Okay.

But it is definitely here.

All right, everybody.

We'll go ahead and get the meeting started.

Um, welcome to the city council study session for Tuesday, January 6th, 2026.

Um, we do have four items on the agenda.

And uh just want to welcome everybody back from the holidays, and I hope you all had a really good one and uh thought about what we're thankful for and thought about what we might be able to do better for Norman in the coming year.

So um we'll get hit the ground running and start with the first item on the agenda, which is a presentation and discussion regarding the results of the homeless shelter survey.

And we have uh Amber in a international integrated integrated.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate you all having me uh today.

Uh my name's Jackson Lyle.

I'm with Amber Integrated.

We uh performed a survey for you all last month, and uh excited to go over the results with you today.

Um at any point, feel free to stop me if you have questions or comments or things like that.

So I'll just kind of go through this with you.

Uh, you also have the same presentation in your packet that I handed out, as well as uh the top line uh document, which kind of is the same data but just structured a little bit differently, so it might be more easy to comprehend, or the questions might be a little bit worded a little bit.

Larger formats, so it might be easier to read.

Um, so just you know you've got those things in your packet there.

Uh so this survey was 339 voters, registered voters in the city of Norman.

We conducted this December 1st to the third.

Uh it's got a margin of error of just over 5%.

Um, and I'm gonna kind of briefly go through these insights and analysis.

I'm not gonna uh do everything word to work word for word because you've got this also in front of you, and you can reference it as well.

Um generally in Norman homelessness's view is a serious issue.

81% of voters say it's uh very or somewhat serious.

Um, and it's that that concern is uh cross party lines in the city of Norman.

Um voters overwhelmingly believe that the shelter is important to the community.

Um 86% agree that it is uh at least uh strongly or somewhat important.

Um just 13% disagree that uh that a homeless shelter is important.

Uh that support is uh broadly uh spans demographics, uh including age groups and your city council districts as well.

The current awareness of the existing shelter and its costs is quite limited.

Uh only 35% of voters were aware of the current city owned contractor operated shelter.

Um 24% were not aware at all, and 40% were aware that it existed, but did not know how it was uh the how it was funded.

Another thing that uh lacks awareness is uh most voters are unaware of the pressures of the current city's general revenue fund.

Um just 44% were aware that uh that the fund relies on sales tax and franchise fees, and that that revenue growth has stagnated.

Um 29% were not aware of the funding structure, and 27% were aware of how the city's funded, but we're not aware that the uh the revenue has stagnated.

Uh we'll see a majority of voters support moving the current shelter.

64% say that the overnight shelter at West Gray Street and James should be moved.

Um, and that is a kind of a range of intensity of agreement.

35% or 30% disagree, and six percent are unsure.

Uh agreement is strongest among voters under 55, and in several of the council districts.

Again, those crosstabs of the specific city council districts are in your presentations, and you can look at those individually if you like.

So the uh we asked about the bond proposal, the 20-year bond proposal.

Uh currently that sits at 50% support uh to build a permanent uh hunter bed shelter.

32 percent uh oppose, 18% are unsure.

Um let's see, the support is strongest amongst Democrat voters, 82% support, independent voters, uh 47% support, and uh voters with at least some level of college education.

Um supporters, so we asked them also like why they support this, and and these were free response questions.

We didn't probe them to say, hey, here's the here's why you might support it.

Uh and so we categorize those, and 46% of those voters said that who did support uh this bond and issue said that they cited a moral and ethical obligation to help, followed by uh need for increased resources and capacity.

And again, that further breakdown is in your packet as well.

Uh the objections, those who are opposed, um, the strongest objection was cost and taxes.

Um, safety concerns followed that, uh, and then location and shell uh of the shelter was another one.

So bottom line, uh, homelessness is widely recognized as a serious issue.

Shelters uh have broad conceptual support, uh, awareness of existing funds and fiscal pressures is low, uh, and the bond bond begins with a majority of support but faces cost sensitivity.

Opposition is driven primarily by taxes, not rejection of shelters in general.

Uh education and kind of fiscal framing around the issue, the 18% undecided block uh could potentially be swayed towards support of the homeless shelter.

So now I'll kind of go through these questions one by one.

Again, you'll see here I've broken this down into pretty standard um uh cross-tab breakdowns here.

The X of generals, uh, that always gets a question, those are voters who have voted in X number of the last general elections in the state of Oklahoma.

So if they've voted in zero of the last four general elections, they are the zero, one of the last four, they are the one, so on and so forth.

So that says essentially the folks on the far right of that column are the highest propensity voters, the folks in the far left are the lowest propensity voters.

And so uh seriousness of homelessness.

Um, as you can see here, the I this is also sort of color-coded where uh the highest votes proportionally in those columns also get uh darker colors.

So, like I said earlier, uh still folks believe this is a very serious issue in the city of Norman.

Um it's also viewed as a as a very important issue.

Um again, this one breaks down quite dramatically by city council district, by voter registration partisanship, gender as well, um, and certainly of the yeah.

Is that really the question to the questions to the questions are down below?

So agree or disagree.

Do you agree or disagree that homeless shelters are important to have in your community?

When they agree, we say would that be strongly agree, somewhat agree, you know, disagree or strongly disagree.

Sure, yeah.

So the how do you know that question is a great question?

Bolidity why in terms of what why we're why we're asking it.

We just have a long history of writing these questions and know how we're gonna be able to get the most authentic responses from from respondents, and so that's why we're we were them the way that we do there.

But if you did then, how would you do that?

You know how you would test the ballidity of questions, Tim.

I could talk to our data scientists on the back end to see what they're existing shelter awareness.

Again, um you've got a large group of folks who are only uh who are aware of the uh shelter but not of how it's funded, and and uh certainly you're looking at 64% who are not fully aware of of the current structure and how it's funded, and that that funding uh somewhat to be expected, the more engaged voters you have, the higher propensity voters are tend to be more aware of of funding and that sort of thing, and and the same goes with uh city funding as well.

This is less of a partisan uh breakdown, and and again, more of uh voter participation engagement as well as an age uh breakdown.

In terms of the agreement to move the shelter, you'll see we've combined those there on the left of all the agreements.

Um clearly the vast majority agreed that moving the sh uh uh the the shelter should be moved to another location, only 30% disagree.

And again, that is something that you know look at those city council districts, very um differentiating responses there in the based on the city council district as well.

And then support here in the bond initiative.

Uh, as I said, overall 50% support.

This is another one that the uh breakdown is pretty great.

Uh the difference is pretty great in the voter registration partisanship, the uh levels of education, and then in terms of voter participation 52 percent of sort of non-engaged voters are opposed to it, but voters who vote in general elections are supportive of the of the measure largely.

So I'd say when you're thinking about this issue, think of the more engaged voters are likely to support this.

And you know, we asked that question.

Here's the wording of it.

Um, if you ultimately plays out the operational shelter from the city's general fund, would you support a 20-year bond initiative to construct a hundred then a permanent only shelter on Reed Avenue with uh south of Griffin Hospital at a cost of eight million with a property tax increase for proper approximately 10.3 uh six dollars per year for homes died up to 300,000?

Uh again, we asked them why they were supporting these were sort of the broadly categorized responses.

Everyone who took this survey sort of gave their own verbatim response, and we categorized those.

Same with the opposition, and then uh top concern.

This was not free response.

This was something that we thought might be the top concerns about this issue, and as we as I mentioned earlier, cost and taxes was the largest.

Uh we gave people the option to specify if they thought other and these were those other concerns that were categorized as well.

Again, this is a smaller percentage of those because you're only talking about 21% of the people who were opposed.

Can I yes?

Can I just ask what happened on word uh seven on that one?

There were zero people that answered it and answered that because in that there weren't they they weren't people that were opposed and said otherwise, they were somebody that had mentioned something else.

And so here is the uh demographic breakdown of those who took the survey.

Yes.

So why did you pick the population of voters of just the population?

Population at large, because we're dealing with an issue that people are gonna vote on, so they have to be registered to vote.

So my disposal represent the voters in my board.

That's did you make this selection?

I don't know if we have the selection.

We do.

Um when it has to do with a potential election, we have always asked the contractors to only survey the voters, the Norman registered voters.

Let me ask you another question.

Why wouldn't you limit to the people pay at the random tax?

Because everybody pays a renter pays the person that owns the house.

Well, I get that, but who's response for paying it?

Right.

Property or can't pay if the renter doesn't pay.

I'm just wondering if you're gonna limit it.

Why do you need to limit it to people who's gonna pay for it?

I think because the use of this is to determine the likelihood of support of a bond issue, and and the only people who can support or oppose it are registered voters.

Okay.

Councilmember Peacock.

Thank you.

Um, how did you select the 339 people that took this?

It it was a pool of randomly sampled voters.

Okay, so we we randomly select voters and reach out to them.

We have live agents that call them, and essentially we have quotas to try to get to a representative sample of voters in Norman.

And once we reach that that goal, then it's cut off.

And so it's not we're not calling everyone, we're we're calling from a random sample until we meet our quota.

Okay, so that's what I want to have.

Yeah, okay.

Councilman Grant.

So was the quota 339, or did you have a another number in mind, and this is why you were able to get it?

We were trying to get to 300, then we got we got additional.

Okay.

Thank you.

Follow up to that.

Uh, is that 300?

Is that a set number based on every community work in, or is that based on population, or how does you how do you determine that's a representative sample of Norman per se?

So it's um it's getting harder and harder to get people to answer the phone on surveys and to take surveys.

300 is a realistic goal for a city the size of Norman.

Okay, uh, to get on a on a regular basis.

You can continue to try to get say four or five hundred, but your sample time, your time in field becomes a lot longer.

Okay.

Um, and and uh we try to take a snapshot of the community at a certain point in time, not over the events of unfolding over three, four weeks or so.

No, it makes sense.

Okay, thank you.

I you probably had a confus number you're streaming for, and I say I need this number to get that conference level.

Yeah.

And certainly obviously the more to your point, the larger your sample size, the smaller your margin of error level of confidence.

Um, but that's also increased in costs, and so we don't want to just uh blow out the cost on a on a survey.

On the uh random sample, you have a random sample number generator, and how'd you do that?

How does you do the random sample?

So we ours is uh every voter has a ID, and so it literally out of our uh data system, our voter data system, it it randomly generates.

We pulled a list of 10,000, and so we're calling out of that 10,000.

Um and so it's then when you call down the 10,000, we said every every 5th, every fourth, or was it truly random of the 10,000?

The 10,000 we pulled out of the out of the full sample.

That's what we send.

We randomize the order of that 10,000, and then we send those phone numbers to our data collection service that actually has live agents on that are calling those numbers that are that and so it's randomized in order, it's randomized.

The sample's randomized, the order of those voters is randomized, and they're called in that randomized order.

Any other council questions about the survey part?

Take some more time to digest for everybody and go through the whole thing for sure.

Some of us have gone through it already.

And then hearing their explanation for it as well.

I think it's helpful.

So okay.

Any other questions, comments from council?

Yeah, councilmember.

This was released a couple days ago.

Uh it wasn't in the agenda package, I suppose.

I said, it was it was sent by email a couple of days ago.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you not get that email?

Yeah, I sent it to you all when we got what I've been here.

But we wanted to give them the opportunity to kind of explain full context and everything.

Sure.

And this serve this is available publicly.

It will be after this evening, yes.

Okay.

Of course, the recording of the meeting as well.

So council member.

Blogget in the grant.

Did you council member grant?

Uh and we do have uh unsheltered information page that gets updated with everything that we do related to this topic.

So this would be there.

Absolutely.

How does how yeah, council?

How does a voter know the capacity that available shelters?

No matter what character uh what what category of shelter is needed.

I I'm still wrestling with that myself as a council member as far as for example.

