Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 to order.

We have one agenda item discussion.

Discussion regarding the potential deannexation of property east of 60th Avenue and the associated impacts to the city of Norman.

Um would like to remind everybody that council members staff must be recognized by the chair in order to speak in this meeting, and uh we will take questions from counsel after the presentation, not during.

And uh I'd like to introduce city attorney Rick Knighton to make a presentation.

Sure.

Thanks.

Um, and we're here to talk a little bit about this issue that has come up in the past on a number of occasions.

Um, every year council gets together and puts together their list of priorities.

It was listed as a priority last year at the council retreat.

Um, unfortunately, during the last legislative year, we didn't really get this far along with it, so it's come up again on this particular um legislative sort of agenda for this year.

So you put it you asked for information from staff with regard to this particular this possibility.

So we put that information together for you guys to sort of consider going forward.

In terms of the legal process for de-annexation or what the statute would call detachment, that process is set forth in 110 section 21-11.

Um, as a general rule, it just requires a simple majority of vote of council to de-annex a portion of a municipality.

That is 21 11 OS section 21-11A1.

There is another provision that allows you to do it by petition of the property owners.

Um, fairly complicated.

It requires a certain percentage in terms of the number of people that live there.

It also requires a certain percentage of the landowners.

I think it's three quarters of the land area.

Um, those owners have to sign a petition to go forward with regard to uh de-annexing a portion of their city.

You guys probably don't remember.

We used to have a town called Hall Park up in Northeast Norman.

At some point in time, they just that property owner decided he wanted to de-annex from the city, but at the time he was the sole property owner, so it was really for easy for him to do it by petition.

Um that sort of municipality went along for quite some time.

The difficulty for Hall Park was they didn't have any commercial businesses, so they really didn't have a way to generate revenue to pay for their cost.

Um at some point in time in the not too distant past, the landowners, the property owners came to us and said if we de-annex, will you re-annex us?

And the answer was yeah, um, we will do that, and we ultimately did do that.

Um, one thing it's important to note, and this is in 2011 OS section 21-11.

The owners of detached lands are liable for the cost of public improvements, which may or which may have been constructed on the detached lands at the expense of the municipality.

So if there's any taxing measures, bonds, things on those lines that are currently um being paid for for from advil and property tax assessments.

If there was a detachment, the only thing that the owners of land in the detached areas would be liable for would be the cost of public improvements that essentially were uh constructed on that particular property by the municipality.

So, you know, something like a general geo bond or a bond for road construction in general.

If it doesn't have something to do with that particular piece of property, then they would no longer be responsible for that particular particular bonds.

Um the governance implications are if that area were detached, um, it would become part of Cleveland County, become part of the unincorporated area of Cleveland County.

So the Cleveland County Sheriff Department or Cleveland County Commissioner would be the government governing body with regard to that particular area.

Um we did talk a little bit about mutual aid agreements, and that really has to do with police and fire.

I know we'll talk about that here in a little bit, um, in terms of um how we go about providing some aid to our unincorporated areas on occasion with regard to police and fire service through those mutual aid agreements.

Um financial implications, um there are obviously two.

One is um a reduction in expenditure with regard to the city as a whole, which would include fire, police, public works, sanitation, parks, and rec and planning and community development.

And we'll talk a little bit more in depth about some of those particular reductions and expenditures, at least to the extent that we've been able to calculate what some of those are.

And of course, you would also have a loss in revenue.

Um revenue from the businesses that are located in that area.

Um, also the use tax, which essentially is when I order something from Amazon, they deliver it to my property here.

Um, I have to pay the use tax um, which goes to the municipality, and then of course, there's also the other one property tax issue.

You would lose that revenue.

To the extent, I mean, we have some bonds that are paid for from adval on property tax sort of assessments.

We also have our sinking fund that our finance director sends out of the county every year for items that are eligible to go on the sinking fund advantage on property tax rules.

That would essentially increase the percentage that the incorporated area property tax owners have to pay.

Usually it's not that significant, but there would be that sort of loss of revenue with regard to those particular funding sources.

All right.

Talked a little bit with our fire department about some of their considerations and specifically D annexation east of 60th Avenue.

Um would reduce responsibility for providing fire and EMS.

And of course, fire does provide those fire service.

They also are first responders with regard to medical calls.

Savings from eliminating that coverage would be reduced personnel costs, reduced apparatus costs, reduced station demand.

The response would shift to county or neighboring communities.

We currently have some with Noble with the City of Moore with regard to fire responses.

City may continue to respond to Lake Thunderbird under an existing agreement.