekend with the Christmas parade and winterfest and the Christmas tree lighting, uh Firehouse Art Center.

Uh we do have recreation facilities, uh the young family athletic center, the adult wellness and education center, 12th Avenue, Little Acts, Westwood facility.

We also take care of green belts, trails, uh also have Bishop Creek Eco Park that's coming on line, maintain Set and Wilderness that's long-term lease the parks have uh not mentioned on here.

We also do beautification around the city, which includes a bunch of the bump outs and and mediums.

Uh all this, we kind of do our existing operating maintenance and operation budget, which has about 35 people that is dedicated for in that fund is about uh four and a half to five million dollars a year.

Uh start talking about what capital funding so just to clarify Saxon Park doesn't have a playground getting one right from correct, and that's part of our Norman Ford program.

And then we've talked about the replacement of kids space, but we've also talked about potentially a second kid's space in the UNP.

Is that maybe a separate funding discussion, all that stuff potentially?

We have talked about that.

Yes.

And to that, this comes along with uh being able to get that land if possible from one of the developers, which is how we get a lot of our park land.

Uh hop a little bit farther and kind of more where uh it might make sense for for parks to start talking about getting an extra part of the uh guest tax.

You start talking about what our current capital layouts are.

Um, right now we get about $600,000 of uh room tax.

Uh that is that bump is relatively gotten relatively higher in the past couple years thanks to the hotels and uh associated with uh college football SEC.

We think we see an uh a significant bump with that, and so have our other uh partners that do get some of that room tax, which is uh visit Norman, the Sports Commission and the Arts Council.

Uh we do use portions of that right now for some capital funding, some of it's tied up in bonds.

We have used uh we have bonded against our um guest tax in the past.

Uh uh we did for Westwood for improvements out there in the early 2000s.

Right now we do have about three million dollars tied up into a bond that we use for the Young Family Athletic Center.

Uh we did have crazy construction costs that um the and that exploded right at the beginning of that.

Um kind of associated with COVID and other inflation um cost.

Um you start talking about other projects we've done that.

Uh we've more recently have updated the out uh outdoor pickleball area uh behind the WIFAC, done Sooner Theater Interior Renovations, uh, funded the Westwood Master Plan.

We've done a lot of work out at Westwood tennis, including lights, court resurfacing, um, other things out at tennis, uh, and added the 12th Avenue pickleball and tennis courts out there.

Uh, some of our other funding, which comes out of uh, which is more their traditional uh fund 50 capital funding.

Um we have a portion that set out set aside through that.

That's about 220,000.

Um and that's kind of ongoing cost where we replace sports field lighting or replace um playground components.

We haven't done so much playground replacements in there recently because of Norman Ford.

Uh we also have park signage that gets replaced consistently out of there.

Uh that includes sooner um theater signage.

Uh we also fund some tree replacements out of there for forestry.

Uh and also um do larger projects for trees, and when you think about trees, it's just more not it's more than planting um trees, it also has irrigation.

So if we plant trees and don't put proper irrigation with that, then we're all sudden we're we're using more of our maintenance staff to go out there and hand watering those.

So we're trying to find good places where we can put that, uh put trees and have irrigation to go along with that.

So we're not taking up some of our maintenance resources.

Uh when you're talking about the parkland development funds, uh well, kind of finish up with capital.

We're also uh capital uh Bishop Creek Eco Park was also funded out of there, and um we're currently working on design for a repark restrooms and a maintenance maintenance building out there that was funded out of capital.

Uh parkland development, uh this was uh where we start talking about impact fees and things like that, where how we get funded um through that.

This one's very unique and very hard to kind of um tap into because uh just the way the impact fees and the ordinances listed and um kind of uh our lawyers and laws that surround that to kind of restrict how how we can spend that.

So uh when you do develop uh a neighborhood, uh a lot there are fees that go directly to parks for that.

And when those fees are collected for neighborhood parks, they are assigned specifically to that park.

So when you start looking at uh a 1.4 million dollar balance uh for that, uh it's not necessarily something we can go dive into and spend at any um park that we want to.

Those are assigned to specific parts, broke up to uh in different areas of town, and a lot of times uh those balances uh when you start talking about spreading across 55 parts, those balances are so small and insignificant.

