All right, everybody, it's five o'clock and pretty much everybody's here.

So we'll go ahead and get started with the city council special meeting for Tuesday, May 5th, 2026.

We have four items on the agenda.

The first one is a discussion regarding the FYE 2026 capital improvements program budget and FYE 2028 through 2031 capital improvements plan.

And we have city staff here to discuss that with us.

Thank you, Marion Council.

I'm name is Jacob Huckabee.

I'm a budget analyst in the finance department.

I joined with our finance director Clint Mercer to talk about the fiscal year ending 2026 and 27 capital improvements projects proposed budget.

So basically just going over everything that you'll be considering for adoption when that comes to you in June for the adoption meeting.

So first, just kind of talking about the book itself.

So not every single city fund is going to be in the capital budget.

As you can see here, the list mainly gonna be those that are not the general fund that have their own revenue sources for these capital projects.

And there's also in the books some project requests out of the utility funds, but those are gonna have their own meeting on May 19th to go over those funds and the projects uh in more detail with utility staff as well.

Um so just a brief overview of what the book looks like look like.

It's a little bit different than the big budget book.

Um so it starts off with an executive summary, just going over as you read through by fund what's in those funds, uh, the project appropriations, and then it gives an overview of the capital improvements plan, just talking about uh where we uh get a lot of these projects from, how the process works, why the book is structured the way it's structured, um, and then it gets into the funds and the project detail.

So each of the tabs is gonna be for an individual fund.

In those funds, you're gonna have your fund summary, which is just the overall how we get to those fund balances at the end of each year and projecting it out five years.

Then you get into the project tables, which is gonna be a list of every active project in that fund, as well as the uh request in FYE 27, and then um some project schedules projecting out through FYE 28 and 31.

Um, and then each of those requests in FYE 27.

If you go through the book, are gonna have a project sheet, which uh it's gonna contain a description, gonna contain some more details on uh what those funds, if it's gonna be for design, construction, things like that in those projects.

And then um it just ends off with the uh the glossary and some maps whenever that final budget is printed.

Um starting off, we uh have the largest in the book.

It's gonna be capital sales tax fund.

Um so this is gonna be the sales tax portion.

Um so this expenditure graph is gonna be based off of um we've talked about in a few of the previous meetings, the guidelines.

These are the kind of main categories that we look at um where we want to put these sales tax funds, what are kind of the key areas that council has previously outlined as like high priorities for the capital sales tax.

Um so as you can see, the highest one is gonna be the other projects and debt service at 32 percent.

And there are some questions at the last meeting about whether or not there is any how much of that was debt service.

And um right now in this um fiscal year, all that's gonna be in projects.

Um we haven't had any debt service in the capital fund for a few years.

Um, all the line items in the fund summary are just gonna be those expenditures for the projects and not paying off the debt service within the fund.

That 32% right now is not any debt service.

Yes, it is all projects, yes.

We have a debt service fund and we pay for those.

And when or at some point there probably will be some debt service.

Um I think I might have asked if we could have that be a its own piece of that pie chart so council can see, if the public can see, everybody can see.

Uh, whenever there is debt service, exactly how much we think that you did you mention that might have been there might have been some complication exactly parsing it out.

I'm not sure.

We have a debt service fund that the the governmental debts paid out of.

Sometimes we have some smaller things like um we had some lease stuff, uh, we had some uh um some other small items that that came out of here, but that we haven't had that in a while.

So perfect.

Okay.

And then the next largest one is gonna be the capital outlay or the capital equipment, and then street maintenance at 21%.

So everything is pretty close to where the guidelines within one percent um where we want to be.

I think the main difference is gonna be in information technology, those are the where we set aside the amount for the the software and hardware infrastructure updates, some of those big costs.

Um that's a little bit higher this year because we did uh include, as we'll talk about later, the uh radio maintenance contract for the city's radio system and IT in that.

So that's that looks a little bit off compared to the guidelines, but um everything else is pretty much right where we want it to be.

And so in total, the projected capital sales tax revenue is 17,633,956, and the proposed capital sales tax expenditures are 17,524,617.

And so uh we come out with uh just over 109,000 dollars uh in the positive in the capital fund, which uh was where we wanted to be with this one.

If I recall the IT piece was created by taking some of the street maintenance, yeah, and then creating IT and it was five percent if I remember uh seven five percent IT, yes, and then now it's nine, so yeah, but that was something we didn't have, I guess, dedicated and is a growing issue uh information technology, um packing ransomware, all that type of stuff, right?

Okay, and so that's probably one that we'll I would expect to see continue to grow most likely as well.

Yeah, or we'll need to, and council will have to decide how to handle that going forward.

Um so getting into the the actual project categories themselves.

Um I'll just kind of highlight a few to go through.

Um first we have the capital outlay, that's the 4,728,384.

Um, as you can see how the little note there kind of breaks down what those categories themselves within capital outlay are.

The largest of those is gonna be that 2.5 million for the fleet and vehicles, which uh leaves the remaining uh I think it's like 2.19 million dollars for just general equipment, public safety equipment, uh computer replacements, things like that, and then about $92,000 in undesignated outlay.

Um we have $3,450,000 in street maintenance projects that are all funded with the capital sales tax.

So this will be in addition to uh the recently approved street maintenance bond program.

And if that had not been renewed, that would be our street maintenance budget for the year for the entire city.

Yes, pretty good, and with it it's around 11%.

So the appropriation is around $8 million for this year at 8.2, I think total with the bonds included in that.

Um and so in that street maintenance category, there's a few different subcategories of projects with uh asphalt uh concrete preventative maintenance, uh not crack seal, not prevent maintenance.

And so um that 3.4 million total makes up a few different projects, and then we have the 900,000 dollars for the IT hardware and software projects, and that doesn't include the the radio contract, and then we have 899,000 in maintenance of existing facilities.

That's gonna be made up of about 16 individual projects this year.

Um, that kind of works similarly to the PC uh replacements where we send it to facility maintenance all the requests for those and he ranks them, and we just kind of work our way down when we get that uh target of the five percent.

And so um it makes up $199,000 for that one.

We have $2.4 million in various stormwater projects um related to drainage projects for rehabilitation, repairs, things like that.

We have $500,000 for sidewalk projects, and we'll get into a little bit more detail on those sidewalk projects on the next slide.

$300,000 for ADA compliance, um, one million dollars for our sales tax funded pay-go for age maintenance project.

Uh this is again in addition to the bond program.

So we have an additional amount uh being appropriated in the bond uh section as well.

And so in total with all these recurring expenditures for FYE27, we have 16,207, and 423 dollars in these uh recurring high priority projects.

Um so some more detail on these sidewalk projects.

Um the the detail on the project for the locations haven't changed since the last meeting.

Um but we have 100,000 for the schools and arterials program, um, which is gonna be from Alameda Street from Class in to Morningside Drive.

We have 45,000 for the sidewalk accessibility project, which is gonna be on Brookhaller Road uh to Parkside Road and Brittany Court.

We have 125,000 for the citywide sidewalk project, which is um the project where they go in and they can partner with uh property owners to repair some uh private sidewalks.

We have $50,000 for the downtown area sidewalk project, and that's gonna be along Garver Street from North Berry Road to the east 400 feet, 140,000 for the sidewalks and trails projects, and 40,000 for the horizontal saw cut program.

So that makes up that 500,000 from the previous slide.

Council More Grant.

Are we typically spending 500,000 every year or is that gone up?

It's pretty consistent.

I think there was a few extra in the previous years that were council recommendations, but it's usually around the $500,000.

Pretty consistent.

And the no, I was just I remember that some years, you know, a lot of us were asking for specific projects.

So in the uh the downtown area sidewalk project.

So is there any definition of what downtown is?

Because Garver Street is in Ward 4, it's in core Norman, but it's it's not really near what I would consider to be downtown Norman at all.

It's it's by Norman High to the West, so it's not any downtown Yeah.

I'm not I'm not sure on the actual boundaries of what that project covers.

Um I don't know if anyone if it just means all of core Norman, so or like all of Ward 4, then we might clarify that.

But if it's intended for downtown, I think we should focus it on downtown specifically, probably.

But that's something we might want to clarify and then some public works.

Yeah, that's a good question.

And we'll we'll find out that for sure.

I don't think that is specifically the downtown, it's downtown and then an extended area around so that if you're coming into downtown that it's affecting like that.

Uh but we'll get you for sure maintenance from that.

That'd be great.

And so then uh the last slide, just kind of touching on the last few projects in the capital sales tax fund.

Uh, we have a few that have the extra projects that are not uh typically in the recurring section.

We have that city radio uh maintenance for a 520,000 uh 27,640 dollars.

Uh that amount is gonna fluctuate kind of in different years.

I think there's some in that contract, some scheduled uh replacement of certain equipment, and so that that contract does go up a little bit and then back down.

Uh, we have 196,123 for the contribution to the regional transportation authority, $105,000 to update the 2018 ADA transition plan, and then $225,000 for the monument signs project.

And on the contribution of the RTA, um, that's been ongoing for a number of years now.

With a pending funding question, this may be the last budget where that's in it.

Um hopefully it's it's uh paid for by the uh ballot question that'll go out either late 2026 or early 2027.

So that would mean you know, in future budgets, there's an extra 196,000 to go towards sidewalks or projects if you're choosing.

Council Mr.

Green.

Did I get a refresh on the monument signs?

Uh so um the the first monument sign, uh, that's a David Riesland project on I-35.

I would say near um Ruby Grant Park.

Ruby Grant Park.

Thank you.

So uh and uh Devlin, when do we think we'll see movement out there on the big monuments?

It should be out for bids tomorrow.

Oh my gosh, very quickly.

It's uh architecturally significant anticipated drivers will be pulling over and taking pictures, welcome to Norman.

We'll we'll uh recirculate what was what was approved by council going forward.

So thank you.

Glad you're there.

Sure.

Okay, um, and also with the RTA thing.

Um that's been a joint funded venture between Norman and OKC and Edmund.

Used to more in a Midwest City and Dust City, we're also partners, but they dropped out a few years ago.

But the three cities have been funding this every year for over a decade now.

Um funding the organization and its process to get to the point where they could develop plans and bring something to voters to consider.

And so, like Darrell was saying, if this regional funding source is approved, then we would no longer be funding the organization's operation anymore.

Uh is the way I visually view it as well.

So we'll see how that goes, of course.

But that's how we ended up with that.

Councilmer Dixon.

No, no, no.

Okay.

Yes.

I mean, we just have the uh the last portion is gonna be the appropriations for the various general obligation bomb programs.

Uh so first we have the um in April, it was renewed to of the a renewal of the 2021 street maintenance program.

So it's gonna be the 2026 street maintenance bond program now.

Now we have $4,775,335 in that program covering the five different categories.

Uh out of the 2019 transportation bond program, we have two million seven hundred and twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy dollars for a few different projects in that program being appropriated.

Uh in the 2023 bridge maintenance bond program.

So this is in addition to the million the million dollars out of the sales tax portion.

We have uh uh million and a half coming for that one.

And then we also have where the voters approved in uh April the permanent shelter and resource facility.

Uh we're just appropriating that full eight million dollars that'll be coming in for that project, so it's ready to go.

And I believe the 2019 transportation bond program this year is kind of closing out the last of that 2019.

2012.

2012.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, so 367 is the last 2012 bond.

2019 has several left or something.

Yeah, but these are the outstanding bond programs we have right now.

It's two street-related one maintenance, one for expansion, and then a bridge maintenance, and then now a shelter construction.

So any other bonds besides almost 2012 bond are have been paid off and retired.

I mean uh so then looking at the capital fund as a whole.

Um, the FYE 27 projected available for new projects is gonna be negative 8.5 million dollars.

Uh so again, this is that that number where we take the ending fund balance, which I think for FY27 is around 37 million dollars, and we factor in all those reserved for the bond projects, and then we also include the assumption that all of the previously appropriated projects are gonna be spent down to zero, and that's where we get this number just to kind of see which direction we're heading.

Um do we have anything available for new projects?

And um, so that's why the last few years we've been sticking with the if we add anything new, we take it from an existing project somewhere, either in the budget process or a previously approved project.

Um, and so we're still in that position.

Um, but um as it was noted earlier, we were able to keep all the expenditures underneath revenue, and so we're still uh maintaining a pretty good pace uh in the capital fundamental.

So not spending more than we have.

That's the projects lining up.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then moving on, uh, just uh finally touching on the Norman Forward sales tax fund.

There's only two appropriations in this fund.

Uh the first is gonna be the 650,000 for the neighborhood park improvements project, and then another 21,000 for the public arts projects.

That's just a part of that one percent dedicated uh from the Norman Ford fund into public arts.

Uh, and then we just also have the uh three different debt service payments in the Norman Ford fund, the 2015, 2017, and 2020 bonds.

Uh, I believe those are anticipated to be paid off by all three of them by 2032, I think is the final on the 2020.

And so that's it for the Norman Ford sales tax fund.

And that's all that I have this evening.

If there's any questions or comments, any questions about this part?

Consumer Dixon.

I was gonna ask, like maybe two or three slides ago when we showed the negative numbers, that one.

I think we all in here understand that, but I do think it creates confusion um outside of this room and outside of this body.

Is there a different or better way we could show that?

So that I mean, because uh I mean you see a lot of people say, Oh, like we're you know, negative nine point you know, three million dollars.

Well, we didn't overspend nine million dollars.

Um worst case scenario.

I mean capital projects are multi-year.

Sure, so there's no way we would ever get there, you know.

But um, I don't know if they're looking good.

