e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good morning we're going to get started with an invocation led by Pastor Jose arao close enough Pastor uh uh representing First Church OKC and that will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance uh led by CC Parton of Girl Scouts troop 406 please stand as you are able Lord we know that this is the day that you have made so we choose to rejoice and be glad in it we wouldn't want this meeting today without your blessing so we call upon you to bestow your blessings upon what happens in this room this morning Lord I pray that every Journey that has led every person to the place where they are here today um is one that has been led by you so we pray please surround us now may we be overwhelmed not by worries or concerns or perhaps even by business but first by your presence let your joy overflow let your strength be within us let love rule our conversations and everything we do may bring glory to your name for that is the reason why we are here we pray blessings over the leadership of the city over the mayor and staff and all that uh give of themselves for the work of the city and for the glory of your name please bless this time and may what we do here Lord bring a smile to your face this morning we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord amen please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Pastor and thank you CeCe great job all right I call this meeting of the city council to order this is uh I guess our final budget briefing of the uh budget cycle and so it will be mostly in the hands of the city manager and his team uh though we will have towards the end of the meeting a couple of executive sessions that uh we deferred from last week's very lengthy meeting so uh with that I uh arrive at item three and I turn it over to you Mr city manager thank you mayor I appreciate that so this morning we have three departments that are on today to present the budget public works department utilities department and airports and then we'll have a presentation of the budget comments by our budget director uh Chris York and so we're going to start off with public works so debie Miller our Public Works director is going to uh present the public works department budget good morning Debbie Miller Public Works director I'm here to present the Public Works uh budget for this next year um first I'd like to thank staff who assisted in preparing this budget I have Billy little our business manager Mike Miller our financial specialist and brick is assisting with the presentation I also wouldd like to thank our division heads who were uh assisted in this um our um Mission we we are over infrastructure construction and maintenance we do private construction review and inspection and emergency First Response services to live work and play in a supportive community this next slide shows our uh proposed Personnel by division our largest division is our streets and and drainage maintenance at 167 employees and our smallest are Administration and Engineering at 31 um this next slide shows the responsibilities Public Work Public Works has in the city um we have 620 square miles which is a very large city with a lot of infrastructure that we oversee we have um over 4,00 streets which translates to 8,000 over 8,000 Lane miles and we have 804 signalized intersections uh this is our organization line of business uh we have seven divisions Administration traffic Services engineering storm water quality streets and drainage field services and our project management um this aligns with our strategic business plan and LFR that was updated in the fall of 2023 this next slide shows um our present budget for fiscal year 24 with um the physical year 25 coming up um you can see the main changes uh are with the engineering streets and drainage and traffic Services um we decreased the engineering budget there was a change in the way that we are handling our utility cut repairs and so instead of utilities preparing or providing payback to the general fund they are going to take care of that themselves so that is a reduction um we also show um we are reorganizing our traffic Ops into traffic management creating a new division called traffic services so that's the other major change that you see here um overall we have a 5% decrease which is a 2% budget decrease and a utility cut repairs so that's the major difference there um this shows the major budget changes that you'll see um we have a change in personnel and we also had the reorganization for the traffic Services Department um we have a net reduction of five positions which were all vacant um we are adding a position to our grants management and project management and a couple of positions to our financial section in administration uh this shows our budget by funding source um this shows the different sources that provide for our funding for both operation and non-operating um as you can see we've got um impact fees and better Street cfer cities a general fund and drainage utility our overall budget is 255 million our operating budget here by our uh divisions shows of course that streets and drainage is the largest with Administration and um storm water quality and Field Services now I need to make sure you guys understand that the bond is not included in this operating budget our first division that we'll talk about is Administration this uh provides support to all the other divisions and from uh project processed from inion inception to design and final completion um this ranges from executive leadership financial management human resources and information technology this division has 31 positions and a budget of 12.9 million um this slide I wanted to show um we are really looking for innovative ways to improve our efficiency and to bring our department into the 21st century this is uh showing pavement management how we're going through and and developing a new pavement management system a modern one where we're actually using more data to make that together our next division is engineering um this provides um Bridge M mainten strategy plan review payment condition inspection and a bridge replacement plan um we have three sections the bridge drainage technical review and Paving there are 31 positions and this budget is 5.7 million um plan review technical review is a very big part of this section ction um they review the plans for private development they work with the developers consultants and the contractors um this slide shows um the permits from the the history of the permits from uh fiscal year 17 on up uh the purple are permits the blue are the plans that we've reviewed um permits are starting to come down we had a spike last year um the plans are actually coming down from 757 to 416 this year and we're real excited about this slide we've worked really hard staff has worked very hard to keep our plan review down to under four weeks um this shows that since August of 23 we have been able to achieve that we've put on some additional staff and we do