What's the count of available you know, as far as capacity related to like battered women or the count available for another category, another category?

I just I still don't have an idea of capacity as it relates to category.

I think I know that for this particular category, there's two entities that perform this type of service, and that would be city shelter and salvation army.

My right women's resource center for battered women that might be a place for them.

But I I know some have stayed at the shelter right here, and probably at Salvation Army as well.

I'm imagining probably not the most ideal setting for them, I would guess, though.

But that's uh I think that's a good question about what is capacity.

This shelter takes in any demographic.

Um Salvation Army for the most part does women's resource center has their specific group.

Um yeah, yeah.

Councilmember Grant.

Um this question is for city manager Kyle.

We did the water rate.

Uh we did a survey, right?

Yes, we did.

Did we use Amber?

Tiffany?

Yes.

Yep, yeah, we do take them.

And the I think the most recent was the well, which one came first?

The water question or the bridge bond question.

Uh bridge bond was after the water.

Can we use Amber for that as well?

Yes.

And then we took that data and went into an education outreach mode.

Absolutely.

Our um we can't use taxpayer dollars to uh fund a vote yes or vote no campaign on any uh ballot question.

Uh our uh energy is invested in educating the public on the facts of the matter.

Uh our uh energy is invested in educating the public on the facts of the matter, and uh we follow similar practices uh on the water rate increase on the bridge bond question and and will do so again should council decide to go forward with this question, meet with the rotary clubs, church groups, anybody who is interested in the subject.

And if memory serves, we even set up meeting.

Well, we have the central library, there was a meeting there, but it was open to residents to come visit.

I want to say with the water uh rate question, we had like pipes and things that we showed.

Like this is why we're asking for this.

Um, I could see a similar effort and educating on capacity.

Um totally um appropriate.

Um, and definitely not the same uh platform, the bridge bond question.

There were all kinds of unique pictures that the public never sees from the top side of the bridge that we were able to share what the bottoms of the bridges look like.

In this case, uh it'll be more um data-driven, more tables of information as opposed to what I'm thinking uh from the presentation, which is great, thank you.

Um the education would focus around like cost and funding, operation, which we've already had uh one neighborhood reach out with their list of questions that are really more appropriate for city care to answer.

Um we can answer some of it, like our oversight as the contractor, yes.

Yeah, but uh, and then location, which we already identified at the beginning of these talks, and it sounds like capacity and the understanding of maybe shelter the COC or shelter system.

Um I'll just open it up uh if there are any other council members that heard like where education needs to happen.

Um we also do have uh the site uh layout that we didn't have in questions passed, so we are in a much better position to share information with the public as to you know the what, the where, the how, the who.

And well, and I would just say with the like funding and cost, I believe when we did the bridge bond, we talked about what that um amount actually averaged by household income um as far as property tax goes.

Like I want to say bridge bond was like seven dollars if your house was a hundred thousand or above.

Um I forgot what three hundred thousand above was, but uh but I I think it would be helpful to have that financial information so people could understand what exactly the impact on the property bill would be.

Um that information uh is calculated and and we try to share that as part of every geobond question, um, and and recognizing what would be wonderful information.

We're not quite sure how to calculate it is what is the cost of not uh doing it.

And in each one of these scenarios, each one of these questions, there is a cost to do nothing.

It's just really hard to put your finger on, but we we have to kind of keep that idea.

Maybe it's not um a burst pipeline, maybe it for us and the cost of homelessness when it comes to infrastructure, it could be shopping carts in our waterways.

Um consumption of other uh resources such as police time, ambulance time, fire department time, etc.

Yeah.

Councilman Gansmere, just trying to follow up with councilman grants, you know, about what kind of educations are still out there and everything like that that could be useful.

Also, is I think just a true demonstration of show you know the survey obviously showed that a lot of people don't even feel like they understand how the shelter now works and having a true layout of where the money goes, why it goes, where it goes within the shelter, why does it take this much to do X, Y, and Z, and then maybe be able to show hey, if we had this shelter over here, here's where we could reduce some of those costs over a long period of time.

This is where we can maybe make back then our investment again and be out of the business and somebody else run it potentially.

I also think that um we need to do an example over one thing that's been out there on social media is well, if Salvation Army is you know building a new facility, why do we need one?

And explain the difference in why you have to have a city one compared to a private one and how they don't really operate in the same venues and stuff like that in the same ways and everything as well to be able to tell people the difference in the two.

To add to council member gain's various points, the uh salvation army one is a phased plan and uh the first two phases don't really address capacity, but they're like adding kitchen and whatnot.

Um agreed on where we could save uh because that shelter on gray is not sprinkled, and that's a huge chunk of money right there doing a fire watch.

So uh definitely think that's a great idea.

And in this particular question, um with our uh contract service provider in city care, uh the ability for that entity to share their uh their operational plans, their success over time uh in Oklahoma City.

That's a a component that did not exist in a water question or a bridge bond question.

So it it does provide uh a nuance and a personal touch to it because what we're talking about is the impact on persons in the city of Norman.

So it it really is in a different light than those two prayer questions.

Councilman Bowler.

Uh I just wanted to say that I um a couple days ago met with a member of the homeless coalition, and we talked about all of this.

Um we both agreed.

I don't know how quick um it got decided that the portable buildings would happen um to get them off of Gray Street, but anyway, we both agreed that the quicker that could happen, that that could also help with the education piece.

The portable classroom concept, um those buildings are available, they are relatively quick to set.

However, our uh service provider indicated operating expenses go way up in that scenario because there is a limitation on the number of persons per building, and to handle the current population, it's four buildings, their staff costs would go up by three times to make sure each unit is staffed, and that's something they weren't set up to do.

So they said that would be a real big hurdle for us to get over, and we think phase one can happen pretty quickly.

Um, and we wouldn't gain much.

Uh, we could potentially avoid a big cost increase in that service provision in an interim period.

Councilman Bruce, or yeah.

So um, I think our data needs to be uh you know, cost comparison uh you know, cost comparing best in class to other best in class within the Norman shelter environment.

I mean, I would want to know that related per unit per that's broken out.

I know that HUD also is changing its policies related to expectations associated with shelters, so if there's any plans of using HUD funds associated with shooting shelter, we gotta look at that with expectations and kind of for other communities that are doing that as far as okay, these are the expectations that are expected at the federal level.

Yeah, and then I understand the difference between low barrier and no barrier, and I'm still confused on that.

Who's really low bearing who's not and you know a lot of re-nots are still confused, and so any assistance to really okay.

This is the difference for Norman that would have also people.

Um the last thing is that you know, I I know we've spoken about this in the past as far as the opportunity to you know to really get a solid answer from uh Oklahoma Mental Health, uh, those guys that are moving out in the gripping area, all those facilities up there.

So we have a you know, we have a gravitome contractor operate, we're gonna build something, but we really need to shut the door and ask the question and get a definitive answer from you know mental health.

Uh so no, we're not we're not gonna sell you a billion, we're not interested in loaning you building or bringing a billion dollars.

We're not doing that.

So we need to definite on that.

Yeah, that's fine.

Anyone else's comments about the survey part?

Okay.

Some good information, I think, about each of our wards, about Democrat, Democrats, Republicans, independents, a small portion of libertarians, even um.

So I encourage everybody to think about this and go over it.

Um, talk to your constituents and uh see what we come to.

Okay, with that we will move on to item number two, which is related and is a discussion regarding the design time life and cost estimates for the construction of a homeless shelter.

And yes, thank you very much for the presentation and work.

Oh shit.

Give us a second, we gotta figure out how to unlock the computer secure.

Thank you.

Six months or two high still see the number one.

Golf cards.

Send your kid into the company.

As our friends are from FSB or getting ready to get the presentation, just want to give you a quick update from our side.

We did staff did recently give them direction to uh no longer go with the phase approach.

Uh let's focus since uh we discovered that we could use prefat metal buildings, which are quick construction and also uh a lower cost of construction.

We did give them instruction to let's uh go ahead and focus on the possibility of one phase.

The uh the it looked like if we did a three-phase or two-phase uh approach, it was gonna be an additional about half a million dollars.

So we um basically told them to abandon that idea, and let's uh look at everything from one point of view and uh the the whole mode of that form of construction wasn't gonna save us a whole lot of time overall, maybe 60 to 90 days.

So uh we didn't think that was worth uh uh a half million dollars.

So we did give them instruction, but love to turn over the the floor to FSB, um Sean and Derek.

Thanks, Jason.

Um yeah, obviously, there's some repeat faces in here and some new faces as well.

Uh, we're just really excited to share this project with you.

Uh for those that have seen this before, there are some small changes, so we're excited to explain those and um show you what those are about.

Um just want to start with saying as architects, we have a responsibility to and we take pride in designing a building that's great for the users but also benefits the public as well.

This particular project, we have a great responsibility to provide dignity, hope, and services for the people that are in need, but equally we need to provide uh we need to maintain the value, security, and community that you have in your neighborhood.

Uh Sean and I both strongly believe we've done a great job in creating a project that does both, so we'll get into it here.

So we want to start with the site plan.

So I'm sure you all are aware.

Uh this is Reed Avenue coming right here, north and south.

And so this little triangular site, we've got some constraints.

We have a floodplain to the this is plan east.

Uh we have an easement cutting through the site, and we also are going to need a sizable detention pond as well.

So you can see right here is the amount of land that we had to work with.

How we're doing this is, and we'll get into the plans here shortly, but we have two buildings, one for uh the men's and women's dormitory, as well as a separate building for uh respite as well as families.

We are providing them, we're providing the men's and women's their own community yard, and then we're providing the family their private uh yard as well.

And what you'll see what we're doing here is we're utilizing this ease vent where we cannot build anything permanent uh to to be the yard, and that'll be the separation between the two buildings.

Uh we've noticed some of the dialogue we had uh two or three weeks ago.

We were talking about the location of the building and where queuing is going to happen.

Uh, we are now under the understanding that's a 24-hour facility, so there should not be queuing, but what we are doing is putting the entrance to the east, and so any kind of gathering will be protected from the neighborhood.

Uh and a few other things we've done that for those of you who have seen this project before is we've actually taken these buildings and gotten them closer to the street.

We've heard a few people now comment about how even though there's no sidewalk or there's no parking lot or doors up front, if there's space, they'll hang out there.

And so we want to get that building as close to read as possible.

So and once again, it just it's gonna help integrate the building into the fabric of your neighborhood as well.

Uh parking as well, uh parking will be to the east.

Uh, and what uh we have a loop integrated, so this will be for helping fight fires.

Uh, we're talking about maybe having a separate entrance for respite, so that'll provide them their separate entrance here as well.

So, starting with building one, this will be the men's and women's dormitory.

Uh it's 13,250 square feet.

We're housing 76 men and 44 women.

We were asked to house uh 100, but what we want to do is provide an opportunity for growth throughout the years.

So we have, I believe, is plus 20 overall.

You'll see here the blue lines, that is a uh fortified structure.

So this will be a hardened structure for uh extreme weather events, and we are showing it for men's dormitory and women's as well.

And let's just start with the sequence.

So you've got the entry here, you got a nice check-in, and then uh some we we have ample storage here for once again growth throughout the years, and plenty of uh opportunities for employee offices and quiet rooms as well.

So the uh as the occupants will they'll head through the screening, head on down, the laundry will be available to them as well as the kennel, and then they have their dormitories with their restrooms directly connected.

So once they pass these doors, then they will have access to their dormitories, restrooms, and the multi-use in the kitchen.

Um are the restrooms like besides toilets, is it also showers?

Yep, uh full full restroom facilities, so showers, uh toilets, and sinks as well.

I would assume some of those would be ADA accessible, white showers.

Correct.

Absolutely.

Yep.