Uh and also how an impact fee you have to basically use it for new capital.

You can't go in there and use it for maintenance.

Uh, it kind of leaves those balances in there, or we can't really tap into those.

Uh it's a good idea when you start talking about those funds.

Uh I mean, thinking about uh when we have enough money to basically do a full capital line, like a playground replacement or building a new park or or things like that.

Uh talk about a little bit of parkland dedication and make sure that's all inside y'all's stuff.

That's kind of a tied into those ordinances you talk about with uh parkland development.

Um we can kind of hop forward a little bit to uh more things that were tied to aims and aim and the uh parks and rank and culture plan it it kind of outlaw outlines things once again uh set aside for parkland development, but today we're gonna get more focus on hotel motel tax.

Uh so if you go to that, the side that's listed as room tax, and we start talking about uh all the other cities and what the room tax uh are currently set is Norman's as at 8%.

And you um now look there are other cities that kind of wait waited for us to take the lead on that once we um move the bar to 8%.

There is Oklahoma City and Middleworth City has now passed us.

And since we've passed this in 2023, I think Middle of the City a few months ago raised it to 9.25.

Oklahoma City also raised ours to 9.25 last year.

Uh you so that's uh 1.25% higher than what Norman's is on the 8%.

You uh look at Norman room percentages by percentages down there at the bottom of your sheet, and it kind of gives you a uh a breakdown of how this is all divided up.

25% of the current room tax goes to Norman Art Council, six or 15.

Um, six two five goes to the parts and 59.37 goes to visit Norman with about 15.7 or 15.8 going to sports tourism.

And more does not have one.

Uh this is super small, but I don't believe they have a hotel motel tax now.

No, very many hotels, I guess.

So when we start, we flip to the next page.

If we're able to uh expand our room tax from 8% up to uh either 9.25, we've even um talked around uh uh management team um maybe even how far we could push it.

We think we could go to 10 percent.

I've talked to both visit Norman, I've talked to uh embassy suites today, and they see no problem with it.

Um talking to Scott, he is like I I don't think anybody looks at the percentages when they book hotels, and that includes conferences.

And when you start um comparing our conference center to an Oklahoma City or admin, like that, the the sales tax is a very small factor in what they they use to determine when they book conferences.

Uh as a matter of fact, the the uh we embassy suites is actually one of the the cheaper ones in the metro when you talk about the bigger conference center, so he thinks it's gonna have zero effect on him at all if we even choose to go beyond the 9.25.

But you start looking at uh what additional capital the that this could raise uh if we go all the way up to uh 10% uh uh about $986,000 would uh if we set that all aside for parks and it and it goes down from there 493,000 for if we do one percent uh 0.5 percent uh to 150,000 and a quarter percent would be 123,000.

Uh if we do kind of uh focus in on the two percentages which were were suggested, you know, whatever we get the best fill on, but uh uh would probably either be matching Oklahoma City or going up to uh a 10%, and then we have that graph uh there at the bottom.

Uh Catherine did draft some example language if it does get added to a ballot and it does include RV, I'll let her go ahead and get that up so I don't talk, get all legal.

Thanks.

Um we had received direction from council previously to add recreational vehicles to the ordinance so that when spaces are rented out for an RV park, a fee could be collected or the tax could be collected there as well.

The way the ordinance is currently drafted, it only applies to hotel rooms or as uh short-term rental rooms, not the rental of space.

Um, so we're working on that modification, and the direction was to bring that forward in April, so that means January uh first reading and second reading.

Uh I took the language that we did the last time we raised the tax and and added the recreational vehicles piece to this.

I'll still probably change this a little bit, but you can kind of get an idea of what that ballot language would look like when we see that in January.

Um, it doesn't say anything about the split between the arts council and visit Norman and Parks, and that's because we have historically done that by contract.

And so I would anticipate a contract amendments with both of those entities, Arts Council and Visit Norman coming forward to solidify that.

Um we have not historically included that in the ordinance.

Um as you've now been doing a little digging around right to council and um and also talking with city attorney Jeannie Snyder about uh short-term rentals.

Um I think city attorney Knighton told me it's about 100k with legal aid for a lawyer.

I would like to propose like 0.25%, because I saw where that's roughly about 100,000, it's 123, 355,000.