have a consultant that is helping us with that um another thing that staff has worked on um we put out a survey last year to the development Community to to ask them how are we doing what do you need from us how can we improve and the main thing that we received from them was communication so we now have a quarterly newsletter that goes out um we have had a contractor Workshop shop where we had over a 100 contractors come in and they were uh shown how to do work with the city work orders um storm water quality permits and all different aspects of private construction um we also held an engineering town hall meeting where we gave them updates on our latest changes and also allowed them to do question and answers our next division is project management and they provide construction related Services through Inception which is contract Administration design and final completion of all capital project improvements um we have the contract Administration facilities who handle all of the uh city building facility projects infrastructure project management which are streets drainage Bridge traffic and grants management which are handing our arpa funding and any additional grants funds that we may receive um this is kind of a busy slide um the blue here are the bond projects that we have completed and expect to complete this year um the sales tax is the purple um you can see that um the sales tax is slowly winding down we are almost finished with that we do have a few streetcape projects that we are in completing um but we do hope to complete 152 projects awarded in this fiscal year um this is our miles resurfaced Public Works always strives to have at least 100 miles uh resurfaced every year this year it looks like we may be able to reach the 130 Mark uh fied Services is the next division that we'll talk about they do inspection uh for infrastructure projects provide uh survey Services they handle all the private inspections for the developing developing uh Community for projects that are going to be transferred to the city for maintenance they handle the public inspections driveway inspections rideway inspections they also provide utility locates for us they have 49 positions and their budget is 4.8 million um here you can see a couple of pictures on the left the inspectors are out watching uh forms being set to make sure that they meet all of the city requirements on the right you can see where we have survey Services we can provide topographic surveys we also have a drone where we can do aerial surveys also and this shows the inspection work orders for the last few years um we expect this year to be pretty even with last year at 525 um storm water quality management they provide inspections enforcement Technical Services um household hazardous waste Services emergency response for residents um we want the residents the businesses and government agencies comply with the 404 Clean Water Act so we help them achieve that uh they have 31 positions with a budget of 4.1 million um this shows their year in review last year um they had a very successful year they had over a thousand participants in the adopted Street and curb to Creek programs they uh removed 8.4 million pounds of floatable debris in the creeks and rivers in Oklahoma City and they distributed 409 rain barrels um this is our household hat waste uh facility this is located at 1621 South Portland and this is open to all residents of Oklahoma City for uh city employees we also do have mlus with the surrounding communities um in this facility last year they collected over 796 th000 lbs of waste and this is waste that did not go into the landfill or into the waterways um every year we have a a special collection event where we collect ammunition tires uh computers prescriptions these are items that are not accepted at the household hazardous waste facility this year was exciting we had 645 participants um which is the largest amount of people we've had participate before and we collected over 251,000 PBS Oh and next year's collection is April 12th so keep that on your calendar our next division which is our largest is our streets and drainage maintenance division they have 168 positions a budget of 20.6 million they handle the base repairs drainage maintenance they do poth hole they do railroad maintenance um here are some pictures that are on the street side of the shop you can see up in the top left they are working on a base repair which is a larger repair than a poth hole um when the street gets to be that bad and we can just do a small replacement to get that repaired that's what that is uh the bottom left shows a pothole repair where they put the asphalt in and using the roller to flatten that out um in the top right we show our crews out there they are doing resurfacing and ru area and in the lower right you can see the rural roope maintenance where they're doing some bage repair um this is the condition of our city streets um the annual survey shows streets are extremely important to our residents um we measure our uh Street conditions called PCI pavement condition index and this is a ranged from zero to 100 where zero is the worst and 100 is the best so we've always strived to get get to a 70 um if you notice back in 2013 we started at 63 and last year we got all the way up to the 69 we're hoping this year we'll be up to 70 um we believe that this is from all of the work from the better streets safer City sales tax and the bond and we look forward to keeping this going on the upward trajectory uh this shows our potholes repaired um when I first came back to Public Works it was 6,000 po holes that we were repairing every year we have been able to get that down you can see it's kind of fluctuated um we believe that the sales tax and the bond the work that we've put into all the streets has brought this down if we're fixing the worst streets then the poth holes are not as as much and we hope to bring this down further by completing the 2017 Bond and possible future 2025 work um this is on the drainage side of the shop at the drainage section or the drainage side they handle a lot of mowing on Creeks they do a lot of Maintenance repairs on our storm sewer system and this year they expect to do over 2 200 repairs so traffic Services is the new division that we've created by combining our traffic management and our traffic Ops um we did this to streamline our maintenance of signals and the repair of those so they also do plan reviews speed studies um they do the record uh contracts for the traffic commission uh we also have the ASAP the alternative speed abatement program that was launched in 2023 this next slide shows our LED upgrade status um this is a federal requirement that went into effect last year and so we are working on completing the conversion of the incandescent bulbs to the LED bulbs we have a total of 804 intersections we're now at 56% that we have converted uh the great thing about the LED bulbs is they're more efficient they last longer and they allow the intersections to be put on a battery