Thank you.

Yep.

So we have you'll you'll notice those who have seen this before, you'll notice some changes.

We have a few bump outs here.

We wanted to address, and this is important for the community as well.

Uh we had a queuing line on the north side of the building, and that provided some architecture.

We don't have a queuing line anymore, and this building started to get flat up front, so we wanted to provide some bump-outs and depth to the building, and so we're using that to integrate into um you know a larger multi-use area, uh, a little bit more gracious office space, and then you'll see here we have an indoor dog run as well as we'll have an outdoor that you saw in the site plan.

Other than that, no large changes.

Moving on to building two.

This will be the family apartments as well as the respite.

You'll have a main entry once again off to the east, if you remember from the site plans, you'll come in and you'll have your opportunity to go to your family apartment, which will house four separate families, uh, two bunk, two bunks, so four occupants per room.

We have an accessible uh unit as well, and then a large lounge area.

So it's basically your warming kitchen and living room and washers, dryers, storage, and we're providing them with their family storage as well.

And this will be their direct access to their playground.

You'll also be able to head into your respite, which we are providing 10 respite rooms, uh, an office with a reception desk, an exam room, and three individual bathrooms, along with storage and restrooms for the staff.

Okay, and that will be 6700 square feet.

Yeah, we can't produce it.

Uh the respite rooms, what's that's kind of a new new term for me?

I didn't ask it last meeting, but I was hoping I would figure it out on my own, but I did not.

So respite is people who have medical conditions who need uh medical help and are unable to care for themselves.

Okay, yeah.

Different staffing requirements to be on their uh medically taken care of.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, so moving moving on to the exterior aesthetic.

So, what you're looking at here is the east side of the building, and we'll eventually get to the community side as well.

Uh, those who have seen this project before, you'll notice uh a few differences.

We're once again the building was starting to get flat, and so we're working on the ins and outs, and we are also working on some color schemes as well.

And so with the ins and outs or the bump outs is what I'm calling them, there's a little bit of a cost added to it.

So to re reduce that cost, we went ahead and did a single flat sloped roof versus one with a ridge, and it's just trying to balance the money out the the budget out, and so this side has that bigger face, and what we like about that is as you move on to the community side, it's a lower lower ridge, and you've got those nice ins and outs with the glass, ample landscaping as well.

It reduces to more of a human scale, something that we always consider.

So we believe that that neighborhood side is a great deal of attention has been pushed to that side and understanding how it looks, number one, how it's gonna function, number two, and then and then a lot of landscaping.

We this is all in the budget.

Um that was a comment that we that we had heard.

Well, you know, are you gonna landscape this?

And we're like, yeah, we're we're planning to really landscape it.

So it should it should be fairly lush.

Uh we've got a nice nice budget for that, and if you like it, um what we've got is responsible.

I want to touch on that as well.

And you'll notice the lighting is pretty nice.

We have this composite wood look uh material as well.

From the get-go, what we want to do is um apply, we want to use a prefabricated metal building that was going to reduce the overall cost of the project, and that'll allow us to uh direct some funds towards the aesthetic, once again towards the users as well, and so using a prefabricated metal building allows us to have a larger budget for the landscaping, a larger budget for lighting.

So, once again, if this building gets constructed, it's going to fit very seamlessly into this neighborhood.

I was curious if there were any community gardens planned, and are that something that has percolated up from different groups uh that were interested in, what happens over here, and we also had a day shelter uh or day center have 107 that had one and it seemed to be a popular activity.

Absolutely.

So it's something that has been brought up numerous times now for this concept phase, you know, from a cost standpoint that's such a small part of the budget that we just haven't worked through that.

But as this goes into the design phase, the construction document phase, that's something we're gonna work through.

But it's it's been brought up numerous times.

Do council member rant's point, our ability to utilize floodplain for those activities really doesn't detract from the operational side of a pretty good idea about how frequently that would go underwater, and depending on how it's planted.

If it's a raise bed or they do work, absolutely.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hinkle.

That was uh city manager pile made my point.

Once again, really nice lighting package.

Um, for the individuals having to use this building, just having something nice to go to.

Uh, once again, it's gonna benefit the neighborhood, but just providing them hope and dignity as well.

This will be the southern portion, so this will be the dog run, and this will be the indoor kennel as well, or in the the indoor dog run, uh, providing a lot of light for that.

So, nice nice uh addition to the space.

Nice overall site plan, you can just see it the flow of the project.

This let me talk through this just a minute, but but again, understanding that this is this is kind of the functional side, this is what we would call the public side.

We're using utilizing that building as the buffer.

And that was that was actually, I think that was city care.

The city care brought that up as a comment.

We were like, hang on, that's actually brilliant, and that will work.

And so, using that, you know, that orientation and pushing up towards the street.

Again, we're gonna limit um as best we can the bad things that come along with this, right?

Let's not pretend about what it is or what it is not.

It's there's some there are some things that come along with this, but this shouldn't limit that to the extent that we can limit it in a very aesthetically sensitive way, um, but but also provides all the amenities and things that that uh the the unhoused deserve, quite honestly.

And so I don't know about this this uh survey, but they deserve a shelter, they deserve a chance, right?

And so we believe that wholeheartedly and believe that this is a way to do it and preserve the values of the properties that are adjacent.

Uh in some cases, maybe elevate.

I mean, this is a this is a nice structure, this is a nice building.

There's a sensitivity to it, it's not just some random thought that we're just gonna throw something here.

It's a very well thought out plan and well thought out idea.

Um, and so there's going to be, as we know, there's going to be some management operational things that I think are going to be critical to make it work and function the way we want it to work.

But that's you know, that's all in the works, and City Care has done that.

They understand those things, and so uh as a partner, they're they're invaluable to understand and know what to anticipate.

And so they're on board, obviously, with everything you showed.

Let's run through a few more of these images.

That's the uh east side of the building.

This will be the intake side as well.

So before we let this up, yeah, you guys will notice there's some redundancy in the sign is we're trying to work that out right now.

We're not necessarily saying it's this or that together, because that's a lot to me.

And so from so when we put it on there, we're like, okay, we're gonna put we're gonna put some of this on there, and then we'll we'll kind of work through with the city and then with city care to determine um what the most appropriate piece uh, you know, what they like best.

Okay.

Um to that point about signage.

Uh the last iteration had uh inspirational welcoming message.

Is that on the back now?

Or it will be integrated.

It will 100% be integrated.

I I think I think it's still integrated.

I don't have it in there, and I didn't have it in there, but uh it's part of our project 100%.

I loved it.

It was that's actually Derek's idea, and I thought it was an outstanding idea.

We haven't quite worked through where it goes just yet.

And so uh thank you for your grace in that regard.

But that could be, I mean, that could be something we could either do it here, we could do it here, you know.

I mean, so we can play around with how that uh you know how that signage works and and the branding component of that with with obviously the help of the city and city care guess Robert.

This is really a question for legal.

So I've come from an environment where you know you get a contract every so many years you have to recompete.

Is there anything like that for City and Norman and their contracts?

So that makes how many years you have to well, you have to recompete.

You know, you can get like some contracts you can only have for five years, period.

Some of you have if you're lucky and you get approval.

Certificate, you know, it might be OSD level when we're hire.

You have 10 years.

So is there anything like that with municipalities where hey, you can only have in Oklahoma, you know, without competition.

There's not a hard and fast rule on that uh for services like this, but we typically have contracts that go for five years and then they may automatically renew for five year periods up to a maximum amount of time.

Um it probably um in this one would be a little longer term just because city care is going to be making an investment as well.

Um, and so we would certainly have review periods and opportunities for both parties to step away if it's not working anymore, but we don't necessarily have to go back out and do an RFP uh to see if there are other questions.

So you've got options on your contract based upon key performance parameters.

Yeah, okay.

This will be the community yard for the men's and women's dormitories, once again uh constructing a more efficient building to be able to give back to the actual use of the building.

So really nice area, benches, you know, maybe a basketball court, some nice lighting, uh just opportunities for them to enjoy themselves in this time.

And there's the there's the good news.

Yeah, before we move on, if we get those numbers.

So you guys have designers architects.

So you you design, you design the building, you have an idea as far as recurrent maintenance costs as far as you know, work orders and stuff like that.

So, what's your how did you design this without consideration?

Well, from a long-term maintenance strategy standpoint.

Every year the recurrent maintenance, and it might be every other year, might be yeah.

I mean, it's a it's a thought in sustainability.

I think that that's the responsible part of what architects would and should do.

Um so that's why we don't have we don't have materials that are going to require a yearly maintenance other than maybe sealant.

I mean, sealant's something that you can't get around, and that's gonna happen at a yearly clip.

If you're if you're gonna keep up with your warranty, um that's not always the case.

But we've got rock, we've got we've got you know, the claddings and stuff are such that the track here goes systems if you're currently sure.

And then you you know, that's uh certain costs here, and then there's a generator in your ground, so you have an estimate, you know, ONM estimate per year to the guys as we take it over your building.

Give someone a building.

Sure, you know, you say this is your estimated maintenance costs, ONM cost, you know, annual cost per year.

Yeah, this dollar, yeah, whether it's this year or some other year dollar.

We could get that number working with with with you guys, and obviously city care to understand what that what that piece is.

Again, that's not that's not normally what an architect would do.

So that would be something we would probably work on uh as we get closer to the the building.

Oh I disagree with architect would get one of one of them in functioning architecture design this building, so it's a low-cost building operator.

Sure.

No, 100%.

I'm not disagreeing with that.

I wouldn't do the I wouldn't say I'm I'm not a representative of City Care or the City of Norman, and so I don't tell them what their operational costs that's what I'm saying.

Yes, I'm not talking for operating the field.

I'm talking with the recurrent work program associated with you with sustaining the facility.

So you have HVAC costs as far as just maintenance on it.

Absolutely, you know, and then you have years of the grounds cost, and you have your generator costs.

So you design a facility based upon hey, look, I want a low maintenance facility, or you want a middle middle maintenance facility, or hey, I don't care about the cost for my own cost per year for this facility.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

And we do that, absolutely.

Yes, sir.

We would also work with the architect to make sure that the HVAC systems and other reoccurring high maintenance systems that would be something the our staff could uh could service, and that's something that they're familiar with.

No, okay, thanks.

I appreciate it.

All right, yeah.

A question of the architects would would we be are are we talking mechanical on the roof dual packs?

Is that kind of what we think?

I I don't think they're on the roof.

Okay.

I think they're I think they're internal.

I think they're internal in this high bay space.

Okay, we've got we've got a single sloping roof, we've got a bay space there.

Well, we'll have to there will definitely be intake and and uh you know fresh air intake and things on this side.

So you're gonna get some you're gonna get some system um updates that will materialize after we've got into you know schematic design design development.

But my my thoughts are let's use that high base space as much as we can uh in the space to be able to conceal as much as we can uh the system so that we're not again littering up the site and having unsightly things and we can reduce the noise to the neighborhood.

There's again there's a sensitivity to trying to put that in a in a inside of the room, but it would not be on roofs.

We don't like to work on HVACs on the roofs.

Yes, and the fewer holes you put in a metal roof, the better shot you gotta keep it dry.

So the uh talk about the landscaping and lighting.

Um in the aerial view of the site plan, there's not a sidewalk off redefining, but on the close-up ground level pictures, there is one.

So I I believe that there is.

I believe that there would be a sidewalk.

I think that that's pretty normal.

Um if it's not if it's not something you want, tell us we won't put it on, we won't put one there.

If it's not something that you guys want to plan, that's just not something we've quite nailed down.

Uh I'll go back and forth on that because if you put a sidewalk there provides opportunity for more movement over there.

It's like so.

Do we provide it for for future growth of read, or do you not provide it right now to not encourage gathering on that side?