I just I don't know if there's a better way to let us do a little dig, and I think there's probably a anytime there's a picture that's worth a thousand words.

We'll see if we can come up with maybe a graphic that demonstrates what happens in the real world based on our capacity to deliver capital projects versus the timing of the funding.

So we'll work on that.

We'll see if we can't come up with a better pictorial uh before budget adoption.

Yeah, so we'll simulate face things too.

Yeah, we don't agree.

It looks like we're losing nine point three million dollars.

We don't have that much money in the bank to and we're not allowed to debt or deficit spend.

So there's no way we could even do that unless we had a massive budget surplus, but we don't.

So but I agree that it's that's what people see is like oh, the city's got yeah, nine million dollars in debt.

So we issued eight million dollars in bonds for the shelter, and it gets paid off over 20 years.

So the revenue's coming in over there, but the we could show the expense in full.

Okay.

We'll work on that.

Counselor Kirby.

On the last one where it said the 650,000 to the parks, is that just for like neighborhood parks itself, or does that cover like baseball fields and stuff around?

So that project is just for neighborhood park improvements.

Uh there's other projects within a Norman Ford fund that were approved for like Reeves Park.

But this uh project specifically was for those neighborhood parks and to uh revamp those and get those updated.

So we we have about a we have a five-year plan that's going on with Norm Ford that we redo every five years for uh our neighborhood parks, and we we can send out that email usually we run run that through partboard, but there was uh about six million dollars that was set aside in Norm Ford, it was focused just for neighborhood parts.

Uh and uh that can cover anything from putting a backstop into a field to replacing playgrounds, replacing walking trails, benches, any other amenities, and uh when you're talking about a neighborhood park, and we like to throw this number out, but the people understand the scope of things when you replace a playground in a neighborhood park, it's about 200,000.

So uh and we have playground infrastructure all the way through through uh the park system that is approached 25 to 30 years old.

So we have a list of priority that that goes along with replacing those playgrounds.

So do you consider the park at Alameda and Carter like a neighborhood park, or is that no?

That is a uh that's that's more of a special use park.

Um so a neighborhood park is a park that comes along with uh like a neighborhood development uh that's set aside through through land dedication through that process.

Any other questions for staff about that?

So sometimes just to follow up on that, so sometimes developers do they put they dedicate the park land either through a fund through funding to go towards park improvements nearby where they dedicate land in the development for park and then we put in the playground later or they do, and then we maintain it.

Uh so if it is a city neighborhood park, when they come in and plat that neighborhood, it uh depending on what they want to do, it's either they can set aside land for a public park or they can do a private park or they can do fee and loo.

Uh so those are your your three options, and then every time a building permit is pulled, uh there is a uh impact fee that goes along with that that house that goes to either developing that park or the nearest part to that neighborhood.

I don't know if that explains your question.

Yes.

Any other questions for staff on this part?

Say none.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

All right, item number two is a discussion regarding proposed ordinance creating a process for application and evaluation of proposed tax increment financing districts, and city attorney Catherine Walker is usually like we could play killer just for the winds over here.

That's even those more across lines here on a campaign the timeless.

When you see it, maybe some of them is cool.

I think they're plastic, but they're not as cool for the wire frame on supposed to be.

I know I found a website and they're scratch proof uh glare blue lighters and all that are you not wearing one.

At least we're $15.

Yeah, no brand.

Until I buy in brown rectangles and like the I had a pair of uh prescription ray bands for like a decade lost them, obviously.

I didn't not go buy those.

I can't have my sunglasses or prescription a little bit.

Because I'm so bad.

Me too.

If I wear regular sunglasses, I can't see anything.

Yeah, sorry.

Do you want to like shade change anymore?

Yeah, that's not really.

So tonight we're here to talk about a proposed ordinance that's come from the last five months, four months and oversight committee.

I know several of you have been in oversight committee at every meeting, and some of you have stepped in and listened to a few of the presentations, but uh we've been working on an ordinance uh that would create a process by which the city would evaluate TIFFs, receive applications for the creation of TIFF districts and things like that.

In the past, we've had um four TIFFs, I guess.

Um Campus Corner, uh, which I think came in in the early 2000s as a request of the Campus Corner Merchants Association in coordination with City Council, Center City, which was city-led, city driven, um, and then UNP and the Rock Creek Entertainment District.

Um so they can come in all different shapes and sizes, and and they may be council driven.

I know you guys have talked about some other ones, uh, but they may also just be a developer out wanting to do a project and needed some assistance.

And so we wanted to create a process so we can look at these and evaluate them in a more uniform way.

Uh, this was what the new process looks like, and I'll go into each step in a minute, but you can see it's about a six-month-long process, probably.

Kind of depends on how long each committee takes to review uh the proposal, but we'll have an application.

There's quite a bit of staff analysis that will have to be done, and I'll share that with you in just a minute.

And then uh the creation of an ad hoc stakeholder committee, and then using our existing economic development advisory board to review the the uh proposal, and then the bottom steps are really the local development act required steps.

So statutory review committee, planning commission, and city council.

Um the ordinance starts with a statement of policy, and then it will be codified in section 12 of our code, which is for finance.

Um, and this is generally the pod the policy.

It's hard to summarize it, it's a little bit lengthy, but you've got that in your handouts or the materials that were attached to the agenda.

Essentially, it recognizes that TIFFs can be a tool for economic development through strategic strategic investment of future tax revenues and projects that directly support the revitalization and growth of historic preservation reinvestment or enterprise areas, those are areas identified in the local development act.

Uh use of TIFF revenue should support efforts to concentrate public resources for substantial and significant public benefit.

It expresses a general preference for ad valorum only TIFF districts, but it's doesn't prohibit sales tax increments.

So if something came along that council thought was worth exploring that needed a portion of the sales tax increment, that could still uh be considered.

Um benefits accruing from the TIFF should be appropriate for the costs that will result and should be equitable to the city as a whole.

Uh the application is covered in section 12-706.

The application would be submitted to the city manager, and there's quite a few materials that need to be submitted with it.

Um, a one-page summary of the district uh projects and increment, legal description map, economic feasibility study, some assessed value information, a proposed project and financing plan, uh complete tax increment projections for the entire term of the TIFF, which can be up to 25 years, and then uh oversight committee really wanted to have some ability to get um input from neighboring property owners, and so at this time they would submit a complete pre-development application packet.

May not be ready to go forward to pre-development yet, but we want to make sure that we've got that information in those neighbors identified, and that'll help with your ad hoc committee selections as well.

Um, and then a payment of an application fee.

So one percent of the proposed project cost up to 10,000.

I didn't want to be uh too heavy-handed here.

We just want to uh cover the city's cost in evaluating the project.

If we have to hire someone to do some analysis for us, we want to be able to cover that.

Um, it could be refunded though to the developer of the applicant if the project plan is adopted and it allows for city reimbursement of costs related to evaluation of the application, and uh our project plans typically do have that permission.

Council Bruce Follow you.

Sorry.

So we see it in my feasible studies.

It's not like a form of package from the applicant.

This is what I need to break even, is where I need to make a profit as it relates to public funding.

It's it's that, yes, um, and also just the ability to complete the project overall.

So it would look at what they need in terms of private financing, public financing, and and uh a sense of how the project will perform.

Okay, and so the the city will evaluate that basic but any thought about having a third party paid by the applicant, but we select that third party for an independent economic analysis with the city.

Yes, outside of the city, but the city has access to it.

Yeah, so that's really what the application fee is for uh to allow us to go out and get if we need it an independent study.

Some some projects would be fairly straightforward, but some might be complicated, and we might want to bring someone in from the outside uh to look at that.

So, yes, and and I'll get into what the staff role is, but it is a lot uh of evaluation of the economics of the proposed project.

So should should there be a dollar amount associated with that?

Because I can think of some be a lot more than 10,000 to get it really Yeah, you're you're right.

Um what we would do, I think is if it was a really complicated project, we don't want to be so expensive that no one could apply, you know, a smaller development could apply that might really be interested or might be a really good project for council.

Um so we didn't want it to be onerous, but we could if we get to a point um we get a really complicated proposal that's gonna require an outside study.

We definitely would ensure the project plan would allow us to reimburse ourselves for that cost, but we would we could also work with the applicant to identify funding for that.

If I'm a developer, I'm gonna do my due diligence and give my package with city, and I would welcome a third party selected by the city to do that third party analysis.

And it also welcome the city to hey love to have yours as well.

Yeah, does that make sense?

Yeah, it is it does.

Um, and that's I think that's been our experience for the most part is uh we've brought in at times outside firms to look at the project, and it's not been an issue with the it's been a coordinate for question, right?

It could by a third party.

So, as I said, the staff analysis is going to be uh pretty detailed.

Uh lists a long list of questions and things that that they're looking to answer in that analysis on page two, three, and four of the attached ordinance.

Um, but you can kind of see a summary here.

So looking at public purpose, the financial success, what public improvements are needed, uh, but not just financial things.

How will this um how will this help other areas of Norman?

How will how will it serve as a catalyst for other investment?

Um so you can see there it's looking at a lot of different things to help identify whether this is a worthwhile project.

Um section 12703 also talks about the staff analysis being in addition to and the requirements being in addition to statutory requirements.

The local development act requires uh some analysis that this imposes city requirements on top of that, and it would require that but for test.

Uh Harvey versus City of Oklahoma City, a Supreme Court case says that uh enterprise zones, reinvestment areas, and historic preservation areas are per se meet the legislative guidelines under the statutory or under the local development act, rather.

So this would require that test to be done even when it's in an enterprise zone or redevelopment area or historic preservation area.

Uh we would be looking to see if the use of TIFF is appropriate.

Um, are there other uh incentives out there that might be more appropriate for the project or that might uh support the project and lessen the amount of the the TIFF request?

Um the area proposed for the TIFF district is projected to increase in real property uh taxable value within the first five years.

In urban areas, there's a preference for the TIFF supporting development or revitalization across multiple properties of separate ownership.

This is a little different than say Oklahoma City.

When you look at their downtown uh TIFF and their project plan, they have multiple increment districts that they might issue property by property.

So if you look at their website, the national, for example, uh, when that was being revitalized, I think back in 2016, they created an increment district that's just for that property.

This is different than that.

So it's really looking at benefiting multiple properties of separate ownership.

The first one but for TIFF funds development or redevelopment would not occur.

Is that any development would not occur, or the specific development that we've come up with couldn't occur?

Or what is that?

That's been a criticism we've heard about certain properties, is they would develop on their own.

And why would they need TIFF funds?

But they may not supporters would argue that well, this specific project wouldn't happen without TIFF funds.

Yeah, that's something uh we can talk about if we want to be more specific there.

I think what the ordinance says right now is just that uh development or redevelopment would not occur.

Councilman Bruce and then Kirby.

So words associated with time period.

What's the traditional model out there that other communities use as far as that time period?

For the length of the district.

Well, the length of but four.

Oh, I see what you mean.

There's not really a standard, the statute is pretty general as well.

Um, and so different uh project plans have addressed that in different ways, and it ends up being a determination of the city, um, whether or not you believe that development would have occurred.

I can see some things would be developed in a reasonable time, whatever that is.

This one's mine, but I can also see well is five years reasonable is ten or two or depends on the timeline of the city, what they want the city wants to happen.

And it might depend on the project too.

I mean, some areas are gonna probably be foreseeable uh that they would develop within five to ten years, other areas maybe have been stagnant for so long, you don't know when it would develop.

Um so I I think it's gonna be probably project specific.

Um, and Catherine, please correct me.

In in a in a concept of let's say the Griffin campus goes up for sale.

Is it reasonable to think that that would develop on its own?

Absolutely.

But it may be the market may say single family residential, and you may get 400 units out of what could be 1800 units following the council's master plan.

So yeah, it might develop, but it may not develop to the highest and best use that council recognizes, and that but for the TIFF, you're gonna get something less than what it could be potentially.

Well, they're string just a little bit of thread.

I think a time period is good sometimes.

I have a capital to come in and I'm not gonna do Griffith, I'm a developer, have the ability to finance, you know, have the money.

That's one party.

Potentially, yeah.

So maybe I'm not seeing multiple properties of separate ownership, multiple properties of separate ownership.

That would that's one property.

So I'm thinking what does D to do a situation like that?

Or hey, I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna buy the property griffin.

I mean uh griffin property, I mean I'm gonna go at all, it's gonna be multifamily housing eventually.

I'm I'm one I'm one party buying that.

I'm one owner until it's developed from that's a great question.

That's a great point.

And that may be something we want to tweak, just thinking through that example uh specifically, and when you look at Oklahoma City, it you know, it might be something that you don't want to just say no to the way they do that.

Um, because one of the good things about they the way they do that is, for example, the national increment district, that's the only increment the national gets, is what they create with their development.

One building.

So it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Um so really, I mean, that I'd love to hear from you guys on that.

And would the art would the argument in that case be that the national supports development and revitalization across multiple properties in downtown OKC?

That it's that it's near.

Yeah, you could definitely make that up.

But those those those properties aren't receiving a direct benefit of that TIFF, but they are potentially benefiting by the first national center, not being an abandoned skyscraper or tall building, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah, too.

Yeah, and maybe it's just a clarification of the TIFF project area versus an increment district because your project area will probably be broader, and in that situation, that's what's happened in Oklahoma City.

They have a large project area, but they haven't multiple increment districts for specific projects.

And so maybe that's one way to address that.

Councilmember Kirby.

So my question is this is how do we determine?

I get that the city council gets to, but you look at City and Norman, and we're owned by the same developers, the same people, the same, they own huge chunks of property.

So let's take, for example, the UMP TIFF.