backup so we have 130 intersections that have been completed in Ron battery backup at this time um this shows some of the crews um on the left you can see they're doing some uh signal maintenance putting up a new signal head on the right you can see the Longline machine uh the crews are really excited they've worked to get this operational again and they've been out practicing and they're ready to go stri some streets here is another program that we have in traffic Services it's our honorary street sign topper program we have this for districts so you can see like the Asian District on the right they can apply and provide the signs and we'll install those or if you have a particular Street you would like to have an honorary name you can do that also um this slide shows our traffic services this is our monitoring system for intersections you can see um the gis showing the locations of the intersections uh we're able to look at the intersections itself through a camera and we can look and see what the status is and see if it's if there's an issue if we we can fix it in the office or if we need to send our crews out so this is Public Works a year in review this is what we strive to do every year um 100 miles of streets improvements um 60,000 pothole repairs uh 21 impact fee projects awarded uh we'd like to do 12,000 infrastructure plans reviewed 32,000 RightWay inspections um collect 7,000 PBS at hHw uh distribute 600 rain barrels and um issue 200 storm water permits so that completes my presentation I'll be glad to take any questions thanks Debbie I do have a few questions first I'd like to just say um to the the PCI um I've had neighborhoods reach out asking about streets and I usually send them the map that you all have online so that they can kind of keep on top of what they uh what we're seeing and I've always heard rave reviews about the map so I just wanted to relay that um that that that kind of public facing information is very helpful for residents to kind of know um you know maybe they think their Road or or their street right in front of them but actually the street just next you know it's still in their neighborhood but they can have a kind of broader view of how to Advocate to to get their streets taken care of um I did want to ask um you mentioned the ASAP program the alternative speed abatement program I'm curious if you have a little bit more information or maybe it's for another meeting to give a presentation just kind of to dig into it's really I guess the First full year um of the program and I'm kind of interested to hear you know what we were able to accomplish and kind of what the results of what people what infrastructure people were you know applying for and how maybe how many people have on a waiting list I'm kind of curious to hear if you have any of that or maybe it just this is a request to have a presentation in the next few weeks on that I can provide you more information I can tell you last year we had nine um projects were completed this year so far we have seven um we have three that are under construction so I would be glad to get you more information okay that would be great um and then my last question um is on the hazardous waste collection I've had a number of residents over the years ask about Sharps and needle collection um I know there are some other neighboring communities who do that kind of I think it's Midwest City maybe has that as um one of the items they collect um and especially for people who have diabetes or other [Music] um they take other medications that require injections it's something that's come up about kind of how difficult and complicated it can be to um to dispose of those and I'm curious if we've explored or um looked at how we can maybe Loop that into whether it's like a special collection event like you all do or if it's like the on the regular rotation as part part of the Hazardous Waste Facility collection well I know it's considered Medical Way B so it's not something we're able to accept at hHw um I know that their uh DEQ has some information on that and I have a flyer I would be glad to send to you interested in that and I guess I'd be interested to learn how because I think it is I think I've talked to Norman and Midwest City about how they do that collection so if there's any information about why we're not able to do it but they are if they maybe contract in a certain way where the provider shows up and does it or something is is the sort of but we're the intermediary I'd be curious to learn how we might be able to incorporate that because especially if folks are already coming to drop off you know this stuff maybe they can also be bringing that stuff and kind of streamline things for residents and just make it easier to get those things out of to the right disposal instead of maybe path of police resistance of putting them in the landfill so we'll check into that for you thank you I just had a a quick question um I wanted to talk about and I'm not sure if you talked about it before I walked in um our procurement process and and as far as our vendors are concerned um where we are with including um the more diverse populations in that in that uh process as well as if we have a list of accomplished projects that have included minority contracting and specifically to our um not just our maaps programs but some of our bigger projects but also not just our big projects but technically our smaller projects that we need our local hands on um within our community so just curious if we have any information on that if we've been able to increase uh that that vendor list or you know what I know Urban League is working on a program with us to ensure we get some some more folks to the table but just you know not sure if we have something to report but what does that look like for for us I can get you that information I do have a a young gentleman who has started with us who is very excited about this program and he is reaching out to um all the different city departments but also to other agencies outside and other um uh groups um contractors um he's reaching out to the Metrotech I can get you an update on that but I I will tell you he is excited and he's he's reaching out thanks Debbie thank you appreciate it good work so next up we have the utilities department and Vanessa agalar business manager for utilities will present the budget good morning mayor and Council Vanessa agular with the utilities department here to present to you we have the 2025 utility Department budget if you want to follow along in the budget book this can be found on page c169 of the budget book so our mission statement for the utilities department Is our commitment to providing water Wastewater and trash collection Services throughout central Oklahoma to safeguard public health and the environment to support Public Safety and enable economic Prosperity the department has also established Core Business initiatives that align to city council priorities this along with our mission statement help us in our strategic planning