Um maybe either go to the general fund to be used for that uh or dedicated to that.

Uh the way the ordinance is currently written and was approved by the voters is the funds are to be cement for convention and tourism specifically, so that would require another amendment to a different section of the ordinance and then something within the ballot language to accommodate that.

So they could be developed together or done separately.

They could be done together that with both amendments to the same section of the code.

I would like to explore that option.

Okay.

And so if we wanted to say um if we wanted part of the visitor tax to go to just the general fund.

10%.

Just don't have to have that there as an example.

But if we wanted 10% of the visitor tax to go just directly to the general fund, that would require voters to yes, we currently retain 4% just for the administration of the tax.

Right.

But to change the overall purpose of how the tax is spent would require voter approval.

So we could either potentially say we want to ask voters to vote to approve a dedicated whatever percent towards a specific purpose that council grant is proposing.

And or we could say we just want to change it to 10% to the general fund, and then the council decides that we want to allocate some of that to this or whatever we want.

So either that might be the better way to do it.

If you lock it in for a particular project and say that doesn't work out, maybe our partners for for the um legal services, for instance, say we we can't do it for this amount anymore, something like that.

You that would give you some flexibility.

Um, and that could be something that the council evaluates every year on what it's best to be spent on.

And I'll just say uh City Attorney Snyder did say that the four percent uh could be more for the city admin costs given having to switch to different uh technologies to actually track down that tax and collect it.

So if it didn't work out with right to council, or maybe we had another funding source that provided let's say uh could keep up with the times costs for a lawyer.

Uh we could put that towards uh the collection of that tax and helping staff uh track down whoever or deal with the issues that come up, like parties and other things like that.

Yeah, the last time we increased it was with this last room tax increase.

We changed it in our contracts with uh visit Norman and our council from 20 or sorry, three percent for admin fees versus four percent.

We increase that up to four percent.

I don't know that we've done an evaluation on whether or not that's covering costs or what it would take to cover the costs.

I know short-term rentals brings on a whole different level of uh involvement from staff, and so that might be something we we want to look at to kind of put a number to that.

Yeah, because I was thinking uh we struggle with parking enforcement and noise, particularly when it comes to the party Airbnbs that aren't supposed to be a party, and they're in all types of neighborhoods too.

I'll just say like one of them is a six hundred thousand dollar range, and it's got you know the party house.

So a part of the visitor tax could be used to hire a code enforcement officer who just deals with noise and trash, and the things that people are concerned about with short-term rentals, yeah.

That would be an expansion of the purpose with the case.

And the three other voters, yeah.

If the right to council part didn't work out, yeah.

Counselor no fire.

Uh two quick questions, just for clarification for my purposes.

Uh do Airbnbs pays that same room tax for one.

They do just making sure.

And then two, uh, if you include the RV language in this ordinance, will that include anything out at uh Thunderbird?

Or is that separate since it's a state park?

No, it because it's charged to the uh end user, the person renting the space.

I think all of our parks right now are either state-owned, county-owned, or university-owned.

We don't have any privately owned RV parks, so it's gonna be an education issue.

I think with all of those entities to get them to collect the tax.

Got it.

So apply if we pass.

It should, yeah.

I think it'll just take some time to get everyone kind of on board and get it implemented.

But not to mobile home parks.

Not to mobile home parks, no.

Councillor Pete.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, I just could add that I am very much supportive of this, and I'm even supportive of all the way up to 10% or whatever you think our hoteliers would support.

Um, obviously, all of this goes to expanding quality of life for Norman residents, but uh through a vehicle that is not normal residents, and so it's other people's money.

Um, as much of it as we can extract and put towards quality of life projects for Norman and support all that.

Um I agree.

I'm in support of this too.

Uh, if we do take anything or add anything to the four percent, um I just like to because visit Norman brings in more tourism, and we're trying to incorporate encourage more hotel growth and things like that.

So if we are removing uh a portion of those percentages, um I just I can see a little bit of pushback from the hotel years about our customers needing tax to cover maintenance.

So I think that they need to continue to get um the the largest benefit.

I I would say that would probably give a portion of the increase, not change what what anybody's getting right now, but maybe just the whatever the increase amount is a portion of that goes to whatever we want to do.

Um first reading would have to be at our next council, yeah.

