On September 16, 2026, at 1:00 PM, the Tulsa City Council Budget and Special Projects Committee met in Room 411, One Technology Center, 175 E. 2nd St., Tulsa, OK, with Chair Gilbert and Co-Chair Bengal presiding. The committee reviewed seven supplemental appropriation ordinances, a non-binding eviction prevention and legal representation resolution, an update on code enforcement backlog efforts, and a travel authorization. No minutes were available. The raw transcript opens with separate Planning Commission proceedings before the Budget and Special Projects Committee segment begins; this summary covers only the committee agenda items.
Item 2 - TSET / North Tulsa Wellness Initiative ($7,604,163.81): Ordinance amending the FY2026-2027 budget to appropriate $7,604,163.81 recognized from Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) grant revenues into the Social and Economic Development Non-Federal Grants SubFund. Staff requested waiver of City Charter, Council Rules and Order of Business, and approval and adoption on first reading. Staff described a reimbursement-based, multi-year grant; the first-year award was discussed as part of a total grant described as $17.6 million and later as $17.3 million in the same discussion. The funds support the North Tulsa Wellness Initiative with eight partners, including two new primary care residency spots per year at Crossover Health Services, an outdoor sports complex at Hawkover Park, 11 miles of mountain biking and hiking trails in Flat Rock Creek, an urban farm supplying a neighborhood grocery store, mental health programming, a bike club, and Fresh RX food-as-medicine work. Staff said the program was supposed to begin January 1, but reimbursement delays caused financial strain and some partner layoffs, creating urgency to move the funds.
Item 3 - Cherokee Health Grant ($125,000): Ordinance appropriating $125,000 from the Cherokee Health Grant into the Social and Economic Development Non-Federal Grants SubFund. Staff described a three-year grant with $125,000 in the current year and the next two years for culturally relevant lung cancer screening initiatives for Cherokee citizens in North Tulsa. The program will use community input, local data, and the Neighborhood Condition Index to define priorities. No city match is required. Funding will support a part-time community health worker plus overhead, marketing, and outreach.
Item 4 - Telligen Community Initiative Grant ($25,000): Ordinance appropriating $25,000 from the Telligen Community Initiative Grant for the Mayor's Office of Health and Well-Being. It will fund a part-time community outreach coordinator who will work with neighborhoods identified through the Neighborhood Condition Index. During discussion, Councilor Dr. Wright raised questions about part-time staffing and long-term fiscal sustainability. Dr. Pasha counted seven total staff positions in the office, many grant-funded, and said this grant creates a part-time position. Councilor Dr. Wright asked for a fuller accounting of grant-funded staff before the council retreat to avoid future general fund pressure. Councilor Dutton asked whether Neighborhood Condition Index thresholds were predetermined; Dr. Pasha said the approach is fluid and the office is working toward a neighborhood health index. Councilor Archie requested a map showing district-level impacts of the health initiatives, and Dr. Pasha agreed that mapping is important.
Item 5 - Byrne Justice Assistance Grant ($413,630): Ordinance appropriating $413,630 from U.S. Department of Justice grant revenues into the JAG Reimbursements Grants SubFund. Staff said the Tulsa Police Department received the annual JAG award; $395,253 would go to TPD's Riverside Division and $18,000 would pass through to the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office under a memorandum of understanding. Specific uses were identified in the award documents and presentation, but staff had not yet seen the final MOU.
Item 6 - Convention and Visitors Fund ($293,750): Ordinance appropriating $293,750 from Convention and Visitors Fund revenues. Staff said about $200,000 of the amount was FY26 revenue above the original budget estimate and would be distributed as a one-time amount to Visit Tulsa for promotional marketing campaigns. The remaining $93,000 was from the FY26 original budget and needed reappropriation to pay FY26 bills because of the June/July billing timeline crossing fiscal years.
Item 7 - Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund ($20,000): Ordinance appropriating $20,000 from Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund grant revenues. The funds go to the Department of Resilience and Equity for financial counseling services. Staff described this as an amendment to a 2021 grant after the original scope was completed; the funder provided additional dollars to continue the program.