and our annual budget planning process each year to where any of our budget initiatives align to one or more of these Core Business initiatives before we get into the details of our 25 budget I'd like to give you a little bit of background of the budgetary challenges that the department has faced and how we're looking to address this through our initiatives first Aqua has seen inflationary cost increases unprecedented cost increases to supplies and to Services across the board and as an example electricity has gone up chemicals have more than doubled in the last two years for our department supply chain challenges we have also experienced since the pandemic challenges in being able to receive orders that we have submitted for parts and materials or even Services as an example brass Parts in some instances were taking anywhere from 20 to 30 weeks from when we placed an order to receiving Parts trash trucks was another area where we were seeing several delays as well due to supply chain challenges and last but not least difficulty in being able to recruit and retain a qualified Workforce the utilities department has had over a 100 vacancies on average year to year over the last six years and a high turn overrate in some of our Operations Division this has left our tenured employees with being able to meet our service expectations for our customers another example of this is our utilities department employees about 49% of our staff has five years or less of experience so in future slides we'll be addressing how we're looking to address some of these challenges overall we have increasing onm cost higher Bor in rates as well and the cost of construction has gone up so through our budget we're looking to address this by rephasing rescheduling capital projects in order to make sure that we are funding our onm expenses and our debt service requirements on this slide here you see the Oklahoma City water utilities trust funding source for our budget in the coming year the largest portion is debt construction funds proceeds this is 633 million which is includes State revolving fund loans and short-term financing through a program called commercial paper that we utilize approximately 555 million will go to fund water capital projects and about 78 million will fund Wastewater projects the next three large Revenue sources come from our service charges 437 million come from water Wastewater and solid waste combine aquit recently completed a bond transaction from which some of those Revenue B Bond proceeds approximately 62 million will go to fund capital projects in the coming year we also have withdrawals from cash reserves about $29 million this is 21 million for water projects about 2 million for Wastewater and 5 million for solid waste this is projects that were initially scheduled in 2024 to be funded with cash and are being rescheduled in 25 so we're reallocating that cash to fund those projects the remainder of the sources on this slide is about $18 million this includes system development charge revenue of about6 million we have flow fees of about 2 million other sources which include Billing Services fee chargeback revenue and we have recreating recreational or non-rate payer revenue of about $1 million on this next slide here you see our funding uses our total budget about 1.2 billion and here's the breakout of how we're planning to U utilize the budget in the coming year the largest portion almost 70% is for Capital Improvement projects this is 663 million for water projects 143 million for Wastewater and approximately 9 million for Solid Waste Management we do have a slide later on to go into the details of the highlights for this Capital Improvement project the next largest portion of our budget is City Utilities operation this is the portion of our budget that is in the Cityside for the utilities department about 106 million is what we forecast to do cash transfers from the trust to the city to fund city employees salaries benefits and some of the day-to-day expenses in our line of businesses the proposed budget in the budget book is 12.8 million that primary difference between our planned C our planned transfers and the proposed budget is operating reserves we budget for operating reserves but in any given year those aren't necessarily funds that we forecast to spend or plan to transfer so it's about 94% of our proposed budget trust operations at 96 million in aquit this primarily funds our billing administrative services payments to the city Professional Services multi-year contracts for water and wastewater now as I mentioned on the previous slide we have debt construction funds proceeds and that eventually becomes principal and interest payments that we make on our loans or revenue bonds and so the debt service that you see here 77 million that's the forecasted amount of our annual debt payment for all of those projects that we financed with debt as we continue to execute our Capital program we do expect this debt service to Triple over the next 10 years as we continue to execute our program Solid Waste service contracts of about $50 million approximately 60% of our Solid Waste Service area is served by our contractor bulky Recycling and trash collection Services is about 37 million in the coming year some of the other large contracts and solid waste include landfills where we have four landfills in the surrounding area within the city with which we contract with that's projected to be about $8 million some of the other service contracts for solid waste include uh street sweeping and Fleet Maintenance we also have a contract with a operator to operate and maintain our four wastewater treatment plants in the city that's projected to be about $24 million in the coming year that's a 247 operation McGee Creek operations that's a planed transfer of 10 million to transfer to the McGee Creek Authority for operations and maintenance and for their Capital program McGee Creek had some projects that were originally scheduled in 2024 and those are being some of those projects rescheduled from 24 into 25 and last on this slide we have non-rate payer activities these again are expensive is related to recreational or nonoperating sources now we'll go into a little bit more detail on the city budget for the utilities department here you see about a overall a 4% increase for from the fy4 original adopted budget to the proposed fy2 budget which is about 3.9 million you can see the breakdown of the increases or decreases to the budget annual salary adjust adjustments and benefit adjustments of about 5.5 million we have a salary Reserve reduction of about 927 th000 this is primarily due to rightsizing the forecasted cost of living adjustment in the coming year we have Department position improvements in this coming year proposed of $259,000 that includes primarily adding one full-time position a g systems analyst to help support our Tinker Air Force based line of business this position will be fully funded by the federal government the department also has other AD deletes