And so uh let's see anybody from visit Norman here or any hotel people.

So if we want to get feedback, we can tentatively aim for that.

If first of all, is there a desire from council to ask voters to approve this in April?

Yeah, you know, uh, or an objection to council, when would it take in effect?

Is it 30 days or is it AG if there are we usually give them a couple of months because it takes some work on the hotel year's end to try and incorporate the new tax into new rooms that are booked?

Uh so I think uh what I've got drafted here says July 1st, 2026.

Uh, if you think about an April election day, that does get them just a little over two months.

Okay, I believe that's what we did with the last one as well.

I'm just taking just enough time to get ahead of football.

Council grant.

Um if we needed to, we could talk about it on January 6th at like a study session.

Yeah, it sounds like we do need to I I can play around language and and bring that back so we can get some feedback with what's on our agenda.

It'll be messy to amend on the floor so we can avoid it, that'd be great.

We can tentatively plan for that, and then if we think about it over the holidays and aren't ready to go forward, or we'd love to see support, and we can just uh push that back.

And what uh do we need to decide what what we want to two percent or do you need direction from this right now?

If I can if you want to think about it and we talk about it again on the six, that's fine too.

If you can let staff know before December or the end of the month, I mean uh council grant.

Yeah, I'm okay with going up to 10 percent and like I said, that point two five percent, maybe to the general fund council Ansbury and then Dixon as the leader in the cost for the SCC traffic.

I think we definitely go to the 10 percent, and then everybody's just gonna follow suit to us at that point and everything.

So within time, we all know that everybody will be 10% or even higher than us at that point, too.

So I don't see any problem at all with 10%.

I'm good with that, Councilman.

Yeah, just if if this is gonna require uh a vote of the public, then I think we try to capture 10 so we don't have to go back and ask for 0.75 in a few years to catch up with everybody.

So okay.

And um, yeah, we agree.

Okay, and then I mean, Councilor Bruce.

What was it cut out again for the general fund?

What we've done the purpose being used for really just uh thinking about ways we can supplement the general fund somehow, and maybe this is a way where we could add because one of my questions was gonna be if we were to fully fund parks maintenance that as far as you know for a city of Norman, what would that number actually use at five million right now?

I don't want you think of we're not funding maintenance funding capital replacement of of things in parks and park facilities.

Yeah, uh so the maintenance is already there.

I think the maintenance is sufficient.

The the capital of replacing and upkeeping facilities that we have is I I think is a an ongoing thought.

Um, also think that we have a $50 million-ish dollar facility in young family athletic center, another $15 million facility and adult adult wellness.

How do we keep those up to a very high level and not let it turn into uh a lower level because we don't have proper um funding to keep things in there current and modern?

So I think it could just be supplementing the general fund and then the council now and in the future decide what they want to use it, or could be used to fund parks staff or code staff or fire departments or whoever becomes discretionary at the end.

Yeah, that was just an idea if we were thinking about so it's not taking away from the previous tax that's already been implemented, it's just taking away a portion of the new tax that's being increased.

Okay, council grant?

Yeah, and to answer some of that, maybe I was proposing right to council, which we're exploring right now, which deals with evictions and supporting people who are facing that.

And based on the feedback I get from folks about short-term rentals and football houses.

Um, I think it wouldn't be inappropriate to ask for two point two five percent, which is roughly a hundred thousand dollars.

Uh if it works out, and if not, it could go back to the general fund as everybody else is saying, and deal with some other issues we get if that's clear.

No, that's not clear.

So legal aid you're saying, yes.

All right.

Okay.

Um, so feedback from visit Norman Hoteliers seem to have had some already, but confirm that before we put it on agenda, put it to a ballot.

So okay, are there any other comments or questions from council?

On the side, then we'll thank you.

Okay, item number three on the agenda is a continued discussion regarding entering into a contract with the Cleveland County Economic Development Coalition.

And Catherine, see what you're doing.

Uh so we we talked about this a couple of weeks ago and wanted to come back and uh discuss it some more.

I know some of you have taken an opportunity to meet with uh the NEDC staff or CCEDC staff and talk about what they do and and how they might be helpful to the city.

You also asked that I bring back some information about uh what other cities do in the metro area and just sort of pure cities.