It's owned by multiple people, but I wouldn't say there was lack of doubt the development between MNE and everything was already being developed down through there, but we've decided it needed to be a TIFF, even though we had current development because it had set owned by what the university and maybe a couple other people for the last well, our whole life.

So it said they're empty.

But it wasn't because people didn't want to build there, it was because the people who own the property didn't want development yet.

They weren't ready for it yet.

Perfect swing is another example, set there for 20-something years, the hotel over near Robinson set there for how many years condemned.

How long will we let private individuals control how dead an area stays?

Is kind of what I want to know because perfect swing could have been developed 30 times over where it sits people would have loved to buy it.

We just built the hospital there.

But is the new owner going to come in and ask for a TIFF to redevelop that when if another person would have bought it, it could have been developed without a TIFF.

So who gets to decide when an area has been slow, considering the fact that it may be six people who own all the areas that are slow in this town?

If a person buys up a whole area and then just sits on it, are we going to consider that not buildable or slow?

Because I mean, to me, that's letting certain individuals control the path of which Norman grows, and then we're going to give them taxpayer assistance every time they decide to finally develop that property.

So my question is is when a property sales and a new owner buys it.

Do we instantly give them a TIF or do we wait five years to see if that can be developed without the assistance of taxpayers?

I mean, I feel like taxpayers are awful stressed, and they took away our ability to raise the water fund when they thought we were out of control with spending.

If we keep poking these TIFs, they're gonna take away our power to use a TIFF without the vote of the people.

Yeah.

We've had one TIFF initiated by the city, the center city TIFF campus corner by campus corner, business, campus corner association, whatever.

Um, with support of the city and jurisdictions, and then original UMP TIFF initiated by the property owner.

Right, it was the OU Foundation, and that one's interesting because um when that proposal first came forward, the council at that time actually appointed an ad hoc committee to look at it.

And out of that committee came, I think what the OE Foundation was requesting was public improvements only, $14 million, somewhere around there.

Um, and out of that citizen committee came a $54 million TIFF recommendation.

Um that's where Legacy Park and the conference center ideas came from.

That's where uh retail incentives and economic development incentives came from.

And so um the ask wasn't that great to begin with.

It was 24th and Robinson and Rock Creek Bridge.

Um, I think at the time, and of course, ODOT went back and forth on whether or not they provide that allowance for uh the Rock Creek bench, but beyond that, a lot of those ideas came out of the committee.

And so what this process is doing is not making the determination of whether it's appropriate or not for council, but trying to give you all of the information and input that you can get so that you guys can make that decision.

So, Catherine, and in a thing that may be of benefit for councilmember Kirby and and new council members in July.

Um, the initial conversation from council about the TIFF master plan, uh, there were ideas about where uh council believed TIFFs might be advantageous, but the underlying uh conditions, i.e.

not part of an opportunity zone or an enterprise zone, they're not TIFF eligible.

We couldn't put a TIFF on it if we wanted.

So there is a map.

We'll email that to you.

Council went over it uh in in a couple of study sessions, and we recognized we're kind of limited to where a TIFF can happen.

If council is totally on board, it's still limited by factors beyond your control.

Is it in an enterprise zone?

Isn't it an opportunity zone?

And those those don't change very often, but happy to share that with you so you'll know what is possible, and then you get to determine yes or no.

Yeah, I'm just gonna council member.

The uh in perfect swing is in speaking enterprise zone.

The new owner of perfect swing could ask for that if they want to, and we decide if we want to do that or not.

Um I'll come right back to you, council um council.

Were you done?

Councilmer Kirby.

Yeah, y'all go.

Councilmer Grant, then Bellogett, then Dixon, then the urban areas, TIF District should support development revalualization across multiple properties of separate ownership.

I was thinking maybe the project area might help clarify uh that because when we were discussing this, and I'll just use this particular neighborhood as an example.

Um North Flood between Acres and Robinson.

I've sent Catherine some of the suggestions those neighbors had about increasing walkability, beautification.

Um another ask I got asked this past weekend from somebody in that neighborhood is he and his partner are thinking about building an ADU.

We've talked about TIFS helping with affordable housing.

I was in coffee with council earlier and listening to a planning commissioner talk about how uh ADU for rentals just don't really pencil, they're better for multi-generational living.

So it's like I will throw that into the conversation because I think that would be appropriate, but they would be probably in the project area and not so much in the increment area.

So um, but anyways, that would be good to clarify.

Um, and especially with the GRIF and TIFF, we talked about the project area also benefiting their surrounding neighborhoods.

So there's that.

I also heard criticisms about the BUT 4.

Uh and I was gonna ask, is it in the local development act the butt for?

Yeah, so um what it says is uh it's part of the section with legislative guidelines.

It is the intent of the legislature that the provisions of this act be used in accordance with the following guidelines.

The tools of the act be used in cases where investment development and economic growth is difficult but possible if the provisions of the act are available, and that the tools not be used in areas where investment development and economic growth would have occurred anyway, and that the governing body take care to exclude areas to do not meet this criteria.

Elsewhere in the act, it says uh this is all um this is all carrying out a constitutional provision that allows for economic and development incentives, and elsewhere in the act it says those three areas, and this is why we focus on those enterprise zones, reinvestment areas, and historic preservation areas per se meet these guidelines.

Um, so you don't have to apply the butt for tests because the legislature has told us those areas qualify.

Okay.

Um I'm just thinking about like east downtown too, you know.

There are asks that I know our CIP budget is not going to cover anytime soon, like for public parking, uh colorful crosswalks, alleys getting fixed.

Um, you know, I've had other business owners tell me that they want active alley space, all that is all well and good, but you got to pay for it somehow.

So, you know, I'm thinking that you still tell a TIFF would help with that.

Uh in the butt for scenario, does that I mean I could say our capital improvement budget's not going to do this, and this is not gonna happen, therefore, if I use this or but four if I use this, then I can get those projects done.

Yeah, and if we need to massage that a little bit, we can.

Um you know, in reading these guidelines, it it didn't say in the first one I read that it uh where investment and development and economic growth would occur anyway.

It said where it's difficult but possible, and maybe that's more of the test you want to apply even to those enterprise zones areas because that's what you're describing there.

Is it possible?

Maybe on a building by early basis, yeah, maybe 50 years out, we don't know.

Uh, but is it difficult?

And this assistance would help it move at a pace that council wants.

Maybe maybe that's what the standard should be.

Um, I would be good with that, just because I think mostly we're thinking about just how slow areas have been, and I do hear council member Kirby about different property owners, but we don't have the tools like a land value tax or whatever to put um incentivize people who are property hoarding to do something with their property or sell it, and so lacking that tool.

Um it's hard.

And and uh we we were talking about this last week or the week before, I think at the minute we city of Norman tries to impose something like that.

I think we get preempted.

Yeah, which it happens famously when we just mentioned something.

But I will say other cities, um, you know, because we do OML, you know, they've been lobbying to do something about vacant properties in their downtown, which a much smaller city like Wagner, it's a big deal when you have some empty properties and you can't get the property owner to do stuff with them.

So it's not just a Norman problem, there are other cities that are struggling with property orders.

Councilmember bought it.

Um and I'll admit I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to tips, but I'm thinking of the schools.

Um so I've had conversations with people um in Norman that are concerned about how the um arena tip will impact Norman public schools, and so with this analysis that um you're presenting today.

Is it in there that we will analyze that closer?

Because I would really appreciate if we would look closer at that n going forward of how will this impact Norman schools?

Yeah.

So um part of this process that part is required for the project plan.

You have to have an an analysis for how the uh proposal will impact each taxing jurisdiction.

And so if you look at any project plan we've adopted, there's language in there containing that analysis.

Uh this process would actually add in the economic development advisory board to help with that.

So that board is a committee that we've had in the city for 10 plus years.

Um, and they have uh appointments for people with with economic and business experience who can help make that assessment.

I can tell you what we've done in the past is we have uh our outside council has figured out what that impact would be based on all the projections and having assumptions like the school state funding formula doesn't change, you know, those kind of things.

Um so estimating as best you can, then we meet with the school district who knows better than anybody how that comes in their door, you know, it each month is a check from the state, and they show us their numbers and we compare it, and we're typically pretty close.

Um and that's what's you is typically used in the project plan to to draft that um impact statement.

Okay, but this would add another layer to that with the feed app.

Great.

Councilmer Dixon.

Um Daryl answered partly what I was gonna mention is like we can't just have whatever we want to, but is it the commerce department that sets the enterprise zones?

Yes, oppree zones.

Um tip two.

Um I reached out to uh Brenda O'Brien, she's retired now, but she was the longtime Norman Public Schools CFO, and she told me that TIF2 contributed an extra 3.5 million dollars that Norman Public Schools wouldn't have received because of the way that TIFF was structured, it was roughly a 6040.

It was 5050 on the advanced side.

Okay, yeah.

It was 5050, so because that part's not part of the state deal, and so they had an increase of 3.5 million.

Um looking at an email from uh Dr.

Nick, um and I talked to Brenda about this also with TIPS four or tip five being a 100, they hadn't planned on receiving any of that, like because it just wasn't generating dollars for normal public schools, so it was not under budget.

Um so if the University of Oklahoma decided to turn that land into a butterfly garden for the next 25 years, they're not losing 127 million dollars.

It's just that schools didn't lose 127 million.

Um the foundation could do that.

I mean, that is something well within their right to just sit on their land and be a property owner.

Um I think that's all I had councilmember Bruce.

I just kind of echo that same concern related to property rights and use of land.

I'm an investor or small-time guy and I'm gonna wait for the best opportunity.

As long as I maintain the land and appropriate codes and you know it's not sitting vacant and to point where it's condemned, you know, should be condemned, but you know, do my due diligence, but whether I'm in ward five or ward three or four or land use is you know on the owner.

I think some folks would say, well, if you're waiting for that opportunity, then why are you asking for city support to do it if it's the right opportunity?

And uh I think the issues we've seen, like with the hotel in perfect swing are why people ask that question, but I mean that's there's also property owners like in those small towns, and even in Norman that don't have any money and can't afford to fix the building up, and then nobody wants to buy it because it's in bad shape, so they're just stuck with it.

And so I think it is pretty complicated when it comes to that.

In Oklahoma, it's especially hard for us to force property owners to do something as long as it's not a public safety hazard, right?

Basically, um and even then it can be a really lengthy drawn-out process to have a hotel, yes.

Yeah.

Councilman Engle, yeah.

Just uh kind of feed off of that.

When we look at areas like the Griffin land, that could potentially be something amazing.

I mean the last thing we heard is that they wanted to sell it as one piece of property, and maybe that happens, maybe it doesn't, but that land hasn't been surveyed or parceled off at all.

And so to find somebody that could come in and take down all of that land plus develop it all as one individual is going to be extremely difficult.

And I mean, especially if we want local development.

So breaking those down into smaller parcels to where more people can invest makes sense.

Um looking at the things that Councilmember Grant and I have and several of us have talked about with doing a master TIFF district.

I mean, one of the the master TIFF districts that we are looking at does include perfect swing.

Uh it includes a big chunk of Highway 9 and includes all of the new development that where the target in the Home Depot is going to be because it gives us an opportunity to catch that tax increment financing that we wouldn't catch otherwise to make infrastructure improvements.

So we got $35 million worth of bridge projects that are down there that could potentially be taken care of to get from ward five to Cedar Lane.

Um the things like that could take care of.

So it's not to me, it's it's not always you know what you're building, it's it's also an opportunity to potentially catch what's already coming and use it for the things that we need.

Council Member if it's in an enterprise.

So I'm gonna lean back around.

Um nobody's trying to control nobody on how they use their land just if they turn around and ask for the taxpayers to fund it after they set on it for 20 years is the issue.

Another issue is the fact that our fire department is so short, we're not taking care of it.

So if we're looking at TIFS and that one created 3.5 million extra for the schools because of the way it was writ, then shouldn't we make sure no future TIFFs are written without guaranteeing, like she just said, the schools, the fire, the police, and the city staff who's gonna have to maintain it for the next 25 years are fully funded and even throw a little extra percentage on it because the fact that we are short the amount of firemen we are and the amount of fire stations we are, and that we're not using a TIFF as an option to build four new fire stations.

I mean, Lawton did all their new uh drainage and utilities upgrade about $800,000, I think, off of a TIFF.

So if we're gonna keep building buildings and stressing our fire department, I would like to think that we can make sure that we have every truck we need, every driver we need, every captain, and every chief we need to make sure that when people go into these buildings, if a fire happens and somebody's responding over here on 12th, we still have a fireman and a driver to get a ladder track over and get in that building to rescue somebody where our residents are safe and our firemen are safe.

I mean, if we're gonna speed build and force TIFFs to get development going, then we need to at least pencil in that we have schools and we have firemen to protect the schools and the residents because right now we are letting our fire department down.

And if we're gonna push a TIP, the wording in it darn sure needs to make sure all this new development finds that fire department.

Just a couple of things.

The Lawton example is a great example.

Um we do have criteria in here to identify the public improvements that are needed, and so that is one way that Lawton used a TIFF is to find some public improvements for drainage and things and in their new um, I think it's a downtown TIFF, but it extends out pretty far to get some industrial land.

Personally in Ward 5, I'd rather see a tip for four fire stations than a tip for perfect swing to be developed into a super target and give a multi-billion dollar corporation a handout.

Yeah.

One other thing I want to point out about the TIFFs that we've done in the past, and this would continue is that we do not dedicate the dedicated sales taxes to TIFF increments.

So public safety sales tax to the extent a district brings in retail and and contributes to increasing that the sales tax.