that we've included in our position Improvement for some of our operation divisions we have Department Services and supplies improvements of over $900,000 and addressing as I previously mentioned those inflationary cost increases we have Department transfers from our city funded budget to aquit trust operation we'll go into a little bit more detail here in the future slide but that's centralizing the funding source into one location under trust operations and City charge backs of about $39,000 now even though aquit is not sales tax funded we have mirrored the city's initiative to have a conservative budget in the coming year adding only one full-time position bringing our position count to 826 in the utilities department now I will note again that position is fully funded by the federal government now how are we addressing some of our budgetary challenges you might recall the first challenge I mentioned was inflationary cost within our city budget we're looking at increasing some of our lines of businesses services and supplies as they've seen increases in these areas by 37 and 33% so we're adding about 93,000 on the city operation to help continue to procure parts and materials necessary to conduct our business on the trust operation side I mentioned treatment chemicals this has doubled in the last three years going from 6.6 million to a forecasted budget of 13.5 million in the coming year due to supplier increases in the market we're also looking at centralizing some of our contracts root control fats oils and grease and some of our cell phone Services funding from the city budget over into the trust budget this centralizes the funding source where in our trust operations we are already paying for some of these similar like activities and also in relation to the root control fat soils and grease contract this allows Aqua to be able to respond more quickly as it's currently conducting a condition Assessment program under our Capital program as engineering receives findings and reports from this assessment will be able to work with line maintenance to issue service orders or work orders and respond to the needs based on the finding so it's also for agility and for multi-year contract funding purposes so ensuring adequate funding for services and supplies is crucial in meeting various LFR measures such as water treatment and ultimately maintaining compliance with water drinking standards on this next slide here we show you one of our LFR measures which which is 100% of water quality tests meeting primary drinking St water standards and primary drinking water standards refers to those standards by EPA that are related to safety and requirements for public health you can see in the dotted Blue Line our Target is 100% And overlapping that Target is our actual performance yearby year in the solid blue line which is meeting 100% each year our our performance The Columns shown at the bottom represent how many drinking tests were actually performed year to year there is slight variation year to year and that's primarily due to how many water treatment units were in operation that given year to meet water system demand similarly on this next slide we have another LFR measure that we track which is 100% of water quality tests meeing secondary drinking water standards now secondary drinking water standards is a little bit different from primary primary is in regards to the EPA requirements for safety and public health where secondary drinking standards is more for the Aesthetics the color The Taste the odor and the hardness of the water and so you can see here again our Target in the dotted blue line is 100% our actual performance has shows a slight decline into FY 23 but we expect this to continue to improve and meet our Target going into the future now the reason for that slight decline is a couple of things I mentioned the cost of chemicals increasing significantly right and so also coupled with in 2023 we had a hot dry season so it took more chemicals to be able to treat for the Aesthetics of the water again the blue column chart shows you the number of tests that were conducted in any given year one of the other challenges that we're looking at addressing is the supply chain challenges and we're able to do that by doing an department-wide increase of our stock levels in our centralized Warehouse coupled with adjusting inventory reorder points so adjusting that reorder Point knowing that we're going to order parts before they get too low in our stock in our centralized Warehouse that will allow us to ensure that we are not impacted for critical and hard to find parts our largest customer of our centralized Warehouse is our line maintenance Division and so the we are adding about $1.1 million in additional funding in trust operations to ensure that our warehouse is able to me meet this commitment and overcome the supply chain challenges this ensures that our staff has access to crucial supplies allowing them to achieve our LFR goal of completing 75% of total work as planned and scheduled on this next slide here you'll see another LFR measure where we're tracking that this is for our line of business line maintenance within the water section our Target the dotted Blue Line shows an initial Target of 70% adjusting that upward to about 75% in later years you can see that actual performance in the solid Blue Line has been we've met or exceeded performance year to year now some of the influences or impacts what factors impact this particular LFR measure here we're tracking the work that we want to do as planned and scheduled one of the factors that might impact that is when we have unplanned work orders which are Urgent cases that are received by line maintenance we refer to those as code ones and code twos so those are critical in nature and those can vary year to year depending on the weather on the environment and other factors so those are the ones that are typically unplanned but we're addressing those as well now as we look at initiatives that the department has implemented to ensure that we're able to recruit and retain a qualified Workforce the department has done several initiatives several years ago the City of Oklahoma City launched it its employee employe engagement survey the results for the utilities department initially showed an employee engagement score of a 3.49 out of five for engagement the results indicated according to Gallup that the utilities department H did have some room for improvement in areas to help with Employee Engagement and so since then the department has eval has been evaluating employee perceptions and developing initiatives to improve two-way Communications among employees between supervisors managers and other employees the first thing that we did is we've developed and we've now implemented that comprehensive communication plan we've established standard procedures for using communication channels to ensure that messages from the city from utilities leadership division leaders reach all employees in a consistent manner we're also