Oklahoma City is a whole different beast because they have dedicated maps funding for economic development, they have a very robust TIFF program for all of the downtown area, essentially urban renewal, all those things.

So not necessarily a comparison point, but I provided you some information on that just so you have an idea of how they handle it.

They do have an alliance for economic development that coordinates everything, um, and then they also have an economic development trust authority like we have that they use to uh enter into long-term agreements with businesses.

Um Broken Arrow, they have some internal staff.

Um any requests for local incentives goes through their own economic development team, which includes uh city council, um broken arrow economic development authority.

Um the team internal team is made up of city manager, assistant city manager, city attorney, their economic development director, finance director, the chamber, and then the vice president of the Broken Arrow Economic Development Coalition, which is similar to uh NEDC.

They have their own policies for local incentives uh that includes for uh creation of jobs and for retail.

Um, and then like I said, they work closely with the chamber and with their EDC.

The EDC is a partnership of the city, the business community, and the education partners.

So their board represents all of those entities.

The mayor, uh the city and the school each have one voting member, the mayor serves for the city, and then the city manager serves as an ex officio member as well as two staff coalition.

Lawton uh has a pretty robust program.

They have their economic development authority, they have a $300,000 annual budget that covers one staff person outside legal council and an accounting firm.

They run their TIFF revenues and they have a very large downtown uh TIFF project that they've had for a number of years.

They run those through their economic development authority, so that their one staff person kind of manages that.

Um they also have a private corporation with three staff members.

That is completely funded by the city at one million dollars a year.

Um they did mention that um if they have it structured more as a reimbursement for services, uh, but they do require they follow the open meeting act.

The way they come to one million dollars a year is through occupancy tax revenue, and then they have a capital improvement plan that um specifically funds economic development.

So that's how they get the remaining 50 percent.

Edmund has one and a quarter staff positions.

Uh, they have an economic development program manager, and then their downtown project coordinator spends a quarter of his or her time in economic development.

That's about 130,000 per year, and then they run their economic development projects through their public trust authority where they have two staff, uh nine trustees, that includes one council member and the remainder representing business interests.

Uh the city contributes almost $800,000 per year to their economic development authority.

They say where that came from, no, and I I didn't get a response back on that.

I looked through their budget.

They have with their electric electric utility an economic development fund line item.

Uh they have one within their public works authority as well, which is how they do long-term agreements.

Uh, they don't have a bunch of authority authority authorities, they have that one uh primarily, and so those two line items are contributing.

It doesn't add up to this dollar amount, so there's other funding somewhere in there being transferred into the EEDA.

And the uh L.

So it looks like their visitor tax they use to pay for half of theirs.

Yeah, that might be a hundred thousand a year.

Economic development using the visitor tax to fund economic development could be a something to think about.

It's actually gonna say the exact same thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I just wanted to provide that to you.

I also wanted to uh let you know that uh Lawrence reached out to me today and said that uh he's understanding the city's concern about what's happening to city dollars, and one change he would be willing to make to the contract is pending board approval is to allow or to account for the city funds separately so that those could be audited by the city auditor, uh, if that's something the council was interested in.

Okay, and your honor, just uh point to uh council member Peacock's response to the uh Lawton kind of funding mechanism.

We see how that vehicle could grow at a pace more rapidly than just general fund sales tax.

Um additional rooms come on board, and there are uh more in the pipeline.

Um and room rates are are more volatile and typically are outpacing the the growth in just general retail sales.

So it you you could wind up with a funding stream that is outperforming the old method of just a portion of general fund sales tax revenue, what you would think that in theory spending that money towards economic development would in turn create more tourism, which would in turn create more guest tax, which would in turn I mean it's very much a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And I think at that point you could find perpetual motion machine.

You could find council member grant's priority.

Um you could find economic development.

I think you could find lots of different things out of 0.25% of OPM.

Just to be devil's advocate on that.

I feel like with CCEDC and the county already paying in as well.

We're at we are asking them to bring in jobs, large manufacturing jobs, and things like that that we see.

So I don't surely there would be some impact to tourism and things like that, but I don't necessarily think that tourism dollars that are going to tourism to create tourism should be diverted to go to create residence for what that's worth, if that makes any sense.

Looking for a nexus, yeah.

I don't know that necessarily mean economic development.