So we've gone back and forth on it.

I mean, it really at the edge of that our property there at Sims, Reed Avenue ends.

I mean, there's some gravel back there, but it ends right there, and there's um it's I don't even know if it meets like alleyway standard in that little section right there.

But there's no sidewalk on either side, it's a dead end.

Um there is there is a sidewalk on Sims over there on the north side of Sims, but um so I don't know.

I don't know if a sidewalk in this case is necessary on that because it wouldn't go anywhere other than to the other side of the building.

Absolutely.

I don't know.

We something to think about.

Well, I think that I think there's two schools with I mean there's two schools of thought, a pathway that that potentially has pedestrian movement or a camping ground that now I've got to stop people from camping.

There's so we gotta watch a lot of it, and so I in some ways I think you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

So ultimately, I think we work that out together.

And then we've heard some feedback about wanting either fencing or masonry wall instead of the sidewalk, maybe or next to it, I'm not sure, but that's been some of the feedback I know I've seen.

And I would say that speaks to operations and who's doing that.

Um I was under the impression that city care is pretty good about trash and also maintaining um open sidewalks around the building.

Uh so I just think of connectivity because you don't know who's coming and what their mobility issues might be.

Um also I was thinking too, it's like they're gonna walk to services if they're gonna go north to food and shelter.

Um I do like the building being up close, just in general, uh you know, it takes away space that you would congregate, it provides more space in the back that would be more attractive.

I could uh I was gonna ask, are the trees do they go all the way down, Reed?

They they do, I mean in our in our in the runner, yeah, pretend world.

We didn't we we did learn today, so you know, if the sidewalk was in City Care can maintain and keep people from congregating from their property line in.

So if that sidewalk is on city property, they they can't keep people out or move them for lack of a better term.

So if the sidewalk is on the shelter property or in the current, they're allowed to remove people from there.

I would say put the sidewalk there, and we've got so so to add on to answering some of your thoughts about security.

So there is a security system in the in the budget, this is an extensive one that will monitor every moment around that building.

So it will it has a nice security system plan for um for just that thing to surveil and make sure that you know it's maintained and and it's properly um utilized.

There are I mean there's a row of existing trees all the way down read out on both sides, really.

But on that on this on our side, right here, unless they're dead, I guess.

Absolutely.

That's right.

And then uh my other question too was um, you know, in the survey cost is more I don't know if you guys were in here for that, but cost was one of the um primary concerns that people that answer the survey had about yes, I maybe I would support it depending on what is what are you asking for?

Um and so with I know you're about to get to that budget piece, but um part of just going over what you the amenities and different things it would be what would we be practically be able to reduce if we decided that we needed to propose a smaller fog package than what you're recommending.

So we can go over that when you go over the programmatically, I think it could squeeze.

I think there are some moments that we can squeeze aesthetically.

You're talking about removing you know, maybe the bump outs.

So you so you've got to I think we've got to manage um that budget, the number and the aesthetic, and what's what's most important.

So if those if a bump out say this is cost prohibitive, we want to save some costs, we remove it.

And it's designed that way.

It literally is designed from a modular standpoint that'll allow you to kind of give and take depending on how we end up now.

Our our numbers that we've put out there, that eight million number, we're there.

We're gonna meet we're gonna meet that number, and I am supremely confident that that number covers what what you see here.

Thank you for making that last point about you know being able to kind of pick and choose, move things.

Um but to that point, uh, what I was gonna say earlier is that I what I really appreciate about this design is that there are no ground floor windows, which present a privacy issue, a security issue, all sorts of things.

Um, but that didn't stop you from providing a lot of natural daylight to the interior of the facility.

So even though they could go away with those bump outs, I think it would be my preference to retain them and even expand where possible to add more just more light wells to the interior.

I mean, I I agree with you, these people deserve they deserve a facility, but they deserve a great facility too.

Not a not a cave, not a sterile box, but something that actually you know promotes rehabilitation and promotes growth and the things that we want this uh to do.

So well, the efforts as well, the efforts as well.

Um it's not just remove, it's you can also reshare.

So there's there's opportunities to reduce it but still maintain the architectural language.

Thank you.

They they even got nicer.

So in this, uh yeah, with the with the indoor kind of space that would with the bump out, you know, we we have these bump outs kind of kind of start to come online, and once that happened, that provided again an additional area uh that you know, in an inclement situation, you could get a dog out, and it can you can run in a little bit, and you know, it's a sensitive thing.

And so um, I know that there's in the surveys, there's some questions about about noise from the kennels, right?

And so we've seen some of that.

Um it's our thoughts are when they're outside and they're out out in the runs, they're they're with it with a they're not by themselves.

An animal is going to be with a human being at that point, walking the human, walking the dog and and kind of maintaining the dog.

I'm hoping that the dog's not walking the human being.

But that does happen.

They are they do.

I've got a newfoundland that weighs 145 pounds.

I assure you, that dog walks me.

Oh, okay.

Uh I was wondering.

Just gonna ask real quick.

So uh what are the number of bathrooms?

Is it like for the facility?

It's code driven.

It's co-driven.

So the amount of individuals in the building is what's driving the number of showers as given.

Okay, yeah.

And the same for tunnel space, like at roughly how many animals do you think?

It's a it was a our design criteria was a percentage.

They gave us the occupant.

They gave us a number.

And off the, I mean, I can play five.

There you go.

25.

So what you're looking at here in plan.

So you've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

So there's potentially twenty-two there.

We can add more.

So stacking.

The double stack.

Yeah, the double stack, maybe triple stack.

Um, so I I believe I believe what CityCare requested was 15 to 18, something like that, what they have at their Oklahoma City facility, and they said it works.

I think some people were wanting more, and that's why we're able to provide more.

But there's there's ample room.

Once again, from a concept standpoint, we're we're meeting the numbers, but as we go into construction documents and start to get even more intimate with what's needed, we can adjust accordingly.

Appreciate that.

So in our initial conversation, um the number 8 million uh was on the table, and it it was an educated guess, as it and that was somewhat supported by recent uh construction activity that Citycare uh had completed and the number of beds that we felt met the need for the foreseeable future.

So uh to actually get down to it uh and and be able to get a much more vivid idea about what that means, what that translates to in terms of the asset.

Um appreciate staff's participation in that entire process.

Um we staff feels like that's kind of what we were thinking when this conversation about the permanent shelter uh really started to firm up.

Yeah, this is an all-in cost.

This is this includes architects' fees, contractor fee.

This is the thing.

This is this is it.

That's the number.

And so um we feel pretty good about that number.

Um we've got uh we've got enough movement in there to be able to.

I like this.

I like having a 500,000 contingency that the owner will keep.

That's not to say that the contractor doesn't have a contingency because they do um in their breakdown, but I went through that with them this afternoon.

I it's to help you understand this is these numbers are not pulled, they're not pulled out of the air.

Okay, we engaged a general contractor that I won't name, but um we engage them for their cost expertise.

And they ran a cost cost analysis on this at this conceptual level, so that's always the caveat, it's still a concept, but um we feel that's why I say I'm supremely confident is because this is vetted through subcontractors and a general contractor.

I was just gonna ask, all right, what was the total square footage again for both buildings?

16 so 400 square foot of that just over 20,000.

Okay, so a little under 400 square foot, which is right in range with standard construction these days.

And so it's we're getting a very good building for a reasonable cost.

Especially for the occupancy that we intend and fire sprinkled and this includes landscaping, includes parking lots, it includes all the the hardened facilities, all the extra things.

I will add the owner contingency uh is there for there's always unknowns that happen um during the project or surprises that you don't account for.

Uh also uh if we do things like go through the neighborhood and add street lights or other safety features that we want to do neighborhood improvements with uh that money is there and sitting there available for for us to access to to further different projects within that neighborhood.

Yeah, and it's part of my question.

You management reserve is the uh F me.

What is what does that mean?

F to me.

Uh furniture predictors and equipment.

Yeah, it's furniture.

What's the equipment?

I'm sorry, equipment.

Yeah.

I was thinking electronic.

That's for the big TV.

That's part of equipment.

And those are that's at this stage that's a standard five percent is what that is.

So we apply that to it, you know.

Okay, this is what we believe this is.

We believe this is enough to pass the sniff test of buying all the beds and the mattresses and you know, those those types of things.

Yeah, counselor.

So to me, it's like 7.5 million is what you need, and so that's the cost of the building, and you have your debt, and you know, searching the debt and all those.

I mean, I I don't know.

Is Anthony in here?

I mean, he's probably done the numbers.

So servicing the debt or associated with the bonds, like this.

So the you know, the cost isn't point five, but you can service the bond.

I don't know, 10 years, 15, 20 years, but you have that.

So with when you service the debt, the total cost for the project like this.

Is it like as a rule of thumb?

Um, you would build in about 30 percent.

It would be but it would be built into the bond issuance itself.

Okay, that's interest and debt issuance costs.

So the numbers you've worked, or you may be trying to heuristically thumb them printed it, but hey, well, that to put this out there for voting for the public, and you know, you're looking at something well.

Uh only costs exist and uh carry.

Those costs were built into the estimates that were given in the survey.

I'm sorry, so what's the total cost?

Including the debt to 11.

10 to 11, 12 million.

I don't I don't I don't know.

I mean I'm saying that's roughly right to 11 would be the 30 percent.

10.

10 fourth.

Okay, council member crack.

Speaking of costs, I thought the strategy was to sell gray street property to help pay for this.

So maybe the bond question isn't exactly 7.9 million.

It may be well, how much are the gray street properties?

I I think what what was in the proposal was about 750,000 for both pieces, and then they'll do demo on their side.

Um the real estate cost, you know, invisible in the grand scheme of things.

Um and at the end of the day, the way it would work, um, this is not large enough to do multiple tranches of actual bond issuance.

Any bond dollar received not needed for construction at the end of the day, goes back into debt service and reduces the debt.

So the sale of those properties would be reducing the debt.

Correct.

Okay, or if donors fundraise any amount and contribute to that just permission service right up.

Is city care also?

I heard there was interest and fundraising.

Um it in my last conversation on the subject with city care.

Uh their long-term preference is for them to focus their fundraising activities to take over the maintenance and operations of the building, which right now is about $700,000 a year out of your discretionary general fund dollars.

So that would be probably their highest and best use of participation and their ability to work on their educational campaign and vote yes campaign because they'll be able to demonstrate um and and we've seen we've seen it in um lots of service facilities that you you can have great outcomes based on uh just hard work and knowledge and experience and an improved facility can result in approved outcomes too.

So uh they'll be there to support the the uh ballot measure, uh, but I think their fundraising they would love to shift focus and and take over maintenance and operations and take your general fund out of question, which would be really a huge benefit.

Yeah, I'd love to take 800,000 ish back every year.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, I just think it's important to you know, when you send numbers to voters at Shi have A, this is my you know, cost for facility's cost for the debt together equals this.

The other thing is that you know, I I think I I think I know the actual cost to date that we is it like 130,000 we spent so far on this direction between the design contractor and the other cost uh cost of the land was 75,000 and change and cost incurred on design.

I think 20,000-ish into design, so we're 95 or under 100,000 to get to this point to be able to ask a very legitimate question.

Any other counsel Dixon?

I've got a couple of operational questions, not for the architects, so I don't know if they need to stick around or if anybody has questions for them before we move on.

Uh any other comments about questions about the design part or numbers or anything.

Okay.

Yes, thank you very much for putting that all together.

And some of these questions might you guys might be able to chime in on.

So yeah, councilman.

Um do we have projected operational cost for this larger facility from city carers for checking the agenda.

Um the way the agenda is posted.

We can't get too much into operation stuff tonight.

It was more uh just cost us from construction.

Uh cost.