Uh the public safety sales tax proportion is never apportioned off to pay for TIFF costs.

So that that helps the police and fire.

Um that's the same for transit, um, and I guess tax tax.

Guess tax Norman forward, yes, thank you.

Um, so all of those continue to see the benefit without dedicating those revenues.

We could dedicate the revenues, but we never have, and I don't think uh would dedicate those revenues to pay project costs because those are um those are dedicated but approved by the voters for a certain purpose.

We've looked at hotel tax before that is allowed, but we've never even done that one.

So we try to preserve all of those areas of funding, even as we dedicate some TIFF funds into project cost.

So we wouldn't be able to staff fire stations with TIF funds, but we could we build fire stations with TIFF funds?

Um public buildings, city buildings, yeah.

I mean, if it's identified in the project plan, the the the thing you have to remember is those don't contribute to the tax base.

Yeah, you know, city property doesn't contribute to the tax base, so there has to be some way to generate revenue, and there may be developments where you know we're building.

I'm totally making the set.

This is not in any plans, uh, seven, eight story, you know, apartments or something, and we'd need a ladder truck for that.

And so that would be an obvious addition to the project plan uh that we could include as a public improvement.

Center city TIFF funds could they're not in, they're not it was not planned for that, but center city TIF funds could be used to build a new fire station one if it was in the center city district, yeah, or and or pay for a ladder truck yeah, because identified in the in the project plan as an authorized project cost, and you know, if it's if it's if the need is established because of what the project plan is accomplishing, then that would make some sense.

Yeah, okay.

Councilmember grant and then actually it was PR.

Yes, yeah, grant oh um it was related to the conversation about Griffin and then you know diverging funds from the school and everything.

And I just wanted to draw on the example of Griffin, and that you know that has been state-owned property um since it was owned by the state, um, and therefore has never contributed anything.

There's no property tax has been collected on it ever.

And so to Scott's point, Consumer Dixon's point.

Um the school district, the vote, the library system, none of them have recounted on that in their funding formula, and so nothing is being taken away from them currently.

Increment that is created could be potentially, but at the end of 25 years, that all goes back to the tax insurance as well.

So it's only a temporary deferment.

Um, and like as you know, Ms.

Walker said, all those entities are part of the statutory review committee process, so they all have a say in whether or not you know they feel comfortable with the TIFF as proposed or if they want to make any recommended changes to it.

Um, so there are checks and balances along the way to where those entities have say and can't put the put their fingerprints on it, and so I just think it's important to note that.

Another thing to remember too is it doesn't always have to be a 100% TIF.

So you don't have to take 100% of the property tax generated and and reinvest it in TIFF project costs.

You could do a split so that half of it goes to the taxing jurisdictions, and as council member dipson pointed out, the portion going to the school passes outside of the state aid formula.

So the school ends up benefiting that way.

Um same with sales tax.

Um if you know if you're not if you're you're uh developing a project that will include retail, so you get additional sales tax that you weren't getting before.

That doesn't mean you have to take that sales tax and reinvest it back into the project.

It could be that it's a split.

You know, we've done a 60-40 split before where 60% of the sales tax generated went back into the TIFF and 40% went to the general fund immediately.

Um, or it you may not dedicate any sales tax at all to it.

And so there are ways that the city can still benefit immediately on the sales tax side, um, depending on how you split up that increment.

Catherine, and something in back of my mind in um the UNP, the new one, um, a component about acreage being uh allocated to the school district at a discounted rate.

So yeah, there's a component in there where I don't remember there's 11 acres at a guaranteed price, which was substantially below current.

Whether it's remaining whether or not the school district chooses to build a school on it or sell it, they'll be able to sell it at current market value as opposed to what they're buying it for.

And that was something the school negotiated with with the OE Foundation.

So the first UMP or the first, so campus corners was all sales tax or some property tax.

Second one was the 6040.

Yeah.

And then Center City is a 90% property tax, no sales tax.

Right.

Right.

Campus Corner, I think was intended to be more retail sales tax, but allowed for some property tax.

And it wasn't a issue with it.

It was less than two million.

So center city is 90% property tax.

No sales tax.

Right.

And then new TIFF is 100% of both.

Yeah.

Councilmember Grant and then Cancer.

Um I also wanted to go back to the ad hoc committee that we'll create with uh folks.

Well, they be educated, because I did hear you when you said the first UNP kind of blew up ballooned uh because of that.

Uh I would like to make sure that that ad hoc committee has some education on how TIFFs are structured and uh what the trade-offs are, and I think whatever they come up with going through EDA, maybe that's a conversation between the entities.

Uh, because EDAP should definitely understand how you can structure a TIFF, especially if the ask from the committee is equitable, but they might need to scale back depend maybe they don't want to do a hundred percent property tax because they're concerned about the school part, for example.

Yeah.

Um so let's talk about that committee.

Umce we get that economic and risk analysis done at the staff level, whether it involves bringing in an outside firm or not, we would provide that to council, and then you guys would decide whether to appoint an ad hoc stakeholder committee.

If you don't think it's worth it at that point, the committee doesn't get appointed, and we're done.

Um what we have in here is that the committee would be made up of seven members representing businesses, residents, and nonprofits located within the project area, or a 350-foot radius thereof.

Um the committee back in the early 2000s.

I didn't staff that committee, I've just uh read all the minutes at one point.

Uh don't remember why, but listened to the meetings, went all in.

Um but they really operated somewhat independently.

Um, and it was made up because it was a vacant land, there was nobody that was uh a stakeholder, a direct stakeholder on the committee in the land other than one representative uh from OU.

Um, but it so it was more business people, retail developers, things like that uh that that um were on that committee.

I think with this committee being smaller and just representing businesses, residents, and nonprofits located within that area or adjacent to that kind of helps.

Uh but yes, any committee now that we we staff, we do an orientation with, and we will definitely include introduction to TIFF.

10101, yeah.

In the case of uh Rock Creek Entertainment District, residents from Sooner Station and Tara apartments.

I could have been included, some business owners or need uh too because of the young son.

And so okay, so but like you said, when uh the original one with an empty piece of land next to an airport and a high sandwiched in between an airport and a highway.

Right.

There was nobody around within that.

Yeah, so I think the council at that time wanted input, but there wasn't even directly impacted property owner other than OU.

Uh yeah, okay.

Councilman Gansbury uh because firefighters are very very important, then we'll go back to that also.

Um with us looking at the firehouse in particular and the people working there with DAR that safety number that the firefighters have got us for our insurance rate and everything.

Would that savings and insurance to all those businesses and possible you know new little living areas and everything like that?

Could that not count as revenue that it kind of produces because it saves that revenue to everybody else in the TIF I don't think it couldn't certainly couldn't be counted as TIFF revenue.

Um because I mean savings of money to everybody in the TIF, everybody benefits from it basically.

Yeah, it could be part of the benefit, the cost benefit analysis in the project.

So the role of the stakeholder committee would be to consider proposed projects, uh identify possible additional projects, uh if there's some public projects that might be important to to the residents and and to identify to what extent the projects will meet the policy identified in the ordinance when and they'll make a rec written recommendation.

That recommendation, you'll see that every step they all start gathering up so that you guys end up with all of the recommendations at the end.

This recommendation would be provided to the other reviewing bodies as well.

Counselor Bruce.

It would be under this ordinance, it would become a mandatory appointment.

I'm sorry, if you want to go forward with the project.

So if if you guys get the economic analysis and you're like this isn't fairly penciling out, this isn't worth doing.

We aren't interested, then we wouldn't appoint the committee.

But if you get that analysis and you want to continue down the process of reviewing it, then you would go ahead and appoint the ad hoc committee to just continue the process.

And that's above and beyond the state statutory requirement.

Right.

Okay.

Councilmember Dixon.

Um Ms.

Walker, just on the out of Lawrence Sales Tax portions of TIFFs.

It's is it my understanding that the it's only the sales tax portion that's available to capture the state leverage act monies?

Yes.

For that.

So if there is zero sales tax portion of TIFF, we're not able to ask for any of the leverage act money.

That's true.

Okay.

Yeah.

And it's a one-to-one, a possibility of a one-to-one.

And if it doesn't generate okay.

Thank you.

Okay, so from the ad hoc committee, it would go to EDAB, which is our existing committee with some specialized experience in the appointments there.

They would review specifically the economic and risk analysis that staff prepares and determine whether the project plan and the project will have a financial impact on the taxing jurisdictions, including the school, department of health, the county, all of those entities, the public library system and business activities.

That's also a requirement for the project plan within the district.

Their recommendation and findings would then be provided to the next review body, which is now the under the local development act.

So this would be the statutory review committee.

Following the review by EDAP, the statutory review committee would be appointed.

That includes represent representatives from each taxing jurisdiction, plus one from including one from council, plus one from planning commission.

So we would go ahead and ask those entities to start appointing their people.

And then at their first meeting, the mayor or whoever chairs the meeting from the city submits the names of additional potential representatives.

Seven names, I believe, and they choose uh three to serve on the committee.

Um, then members be picked by the council, or was that be picked by the mayor?

Like how does the committee members pick the the mayor and the council person that is going to affect get to sit down and interview, or do you just pick it and then we kind of have to uh decide we like your pick.

I don't have to do it.

Yeah, but it's set by statute.

So um the county will will nominate and appoint their representative, the school will appoint their representative.

The only person you guys appoint is the the chairperson.

Typically that's been the mayor, uh, but it doesn't have to be that's not in the statute anywhere, so that's something that you all will work out, but it will council member that represents the area.

Yeah, you that you you guys could work that out, but it would be a formal appointment by the city council, like your other appointments are yes.

My preference just as me as mayor when it comes to things like committees is to ask council members if you have somebody since you're both elected by that area, technically, yeah, but we'll get about that.

Yeah, so I don't think that's written in your work.

I mean, all appointments generally have to be affirmed by the whole council anyway, but I like to get your feedback on who your ward might be best.

Um, so that committee will be provided everything from the stakeholder committee, EDAP, the economic risk and risk analysis in the draft project plan, um, and they'll work through that and make their findings that are required by the local development act.

Um, and after that's done, we'll work to put the project plan and any necessary land use plan or zoning amendments on the next planning commission agenda, and it'll go from there to city council.

And when it comes to city council, two public hearings.

The first public hearing is specifically to ask questions about the project, the second second public hearing is so citizens can give input, and then council makes the decision after that.

Um I do want to point out in the ordinance section 12-706.

So after the project plan is adopted, um that you may get applications for assistance and development financing.

That's one of the categories of project costs that are often in a project plan.

So for center city, for example, um, we anticipate there would be some assistance in development financing to uh fund public improvements that need to be constructed to support a project.

So someone would come forward in a new TIFF and ask for TIFF proceeds to be used on a particular project within the project area.

There's a preference in here for the money to be spent on a pay as you go basis, so not issuing debt and incurring that additional cost again, not a prohibition if if the project warrants it and council wants to do it, you have that ability.

Um we just express that preference.

Um and then requests for assistance and development financing exceeding 50,000 have to provide the following, and it goes through all of these things.

Less than 50,000 might be something like a facade upgrade or um smaller things that that we've talked about with a downtown TIFF potentially.

Um, and so we don't want to be too onerous with that, but we do have a provision that they would provide with other documents that the staff request uh that's reasonable to the request.

Um but larger asks can provide us more information for sure.

Um after the project plan is adopted, if you get a request for an incentive related to employment and business relocations, we're going to want to know how many uh full-time equivalent jobs are you creating, what's the average wage, when will those jobs come online, what types of jobs are they?

Um if it's a business relocating from somewhere else in Norman, we want to know why you think assistance should be considered, and so we want to gather all that information to bring to council uh to get input on that before we move forward with any application for assistance for residential development.

Um if if someone's applying for TIFF assistance to support residential development, and say in Griffin, uh we want those applications to address policies already adopted by council about affordable housing, walkability, and aging in place.

Um we've got good initiatives uh for all of those, and so uh we want doesn't mean they have to do all of them, but we want them to address them and consider uh how the TIFF assistance could be used for those initiatives.

And um Emmy was not TIFF assistance, but it sounds like similar criteria as that first one that we used to do the MESCO.

ME did receive TIFF assistance technically.

Um we what happened with MI is when they were going to relocate to Oklahoma City, uh there was an effort to keep them in Norman.

Um they had their anticipated number of jobs, the average wage, it was a targeted industry and a timeline for the growth.

And so we adopted a development agreement that lasted for 10 years where the number of jobs and the wage wages uh paying for those employees or wages paid to those employees went into a formula to determine an incentive per job, and so that incentive was um calculated every year for 10 years, but because NEDC offered to sell the land to EMI at a below market rate, Emmy actually agreed that that incentive should be applied or assigned to NEDC.

So they were incentivized, but all of their incentive was assigned to NEDC as repayment for uh the the reduction in land price.

And I mean that the Yes all of the standard.

Yeah, we we ended up paying them, I think, close to $500,000.

Well, they met all the stipulations to get through.

Okay, so again, this is the process.

It will take a while.

Um, I think you know, the simpler a project is the less time the committees will need to digest it, but they'll get whatever time they need to look at it and make that review and and provide hopefully all of the information at the end that council needs to make a decision, yes or no.

Council, so this would be the proposition for a new ordinance.

Yes.

Can we can we make it a policy instead of an ordinance?

I mean an ordinance feels like it ties up future councils down the road where we could still abide by this, uh it would not be necessarily there's an idea there.

That'd be put that up.

So that's a good popped my mind when we were discussing is uh I'm gonna call it performance-based payments related to TIFFs, and there's no distribution of funds until something is met.

Right.