How do you define that?

Just the effort.

Yeah, yeah, but it could mean retail and something created or retail and entertainment, yeah.

Because uh, I mean, yeah, we've talked about got five big manufacturing plants in Norman right now.

Do we have where would another one go?

What would it be besides the data center?

And so what is the what is economic development to us?

Is it entertainment and uh stuff like that?

Or retail and entertainment because we're sales tax based?

Yeah, please.

Yeah, councilmember Bruce and then councilman.

Tech, you know, is another opportunity.

I see that's I mean, we got a great university.

I don't know why they're not wanting to tech houses.

Um you know what I think of uh you know OEDC, you know, whether they're an OPR or an OCR, they're they're pushing, right?

They're pushing, and you look at their R ROI over the years.

I don't know if you've read the their literature as far as hey, this is the return that we see that we've helped bring it into Norman.

It's like, wow.

I I'm hoping councils receive that sometime in the past.

I don't know, but I mean when you're talking about an investment of 100,000, 130,000, it's like and to not have a seated table with others.

I would hate to lose business because we just don't have a seated table.

That would be just yeah, wise investment.

Uh is part of my question too.

Is uh there's an entity that exists that's representing the county, we're the largest city in the county.

Do we not want to be part of it or not?

Have we have a sales program?

I think some of that revolved around transparency, and I would be open to having city dollars accounted for.

Um, on the thought about what jobs mean, we are working towards some incremental development.

Some of that could be housing, but I also think about developing uh unique businesses, and those don't always start out as like large manufacturing jobs, so it'd be interesting to or just beneficial to diversify what kinds of business that we're trying to attract or be the home where they start.

So um definitely incubator spaces make a lot of sense to me.

Just a couple different things since our last discussion and everything.

Uh, went and try to study this in depth and try to figure things out for myself and clarity on some things like that.

And Daryl, to you personally, and if they know the answer, but just so you say for us and if they one, you do have an active seat on the board, and you have one of the five voting seats on the board, correct?

That is correct.

Okay, Lawrence McKey or whatever does not have a seat on that board, right?

Correct, exactly.

Okay.

And when we talk about what other businesses could possibly, you know, what could we possibly get out of this?

One thing I think that we're just as a city just barely tapping into right now with establishing it first and foremost is if we have Cleveland County on our side and OU even on our side or whatever and stuff like that, the aviation sector and what we could possibly do industrial-wise with a bunch of empty land sitting there around that strip all over the place and everything like that.

That could one day be something bigger and better, and you never know, get into making aviation parts, you know, for your students to put on the plans and you know, maybe even reselling our own supplies there and everything like that, and become that place in Oklahoma City that's you know that we're known for producing the top mechanics now to a labor-intensive area that's losing them as we speak of everybody's retired now and stuff.

So I think for that 100-130,000 investment that we've already made for so many years, also I think to give that investment up where I feel like we're at that tipping point to finally see something physical back that would be bad business.

I think where we've already invested all the hard labor to get there.

So don't just give it away now.

And I'll just say one last time.

I mean, this is something that we discussed through this process, but one of the things that the Norman Economic Development Coalition as it was before they changed to C C E DC, the sites that are looking for the type of businesses that the economic development coalition is their goal.

Uh just Norman doesn't have the space for it.

So the expansion into Cleveland County and providing you know some of that opportunity opening up in some of the other cities that are part of Cleveland County.

Um, I think really lifts all of us up.

Uh and I think from what we do know about the financials of the NEDC and their history, um their real estate holdings that they have now are a great bargaining chip for things that may come available down the road, um, which is kind of what we're paying to play to do.

So I think I'm in support of what we have, and I love that they're willing to break out our break out the Norman part of the contributions from the rest of their assets and show us what that's being spent on.

That's that's a great uh all the branch compromise.

So that's all I got.

Thank you.

Yeah, uh, that last point that's definitely something I was picking up on.

I mean, just the ability to, like I said in previous meetings, you know, I don't really care where Moore's dollars are spent or Lexington's, I just care about where Norman's dollars are spent.

So we can have really good tracking and accounting of that.

I'm willing to, I'm willing to sign on um at least for one year.