But what we can do is is uh get confirmation from the folks at City Care and send that right back out to you, council uh via email.

So um I'm sure they understand that it would cost more in in there there will be some savings just based on the design and the fact that it'd be fully sprinkled and so uh I think their staffing will change, it'll also be a 24-hour day operation, which is different than what we have now.

So uh I I think the the opportunity to calculate your potential savings.

It's a pretty short conversation for us to have to get that answer back out to you.

On the construction cost, we mentioned that it was mentioned that city care was gonna have an investment.

And that was kind of why they would maybe have a longer contract or whatever.

Do we know what that investment is for the construction?

Not investment in construction necessarily, but investment in the operations and things they may need along those lines.

Okay.

Is that a council member?

Oh, yes, sir.

Okay, council member grant.

Um I would like to be able to whatever meeting it fits on, uh, oversight, finance, cptc, wherever.

Um see if we could have a talk with City Care about operations and costs and their thoughts on the design.

Um I also know that uh and I'm trying to get that one neighborhood meeting set up, and I'll meet a church of Christ said yes.

Um, but the other part of them being involved was their interest in like, okay, this gets built.

We may want to volunteer and offer services in there.

Um, and if you call their mind to their church, there's a call tree, and it's like, oh, help with rent assistance, help with service uh addiction recovery.

Um they don't really deal with the chronically homeless population as much as the people who are in the affordability side of things, it's a rough spot for them, and they might have maybe a little bit of metal health or something to be mixed in, but it's not as chronic as the other population.

But I could just see like if we bring them in and talk about that a little bit, we could find out like what the interest is from other organizations and uh the operations of what they're doing, how they would dovetail into those.

We'll reach out and grab the most convenient sooner than later Thursday.

Yeah, council.

Just as a advisement of whatever councilman Helen and the grant.

Um before you do that, I would get with City Care and make sure about their federal funding sources because if they have certain federal funding sources, they cannot let a religious entity within their building and everything and do their ministry work.

They could come in and serve dinner and leave, but they cannot come in and actually give a speech or present their material, so just make sure ahead of time with city works that they're allowed to do it, you know, city care and everything, make sure they will do it.

Okay, okay.

Um so we have this, we have a survey.

Um in order to have an April election, we would have to have the first reading of this next Tuesday, and then a second and final reading the second meeting of this month.

So um one option is we can let staff put it on the agenda for first reading next Tuesday, and then we have the rest of the month to decide if that second meeting if we want to go forward, or if we think that waiting until June or uh where there'll be primary elections statewide in June, there'll be primary or there'll be runoff elections statewide, potentially depending in August, and then general elections in November statewide as well.

And from what I understand, those are the dates we would have available uh to have an election for this is April, June, August, November.

And so those are Councilmember Pico.

I'd support a first reading next week and I'll vote in April.

Okay.

I agree with that as well.

That gives us time to dissect everything that was given tonight and also go back and talk to our people and our wards and everything like that, get some opinions and everything.

And it still gives us that last out if we decide to delay it a little bit, you know, to get more information or not.

If by next Tuesday, yeah, we have to know by that.

If everyone doesn't feel like that, you know, we even are ready yet, then um we can just do it.

Councilmember Grant.

Yeah, I'm for having it on consent.

Um I guess I'm a little curious about the educational components and having uh our strategy and have that ready by April.

Oh, yeah, it would be uh virtually non-stop from the second reading uh right up until election day.

And uh February, all of March that we could uh if we were to do a dwend election, what what's the first reading would be March 24th, and so with final approval or second reading to send it forward to a vote would be the first meeting in April if we waited for June one.

Okay, okay.

Um council members.

What's the numbers I just got the numbers as it relates to voting in April versus June as far as the population vote?

I mean I wouldn't know voter turnout.

Voters turn out, yeah.

We will have uh the street maintenance bond will be on there, street maintenance bond renewal, um which is not a tax increase in April.

In April, and then um possibly there could be runoff elections in wards three and five um pending.

So there will be a citywide election for the street maintenance bond renewal in April for sure, and then we never know possible arena.

Uh, if the Supreme Court decides before next Tuesday because from what I understand that that that can only take place on a citywide ballot, which the street maintenance bond would be would would uh but June might not be well, yeah, it would be citywide, it would be a citywide election for somebody running off state or a state office or uh federal.

Which help saves us a couple bucks, yeah.

Yeah, so um yeah, councilman.

Uh not to jump ahead, but also depending on where we put the uh guest tax, that would also be another ballot item it could be paired with.

And there are other items, the charter amendments and etc.

So there could be several things on the April ballot.

There could only be one thing depending.

Oh, and Councilman Bruce, were you finished?

Okay, so I would encourage everybody again, think about it this week.

Um we can proceed if everybody if that's the preference to it for it to be on the first reading next Tuesday.

And if uh read through all this, think about it for a few days and decide that we don't think it's ready to send for because I like I said last time I want to be sure that anything we send forward has got you know the details that people need to make an informed decision, um, that we are not sending something forward just because we really want to do it quickly, you know.

We all do, but um, but let's make sure that what we send to the voters is something we think can that they can support, and so um we can proceed as though we're gonna move forward with April, and then we have time to decide if we need to push it back, we can make that decision and within the next couple weeks.

If that works, it's an objection to staff putting on first reading next Tuesday.

Mrs.

Walker, we'll go with that.

Sure.

Okay.

Um okay, all right.

And we will move on to item number three.

Thank you guys.

Appreciate it.

Is a item number three is a continued discussion regarding possible amendments to the guest room tax ordinance.

Sure.

I'll go.

There we go.

So I'll get us started.

Um, so when we talked about this last time, we talked we actually talked about it over several months.

I think first about adding recreational vehicle spaces that are leased on a short-term basis uh to the applicability of the guest room tax.

Um so you see here what those definition changes would be to accomplish that in section 12-501.

And so I want to make sure that we weren't creating a situation where you could rent a hotel for longer than 30 days and not be subject to the tax.

But if you are renting a recreational vehicle space for longer than 30 days, you would be.

So we wanted to fix that.

We aren't wanting to tax mobile home parks or anything like that.

Um so you'll see the definition here as well for recreational vehicle.

That just comes from uh Webster's dictionary.

I didn't try to get too technical myself on that.

Um so that would be added to the code with the ordinance change.

In section 12 502, you'll see the increase in the tax rate.

We talked about two percent, so that would be an increase from eight to to 10%, and then again adding the applicability to spaces occupied by recreational vehicles overnight.

Here's what that ballot language looks like.

Um we try to keep it simple, but we do have to be fairly specific based on how the original ordinance was drafted, and so um it gets a little wordy, but hopefully not too bad.

Um you can see where we're asking the voters to include application to spaces rented by recreational vehicles, and then to again increase the excise tax upon the gross proceeds uh derived from rents of hotel rooms and those spaces.

It would be effective on July 1st.

That gives us time to to it, assuming an April election gives it the hotels time to get this in place and then ties in nicely with our fiscal year.

This is the question we need additional feedback on.

Uh, we've talked a little bit about expanding the purpose of a portion of the tax for other uses.

Uh that would require an amendment to section 12 12 uh 521.

Um there you see the the primarily we'd be uh eliminating the word exclusively currently as the tax was originally adopted.

The funds from the tax can only be used for the purpose of encouraging promoting and fostering the convention and tourism development of the city.

Yes, the original ballot language said uses and park development and promotion of arts and humanities are not those contemplated, thus contemplated.

Um we would add there at the end if council wanted to set aside a portion of the increase for other purposes, uh a portion of the taxes collected, and I put 2.5% uh in there based on prior discussions of that 0.25% of the increase.

Uh maybe spent on other priorities to be determined on an annual basis by the city council during the budgeting process.

It's proposed as a separate ballot question.

Uh but do we just need to remember if if one if uh the increase fails, but this question were to pass, we're reducing further the parks amount.

So Jason's gonna regret ever bringing it up if that happens, but uh that is also assumes the Norman Arts Council contracts would remain the same.

Would we be able to include a provision that it can't go into effect until yes?

We could do that actually on the um so it doesn't change anything about I mean my goal is to not change anything about what anybody's currently getting.

Yeah, we can we can work that, yeah.

Council repeating, yeah.

Uh on that last high or underlined portion.

Um I personally don't have an issue with that, but I'm just looking at it from the voter optics standpoint, and priorities to be termined by the city council is just language that I think is gonna give people spaws.

Um I don't think we're gonna do anything nefarious, but I know people like to assume the worst of us, and so if there is a way to flush that out a little bit better to yeah, and we talked about tying it to a specific project, but the only problem is once it's approved by the voters if that project is doesn't work out and you guys want to change direction, your hands are kind of tied.

That's fair.

Uh so that's why I ended up drafting it that way.

Councilman Grant or Council Recovery.

Uh yeah, um yes.

I'm not finished with my thought, but I yes for now.

Yes, maybe not.

Um yeah, I feel that's like an education thing, as with anything we put on the ballot and making sure that the different entities in our populace know what why why we're asking, and some of that could go uh we've talked about uh our economic development authority could also be one of those things.

I've gotten hitten up by a business, a small business owner and ward four that uh has even suggested uh you know you could portion, I don't know if it would come from this, but it could be in the future as it's written, um, to incentivize uh independent business as not so much trying to bring in call centers and things like that, but to uh somehow incentivize a unique business that would be an attraction to Norman, uh, but not like in the UNP scenario.

But you know, uh I wouldn't want to say like maximum social club or social club, but you know, something uh I don't know.

I that would be up to the economic development authority, I would imagine what they would want to do.

But I think that's an education component when you're talking about it with the arts folks and the hotel folks, and I don't see why that would be exactly mutually exclusive from like what's happening here.

So I could say maybe spent on economic development and initiatives to be determined by city council.

So I mean I thought there's just a little more just priorities, yeah.

Not just a pledge fund, essentially.

That's what they're gonna say.

And we all know that's not true, but well, and we had talked like right to council being well, that's why I brought it up.

And you know, hopefully who knows what different administrations might bring in the past, right to council's been founded by big grants that come through the feds.

But until then, this could be our way of uh addressing an issue because tourism doesn't come without a negative impact too.

It has lots of positives, but when especially in ward four, we saw an oversight that half the short-term rentals are in my ward, and then I get people who work good jobs who can't buy housing because when they turn around in a house in their area is for sale, it is snapped up for like a football house from a Tennessee family.

So that is why I brought right to council just like this is one way to address some of the housing insecurity.

Um, and some of that I feel, at least in my ward, is um impacted by tourism.

Well, maybe that's the language of then things that are impacted by tourism, not necessarily for tourism or to promote tourism, but are impacted by tourism.

Or it could develop it, you know, because we did talk about the flexibility here.

Yeah, I guess I don't personally have a problem with how it's written.

I just want to make sure that it passes.

And so making it as bulletproof as possible.

I agree.

Yeah.

I don't think we want to risk the increase failing on this question necessarily.

So uh and because it is different from just sort of tweaking the rate and then how we're uh collecting the tax, it is posed as a different ballot question on the next slide.

I was about to ask that would be separate ballots, yeah.

Councilman Bruce has then you wouldn't know if the other part.

I owe Jason and big thank you for all the education you've given me over these months because I'm often asked about what's the return associated with this tax hotels, and I'm able to explain very well the money spent for parks.

I look at the other funding flows, and I really don't have an idea.

I really don't, and I I can't speak to that and they ask me.

I'm I I don't know.

You know, they ask me about hey, what metrics track, you know, the goodness of it of the two million that we give to the visitors bureau, and and I think there's other there are other flows.

I don't know.

Is there insight available to the council as the part of this limit liability corporation that we know that the goodness of those funds, the flows going to those entities for so uh the Dan Shim uh and Visit Norman and the Norman Sports Commission?