Councilor Bellis presented a non-binding resolution expressing the City's intent to support the establishment and funding of an eviction prevention and legal representation program. She emphasized that the resolution does not change policy and does not commit specific public funds, but it allows partners to be convened and program design to move forward.
Bellis cited Tulsa County statistics: about 14,000 eviction filings per year; Tulsa ranked about 11th in the nation for eviction filings; about 74,000 eviction filings since COVID; and about 3,000 Tulsa Public Schools students affected per year. She also cited an average landlord cost of about $2,015 per eviction plus an average vacancy of 1.5 months, and about $4.21 in economic impact return for every $1 invested in similar eviction prevention programming.
The revised resolution language includes education, early dispute resolution, and legal representation as essential program components. It states that public funding sources identified for legal assistance should focus on landlords and tenants with extenuating circumstances such as a sudden medical event or similar hardship, and on tenants facing substandard housing conditions. Program development would be led by a mayor-designated department, and that department would engage landlords, tenants, and service providers in the program development process. Eligibility criteria were broadened so partners can help define income and targeting details.
Bellis noted that only one organization currently provides these services in Tulsa, that capacity has fluctuated with funding, and that one organization cannot represent both sides of a dispute, so additional capacity may be needed.
Mark Smith of Housing Solutions said legal representation will not prevent a lawful eviction, but it provides clarity, helps correct inappropriate filings, and gives tenants and landlords access to legal information that non-attorneys cannot provide. He also said SafeMove is focused on street homelessness, while eviction prevention is an upstream intervention.
Several councilors expressed positions. Councilor Lake reported concerns from landlords about unintended consequences such as increased screening requirements and higher deposits, and asked whether the funding might be better used for rental assistance or for a broader stakeholder debate. Councilor Bush relayed calls from small mom-and-pop landlords with pandemic-related concerns and encouraged them to participate in future program development. Councilor Dutton expressed support for the resolution and said the program development language properly includes landlords, tenants, and service providers. Councilor Bengal said he wants to respect private contracts, use mediation first, and narrowly target public funds to extenuating circumstances such as predatory leases, rather than broadly funding representation for routine nonpayment cases.
James Wagner, Director of Planning and Neighborhoods, and Brent Pitchburg, Code Enforcement Manager, provided the follow-up update requested from the August 26 Urban and Economic Development Committee meeting.
The FY2026-2027 budget added four new code enforcement positions. Current staffing is 31 total positions: one manager, three supervisors, two administrative technicians, and 25 field staff. Vacancies were about 10 as of the prior week, reduced to nine, with additional hires expected. One administrative officer started recently and allowed an experienced officer to return to the field. Three new code officer I positions were offered; one had started and the others were expected to begin within about two weeks, with a target of all new staff working by about October 5.
The current case backlog was reported as about 3,324 cases. Caseload has increased by 54% since 2018, and the May through August backlog comparison shows about a 17% increase over the prior year. Staff said the backlog typically drops to around 1,400 cases in the winter.
Staff described a two-customer voluntary compliance approach: the complainant and the property owner. Voluntary compliance was reported at about 82%, up from about 77% earlier. Planned tools include weekly postcards with QR codes directing property owners to cityoftulsa.org/compliance, text notifications for water-account holders, door hangers, and courtesy contacts. The legal notice period remains 10 days, or 10 business days under local ordinance. The goal is to make first contact within the first week or two once the backlog is caught up, with enforcement action targeted within about 30 days for routine cases. Priority 1 and 2 cases involving immediate life and safety issues are handled within about a week.