Do we do that?

Have we done that in the past related to our current TIFFs?

Yes, okay.

Yeah, um that and that's why we see the preference for pay as you go uh incentives uh so that they earn it before they receive it, um, and that's a good way to protect the investment.

Um we've done that, we've we've done some where um we have other standards or clawbacks in in agreements that that's really the easiest way, I think, to make sure that what they say is gonna happen happens, and they're really just at that point getting a rebate of what they earned accumulated in terms of increments.

Council Mr.

Just answering council member Hubba.

I like going to ordinance.

I know um you'd have to go through a couple more steps to amend it, but it's not impossible.

Uh but I just like codifying this process, so it's like because of all the controversy we've had around them to say this is what we're doing, this is how we're ensuring balance around what comes forward.

Um I'm sure there will always be people that'll be against TIFS for one reason or another, but I do want to make sure like the stakeholder committee and all that stuff.

That's we're doing that, we're not gonna just I I guess I don't see I mean, if we say that it's policy that we follow this, then we're still gonna do all of those things, but it just doesn't codify it to make it I don't know, it just seems like it'd be easier to add things to it or take things away from it down the road without having to go through the full ordinance process.

If it's just updating a policy, it's much easier, and I'd like the process the whole way through.

I think that all of these things should be done.

I would just like to see it done as a new way that we do things instead of it being that finite.

Maybe it stays more liquid.

Um and then I would ask Catherine, what is the process for updating an ordinance?

Like, is it extremely difficult or typically we talk about it in a committee draft any amendments that the committee wants and then take that to council, like we have here with a full group of you, um, and then go forward with first and second reading, typically becomes effective uh 30 days after adoption unless there's an emergency clause.

What's the emergency clause allow?

Like you could say effective immediately it's effective immediately, but it requires by our charter a vote of two-thirds of the council instead of a simple majority.

Okay, um, I'm good with ordinance.

Councilmember Kirby.

If this does go through and somebody did run an initiative petition or some kind of petition where the public takes control of TIFF use, would this be affected by that petition since it's getting put into place beforehand?

It it depends on what the petition is for.

If it's a charter amendment, the charter, whatever the amendment is uh says would trump any ordinance that we have in conflict with it.

So it depends on what the petition says, where it would be codified, and and whether this would actually even conflict with it.

I guess in maybe in that scenario it could have to go through this process, and either in addition to or instead of that city count that city council to public hearings and vote that it goes to the vote of the people and then the council adopts it, or where the council has to vote to send it to a vote.

Yeah, if someone, and maybe I misunderstood your question.

If someone submits an initiative petition to put an ordinance on the ballot for the citizens um consideration, we can't add there's there's certain provisions about when it has to be placed on the ballot, and so we our process probably wouldn't be able to be into that once they get the right signatures, we have to put it on the ballot.

We know we have 11,000 irritated people with TIFS.

I mean, that's already been seen on the petition that's went all the way to the Supreme Court.

And if said 11,000 people who sign that petition find an issue with this one or the fact that we can't do nothing about or can do something about uh existing TIFF, then our residents are very uh opinionated and they will get together and get a petition going just like they had before to get 11,000 signatures, and that's why I'm asking because I know there's uh a lot of people who's upset of the way TIFS are being used, and they've made it very clear they're gonna voice their opinion and make sure it's heard.

Um so I'm just wanting to make sure if that route got taken and the charter was changed, would it know would would this still hold like would the process still work?

Would people still have to apply through this process?

It'll really just depend on what the change is.

Yeah, if it was a certain amount of a TIFF that triggered the public vote, or um if it was had to be approved by voters first somehow before it can even go through the process, I'm not sure.

Or if this happened if some version of this happens first and then it has to go to a vote.

So I'm not yeah, I think there could be a couple different ways that that would have happened.

Uh let's see.

I think Councilmember Bruce, yeah.

The uh I think we're probably just about 6065 somewhere around there, right?

Does surrounding municipalities, Tiloma City, Edmund, or L City, do they have ordinance, ordinances like this that are that add to what's required by the state?

I don't know of another ordinance like this, uh, but certainly other cities have their own processes for evaluating them.

Um city and Tulsa have entire offices dedicated to TIFF management administration and assessment.

Uh so they definitely have uh a more robust process at the staff level.

Um, but I don't know of another ordinance like this in the state.

I'm just you know what's kind of taking second, third order effects, at least the capital.

I'm just thinking if I'm an outsider coming and wanting to do business, what's are we gonna go?

Where am I gonna go?

Where's easy to go to make that make sense?

Sure, and I I will say that in developing this process, the oversight committee looked at other cities.

There's just not any in Oklahoma, but Fort Worth, Texas, Dallas, Texas, Othe, Kansas, uh, or some of the cities I looked at that all have a process similar to this.

Uh so I don't think it's it's completely out of the ordinary, it's just new for Oklahoma, but I I definitely understand your point that uh developers will go where they can get through the process the easiest.

Um if it's if the location isn't an issue.

I brought this up once, but I'm gonna get I really think an independent analysis of uh perform uh if I was to develop or an outsider or insider, yes, 100%.

I want them to look at my stuff and validate what I think I need.

Yeah, I don't know if the city has that capability really to do a thorough evaluation based upon the in frequency of what occurs and not having dedicated this is what I do for a living.

Yeah, that's a fair point.

Um, we've talked about um I'm looking at Darrell here, uh, some software that we may uh purchase.

We're looking at different types of software that we could use for economic analysis.

Um that's what's commonly used by uh entities like the economic development coalition and others across the state and across the country, and so we're looking at some of those too to assist us with that, but but that's a fair point.

We don't have any dedicated staff that do this analysis every day.

Um so you know, certainly that's something I think if I I have a role in this, I'm gonna say Carol, can we please hire someone to help with this?

Because uh if it's complicated, I don't want to be out there trying to do something that's beyond my credentials.

Yeah, and we do have resources in Oklahoma City that pretty much do that every day.

Yeah, okay.

All right, just pulling a thread of would that be a contracted resource, or would that be a government entity like Oklahoma City does a lot of these have their own office?

You'd say, Hey, look, I need to leverage your expertise to help us evaluate.

Yeah, Center for Economic Development Law has been that resource for us, and we can call them up with a project and say, here's the parameters, and they'll give us a price to do that uh analysis and come present those findings to council and to the statutory TIF for the uh use Coaline, uh which is uh another Oklahoma City resource that was uh she was formerly the director of the uh Oklahoma City Alliance for Economic Development.

Um we've used her uh one of our TIFFs.

We used a professor from OU to do some analysis.

Um so there's definitely options out there.

The one other thing I brought up earlier, but again, I try to hang up on the butt forward regarding what does it really mean when it comes to time period and how's it been used in the past related to other municipalities?

I I I just need to do my little bit of research on that.

Yeah, and I can point you to some examples in Oklahoma City.

Um, areas in downtown, we're sure they'll they'll develop a redevolve at some point, but they've stagnant for a long time.

They definitely uh used tax increment financing to kind of push that along.

Um but I don't know of any city that sets a like a year limit, has to be stagnant for so long, and I think it'll be a judgment call that the council law that might subjective objective, unfortunately.

Council McGrath.

Yes, um, I was thinking next steps.

Uh yeah.

Uh I have a slide.

Perfect timing.

I was wondering if uh some of the things we talked about massaging language-wise could be like uh council study session before a first reading, just touch base, see where we're at, and then um proceed.

Yeah, um, so I think the council conference next week if we uh I think it's full.

I'm talking to you about a different ordinance, I think.

Is that the guest task?

Yeah, that's the only thing I have.

Okay.

Uh so we could do it if you wanted it to be on first reading next Tuesday, we could maybe move that back to five and have enough time to talk about both, or or we can move it later in the month.

I think we'd have some open dates for study sessions if we need more than an hour, that's probably uh what we need to do instead of a council conference.

Um happy with this timeline, but that's just me.

You know, other people might have other ideas for Hinkle, you had your hand up before you stepped out, Jamie.

And we're happy to move as efficiently as possible.

So you want anyone for study session, Max?

Um, that would be great because you know, I think are we talking about TIFF district master plan after this?

Not today.

Oh, okay.

This is the I'm just thinking this gets through the process, and then we can start on that other part where I guess it's more us initiating and in the conversation of where people are interested in investing if they see that uh with the TIFF district master plan this process.

It's like hey, we might have some areas that might work for you if you're trying to do a project in Norman, like Griffin.

So we we Catherine and I were having that conversation earlier this afternoon.

Step one on the eight-part program is we discussed.

So who might applicants be?

And in the scenario of Griffin, it is entirely likely and and and maybe very um realistic that the city is the applicant in the process, and you've got the master plan that you've already invested uh time and effort in, and I we believe there is a receptive property owner.

This is just so far outside their realm of understanding that it would be up to us to present it and maybe spoon feed a little bit to get them to sign where they need to sign before the sale or as part of the sale takes place at some point in the future.

Okay, two weeks from today.

What is on the study session agenda?

Anything specific off.

I mean, I don't have it all right.

We could try to discuss it next Tuesday, but the night is also orientation with my son at OSCU.

Yeah, he's transferring.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, we'll know that short.

You guys are about to talk about so a continued discussion about this proposed uh process application evaluation, but then in addition to the I mean they just need people.

Yeah, but staff and you're saying having those together.

Uh they don't need to be together.

I just like to get through this process and then jump into the next one because you know no time like the present.

Well, would council like for this to be discussed next Tuesday before we have our council meeting?

As it stands, I would definitely like to have more information on the funding of the fireplace and schools.

I mean, I know that's already written in there a little bit, but obviously we wouldn't be short in all these industries if we were selecting enough.

So even if it's just sitting down with staff or uh Miss Grant to explain it to me of or Darrell, maybe I'm missing something there, and I would prefer something if next Tuesday.

I mean, yeah.

What's planned for next Tuesday?

Then we'll see if any changes.

One thing I want to add in here, and I'll do that before next Tuesdays, a provision that doesn't allow us to use dedicated tax revenue sources like PSST and the apportionment formula because that protects that for the lease and hire.

But yeah, that was a good point.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other final comment about that item?

Okay.

All right.

Then we will move on to item number three, which is a discussion regarding the Rock Creek Entertainment District Project and Associated Tax Increment Finance District.

Is that still you, Catherine?

No.

It's not uh council member Kirby wasn't a part of the conversations that we've had previously about this and leading up to the last council meeting.

Um other council members asked about having this discussion and getting off that cliffhanger, maybe and figuring out if there is any additional path forward council wants to take, if there's any additional questions that anybody has about the Rock Creek Entertainment District and the process so far, options going forward, and of that, and here we are.

So can we have city attorney Rick Knight here to help answer any questions we might have?

So council Grant.

Yes.

Um I was sent some information and I forwarded it on to uh Rick.

And it basically folks are saying that uh the project plan and the local development act are in conflict.

Um there's some question of the county trust, C C R E FA is not designated or even mentioned in the project plan, so it's unauthorized to carry out the project plan and things of that nature.

There's there's other ones that talk about uh the project plan says neither city or the authority intends to authorize or issue public debt to finance any of the costs of the project with the 10th TIF increment paid on a pay as you go basis.

Um anyways, I I gave it to Rick.

Hopefully, he had time to digest it.

Not really.

I got that about 445.

It's pretty detailed.

I think for us to give it the attention that it's that it's probably due, it'd probably be better for me to get you something in writing, sort of giving you an idea as to what I think about all of the points that are trying to be made in that document.

Okay, um, well, those that's just what's come to me as the question, and then there was the public comment that we had that maybe contracts weren't being done appropriately.

Um but that's that's the feedback I've gotten.

Okay.

I can do that.

I I got the documents that you said, so I could put something together, it shouldn't be that difficult.

Council member Kirby.

So for my understanding, when we go in to look at this IF, we have to look at it as elected officials for our ward, but we also have to look at it as trustees that represent, correct?

That's correct.

So when people say that we won't be allowed to be sued as city councilmen, that might be protected.

But as trustees overlooking that particular situation, uh would we be held responsible and liable for lawsuits?

Could somebody sue us as trustees instead of council members to um go after us if we did something that would overturn this ordinance since it is under a contract, you put since it is under technically a contract.

That is one of the things that we talked about, and unfortunately, you weren't we did have a study session where we talked about that issue.

And the response usually with regard to whether you can be sued, anybody could sue you.

The question just becomes to what extent might they have the ability to prevail.

And what we've talked about is that potential tension between your responsibilities as a trustee of a public trust versus your responsibilities to the public as a council member.

And unfortunately, in this set of circumstances, you are both a council member, but you're also a trustee with regard to the public trust.

And you can't rule out the possibility that there could potentially be some allegation that the action you take as a council member undermines your ability to carry out your fiduciary responsibility as a trustee, and the issue would be not somebody suing you for breach of contract as a council member, but somebody suing you for breach of your fiduciary obligation as a member as a trustee of a public trust.

The best way for me to illustrate that for you, I found a case out of Tulsa.

The City of Tulsa has the city of Tulsa as a council.

They also have a public trust that is an industrial authority.

There became a set of circumstances where the public trust had to sue the council for some reason because there was a legal dispute between council and the public trust.

The issue there was those bodies were separate.

It's kind of like the difference between you as a council member and then you also have a public trust, which is the hospital.

So the separate entity, they have their own trustees that you appoint.

When we were talking about the issue of the trustees for the hospital selling the hospital property, one of the things that we were told was, well, we're gonna sell the hospital, and then whatever the residual was left over, we're gonna give to a foundation.

And our response was no.

That's where the potential conflict comes in.