I'm willing to do a one year, but I think my request is gonna be that in that one year, we as a city of Norris and Norman also start to set up structure for an internal economic development person, whether that's through Sarah Kaplan's office or somebody else, just having the framework ready to go.

That in the event this doesn't work out after a year, we can pivot to that, or if the C E C D C C C E D C contract is wildly successful, we can supplement those efforts with our own internal because that's countywide, and then we'd have more of a Norman-centric internal position.

Um, so just whether we could continue after the year or not, I think having our own dedicated function is uh makes a lot of sense.

That's a question during the budget every year that council would decide if we want to look at the case.

And that's that's actually what I thought back to you annually for your review and consideration.

And uh as council describes um, yeah, that does seem to fall in line with our neighboring agencies and their approach to it.

So it's not 100% just on somebody else's desk.

Right, they're more active participants with a body uh that has that focus.

And and we do recognize the value that uh Mrs.

Kaplan brings to the table on the retail attraction and retention side.

Um the tools she's developed and the data she can provide, it's it's a full-time gig.

And uh, we are fortunate that we've got somebody who's skilled um in those tools and can answer the questions that come up throughout the course of the year.

So that that does seem to be in line with the with the model we're seeing around the Metro.

Councilman Green.

Um yes, I support what Councilmember Keekon said.

I definitely want that in writing about uh breakout for Norman's part of the audit.

Okay.

Um because you did say pending his board's approval, right?

Which you're on there.

But um five books.

Yeah, I definitely think having something internal that can look at Norman specific issues if we don't have large manufacturing space, what are we doing?

I again we'll say it's probably gonna be in the info incremental thing.

And we should you know set ourselves up to explore that successfully.

Moore doesn't have industrial space either.

Right.

Oh or much of it.

And you think about how small uh relatively speaking the Emmy site is in University North Park.

Great quality jobs and labels that go out the door that you know say brought to you from Norman Oklahoma, the value of having that recognized globally is huge.

So the scale of manufacturer that we may pursue may not be Johnson control scale just because those sites don't exist but there are still some great job producers that really have a great reputation and provide services and products of value worldwide.

Yeah council it's intellectual knowledge right you're hiring folks with 14950 if on up for that intellectual ability to produce patent and all that good stuff.

So you know I go back and look at the history of in EDC and I see the return right I mean I don't know if that's available to different businesses that have come into the community over the last 20 years just based on those relationships that have occurred in substantial it's like wow the last excess was the nano tube place right out here in the I think just last week there was an article in the paper about 84 bodies additional bodies for manufacturing attitudes and I think I think the average salary is 85,000 a year that's significant.

When you're talking your average salary for the county so it's not only bringing that sort of stuff in but it's also what you have if you don't have someone doing that it's placing that national scene who knows the national scene as long also the state scene then we're doing a disservice to the city.

To get us point that technology created in Norman and the ability to uh produce it at scale in Norman and not have those headquarters fly off to uh another state another city or yeah another part of the country is is really what we would love to see happen over and over and over again we have seen some amazing uh technology created uh in Norman Oklahoma anchored by brilliant minds at the University of Oklahoma and this just to make sure they're at the table and facilitate well how many square feet do you need how tall a ceiling in that building might you need uh to make sure that we can keep those jobs and that one product could revolutionize batteries and circuit boards and and so many things we're just on the cusp of seeing what it will become I'm hoping all the cysts in the world for them I really am because it is going to be phenomenal but it happens.

As long as the nanobots don't get out there's a whole side movie about that it doesn't end with it.

It is a like you said it is a good example there of re retaining our learning and our knowledge in-house you know in within the city limits evening no and even kind of starting I mean the way I look at that incubator that they're you know doing and stuff like that and trying to focus on Norman this is a perfect example kind of an incubator but oh you was the facilitator of incubating this idea for over the years for these people to be able to go out there and make it happen you know and stuff so it's nice that it was able to happen locally incubator was finished and open before the next budget.

Yes very much so um I agree with the comments about I think that addition uh makes a big difference um so there are any other comments or questions council we've got a study session next Tuesday night uh we can agendize uh an action item in a special session with just the convening of the special session and uh execute that document if Mrs Walker is if she has that language ready for your consideration and we don't miss a meet in 2026.

Any comment or question about that okay um let staff know if you have any other comments or questions for you um okay if there's nothing else