Uh they do provide reports and updates to council.

Uh and then the Norman Arts Council is the primary proprietor of uh those arts dollars that come from and they both provide reports through part board.

And um we recently just got one from the Norman Sports Commission, which will be on one of your upcoming council agendas as when they approve the financials.

Um so all that does flow through through uh the uh parks commission, which is kind of your representative to hear that and ask questions, and I will say from sitting in those meetings are very rigorous on financial questions, both entities.

We'll make sure it's on your calendar year.

Yeah, please do you know, particularly there, you know, the visitors bureau because it's two point something, 2.2.3 million a year.

I don't know how long it's been going on.

I don't think man, we gotta probably have a really great organization producing some really great things.

They do they do good.

Um and uh they work with hotelers and uh they go out there and do their best to try to promote uh people coming to uh to town, and then you have the sports commission which works closely, especially with us trying to attract events that helps fill our parks and facilities for different different types of boarding events.

The uh, you know, I don't have any problem with funding additional support for the parks, that's for sure.

Councilmember Dixon.

I think I really like the increase and zero problems with um part of the new increase going to um capital for the parks.

I mean, that eventually gets appropriated by us anyways.

Um talk to numerous people.

Um two groups that are ready to go and have a pledged war chest to help get this passed.

But they're also so they will use that war chest to make sure it does not get passed if we divert some to the general fund.

So I'll be very wary of so we put on two separate ballots.

Theverting this to the general fund, any of it.

Just what I've been told from the dozens or so conversations I've had with people around town.

Uh but the possibility of dedicating it to parks capital stuff, and maybe that's provides some relief.

Yeah, and I think that was I mean, we've got it back on parks capital stuff absolutely.

We can always put more money towards so you know.

I don't know if there's extra or I would very much jump in.

I'd very much argue that parks are tourism.

Like I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

I mean, I think a lot of things that we do holiday festivals, Fourth of July.

A lot of these things that are done in parks are to draw tourism, and so capital expenditures on the park side, generate tourism vicariously.

I yeah, it all works.

So yes, sir.

Okay.

I can't see that one.

So uh I've talked to Councilmember Grant and I think Council Member Lumen, I threw out a number this morning about what this might look like, and I found an error in my spreadsheet.

I didn't something was wrong about it, and Jason and I argued about it and both of us trying to do math.

It's a little scary, but we could have you ever seen office space where they put the decimal in the wrong spot.

Yeah, it's like you pulled an office space gather.

So we figured it out.

Um you can see the current split, and and the way this is split is really dictated by our contracts with visit Norman and Norman Arts Council.

So uh we take four percent off the top to cover our administrative costs to manage the collection of the tax and and the budgeting and the the uh disbursement of the tax.

Uh but then currently 59.375% goes to visit Norman, 25% goes to Norman Arts Council, and then 15.625% goes to parks.

And you can see in the blue box what that looks like in your current budget um based on the projected revenue.

So for FY26, we were uh projecting over 49 million dollars in projected gross revenue subject to the tax.

Uh the 8% of that is the 3.9 million, and then you can see we take off the 4% and then split the remainder.

So as you said, Councilmember Bruce, 2.25 for visit Norman, uh 947,000 in change to Norman Arts Council, and uh just under 600,000 in parks.

Under the proposal as we initially discussed with the full 2% increase going to parks, you can see those numbers there.

Uh we're maintaining the revenue to visit Norman and Norman Arts Council, but parks increases from almost 600,000 to 1.5 uh 40, 1.54 uh million.

Um and under proposal two, looking at taking a piece of this off for other general fund purposes.

We talked about 0.25% of that tax rate, which is 2.5% of the overall tax or of the overall revenues, and so that goes uh that produces 118,000 for the general fund, reduces the parks piece of it down to 1.4 million.

Councilmember Grant.

Um I like proposal two, and I hear that while there would be maybe some entities that would fight it at the end of the day, it goes to a vote of the people, and it's what the people want.

And if somebody wants to spend money fighting that, uh, but it does end up passing because it's what the people want, uh you know, whatever.

I mean, then if they fight it, they don't even get a marginal.

I don't know.

I don't even think it's that much.

It's 118,000 under proposal two.

And it looks like park still gets like 1.4 million versus the 1.5 I personally feel like since how we have two items that one we don't want to have happen unless the other one passes, that we run the first one first, and then you put the second one on a separate ballot where it just gets to go all on its own and people have already paid for the pay raise no matter what.

So are you saying do just the increase?

The two percent first, and then do the what we're gonna use that two percent for in the future, you know, to get some of them.

And so what about the RV part?

Would you want to put is that's a separate question?

Yeah, the RV part no matter what RV and the rate increase are in one question.

Yeah, the RV and rate increase for sure.

And then we can come back as much.

To determine where the money goes that it raised.

Okay.

I got another question too, though, that's not about this in particular, but it's about money made.

You know, that state bill that passed in that thing for the hotels and everything, 1112.

Basically, state bill 1112 made it where that any hotel that discounts a room or gives you credit off the room now before we could get we got that hotel tax after the discounts were applied.

Now with the state bill 1112 that went into effect, we're supposed to get it beforehand before the discount or anything.

I didn't know how our hotels were.

So I think that they started doing that or not.

Yeah, I've seen that bill.

I think that's dealing with uh areas where there's a state lodging tax in place.

Our tax is a city.

The one that I ran off it talked about that it's a municipal right.

But there used to be um there's a provision in state law where you could uh um work with the tax commission to implement a lodging tax and they would collect it for you.

And I believe that's I'd have to look at it again, but I believe that's what that's impacting.

Okay ours was approved by our voters, and the structure was set up by our voters.

Uh so I don't think the legislature could come and change what the voters approved.

Um so we we take it off the gross revenue is defined by the ordinance.

All right.

And on this so proposal two Norman Arts Council and Visit Norman just do not get an increase at all.

They don't get any of the new increase.

Right, right.

So their percentage is up to 10% instead of the eighth, so there's everybody remains the same.

Yeah, they would just maintain what they have.

And the whole two percent increase would be primarily just going to parts.

Yes, under proposal one entirely to parts and then proposal two.

Uh parks with the general funding part.

Okay.

Um, but in either scenario, they're not getting increases in their budget.

Right.

So, what would be the motivation for them to support raising it?

I mean, other than a significant increase in the funding of parks, I think is a big deal.

And uh so when you start talking about our the art organizations, you gotta remember we had do have far uh four art entities that are part of you know, you got the depot, firehouse, art center, historical house, and sooner theater, they're gonna be directly benefit because it'll be included in the the possible capital portions.

We've also been talking, which uh by the way, Norman Art Council executive board is fully supportive.

Uh we've been fully talking about with them about including a possible public art and public places piece along with this, so that we can um they can submit public art projects, and then that can go through our capital process and possibly get selected.

Okay.

One possible way to look at it.

Um if that were to pass either one, one or two.

Um, and that much more funding is dedicated to parks.

Maybe that 118,000 could be reduced and put towards some other initiative that's council has in mind.

Instead of asking voters to change the formula for the whole tax to do that.

Well, it's not it's not the formula changing, it's the purpose.

The purpose, yeah.

Yeah.

So that that's the piece that's going to require voting.

We changed the formula last time.

Yeah, and that's what I was gonna point out.

Um visit Norman and Norman Arts Council aren't getting an increase this go around.

Last time in 2023, 2023, right?

Yes, um, they both received an increase and parks portion uh did not.

Oh, that's the important right there.

Yeah, okay.

So it used to be 50 to visit Norman 50%, 25% Norman Arts Council, 25% to parks, but then with that increase from 5% to 8% a couple of years ago, you can see how that money got split um between the other two entities, which ultimately reduced uh what parks got in the terms of percentage, not an amount.

And kind of looking down this is a lot of what ifs and possibilities that are in stone anywhere, but a lot of talks uh be um Norm 42, including a new home for Norman our council.

And uh so if that does come to fruition, uh the parks department is going to inherit that building and all the capital items that go along with that.

Um gotta remember that everything is closely tied, all these entities uh are tied in with us.

Um gotta remember that everything is closely tied, all these entities uh are tied in with us, and every time if you talk about the Sooner Theater, uh going through hey, we have uh all our our seats were need to be replaced.

So now the typical project portion of that be like, okay, submit a submit your your proposal, and we hope uh that it will stick in the next five to eight years.

Um that's usually what our capital project looks like.

We'll put it on there and it gets requests, gets put on uh the five-year schedule, and hopefully, one of those years it sticks.

Now you know, if we know we need a possible seat replacement at the Sooner Theater, uh, you know, it's an important, we can go look in there.

Oh, it's 200,000 bucks.

We'll so we'll be able to stick you in next year instead of having to wait to five to eight years or whenever uh those funds become available.

And also, you add to this, and Daryl and I was talking about it.

We're also hoping to take parks pretty much off of the capital um process for the whole city.

So now parks has their own capital source.

So now that instead of uh 13 departments fighting for capital funding, now it's gonna be 12.

Or if you wanna count utilities because they kind of have their own 11.

I got you, Chris.

So council members.

I really love parks.

Yeah, the the Norman Visitor, what type of organization is that?

I mean, it's non non-governmental, right?

But you interface with them.

I mean, I guess they have a char they set up or is it what is what it they have a board of directors that's set by our ordinance.

Um there are sides 501c6.

I think Jason sits on there as an ex officio, and we have a council member representative as well on that board.

So the public said, hey, for this 501c3, I want to fund them through this tax.

C6.

It's been in place since 1980.

Um initially, we contracted with I believe the chamber of commerce to do that function, and then added that group, uh, Norman Convention Visitors Bureau, which is now known as Visit Norman.

So you have no opcon and admin, no, no operation control or admin control.

No, we do.

We have oversight of the budget.

So oversight, what do you mean by that?

We sit on their board, we go over all their financials with them every month.

We talk about all their programs and we vote just like their members do.

And then trying to grow parks for you.

No, I think I like it.

Well, if you if you take money away from tourism, you'll have less people going to the parks.

No, I'm not saying not to the function.

I'm saying, hey, the function maybe belongs someplace totally different.

Yeah.

For we we love visit Norman too, so council great.

Um I was gonna remind uh what is it?

Wache is where they come and give their presentations for their impact and they're keeping track of the movement and what we might be losing in hotel rooms elsewhere.

Council member Bruce.

Sure.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um this is just a reminder.

If we change uh any of the percentage breakdown, um, we'll have to go back and amend these contracts.

You can see the current language for visit Norman.

This is from section three of their contract.

This is where those percentages live.

This covers the four percent admin fee, their portion of the tax after the admin fee is taken out, and then the sides the amount set aside for parks.

Um with the last increase, we did have them set aside a portion for sports tourism as well, because that was specifically to fund the sports commission.

And then on the arts council, very similar language, but covering the arts council's percentage, and then again setting out the parks percentage.

So if this goes to the voters and it's it's approved, we'll bring these contract amendments forward so that they'll be in place by the time tax goes into effect on July 1.

Okay.

Um this is a couple more slides.

Uh, but if the uh this kind of what are we gonna use this funding for uh uh the visitor tax will mainly focus on uh community special use parks, not gonna say we're never using on a neighborhood park, but uh in talking with Visit Norman and uh Norman Art Council as much as we can is uh tie it to tourism as possible.

So these are kind of our special use parks, recreational centers and cultural centers will be uh tied to, and also uh we want to continue public arts in public places.

That's a huge hit, and we know the tourism dollars are definitely tied to our programs.

And when you start talking about the parks department, and uh we don't only add beautification to our parks, but city hall libraries, uh medians, uh downtown areas, uh uh our porter um down porter.

So uh it we do a lot of things, and uh and a lot of the times, um, especially through traffic and average where interior that does get worn down, and we want our city to look as good as possible.