Um what we said was not necessarily that you're gonna be sued, not necessarily you're gonna be a liable, but you can't rule out that possibility.

So you need to keep that in mind when you're thinking about how you want to proceed with regard to this particular project.

If we were sued, would the city attorneys cover us, or would we have to hire our own city?

That puts us that puts the city in a difficult response difficult position because by charter, the city attorney advises council members and represents the city in the public trust.

I can't represent two entities that have conflicting legal obligations.

So the answer would be you probably would have to hire your own attorney.

Now the question would become who pays for that, and I don't know the answer.

We haven't we haven't taken it far enough to where I can give you an answer to who would ultimately pay for that, but um the more likely than not the city attorney's office will be conflicted out of that particular litigation.

So if this whole thing was set up by any county trust, that would be kind of state, I guess, driven.

All the money goes to that county trust for the UNP TIF, is that how it works?

Well, when you say all the money we I mean like how does the UMP TIFF structurally who takes the money and distributes it?

The city of Norman would when sales taxes distributed by the state, it would come to the city, and then we would run it through the process as laid out in uh the development agreement to disperse the ad valorum doesn't enrich all you describe the advocate.

The the way that the deal is structured, the ad valorum and sales tax increment becomes an account of the tax increment finance authority.

So the tax increment finance authority is the entity that is actually once the that revenue comes in, it's it is an account of the tax increment finance authority, and then as the development proceeds and there's sufficient documentation to show that part of that increment is due to the developer, then the tax increment finance authority would then take the developer, whatever they would do in terms of the work that have been done.

So as an electrician, if I'm working for the state as a state worker, I don't have to pay for my license because I'm exempt because the state can't charge the state a bill in itself, technically, is how they've always explained it.

I can just write exempt and I get my license.

So does that work the same here?

I mean, if can the can the city conflict with itself if we're over the TIFF account and we are the people who vote on the TIP as a trustee or as a councilman, does it complete to where the city couldn't sue the city or the city couldn't sue the county or the county couldn't sue the city?

Is there any way that there's a conflict of interest to the point that is an exemption to where you can't sue each other since it's all well the issue wouldn't be necessarily the city suing the city or the city suing the trust, it would be a beneficiary, which is a taxpayer suing the trust.

That's where the legal threat would come from.

It wouldn't come from one of those internal entities, it's gonna come from the outside somewhere.

Uh I was just gonna have Rick explain the part where we're not at risk, which is if we exit through an agreement.

And I believe the example for the first UNP unwinding is you had a set of council members who wanted to do uh riskier um exit versus a negotiated deal of a year, or it took about a year to get that deal, and the majority of council voted to go down the path of the negotiated deal.

There was there were some council members that wanted to terminate the increment.

Um there was also some obligations that developer wanted to get out of.

I mean, primarily, I think it's Catherine.

It's the lifestyle center that they didn't think that they could develop.

We wanted in the increment.

So by agreement, we agreed to end the TIFF early in that tax increment early by us saying, Yeah, you don't have to do the lifestyle center, them saying yeah, you can end the increment earlier.

So that would be the way the safest way to terminate any time anytime there's a contract and the parties decide they want to terminate it, the best way to do that is by agreement.

Whatever this party's kind of agreed to, and that's what happened with regard to that first um UNP or the second UMP agreement was it was it was a negotiated sort of termination of that increment where both sides got out of some obligation they were wanting to get out of.

There was that contingent that wanted to take a riskier out, and that was not what the majority of council wanted to do.

Correct.

I mean, if you were asking us, our advice is always gonna be pretty conservative, and it's gonna be to take the less risk, at least the least risky alternative, more likely than not, and there it was to do it by agreement.

And then, oh, I had a question about let's say we dig it into scenario where we had to hire our own attorney, and what's just be real, we'll probably have to pay out of our own pocket.

There's a judgment, then that is against us as individuals.

That's correct.

Okay, so if it was 35,000, you'd have to come out find that from somewhere, but it's not coming from the city.

That's correct.

Okay.

Just wanted to be clear on that.

Any other questions from anybody?

So I'm stuck on the 11,000 people, which I know the Supreme Court said the gist wasn't sufficient.

Um but to me, 11,000 people signing a contract and then voting out every single person that ran that voted for that contract was a pretty loud statement by the public that um they didn't agree with the contract.

Is there no way to exit off of the fact that that that the public is in disagreement or the fact that we're strained on a budget that this project when it was made, maybe our budget wasn't a strain, but now the budget's too strained to push this project forward with the risk that it could lose, it could make a hundred million a year, but it could lose three million a year.

We don't know, and uh this ain't Vegas, so I didn't know if we're is are we stuck on that, or are we just gonna roll the dice and hope it lands on the numbers we choose?

Well, contracting is always about risk allocation.

I mean, and that's essentially what you have.

And there are riskier alternatives or less riskier alternatives.

It depends upon what council, what level of risk they're comfortable with taking.

Um that's kind of sort of what it comes down to.

Okay.

Well, this TIFF right here that we're talking about could be what makes or breaks future TIFFs for Norman.

And the fact that we're kind of stuck in it even after people have signed petitions and expressed their voice, and it's gonna come down to we're gonna take the voice of less than a hundred over the voice of over 11,000, and that's gonna leave a very sour taste from what I understand.

Pretty much in everybody in ward five.

I can't speak independently for all other wards, but I have not met a single person in ward five who said, okay, maybe two people that are like, yay, this TIF, but the two people who are yay this TIFF own uh chains that would probably end up in this chain, they stand to profit off of it, whereas people like my children will be held down by it for the next 25 years.

So uh what is gonna constrain my son?

He ain't even been alive as long as it's about to put a stress on him, and we do have a large amount of community who express their concern.

So I just didn't know if there was a way we could readdress it, or if we're just absolutely stuck in it without no exit because of the risk.

Not at all.

I mean, I'll leave it at that.

Is there a counselor?

I was gonna ask um what happens if things aren't followed as laid out, like in what we adopted and what we expected to happen contractually.

Is that an outs or do they have to come into compliance with the code?

I mean, there are there are a lot of provisions in there with regard to curing.

I mean, if there was a default, I mean, there's a curing opportunity.

Um, that was some of the issue that we talked about in terms of approval of the phasing plan.

Um, so there's opportunity for cure, assuming there was a default, there's no discure opportunity.

So we can just depend on what the specifics were.

So, unless you got I I'm just kind of curious.

What if we entered some situation where there's an impasse on the cure?

Impasse as far as uh they don't want to do it.

They don't want to do it, or we don't, I mean, uh, I don't I don't know.

I'm I need a minute to digest also what I sent you, but I was just kind of curious.

In that being if you're I mean, there are legal remedies for contractual issues, specific performance is one of them, if that's appropriate.

Um it just depends on what the specifics were.

If it was so in toured that we were like, we want to get out of this, uh, but it's not an agreement.

Is that possible, or are we still in the same risk scenario?

You're still you're still in the same.

If it's not by agreement, you still you still have the same risk.

Okay.

All right.

So at our last meeting, we had an item, an action item that failed to get a second, and we did not proceed, but that item was to ask for a declaratory judgment.

That's correct.

And um based on a letter that we received from Ored, correct?

Correct.

Mentioning potential litigation if we didn't take action.

And so we're been in a position where litigation, if we don't do anything or if we do something potentially.

Um I think the goal for counsel was trying to find a way to get this to a vote of the people somehow.

Um what we've just there seemed to be some confusion for sure amongst everyone about what that action would do.

There's concern about the city council voting to sue a public body of the public.

Um now, there's also been mentioned though from others that we've done that before, we've been in friendly suits with public entities before over issues to resolve them.

You maybe touch on the case.

I wouldn't know the confusion around that.

I mean, a friendly suit is something specific.

A friendly suit is usually where there is a dispute between a party and one of the parties is a minor that can't consent to litigation.

Usually it involves automobile accident.

There's an automobile accident, a minor was injured, that minor is entitled to some compensation.

Um the parties will go forward to the court with a lawsuit that's determined a friendly suit, so the court can look at the proposed settlement to make a determination whether as to whether that settlement is adequate or not.

And if the court signs off on the settlement, then essentially the minor child is bound, so they can't come back when they're 18 and say, hey, now I'm 18, so I can come and see you again.

That is a friendly suit.

Any kind of litigation requires some adversity.

There have to be adverse interest between the parties.

We've had lawsuits where the adversity was created by the opinion of an outside attorney.

It specifically had to do one of them was with Hall Park, but had to do with the increment, not a special assessment district they created before they dissolved.

Um there were some deficiencies in their infrastructure that we they wanted us to annex them, they weren't used to dissolve and for us to annex them.

There were some deficiencies with some of their infrastructure that we said, hey, we're not gonna pay for that, you need to pay for it on your own.

They created a special assessment district to remedy those deficiencies, and then they dissolved.

There were a couple of items in that assessment district.

The bond council was not sure because they were we were gonna sell bonds to do the infrastructure um issues, and then they set up their special assessment district to pay the cost of the bonds that were for that purpose.

Bond counsel was not he wasn't willing to issue an opinion saying that those bonds would have been marketable because of some of the items that were in the assessment district that he didn't think statutorily could be put in there.

So one of their citizens, it actually was Hallbrook Corporation agreed to be the plaintiff, they sued us, we went over to the court, we presented those issues to the judge to say, hey, we believe that these items can be included in assessment district.

We also believe that they can create it and that the city of Norway can adopt it once we um reannex them.

Um presented the issue to the court, specifically the adversity created by bond council, and a court ultimately said yes, you're correct.

Um you can those items can be in an assessment district, and the city can adopt that assessment district once it annexes them.

There was another issue that got brought up with regard to the development center when those bonds were voted on by the citizens.

Um the development center was supposed to be a senior center.

Um there was a lot of the citizens or the seniors at that time didn't want to be put in, they wanted a new structure, they didn't want it to be part of something that was being refurbished.

So we ultimately found alternative funding through Norman forward to build a freestanding senior citizen, and then when we got ready to issue the bonds for the development center, the question was does the development center have to have a senior center?

I mean, that was what was in the language that was voted on.

Um, and again, bond counsel was like, eh, I'm not really willing to issue an opinion saying those bonds are marketable unless you get an answer to the question as to whether or not this structure that you're refurbishing has to have a senior center in it.

So we were able to again go over to the court to get the court to rule on the issue of whether or not the develop those bonds, whether or not the development center had to have a senior center element, notwithstanding the fact that it was something specifically in the ordinance, and the court ultimately said no, you don't have to have that.

So we have done that in that context before, but be clear on the issue of adversity.

We can't go over to court and say, we agree, the parties that are before the court, we agree as to how this should be resolved.

So give us an order.

The court's gonna say no.

If you agree, then there's no point for you to be over here.

There has to be some adversity.

Um that's sort of the little part that was missing here as to there's adversity with regard to whether or not council has the ability to independently send an ordinance to the election of the people outside of the initiative or referendum process, the petition process.

And the answer from our research is no, you can't.

Now, the court can say yes, you can.

Um, but again, the issue is somebody's got to get that issue before the court.

And that's where my point is.

We were contemplating, and I do understand.

Yeah, I and I do understand, and I brought it up initially.

I understand that some people are not necessarily comfortable with the concept of the city corporation suing citizens.

I totally get that.

I understand that.

That's why the thought process was well, if you've been threatened to be sued, and that's what's gonna happen, it's gonna get over there one way or the other anyway.

So if you allow the citizens, if they're interested enough, they want to bring forth that issue before the court, let them do that, and we'll go over and litigate it, we'll comply with whatever the judge tells us we have to comply with.

And you know, so two years ago, council, summer or two years ago, council voted to send to a vote of the people a hypothetical question about this TIFF proposal, but it wasn't finalized, and there wasn't actually a proposal that we were asking voters to weigh in on.

That's correct.

And a district judge said we cannot ask a hypothetical question, basically.

Right.

So my thinking now though has been that well, it's not a hypothetical question anymore.

Council took an action and approved a plan.

Um, and so could we ask voters to weigh in on the action council already took, even if it was a year and a half ago?

Um could we do that?

And we could do it, but then it may go back to that same district judge.

You could ask the question, more likely than not, they like to be consistent with the cases over there.

If one judge has considered part of a case or that issue from a particular party, it's probably gonna go back to them.

Um it would be a different question.

It would be a bit of a different question, but I think the answer is gonna be the same.

And okay, and so outside of the TIFF, just any action the council takes and approves or disapproves, I guess.

Could the council vote to send to ask the voters of Norman to weigh in on the council action on any action?

I think the answer to that question is no.

Um, I can think of a specific case, and it was altered by our former district court judge, William Hatherington, and it was about it's kind of sort of similar to what you I think you're asking.

And it was council passes an ordinance, there's no referendum petition, so there's no there's no referendum petition as authorized by statutes.

Later on, the citizens put together an initiative petition effort to repeal what council has previously enacted.

And the court said you can't do that.

Why?

Because you circumvent the 30-day referendum process.

In other words, if at any point in time the citizens by initiative could go to repeal something council has enacted, then the 30-day time period for you to do a referendum is moved.

You could do it anytime, you could do it 30 days, you could do it 50 days, you could do 100 days.

And what that case says is you cannot you council does not have the ability to order that type of order.

The citizens in that case didn't have the ability by initiative to go back and do something that would have been beyond the 30-day time period for um doing a referendum petition.

With regard to council's authority to send something like that to the citizens, um there's a specific referendum process by statute.

It's outlined in Article 18 of the Constitution, it's um put into effect in Title 11, and it has specific process you have to follow with regard to both initiative and referendum, and the only thing it authorizes is by petition signed by the citizens, and that's the only way to get those municipal issues before the electorate.