evaluating solutions to implement an employee Hub this will throw further invol evolve our Employee Engagement to ensure that employees are able to reach information through a digital or electronic means and this is also going to help with our employee recognition program the picture that you see here is of one of our most recent onboarding programs one of the other initiatives that the utilities department has implemented has been a two-day tour for all new hires in the utilities department we get to take them around to our facilities and give them tours so they can see all of the different lines of businesses we also have staff and division leadership do presentations so that all the new hires can learn about roles and responsibilities and opportunities within the department so that in the case that that one of those new higher employees in their career they find that their current position no longer aligns to their career goals our intent is that they have been introduced to other areas of opportunities within our department to help us to retain our Workforce another area that we've made improvements to is we've updated our utilities University Management training utilities University was launched by the department over 10 years ago to help us with succession planning track one is an initial curriculum that was established and required for all supervisors in the department with over 130 hours this initial training would help employee we help supervisors to become effective supervisors now with track two we're further developing our program by ensuring that supervisors are equipped with training such as coaching mentoring leadership Team Dynamics and advanced classes such as business writing so these the expected benefits include ongoing enhancement of both soft and hard skills Workforce development the opportunity for employees to have training that equips them for career advancement and ultimately fostering a positive organizational culture now with these initiatives we're also complementing that by utilizing technology efficiencies and investments in technology some of those Investments that the utilities department is doing is automated meter reading and mobile Workforce implementation a new LFR measure that we will be measuring in in the coming year related to this initiative is to have 100% of employees complete their career development plan partnering with their supervisors to establish those goals having midyear evaluations giving the opportunity to the supervisor to coach and Mentor employees to ensure that employees have a road map for the coming year so every year the City of Oklahoma City conducts a resident survey this slide here you shows you a snapshot of the most recent survey and some of the core Services provided by the utilities department which include water Wastewater trash collection and customer service overall we have rated an average of 31% higher than cities of similar size and about 26% higher than the national average in all of these categories residential trash collection continues to be one of the highest rated services of the city and overall despite our budgetary challenges we're still delivering a high level of service to our customers and so this last last slide here shows you an overview of our Capital Improvement program 8115 million is planned project Awards in the coming year one of the our Keystone project is the second Atoka pipeline project this is crucial in ensuring that we have access to our water supplies from Southeast ok the construction of the second aoka pipeline which is a 100 mile Rob pipeline from Southeast will allow us to transport all of our water rides from Southeast in fy2 we're looking at awarding three pump stations and two pipe segments as well the picture in the lower corner shows you one of the projects already underway with some of that pipeline ready to be laid some of our other projects include the Hefner Draper Western interconnect this is an on going project in fy2 we anticipate to award the last three segments of this project which will allow the Hefner and Draper Water Treatment Plant service area to be a backup or in case of an outage at one of the plants this will help with system resiliency and reliability we have about 33 million planned for neighborhood line Replacements in the coming year this is replacement of water and sewer Mains throughout throughout the city we have improvements at Deer Creek wastewater treatment plan uh planned of about 44 million these improvements include biosolids and Odor Control electrical system improvements for components that have reached the their the end of their useful life and airation system improvements the picture in the top corner is that of the South Canadian wastewater treatment plant which is currently undergoing similar improvements we have a treatment plan Expansion Project going from 6 to 9 MGD that picture is of the airation Basin at South Canadian we also have improvements planned at the Draper Water Treatment Plant of about 83 million that includes clear well Rehabilitation filter Rehabilitation and other improvements we're doing about $2 million worth of improvements at our solid waste facility Operation Center and we're continuing our lift station replacement program about 14 milli is planned in the coming year and so with that we're happy to answer any questions you might have thanks Vanessa any questions I have a couple um first thank you for the presentation uh one of the things I know you you mentioned it within the workforce but just curious because one of the things that first things I wrote down from your presentation was high turnover rate why are we seeing a high turnover rate especially with the programs that are included within that Workforce component that you talked about just curious and and so some of the programs that we've implemented have been recently to combat some of these challenges so our goal is to be able to retain them um within our operational divisions we are seeing that high turnover rate and some of it might be uh just different opportunities that they're able to promote into whether it's within the city and other departments or within in our department uh so some of our positions that we're seeing that are entrylevel positions so we are looking at having those career path opportunities and continue to share the message of the opportunities that we have within our department uh to be able to help with the retainment aspect of it so to that my next question as far as entrylevel positions do we know about what that salary may be as as far as what we're talking about entry level is it like $155 an hour or less I believe it's a little bit higher than that um I I know Chris Chris is very familiar with the good morning Chris Browning utilities director councilwoman our minimum pay is nearly $20 an hour uh plus they get a fair amount of overtime but but the other thing that that also comes into play is that many of our position positions require state board certification so during that first year we have