And a lot of times we don't have the funding to go out there and um redo an area after uh Norman Music Festival or things like that.

So we just want to uh make sure that you know we are planning on tying uh uh this money as much as possible or future funding, possible future funding um with tourism as much as we can.

Um and I know this is super small, just wanted to we did this this afternoon, so this is not accurate uh or what we would actually do, but we wanted to throw together what uh possible three year outlook would be look like if we did an outlook on this, and a lot of this stuff does exist uh already.

Um, and uh we kind of repeated everything with a slight increase at the at the bottom because we do assume that hotel rates will increase with with time, and of course that tax would increase with time.

But uh everything parking lot um and sidewalk maintenance, uh, sports field and lightning.

Um Norman Ford uh when we've redo these parks at base uh Griffin and Reeves, uh, we inherited a lot more lighting.

So, and it's expensive to change lights, or if something goes wrong with that, it's very expensive to change that.

Sports field maintenance and upgrades.

Uh when we talk about things that we want for our parks, uh, we start talking about autonomous mowers and things like that, not necessarily taking away from our work, but making us more efficient and where we can go focus on area um other areas for a small investment.

I think that we invested uh about $50,000 at Reese Park.

We were able to mow every single field three times a week.

Uh and they're unmanned, so um more energy efficient.

Uh, don't take gasoline, less don't take uh human labor.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, well, and and and two of the they looked better because we're uh give it even if you grow the more you mow grass, the better it grows.

Uh and it loves BMowed and it loves staying, and that way you can stay it short and um keep it competitive.

And to it, you know, when we're talking about future Norm Fords, there is the possibility that a lot of these clubs are asking for turf.

And when we start talking about turf, we can put it in in a norm four, but if it gets replaced every 10 to 12 years, I mean, you're talking it's very expensive because the lifespan on turf is not it's not super long, and you also have to water it and uh maintain it, comb it, and there's um maintenance that goes along with that.

Uh Westwood aquatic maintenance uh every single year uh we like it or not.

And Anthony always rolls his eyes at me, but there is a pipe that breaks somewhere over there, and it'll cost anywhere between 50 to 100,000.

We also replace chairs, it uh and and shades and things like that.

It's a high revenue drink generator.

We bring in about a million dollars for uh a year for that.

So we want that place to stay uh as nice as possible.

Um cultural center upgrades, kind of hit on that a little bit.

Park signage, uh, you won't believe um uh what sun does and people do to signage in parks.

So we always want to keep money in a constant rotation of of those and information change.

Uh tree programs, that's something that's already in there, about 65,000 a year.

Uh talk about public uh beautification, holiday uh possible holiday decorations, and then at the bottom, this is what is kind of a little bit different.

We just kind of threw in a variety of things that do already exist on our uh capital unimproved or uh unprogrammed projects that already exist, and there are plenty of projects to keep us and that money useful, and and we spread them out all over the city.

Uh, Lions Park tennis courts are tired, they need to be replaced.

Uh Little Axe Sports Complex, we've been requesting um funding to redo those baseball fields for almost a decade now, and we've only gotten a small portion of what needs to be done.

Um, of course, we have the Andrews Park implement um implementation plan, kids space.

Uh, we put in a we're being hopeful.

Hopefully, uh we put in a grant T set that's $600,000, but we have to have grant uh matching funds and be able to complete that full project, which is close to a million dollars.

So we have to find money elsewhere to finish all that.

Uh restroom projects.

I told you restroom projects.

Every time we replace restroom, uh, you won't believe how much a little four toilet building cost in it in a public place.

Uh and so on, you know, then again request upgrade splash pads, and you know, you're talking about a half million dollars to put in a new splash pad.

This makes it available, and we don't have to wait for a bond issuance or go to a vote every other year to put in a splash pad.

Makes it possible that we can upgrade these and add them into our our capital um programs.

Mr.

I was just curious with the 250,000 projected for the Andrew Master plan implementation.

Are we talking about doing earth work and some things that we can do in it ahead of a bigger this is a pretend budget.

We didn't uh I didn't throw anything out there, but uh first step would be starting design, get an engineering work done.

We we we're trying to figure out how much it costs us to get a the pond area.

Um you have to get the whole part surveyed and an engineer, it's about 300,000 bucks before we even put a shovel on the ground.

Uh, because the camera serves it was like 28 to 30 million.

That's a super conservative number.

I would uh I think we can get it done way cheaper than that.

But that was that was at the extent if we're waiting for a full 15 years to build it out as well.

Um FYE 30 would be when we're talking about a Norman forward to right.

Uh technically you can take a vote on norm forward to at any time and start bonding projects will expire October.

Norm 4 2.

So this line item of about 250,000 is just kind of in the lead up to it's just an example of what we could or could not do.

Okay.

I was just curious.

Thank you.

So this um if we want an April election on this, it's another one that'll be on your agenda on the 13th.

Uh your 27th meeting, you know, bring lots of caffeine.

I think you have 14 or 15 ordinances, something like that.

Um, if we have all of these, plus some others.

So we're we're building up to a really great and long meeting.

Uh but I just need to know what to draft.

Um, I've got you know everything kind of drafted.

I uh be able to pull it together as long as I know what council wants to do.

Um we've had two discussions, but we haven't had visit Norman or Norman Arts Council folks here for either one of them.

Um I know there's been individual conversations with people who are involved in those things.

Um I would just reiterate that uh this isn't something we have to do.

There is no hurry that we have to do this in April.

Uh we don't have to do it at all.

We don't want um the motivation being that Oklahoma City and Midwest City have recently raised theirs to over nine percent.

Um and we had a successful, I think seemed successful to me, football season um with the visiting teams that came in Norman and the playoff game and all that, and we have a big season next or this fall coming up uh with visitors coming to Norman again.

Um so doing an April election allows it to go and be ready and in place for the football season, but I mean that doesn't have to be our measure or gauge of what we should do.

Um so just want to make it clear this isn't something we have to do right now if the if not everybody's comfortable with the way it is or anything like that.

We have uh room to play around with it.

So council peak.

Yeah, it's kind of gonna be my my line of thinking there.

Uh what is the implementation timeline, assuming a yes vote?

So we got a vote in April, when is this technical?

Okay.

So 90 days, is that what that is?

We're talking ish.

Six, yeah, 75.

Okay.

So if we did a June vote, you barely catch a tip front end of football season.

The first game is a cheaper rate and then the next one.

Yes, it's which you know, given a non-conference schedule might not be.

Yeah, give the non-conference a break.

I just I I want to make sure that we capture take full effect of a this year's success of the OU football team, which I think is gonna translate partly into next year's success.

And so all the way next year.

There's uh gonna be a lot of demand.

Want to take take full advantage of it.

So I'd support an April ballot, but okay.

Council Member.

Yeah, uh we do the part where we break it into two.

I could see the rate increased in April and then coming back around in June or later on the second part.

We could do that.

I'm seeing hedge nod.

Is that we're looking for consensus to make sure Mrs.

Walker brings you the language you expect to see.

Potential just a question April that's in 10%.

The RBs and including the RV.

Right.

And clarifying that that is not apply to anybody that lives in a trailer or mobile home.

Right.

Right.

So that's a later date potentially proposing another question about um the formula.

Excellent.

Is there what was the second part going to the general fund?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Doing that later on.

But until the money would flow to okay.

That makes sense.

Okay.

How much you pay so that would be on the first reading next Tuesday, or the again a vote on the 27th.

So another thing, unless there's an objection for anybody, have staff go ahead and plan for that to be on the agenda next Tuesday.

And then if we all have any different feedback before then, let Brenda know.

Or let Jamie know.

Yeah.

Brenda's like, don't call me.

Call Brenda at home.

You can call.

I'm fine with this, but we do get a lot of pushback from everybody complaining about how often we have votes on things.

That is that is an issue people have.

I think they were mad about single ballot issues.

Like if it had more than one thing on the ballot, and an even year doesn't have as many voting opportunities as an odd year.

So I'll just say to that point, to if those people are listening, a lot of those elections were not called by us, you know.

Um school bonds.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of things that we with your OG, there are a lot of public votes that happened.

I messed I would not necessarily OGA forward, but uh it was.

Yeah, I mean, I think voters would prefer that we if we can put stuff together, do that and not trying to spread everything a little bit.

Voter fatigue is real.

You're not you're not wrong about that.

And ballot fatigue is too ballot fatigue when there's too many things on one ballot.

Like we talked about, you'll start skipping the questions.

There's a balance here.

So um okay.

You um if whatever you move to you, it's a wash in cost because you will only be paying for ballots because of the state races, so we don't have to pay for anything but ballot cost.

The same ballot cost you would be paying in April, so cost wise, it's a wash.

So okay, so where we're standing at right now, we'd be looking at street maintenance bond in April, shelter vote bond in April, and an increase in the hotel visitor tax.

It's two tax increases.

One of them is applied to visitors to women, not non-residents.

Um so that's a selling point for that.

So just things to keep in mind, and that we do need to uh ensure that the street maintenance bond gets renewed.

It's very popular.

I don't foresee it being a problem, but a concern being do people have a negative feeling about the shelter or the negative feeling about the visitor tax, and do they or do they have a negative feeling about the shelter and or yeah, and they vote no on the street maintenance bond, they vote no on the so those are things to think about as well.

Um what we put on there.

Council Member and I would say it comes down to education and being responsible in each of our wards to not misinform or polarize the things we're trying to accomplish as a group.

So just throw that out there.

Sounds like three things for April.

We'll see what happens in the next item.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh okay, then we'll move on to item number four is a continued discussion regarding possible amendments to the city charter.

Uh oh, and this one, Mrs.

Walker's flying solo.

I am there something you want to do.

I mean okay.

So last time we discussed uh basically three different areas of amendment, the city auditor language, which there seemed to be consensus on, so I've got that drafted and ready to go.

Um a stipend for council members, and then uh it's moving up the start date to terms to the first Tuesday after the runoff election date, so that you don't have that long lack time.

Um so I've given you um what the uh the background and sort of language that was adopted by the charter review commission uh on the stipend increase last time uh the voters looked at that.

Uh they gave you a range because they didn't want to uh yeah, they that they wanted to give some flexibility, and council chose to go forward with the low end of that range, and that ended up being rejected, but in this section there were a number of other amendments too.

Um it's hard to say why it was uh rejected.

But you can see there um in your handout, they have um what they recommended was that you know the voters approve this initial annual stipend.

It wouldn't go into effect until everyone on council not within your current term, but the following terms.

Um, and that the mayor then would set a five-member compensation commission to set the appropriate monthly stipend for the mayor and the council members based on the CPI, the city's overall budget, and other relevant factors every three years thereafter, and that any increases approved by the commission would not become effective until the following term.

There's a practical reason for doing that.

That's and it was the look of you know, voting on your own pay increase, but there's also a constitutional provision that says you need to you can't increase your own pay basically during your term, and so it needs to be uh it needs to go into effect in the following term.

So uh with some of the examples on there, like Oklahoma City and Lot and more, even um I know in more they re voters in August voted to increase the mayor and council pay.

Um is that required in every city that on that list to the voters have to change the charter in order to increase council some of the charters allow for changes by future code uh amendments, and so um trying to remember which one so you see Edmund there on the this chart that this is just for the mayor, but it's the same for each.

Edmund has a code provision, they're authorized by charter to to increase the compensation via their code.

Lawton Tulsa and Broken Arrow do it the same way, more it's similar to ours, it's set forth in the charter, and so it requires a charter amendment to change it.

Um, and that's why the voters looked at that for more.

Okay.

Um broken arrow.

I thought this was interesting.

They they adopted it by ordinance, their charter authorizes them to do that, but then it said you can't come back and look at this again until 2029.