Councilor Hall-Harper asked about training timelines, the number of contractors, and how residents can verify a property has been reported. Staff said new code officer I staff can be trained in about six weeks, there is currently one contractor, and a public map on the compliance website shows whether a case has been reported. Councilor Bangle asked about the 311 app being unavailable; staff explained that app-store account renewal was delayed after the death of a city employee, with the Android app restored and the Apple app still being resolved. Bangle also raised the challenge of inoperable or commercial vehicles that cannot be towed under current rules and asked whether ordinance or penalty changes may be needed. Councilor Dutton asked whether the new four staff positions would be enough to reach the 30-day benchmark. One councilor suggested exploring site-specific or neighborhood-level code enforcement case managers; staff said they want to evaluate the new approach before requesting additional staffing.
The committee heard the supplemental appropriations, the eviction prevention resolution, and the code enforcement update, and then took up the travel authorization for Councilor Hall-Harper to attend the African-American Leadership Conference in Omaha, Nebraska, September 30 through October 3, 2026, at an estimated cost of $1,300 for registration, hotel, transportation, and per diem. The meeting was then adjourned.
No formal roll-call or voice vote tallies are captured in the raw transcript for the committee segment. The agenda indicates that several appropriation ordinances were scheduled for subsequent full City Council action on September 23, 2026, while the TSET item was requested for waiver and first-reading adoption on September 16, 2026, and the eviction prevention resolution was also listed for City Council consideration on September 16, 2026.
Responsibility to share the road. Together, we can be kind and make streets a safer place for everyone. All right. Welcome to the City of Tulsa Planning Commission. Meeting number two. Which is pretty awesome. We're gonna go ahead and uh call this to order. Um I do not have a report. Chairperson's report is a director's report. Yes. Um so no updates from council last week. Tonight, the city council will vote on both the text amendments to the Renaissance uh neighborhood character overlay uh and also apply the neighborhood character overlay, the first or two to the Florence Park neighborhood. Uh we have several items we need to discuss in a work session. Um we've at this point um kind of targeted October 21st, so it's the second meeting in October. Um we're meeting would be either 10 or 1030, kind of see how how everything goes before then to see how much time we need. Topics for discussion are include um we're working on some general code amendments cleanup primarily, also um what we're calling housing fees feasibility part two zoning code amendments. If you remember part one, this is probably a more lengthy um set of amendments. We're going around and talking to different groups about those. We need to talk to you about them again. Um you initiated those maybe in the spring, I think. Um also we need to talk about data center regulations. There's a data center moratorium, and um we've part of the moratorium states that we will prepare some zoning code amendments to address some of those issues in the meantime, so we've done that. There might also be a couple of uh historic preservation, one or more uh historic preservation items to discuss. For instance, um, there's the guidelines, so we might be ready to talk about those. So those are some things we have in mind that we want to talk about. All right, thank you. Um just real quick before can I pig you back on the director's report to make a public service announcement? To our applicants in the room, we have continued to experience a scam that is related to our office where someone is emailing applicants that they get the information off of applications or information on our website, sending requests for wiring of money for application fees, and they tell you that your case will not be completed until you wire this money to a specific person. Um I just want people to be aware, do not respond to those emails, do not send anybody money. Um we only accept payment of application fees at the time you apply. Uh so if you do receive one of those or if you've already received one of those, you can also forward it to our office. We've we've been collecting those and reporting them, but um just want everybody to be aware. Thank you, Nashville. That's a great PSA. Um we do not have any minutes for approval. Uh so at this point I'll ask if there's any uh conflicts of interest. Uh Chair, I don't have a conflict of interest, but I would like to point out that in my role as senior advisor for housing in the mayor's office. I have met with the developer of item number four and have discussed their project. Um despite those discussions. I believe I can remain impartial and unbiased and will base my vote on that matter based on the information provided in her at the public meeting. All right, thank you. Okay, Commissioner Shivel, would you like to read our rules? Oh no. Oh, no, that's me now. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. This is this is only meeting number two, so right. So in order to conduct the public hearing in an orderly manner, we ask that you abide by the following rules. The commission will first hear from staff for an explanation of the application, the physical facts of the property under application and the surrounding property, followed by presentation of staff's recommendation. Commission will then hear the applicant's presentation not to exceed 15 minutes.