Councilman Grant.

I do have a question about the reference to the process.

So, you know, I had asked you and Catherine at different points.

Uh, like just was it needed technically?

That is what the Supreme Court said in the Allison versus Post case.

So how does that work when you want to do a referendum and you don't have a gist?

I don't know.

Okay.

I was just curious because it was kind of curious to me that we could have somehow done this without a gist and had all the signatures, and somehow that would have been that isn't that is an odd twist to that particular opinion.

Okay.

Has anybody done a referendum without a gist?

Is no?

Okay.

I I don't believe so.

Not that I know of.

So that's right.

Uh would you call it that like mental gymnastics?

That part?

You could.

I mean, it's just an odd part, it's an odd part of that petition to say, well, you didn't have to have a gist, but you had one, so we're gonna say it's invalid.

It logically, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but hey, I'm not the Supreme Court.

Okay.

Well, thank you for the clarity.

Uh so there's a 30-day period after council approves an ordinance or that anybody from the citizenry of Norman could or outside of Normandy too, or what?

Anybody in the in Norman could file a petition.

Right.

Or lawsuit.

Well, you could file a referendum petition.

I mean within 30 days.

In terms of the I mean, in terms of a lawsuit, I guess the question would be what would you be, what would your lawsuit be alleged?

But the risk is if you file a petition within that 30 days, but then you go through the whole process, and a year and a half later it gets thrown out by the Supreme Court.

There's no remedy.

You can't go back and correct it.

You can't redo the petition because it's passed the 30 days.

That's correct.

And so there's just no option, and that's where we've been left with what can we do to get this to a vote of the people given that circumstance.

Correct.

I mean, I feel like there should be a either a standard state template for just summaries, or if it gets stripped down by the Supreme Court, you have the opportunity to remedy it somehow.

But uh no, that's beyond us, but it's put us in a situation where we have 11-ish thousand people signing a petition who've been voting in elections and have been very vocal about how they feel, and now it's just stuck in this purgatory sentence.

Supreme Court said that rule made a ruling, so developers are moving forward with the project, as I think they feel like they're entitled to do.

And then council, we're left scrambling to try to figure out what can we even legally do?

Where what is the time frame?

There's disagreement on council about how to go about this.

So that's kind of where I've been struggling myself about how to approach this, and then having new council members do counselor Kirby.

So I didn't understand this in that first council amendment meeting uh about this peaceful lawsuit.

If the city was to go forward with the lawsuit, say it made it out of here and made it onto the council, and five people voted for it and it made it to the lawsuit, and you went in front of the judge.

Are you going to try to recover the city's time and energy that's been put in it?

Are you going to ask for money back from the person that we would be uh declaratory judgments usually don't you don't get your it's just future cost in the old days cost meant something because cost with deposition costs, copy costs, so you may get two three thousand dollars in cost in today's world where everything is filed electronically and we generally email stuff and you don't really have the paper.

You can't show that you print out the paper.

Okay, your costs are really really minimal, and declaratory judgment is not something you get your attorney's fees for.

So what is the risk?

If you wanted to go in front of the judge, you and Mr.

Norman wanted to go stand in front of a judge and ask them what is being requested is okay.

What is the risk towards the council?

I mean, is that technically filing the lawsuit, or is that just going and can they retaliate and once again come after the trustees or the council members just for asking that question?

I don't know that there'd be a basis to come after you just for asking a question, but it is a lawsuit.

But if they want us to sue them, and you think it would change something, would it put us at risk from the developers in any way, shape, or form to say we're trying to delay, stall or alter their contracts to where it puts us at a risk of a lawsuit from a different direction?

I don't know that there's anything in that particular lawsuit in that particular lawsuit because you're not necessarily asking that you're not asking that they be delayed in any respect.

Now there is a provision.

I don't know if you know there is a provision in there that gives them a right to um if there are delay, they get credit for that in terms of the deadlines that are set forth in the contract with regard to certain things they have to do.

Would this trigger that one?

Probably not.

Um, what is the risk of letting it go in front of a judge between you and Mr.

Norman and just get the question asked for 11,000 citizens to have their piece?

Well, when you say risk, I don't I'm the risk is you would get an answer to that question.

Good or bad.

Risk is getting that question.

Mr.

Norman, is it y'all would like this to go forward knowing that you're gonna have to go in front of a judge and stand next to Rick?

I mean, you don't look at it as a lawsuit towards ORED or anybody you look at as an answer being answered.

Yes, I I think what Mr.

Knighton has given you know, there's there's uncertainty, and Mr.

Knighton has his opinions, I have my opinions, other people have their opinions, but it's always good to try to get the question the people of Norman want answered in the least risky manner, and what I interpreted being the agenda item in my discussions with Mr.

Knighton and him showing me when these had been done in the past, because I was at first what then I was like, okay.

Um is that this council was offered a way to get the question resolved in front of the judge once and for all without regard to his opinion and research, my opinion and research.

Let's get this in front of a judge and get a decision, and then maybe counsel who have been elected in election after election by 11,000 voters, can say, hey, promises made, promises kept, and your city attorney was offering you a way to do that without taking all the risk of repeal and um interfering with the developer's ability to do the project in case the judge says no, you can't send it to a vote.

Um and we were not the optimal solution to us, but we were pretty much okay with that.

What I would say is these past little things were done.

Yes, you had petition answer filed, but you had joint motions for summary judgment file.

Where the parties did have to go give a well-reasoned good presentation, and in the past, that's what this the city did.

The said the city and the other party put together good briefs to get to the court and and didn't just go to the court with a foregone conclusion and stick an order in front of them, had to make a presentation to the court as I understand, and Mr.

Knighton was personally involved in those, so he can add more.

But my understanding is that briefs were filed that were good briefs that brought the issues in front of the court and said, Okay, this is why we feel we can put this to a vote of the people, or someone wants to say no, we can't.

This is why we feel we can't, and we get a judge to answer that question.

And sometimes that's what you need more than anything, is just to get an answer to the question.

I think that's what Mr.

Knighton was offering, and I think that's what we were saying.

We're kind of okay with.

Let's let's go get a judicial answer to that question.

So that would satisfy your clients on what it's being asked if the judge answered one way or another.

I I think once the judge and the courts answered that question one way or another, that that is that that's that's the answer to your question.

Thank you.

I mean, I don't I don't think you go any further once on whether it can be put to a vote of the people once you try this.

I mean, it's you're you're finally done.

Thank you, Mr.

Norman.

Councilman Gansbury.

All right.

As we all know, I was the no second thanks to everybody in this room.

No, I'm saying that exactly just kidding.

But drained it in.

The reasoning behind the request of my initial thoughts and processes and everything like that when I asked for it to be an agenda item and everything like that, was to try to get some kind of clarification, especially with what I feel is deadlines coming up pretty quickly with eventually there's gonna be groundbreaking and you know getting contracts bid, all that stuff like that.

And that's why I thought my goal was to have conversation that night that would possibly lead to a vote that night to figure out yes or no if that's something we wanted to do as counsel either way, good or bad, whichever way, sideways, you know.

And I was okay that night with whatever that vote was, either A moving forward with it or B saying, hey, we don't have the votes for it, and then it goes on too, because that's the power of counsel, you know, and everything.

But I think if I think if we're leaning towards that same agenda question again, I think it has to be on an agenda item for proper vote and everything like that, and not necessarily just raise the hands at a round table and everything like that, where it makes its officials, it can be and everything like that, no matter which way it goes.

But I also agreed that just like that night.

The thing is, if a any kind of lawsuit occurs and we get a ruling, that is I mean, everything that I've looked at, that's last possible hurrah for anybody, either side right there, you know, and everything like that.

That's the answer, yeah.

It's it's the final answer.

I mean, one way or another.

So council.

So say that we do the declaratory judgment, and the judge says that it's capable to go to a vote of the people.

Is that a violation of our contract that we've already agreed to?

Because we've essentially backed out of well, you haven't backed out yet.

You just have another answer to the question because part of the issue has to do with what's being proposed is repeal and then send it to a vote of the people.

But the question is if you can't send it to the vote of people, what's the point of repealing it?

You're just putting yourself at risk when you don't have to.

And what is that risk?

What's that?

What's that risk?

The risk of repealing the risk of risk.

The risk of violating our contract when an amount has been agreed upon.

You're probably gonna get sued for breach of contract.

The issue also, I mean, we the thing that we're not that nobody really seems to be paying attention to, remember.

There are two entities, they're not three entities of the contract, there are four.

The county, the property owners, uh in TIFA and the city.

The city and antifa are not the same, they're separate legal entities.

You're gonna both of you are gonna get sued.

Both the trust and the city more likely than not are both going to be sued.

And the thought process with regard to the trust is totally separate from the thought process with regard to the city.

I know that there are some arguments out there that the city may be able to get out of potential liability as a result of breach of contract, but that doesn't apply to the trust.

That's a totally separate sort of analysis.

So if you repeal, you're gonna get sued, it's gonna be the city and the trust, and it's what we've already talked about with regard to the potential liability, which is on the taxpayers.

Yes.

Is it the liability tax?

Well, it depends upon if somebody comes in and argues that you violated your judiciary obligation with regard to the trust issue.

Yeah, I think that's a miscalculation.

Like, yes, there is potential personal liability and form of a judgment or something along those lines, but there's also an amount of money that's already been agreed to that is part of Antifa that would have to go towards that in some way, and that would be through a property tax assessment.

Well, that's the issue for the trust is for public trust.

The statute says for liability, it's not it wouldn't go to the property tax role.

It extends to whatever property is owned by the trust.

So the question becomes well, what properties owned by the trust.

And um it's it's another one of those unanswered legal questions.

I can go to the statute, but there really have not been any cases construing what those provision means, but you're putting whatever property is owned by the trust at this.

Does that include the uh bank account for other TIFF districts?

There's a there, that's the unanswered question.

So currently we have money in the center city TIFF bank account they can get in.

That's yeah, for grabs potentially.

Councilman Hinkel, you have that's all.

Um well the question to me is not to us not voting to repeal it and then the asking the voters to weigh in on that.

I'm trying to get the voters to weigh in on the action council already took.

I think that goes.

I want to take a new action and ask them to vote on it.

I want them to weigh in on the action that council already took in September 2024, five to four to approve this.

I think that's the issue I brought up with regard to that case that I read that Judge Heatherington offered.

And not repeal to affirm or repeal.

That's what I'm asking voters to say is tell us do you want to affirm the decision the council made by voting yes, I think, or do you want to repeal the council decision by voting no or voting yes to repeal?

I'm not sure it could get real confusing.

I think that goes back to the question of whether you have the authority to independently set it for.

And if we did that, we would so the suit would just be whether we have the ability to do that, and then just like last time the district court could say no, you can't, and then it's uh that doesn't open us all up to liability, correct?

So that's that's a question that I've been that's the one I've been pondering is voters affirm or repeal the decision the council then already made, not weighing in on a new decision that could lead to lawsuit.

But council already made a decision, we just want to ask you if you want to weigh in on it.

That's where I'm trying to do.

Well, that goes back to the issue I said if you take as an example a case where the court said no, you can't the citizens can't repeal an ordinance by initiative because it it goes against that 30-day you can do it by referendum.

If you file it within a 30-day time period, if you let them do it by initiative after that 30-day time period, there's no point to have in the separate process because you could always do it by initiative.

So that would be the question.

The question would be if you can't do it by a referendum, if you can't do it by referendum, which is repeal, I doubt you'd be able to ask that question by initiative with an ordinance that's already been enacted.

Okay, counselor Dixon Carol.

Um I asked Rob Moment a question.

Sure.

Tomorrow is the two-month anniversary of the letter you sent us threatening to sue us.

What's stopping you guys from suing us and you initiating a judge giving us a declaratory judgment?

I think it's probably this process that we said that we wanted to do first, which was try to collaboratively work it out first, and getting agenda items on with counsel, like what we're talking about tonight, and kind of working with the city attorney and myself, where he proposes a method that skips repeal, which is this big risk that everyone talks about.

Uh that may or may not work, but it's it's a it's a it's kind of in a way a settled solution to the dispute where counsel doesn't feel comfortable clearly, and your attorney doesn't feel comfortable clearly with just an outright repeal and drop the debt, drop the debt project.

He's raised a lot of risk.

We both have our opinions on the nature of that risk.

But what's been offered is a path that goes straight to a judge and asks the judge can this council put this matter to a vote of the people by legislative referendum, is how the agenda item was explained.

Yeah.

But you can ask that question.

You can file that lawsuit.

We don't have to sue you.

You can sue us for the exact same thing, correct?

Well, the idea would be to do it, try to do it at least collaboratively, where we're not just going in blind and and we're over here in this camp and you're over there in that camp.

And then there are suits where yes, you have a plaintiff and defendant, they act as adverse parties, but they end up working together toward a goal.

But we can still all we can do every bit of that if you file the suit.

I think it doesn't necessarily matter who shows up as a plaintiff or defendant.

I that that's that's a thing that I thought everyone got hung up on on the last meeting.

In in the in the cases you look at, and and Mr.

Knighton and I could look and see who actually paid the filing fee and who did that.

We could look up those past cases where the city has done it.

The the individual whom the the city and the individual worked to get in front of a judge to determine whether they could do it.

He mentioned the two cases.

But and it's it's not like they just they just completely colluded, but they did walk in and took a joint summary judgment position and made the case before the court, and the court made a determination, yes or no.

And this would probably be.

If you are the plaintiff representing the plaintiff or representing the defendant, is that not correct?

I I think whether you take Mr.