Auto progress for about half of our employees particularly the entry level positions where once they obtain their first license they're promoted and then their next license they're promoted again and all this happens in about a year and we pay for all these these um the training and the testing and so on and so forth so we try to encourage folks to stay on and and auto progress so so after the first year they're 25 $26 an hour so it's it's pretty good pay um but I'm going to tell you the work they do is really hard um you know answering uh calls in a call center half a million calls a year and many of them you know folks are not real happy with something going on so it's pretty stressful trying to help somebody set up an account those you know closing account those kinds of things um fixing water mains when it's really cold or really hot that's tough work reading meters can you imagine um walking 100 feet bending down looking at a meter taking down the number stand up go 100 feet do it again 600 times a day I mean those are hard now we're we're getting ready we're in the process of automating our meters and and so our our biggest turnover are in those three areas they're just really hard jobs and some folks are just saying you know this just isn't for me hopefully we can get them uh to understand you know if you don't like your first job I didn't like my first job so here are the opportunities that's why we develop the onboarding program to let people know look we have dozens and dozens of career opportunities and we'll pay for the training we'll pay help pay for college education we will help people people believe that this is a good place to be and want to stay here as a career but those entry level positions are just hard okay thank you for that uh with those automated if we're going automated is that going to impede as far as us having that Workforce that we need in pertaining to now checking those meters just curious when we automate we require maintenance for that automation so they're being transition from meter readers to meter service texts and trained accordingly and the the automated me meter reading also requires someone still to drive by oh yes right they're just able to do it more quickly because they're not actually walking the route exactly that they'll still have to read but there's a a device in the truck where they just drive by and it automatically collects the reading so we're still going to have some meter readers but the majority of the workforce will transition into the tax thank you I think it's important for us to talk through that because as we look at how we're automating and Contracting and different things out that we still need that Workforce to still do work yes ma'am we don't anticipate any Rifts at all we we haven't had one since I've been here and we don't anticipate having one into the future we'll absorb folks into different roles probably at higher levels okay um my last question since we're talking about getting jobs what is the minimum is there a minimum age requirement in order to do this work um our employees have to be 18 many of them require CDL uh driver's license and and we pay for that as well okay thank you very much yes ma'am any other questions thanks Chris for answering the questions and Vanessa great job on the presentation thank you so next up we have the airports Department of airports and Jeff Moulder our airports director is going to uh provide us with an update on the airport's budget good morning everybody Jeff Moulder from the airports um my note says that the airports budget is on C3 of the budget books so if you wanted to reference that before I get started um want to recognize some staff Melissa Fair brush um and our finance department certainly is a big part of this budget also Scott Keith and Tera suin from my staff so just want to recognize them but so uh first slide is the mission of the airports provide uh management operations velop the city's three airports attend its users and G public so they can have a safe and efficient air transportation system next slide we put this slide in um and it kind of highlights how we've organized ourselves um with myself um as the Director and then um admin and operations um and um Tera suan is essentially overseeing the admin part with Finance it and and development and then Scott has business uh properties and the other Frontline um departments we've kind of organized organiz organize ourselves this way over the P past year uh to try to help us keep up with the growth they're receiving uh and so that's how we've um organized that next slide is um so our budget I'm really it really falls into two pieces and this is the first piece which we would consider our city port of the budget 27 m4500 this really um comprises mostly our Personnel costs and some of the other services that I'll get into in just a moment and then our trust budget is in addition to this and I'll cover that after these first few slides but uh that particular budget is parceled out based on those various areas admin commercial aviation maintenance property management and general aviation um over the for this budget we have made some changes in our positions but they have been um additions and deletions so we don't have any new positions um next slide there we go the the overall changes though uh about 1.3 million in increases and um a lot of that has to do with our property insurance um it's a significant increase that we've seen over the last year or so um I would say over a million and um we are working with the with the um the city Risk Management Department to try to address this issue uh looking at what we actually are ensuring as far as our property uh looking for different different ways to address this maybe with higher deductibles looking at some Self insurance but it's become a significant issue for us as reflected in our budget next slide so this shows you the full Revenue a new picture for the trust at $21 million and I'll run through some of the detail on those line items uh you can see from the line items specifically it includes building rents and and Landing fees so that includes our tenants in our Airlines and of course the landing fees are our Airfield charges to our Airlines concessions um and parking um parking we had an increase in parking rate rates last fall um that really was to address some capacity issues we were having but so we've seen increased revenue from that uh and our concessions includes our restaurants and gift shops and rental cars uh tenant Capital contributions I want to highlight that specifically so we're doing a project we're building a new aircraft hter for one of our tenants um and it's a combination of State dollars and the tenants providing some money for it also and that's 7 .5 million is what we expect we'll be getting from them this year for that project some of the other things that we have in there fuel sales customer facility charges want to highlight also the Mike Aeronautical Center so we receive about $13 million from them um for