So interesting.

Don't bring it up again.

I mean um the part about the mayor put appointing a commission, like vetted by council or just it'd be like every other appointment, so it would be a mayor appointment subject to the uh vote of council.

No, no, it almost might seem better to like council must sort of pay must be reviewed every five years.

I don't know, I could see people be like, I don't want the mayor to appoint some but we're seeing that he's gonna appoint people, it's gonna give them a raise.

You know, uh but it's something that was like, well, every five years council compensation is reviewed by somebody.

I do like the fact though that it at least gives a look to the general public can never think that okay, there is a group that is looking at everything, how they performed, you know, and everything that says, hey, this is what the race should be for the next three years, and then another group, you know, and it don't have to be the same group you put together every three years, and it can be a whole other group of people, you know, every three years.

Council would still have to vote on those, you know, ultimately to send them to the voters and they wouldn't take effect till the next term, but it does take that some of that discussion and determination in terms of the dollar figure that's recommended out of your hands and puts it in a group of uh residents.

Okay, council Bruce.

What's wrong with just looking at to a CPI and increase by the CPI or some other we could do that?

I mean it's some you know, just automatic.

Yeah, that we would have to draft language that that authorizes that, but in the charter where the charter would allow us to do because it's just it takes a lot of effort to you know, and just think, well, you know, these are already low, these are already well.

I mean, my opportunity costs are pretty low for you guys.

You guys got a lot of left life.

I don't, you know, I don't like the left eye.

So your opportunity costs are being here is very expensive, but mine's not.

Does that make sense?

Yep.

How do these guys can afford to do this?

I don't know.

But uh it's already low.

So what is doing it for pay, right?

Well, it's just always there's never a good time to ask.

In my observation over the last 13 years, there's just when is there a good time for the elected body to ask the public to give us a pay increase?

Everybody hates Congress, everybody hates the state legislature.

They think they're all getting paid a lot of money, they're all getting rich and they're not doing anything, and insider trading, all sorts of stuff.

And it's hard.

Have you gotten a pay increase over the 12 years?

No, at all.

It's not been increased since how many other people in the general public work at a job that they'd stay with for 12 years to not get a pay raise of some kind.

How about some like you know, so many something below CPI every 10 years reviewed by a board?

That way you only touch it once every 10 years.

We didn't we explore doing CPI back in 2020 when we originally asked this.

No, that was part of uh the charter review commission's qualifications as you know, based on the CPI, the current budget and things like that.

That it just put it in the hands of that compensation commission.

Yeah, people's draws literally drop when I tell them that I make a hundred dollars a month as mayor if normally they just are in shock about it.

They can't because there's people that think I that I get paid Daryl's salary, and because I think this the mayor is the city.

I think the mayor is the executive of the city and so on and on.

And then I say no, it's a hundred bucks, and I'm gonna make more tonight at the you know at the bar.

Because people will always ask me why I'm there.

Why are you here if you're the mayor?

Well, the mayor only pays $100 a month.

I need money, so I have to leave to pay my market in order to in order to spend so much time dedicating to city council have got makeup revenue come somewhere else.

Um given all the other items that are gonna be on the ballot in April, and you know what Councilmember Dixon alluded to.

Um I'd be in favor of punting this one a little bit.

I mean, I think these are all important things to discuss and have be voted on, but they don't seem like they're um dire.

I don't think I don't think anything has to be done today, like a window for a guest tax.

We're trying to capture a football season.

I don't I don't think that there's anything in here that's really necessarily that time sensitive, and so I'd be in favor of just picking a future date, not overloading the ballot in April.

Okay.

Customer agreement.

Uh agree, I mean, if it was in June, you could have a selection of I don't know if it would just be the charter amendment ballot, but there could be one other thing with it, and it wouldn't be like a front and back kind of situation with the ballot.

Um and it's not like if it gets passed in April, it's gonna have any bearing on the next cycle.

So sitting here.

Um yeah, I I agree that it's like another again, it's not urgent that we do it.

I think you know everybody we talked to about it, is like, oh, you guys need to be bad.

It's ridiculous that you're even up there for that.

Um and and to council member Peacock's point, um, we'll ask Mrs.

Walker, charter amendments go to the state.

Yeah.

They go to the governor and take a year.

Our last one took a year of it.

Almost a year to be very much less time sensitive than the other issues that that you've discussed the seat is push for the same for government.

Asking voters for a bond for a shelter, asking for other things and ask even though a pay increase for us would not be a tax increase.

Um it still would be viewed or people would still looking at asking for money for the low bank.

Uh so not an urgent thing.

Um, I would say that the term part of it about or not the term, but the swearing in part as a as a uh charter amendment, so that we're not waiting five months to get sworn in.

Um that one I think doesn't interfere with a shelter bond or no.

So uh and that that one the longer you push that off, the the longer out before it takes effect because you don't want to affect anybody currently in office.

Uh your your end date, you signed up for a two-year term, that's what you deserve to get.

The people who filed for election for February does signed up for a two-year term, so you really kind of have to push that out a little bit.

Um, so that when you are um filing for that election, you know exactly when it begins and when it ends.

Yeah.

Um so that one uh right now it would begin in uh uh 2028.

This was again a a math problem for me.

I didn't map it all out, but I think this is right.

Uh beginning in 2028, the even numbered wards would begin at that early date, earlier date, and then beginning in 2029.

Um the council members elected, those years for odd numbered wards would begin that first Tuesday following the April runoff.

And so uh I don't know if I'm interpreting this right, but so the sixth shall begin at 6 30 in the evening on the first Tuesday following the date of the schedule.

Do we need to include the time?

Do we want to lock in a time?

I mean, 6 30 is our regular meeting, that's fine.

Yeah, and then wanna say it always has to be 6 30 forever until a voter change.

The only thing is that time is what's says this is when your term ends and the next one begins.

Okay, that's fine.

It puts a definite we have that in there now, and then that's why we do that swearing in ceremony at 6 30 p.m.

Okay, and then the swearing in part the first Tuesday of the following the date of the schedule runoff election for such offices.

So um if I'm elected in February, there's no runoff for me.

I have to wait till April until there is a if there's a runoff in some other ward, I have to wait.

But if there's not, then we all get sworn in.

No, everyone gets sworn in in April because when you set the election for February, you're also setting the runoff date, so there's always a scheduled runoff date, whether we need it or not.

That way everyone's getting sworn in at the same time.

Yeah, if there's a runoff and it's in April with the swearing in, then have to wait 60 days after, which would be June.

Okay.

So if if there's a runoff in April, then everybody gets sworn in immediately.

Right.

The the following Tuesday.

The following Tuesday.

The election result should be certified by then.

The date to challenge the election will have passed.

Um two and a half.

You get a two-month runway to figure out.

And then if you get no runoff, you got a week.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, but that's how other cities do it.

City you get sort in the very next Tuesday.

It's a city of almost a school board.

We did it this way before.

This was this was a change because I think people were concerned about coming in sort of in the middle of the budget process.

But then the downside of that is you have this long waiting period if you get elected in February until you can take office in July, and you don't get to weigh in on the budget process formally at all.

It was a tale of two years for me.

It was being elected and waiting to get sworn in took forever, and having to explain to people why I wasn't mayor yet.

Yeah.

Yep.

After they voted, and months after they voted, and then once getting sworn in, it's been like that to this point.

So okay.

So any preference on that particular thing being on the April ballot, or want to put wait and put that together with another.

I think it goes on the April ballot.

Sure.

It doesn't affect anything else.

It's not like you say it's not asking for anything.

Asking them to allow us to be sworn in sooner.

So just now and then it's gonna be another year or two before the governor signs off on it anyway.

That one you might want to get in the tail.

Yeah, I don't mind 30.

Although I prefer that council and mayor have four year terms like uh more in Oklahoma City and several other cities around us do.

Um don't necessarily feel real strongly about messing with that or uh dealing with that at the moment.

Yeah, that's part of what we floated last time to the voters is a three-year term.

Yeah, three for council, four for me, I think it was.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm gonna say I'm okay with the term uh swinging in yeah, being in April.

So that's four questions.

What is the is that still like one page on a ballot?

It's actually five questions because it I'm assuming we still want to put the auditor on April.

That's what I was about to say, auditors forgot about auditor.

Uh they limit me on the word count.

But I I don't know.

You're not limited.

Yeah.

Um the only limitation is that you can't have a question on the same ballot as an officer.

So all of those that have board elections, there would they that would be on a separate ballot, and then the other other questions would just be held community they could fit.

And they could do front and back, yes.

I can't remember.

And if the auditor we would just questions we fit, but they were pretty long and the auditor would just be changed.

Make sure the shelter's the first question that's asked about it.

If only we got to choose.

Actually, I don't know, they got the last one.

Um the auditor question was the uh qualification.

Qualification part just like clarification, yeah.

So five questions in April, it looks like yes, okay.

Or potential shelter bond.

How much as long as that remains on there, that'd be court.

Oh, yes.

If uh yeah, if that question mark well, we'd say that we can't make we can't make the April deadline for the array's day if they rule tomorrow.

If we got a freaking verdict tomorrow, Friday morning.

They usually release opinions, I think on Tuesdays.

So we have windows passed.

We haven't even heard rumor like that it's gonna come this week.

I mean, somebody would have heard a rumor about that by then.

They've been on a holiday break.

So yeah, they're the backlogs.

Probably not.

So it could be a June question for that.

November so right now we're looking at April shelter bonds, um street bonds, um visitor tax.

Visitor tax increase only.

With RV, but that's the same question.

Right.

Right.

Um term of office, term of office.

Yeah, okay.

So just five.

Just five.

Just five.

Okay.

Four of them, well, it's six elections.

We'll require two ordinances.

So not in April, no one will be six.

So you'll have that's part of why you're just in April, you're right.

Yeah.

And then I think we started maybe it was the meeting in December.

I'm trying to remember when we first started talking about the charter amendments.

Did we not talk about like a TIFF one that had been proposed a while ago and potentially bringing it back?

Yes, but that's scheduled for Thursday, I think, for further discussion, right?

And oversight to talk about ways to approach that.

So if that ends up being something that gets put on the ballot that could be in June.

Yeah.

Um but we'll we'll have some more discussion about that, I think on Thursday.

Okay.

But I just wanted to address that because I got a question, like I thought you guys talked about that.

Where is that in the process?

Yeah, if I we'll talk about it some more, but I recall you saying that the election board under state law could and would refuse to hold an election for that.

They could.

Uh what they're only supposed to do the elections they're authorized to do, and there's some language out there that indicates that it that if there's not an authorization for it in the local development act, there is an authorization for an election for initiative petitions and referendum petitions, but not a general election.

So that's is that what the charter review committee worked on way back when they looked at this uh in 2019.

We met for probably three years, it seems like because of COVID, but um they looked at that.

I think the amount posed in the question by council was for five million dollars.

Any TIFF proposed over five million because we voted the people, and they ultimately didn't send that forward because it conflicted with the local development act.

Uh no, they didn't, they didn't they weren't supportive of the question.

Okay, I'm good to know.

Uh-huh.

Thanks.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, then same thing as the other ones.

Um, staff will go forward with putting it on the agenda for next Tuesday.

Um, but if we have any other thoughts, feelings, feedback before then it gives you any pause, we can remove it from first reading.

If over the next three weeks we find out that any of these five items we don't feel comfortable going forward, we can postpone them at that point as well on the 27th if we need to.

So um indefinitely or till a certain date or whatever we come up with.

So um, so take your time this week, think about it, and uh let staff know if you have any other thoughts that come up and yeah.

Any other final comments or questions about this part?

Okay, then this meeting is adjourned.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, council.

You know that committee that you just talked about the bid committee.