Knighton's recommendation or not, the way the parties align is not necessarily relevant.

I think there is some benefit to y'all not walking in and taking an adverse position, an absolutely adverse position to us and coming to the teeth and saying, No, we can't put this to the vote of the people.

I think the difference, the little inflection difference is as a policy matter, we're asking counsel to take a position supportive of sending this to a vote of the people instead of coming and saying, No, you absolutely can't, and we have to say yes, you absolutely can't.

But our our counsel just said he doesn't believe that.

He doesn't believe that we can.

So that's how much is a court filing fee.

Oh, right, is that no?

Is that what's not no, no, a filing fee, who pays a filing fee is not the difference here.

I I just I don't understand why.

I think we're talking all the way around this.

I don't understand why you tomorrow's a two-month anniversary, the date you sent us, you're gonna you're gonna sue us, do it.

Like, there's I don't understand why it doesn't.

We you we just agreed that it doesn't matter if you're the people you're representing are the plaintiff or the defendant, whether the city is the plaintiff or the defendant, you're the one threatening a lawsuit, we've not threatened anyone.

So I don't like there has to be some reason why you just refuse to do this.

I mean, I know you like to throw lawsuits and dangle them out there in front of everybody and say, ah, nobody can take an action on anything because I'm might sue somebody.

But like, just I don't understand why you won't do it.

And you're talking all the way around it.

You can't be straight with me.

Like, what is stopping you from filing this lawsuit against us?

That's two months tomorrow, you told us you were both.

The difference is we're trying to settle this out and come in in a united front.

But we're not.

He can't ethically argue your side because he doesn't believe that that's right.

Well, that's what happened in the past cases is the parties went in and filed joint motions.

You ask, ask your city attorney to provide you with those cases.

In one of the cases, in one of the cases, the party filed the petition, and the answer admitted all the allegations of the petition.

So you talk about adversity.

No, it was a collaborative suit, though they went in and joined.

No, just let me finish.

Completely separate.

You asked the question, I'm gonna finish.

You've asked me.

Answer it directly.

Stop around it.

Wait, no, so we're I'm answering it directly, not to your satisfaction.

I'm answering the the difference is if you want to know more.

The difference is whether the governmental body is going to just place the burden, which I clearly think you do, wants to place the cost and money burden, it's more than a filing fee.

You want us to file a big old adverse lawsuit that involves all kinds of fundraising, that involves all kinds of risk, that involves all kinds of cost and burden on us.

What we have done as an organization is we've kind of flipped the script, and knowing what might have happened in the referendum petition did, we put people in office who would support our position to put this to a vote of the people.

If your city attorney personally doesn't believe we can do that, but five of you say you have to take this position in this lawsuit, he's under an obligation to do so.

Now, if five of you don't want to vote that way, if five of you want to go with what you're saying you want to do, council member Dixon, that's fine.

You may have the votes on your side.

But if there are five members of this council that say, okay, there are 11,000 voters who signed a petition, who elected a mayor, who in election after election, not yours, you're kind of that one electoral college ward where you you were a supporter of the arena and got back in without even an opponent.

So I understand your position.

But this is a flip the usual script where we have gone, plan B was to elect council members who would support our position to put this to a vote.

And yes, our position would be that we are looking for a collaborative declaratory judgment action like the Tom Sherman action, like the Hallbrook action, where joint motions for summary judgment were filed, and in one of those, the allegations of the petition were admitted.

So that's it.

That was on our agenda at our last meeting, and council member Gandisbury made the motion and nobody said it.

So you lost again eight to one.

Should why are we still going on?

The issue though, council is divided, and it may be five to four, but half the council doesn't want to repeal it and doesn't want to take a risk.

Other council members have concern about legal risk and things like that.

So it's hard to get the council to give direction to the city attorney to do this cohesive thing when the council seems to be not in agreement currently.

Maybe in July that may be different, but I that's where I'm seeing the contention here is there's half the council that's doesn't agree, and the attorneys have some differing agreement of opinion.

So councilmember Hinkle.

Um since we're taking comments from outside counsel, I'm curious if we set a precedent where we can repeal or undo an action of a previous counsel just because a future counsel is elected, and that creates an uncertainty of projects that we've approved going forward.

What would that do to the credit opinion for a bond capacity for the city of Norman?

If that uncertainty exists for every project that we issue bonds on, would that negatively affect us in the bond market in the future?

Is that a question for Rick or I'll be happy to hear from you?

That question is yes.

Investors like certainty, they don't like uncertainty.

I'm not going to put my money at risk.

If I put my money at risk and there's uncertainty, I'm going to ask for more return.

So your projects going forward are going to be more expensive.

People have to vote on bonds, right?

This is not your meeting, sir.

We're letting people in.

Nobody asked you.

No, you were not recognized.

Yes.

Here's what I want to do.

Only if you're called on, please a council member wants to ask a question of someone in the audience.

Independent of what's legal counsel.

Independent of what council says, I have an ethical obligation to only present positions that are meritorious to the court.

Council, and I've been here 28 years.

I've litigated hundreds of cases.

Council has never told me what position to take in a case.

The positions I've taken in cases has always been based on my independent evaluation of what the facts were and what the law says and how the law applies to the facts.

If you want me to go over to district court and argue that I believe that council has the ability to send something to a vote outside the initiative and referendum process, you need to find somebody else.

That is my credibility.

That is my reputation with those judges over there.

And I'm not going to sacrifice this because somebody wants to put this to a vote.

Now, I have always been in the opinion, I will always be of the opinion.

If your position has merit, you should be able to convince the judge to rule in your favor.

We had that issue last Wednesday.

Our position had merit.

I was able to convince the judge to rule in our favor.

If there's an argument out there that says you can send this to a vote and it's got merit, you should be able to convince the judge of that.

If you can't convince the district court judge, you should be able to convince the appellate court judge.

I've been wrong before.

But I can't go over there.

I'm on record.

Go go search it on Google, you'll find article after article where the city attorney says he does not believe you can independently send this to a vote.

And I'll I'm not gonna go over there and make that argument.

I'll go over there and make the argument I think is supported by the law and the court will make its rule.

And if we lose, if I we lose.

It's that simple.

But I think it's really dangerous to get into the position of a counsel directing their attorney how to go argue with case.

Council Peacock.

Uh and to that point, um, if you give counsel your sincere, honest opinion as per as it pertains to a legal stance, and we don't follow your advice.

What's the what's the recourse for us individually?

Well, there are some uh instances where relying on the advice of council can provide you with a defense if you're wrong on occasions, but if you're not com if you're not relying on the advice of your counsel, then you just don't have that defense.

Again, at the end of the day, at the end of the day.

We talked about what's what's the result.

The result that the court's gonna make a ruling.

The judge is smart enough to know the law just as well as we do, and the judge is gonna make the ruling, and it's not necessarily gonna depend on whether I say yeah, you should or no, you shouldn't.

I I think it goes back to when I look at the much bigger picture of this isn't the only case I'm gonna go over there and litigate right.

And I think we have a pretty good reputation with our district court judges, they understand that we're competent, um, that we do a good thorough job, and me going over there and not doing a good job and sort of trying to push something by them, that ruins my reputation going forward in other cases that may be more important than this, that I'm not willing to compromise.

I'm I've got much more integrity than that.

I'm not willing to compromise that.

I'm just not well, and as uh you being one of the three employees that two currently the city council has, um, I would not put you out there like that as well.

I wouldn't ask you that jeopardize your reputation either.

Council Mr Kirby.

I just want to clarify, I understand what he's saying.

If we did move forward with this and it did go to suit, Rob Norman is gonna go argue in behalf of the 11,000 people who did the petition and uh re-elected new council members they felt would be more focused on what they want to move forward as a path, and Rick would go over and argue why it's a bad idea to overturn the ordinance and why we should stay moving forward on that path.

Is that that's not correct?

The le this the the narrow legal question is outside of the initiative and referendum process, does this council have the authority to schedule an election on that particular?

I don't believe you do.

So you're gonna argue that we don't.

I'm I would argue that based on my understanding of the law, no council does not have the authority to do that.

Okay.

I mean, it's somewhat consistent with the mayor mentioned the last time we were over there.

The last time we were over there, the city attorney actually wrote a memo to counsel saying, I don't believe you have the ability to send this to a vote of the people.

And that was before the 11,000 petition signatures.

And that was also before an election, because my whole life I've heard if you don't like what your elected officials doing, vote them out.

And so I would think that in itself is an argument that the people of Norman did exactly that.

I'm I'm basing my opinion on what the Oklahoma Constitution says about municipalities' ability to schedule initiative and referendums.

So it's based on the constitution.

So I guess the argument would be the citizens of this state have outlined when a municipal when a municipal government can and cannot submit something to the election of the people.

So that's what it's based on.

And it has nothing to do with whether I believe the merits of a vote.

The 11,000 people, whether I whether I believe them or don't believe them, whether I think they want to vote or not vote.

It has to do with if you can't do something, you simply can't do something.

Um I appreciate the honesty.

I mean, just say it and get it out there.

So thank you.

Councilmember Grant.

Um I think my position would be that I would prefer over Cue S.

I don't really see a pathway for us to go down this.

Uh when I mentioned from the dais a couple Tuesdays ago or whenever it was, one of it was going back to that advisory vote we tried to do.

And I Catherine did tell us in that meeting that she didn't think it could go forward and Chris.

Then you had to go up there and say, Oh well.

We tried and we were struck down.

It's um and then also with us uh suing an activist organization.

Even if that organization were to try and lay it out like, oh no, we asked for this.

I just know how the politics go, and it looks bad.

It looks and there'll be people who are under informed who'll basically be like, look at that city council, you know, suing the citizens.

Um so that those were my reasons, but also good to know that like in good faith you can't argue the opposite.

So knowing all that, I don't think that If other council members were to rule a three and get it on the agenda, I would be a no vote.

Council Gansbury.

Once again, no, when we didn't get a second, and then I went to my comments afterwards.

I stated kind of what I thought needed to happen then that thing with uh red suing us and getting the question heard, and once again, with no red representatives in the room and everything.

I would just I like to study a lot of it in depth a lot of times and everything, but I if I was trying to hang my hat on one more thing, I think that if I was O Red and I sued the city, I know I'm getting in front of somebody.

If I wait for the city council to vote on if they're gonna have their attorney go over and file the paperwork, it may or may not come back to the right vote, you know, in their opinion, you know, and stuff like that, where this leads to at least a guaranteed response to have to take place and everything like that.

So I think we're you know, running on those fumes now that a day in court's better than no day in court, basically, and everything, you know, and sadly Howard has to go, it has to go, but I think that there's not very many more days to be had, so that's the way I'd go forward.

Counselor Hinkle.

I just to reiterate it.

I think that more wrenches being thrown into this at this point with bonds being issued and the county and the all the partners moving forward.

Um if we set a any precedent that says a future council can undo the actions of a previous council, then no future council vote is safe.

And we have a bond project for our homeless shelter that we're getting ready to issue bonds on the bond market for.

Same with our road maintenance bond.

Those are things that people take the faith and credit of Norman into consideration when they make those investments.

And if we keep tinkering with this, we're going to see the cost of those projects go up just from the debt that we issue to complete them, and that is one of my biggest concerns about this.

Personal liability or not, the future liability and what we're going to be leaving future councils with by taking any further action on this against citizens or anything that debilitates our the faith of our credit in the city of Norman on the bond market is detrimental.

Council Member Bruce.

I mean, I'm in my mind from a contracting way.

I'm thinking of best faith.

I'm best faith.

But on the role I'm in.

I do best faith.

If I don't do best faith, there's always consequence.

In a federal contract, it's very easy to termination for convenience.

You know, what if you're one of those parties?

But if I don't do best faith, I'm always I can be liable as a party.

I know what it says in the EDA about this, but I'm thinking, okay, but it says, but even if I didn't do best faith, and I'm a member of that contract or an external party, or mechanism trust person, it's even more risk in my mind.

So I see this where everyone's discounting the idea.

About due diligence and best faith in execution.

As a council member, but also as a member of that trust.

Am I wrong?

No.

Okay.

All right, any other comments or questions for staff about this?

Um there are some outstanding questions based off of the stuff you were sent.

Yes.

About the economic the development agreement, uh, the county trust and designations and different things like that that are outlined as questions, and then if there are contractual issues like that, how are you mentioned that there are remedies but cures but questions about that uh and in if any of that is a deal breaker for it, if they're egregious violations of that deal.

Um other questions, comments for anybody about this.

Um I know it's a difficult thing, uh, but I think we really need to have this discussion with a new council member, especially.

But there's a lot of seemingly unanswered or unclear questions that folks have about all of this.

Um I know again, my desire has been for the people to be able to weigh it, the public to weigh in through a vote on the financing piece of this.

Um having a petition with that many signatures just dissolve into thin air, kind of leaves unfinished business, basically, and people are wanting action.

Um, and I think that's what we've been trying to do for several months is explore how we can get there somehow.

Um, but the clock is definitely ticking on that.

And um so if there is no further questions on this tonight, we'll have a further discussion about those questions and get some answers on those.

And um, if council has any other questions or comments or anything else regarding this item, please let staff know what you'd like to do, or if you have questions or anything like that.

Okay, then with that, we will move on to item number four, which is consideration of adjourning into an executive session and as authorized by Oklahoma statutes under Title 25 307 D4 to discuss settlement of a pending tort claim submitted by Stephanie Pizzerat.

So second question in a motion to adjourn out of special committee and executives, okay, and then all right, are you all those in favor?

Right.

All those opposed okay.

Thanks for the time.

Anyone have any questions?