operations oil and gas um interest income passenger facility charges is a fee we collect for capital projects from the customers and then federal and state participation that's our federal and state grants and then carryover project fund and Senior lean maintenance project fund are the current capital projects that we have for this fiscal year that we haven't been able to complete that we're carrying over and Senior lean maintenance is the fund for the Micron Aeronautical Center so you take all of those things together it's a fairly significant increase from the budget that we have this year but a lot of that is in the carryover so those are the capital projects that we are continuing into this next fiscal year next slide so on the operating expense side um other services and fees um some of those things we are being impacted as utilities mentioned we're seeing some of the same cost increases that they are our our service contracts um materials and supplies um all of those things all those costs have gone up um the debt requirements and then there's the 27,1 145,000 transferred to City Airport operations so that's what the trust transfers to the city for the costs uh reserves is what we plan to to uh put into reserves for this next fiscal year then our Capital outlay 148 million is by far our largest capital budget that we've had but again a lot of that is from carryover uh from this fiscal year so next want to highlight a couple of the projects or first of all the overall program and then some of the projects that we will have for this next coming year and this particular slide shows you our five-year Capital program about $358 million um a lot of our Capital program is funded with fa grants and the fa requires us to come up with a fiveyear capital program you can see that the that the various amounts are divided into four areas Will Rogers Wy post Mike Monon and Clarence Page and you can see that every every area location has pretty significant Capital development next slide and then this is for this fiscal year 25 again divided into four different areas um a lot of significant activity there and now we've got a couple specific projects I want to highlight um for all of you for that here's the funding sources that provide that funding so 52 million from the airport trust 28 from Grants from federal grants 18 from state grants um a is the tenant that I mentioned earlier that's providing some funding for development of a hanger Mike at 40 million and then that gets us to 146 million one of the things that we're taking advantage of is that we have some fa funding available for restroom Renovations and that's related to um ADA requirements many of our restrooms especially on the concourses don't meet current ADA requirements so we're using some of those Grant funds to renovate all the restrooms on the on the secure side except for the very new ones on the East End and uh so that project gets underway now and we'll expect to spend about 2.3 million of that for this next fiscal year next slide just gives you a snapshot if you hadn't been there in a while that's what they look like today and that's what we hope to look like here after the Project's complete this is the The Hanger that we are building uh for a one of our major tenants at the airport uh this will allow them to continue to expand they have um a lot of demand for hangers and this will allow them to continue to grow one of their major tenants is Alaska Airlines and they have long-term agreements with them for maintenance and the overall cost of the project is about mid mid 30 34 35 million uh the state of Oklahoma is providing um just under 20 million of that and AR is providing the rest um and so but we are building the hanger for them next slide shows you kind of a layout uh this for orientation this is on the north side of their of their as you go to the terminal they're on the on the west side of the terminal that series of buildings there and this new hanger Will Go On The Very North End near our fuel farm so as you travel to the airport you'll see that coming out of the ground here over the next year passenger boarding Bridges um we again are using some federal dollars fa Grant dollars for this um with the expansion that was done at the airport in 21 we ended up with 21 Gates total um four of those were new boarding Bridges so the 17 remaining were all are old and in need of replacement so we are already underway replacing six of those we'll have another trunch coming up this year so we expect to spend about 9.5 million uh for that project next slide just shows a photo of some of the boarding bridges that we have that will be replaced over the next couple years a project at at Wy post airport wanted to highlight and so there's there's an air traffic control tower there uh it's been there for a very long time it uh needs to be updated and replaced one of the challenges it's not tall enough to see all the areas on the Airfield um so we are in the planning stages of um that project now ultimately um to cost a little over $16 million the next slide just kind of shows you an illustration of it so the building on the left is the current terminal building and the tower is in that building itself and the new tower we expect to go adjacent to it uh taller so it be able to meet all the safety requirements why highlight a couple of the LFR things that we track uh one of the more important ones for us that we've seen an impact on our traveling public is our parking um and this this shows you over on an annual basis uh how many days we exceed 85% of our capacity one of the things that this doesn't point out though is the peak activity that we see during the summer so essentially what we saw last summer was essentially from uh beginning in May going through August our garage filled up almost every day so the impact on our customer um is for the customer wanting to park in the garage they show up to the airport the garage is full they have to find another adjacent lot to park into extends their time so we're trying to meet that demand uh we have begun uh We've fired an architect and we've begun the design process for adding another the garage uh our passenger numbers you can see they have Steed climbed out of uh Co the co era and um we hit a little over we hit 4.4 million passengers last calendar year uh the first couple months of this year we've had record months um so we expect we'll easily pass the number of passengers in calendar year 23 and 24 this shows you the percentage you can see of course the big drops that were had during covid and the big recovery in 22 and the nice recovery in 23 and that continues here in 24 just a quick snapshot of um the 24 locations that we travel to we have non-stop flights to over the year um we as um are regular conversations with our air carriers looking for new opportunities and new routes and frequencies but this gives you a snapshot of kind of where we going today and and um our current air service wanted just to highlight uh just the various work departments that we have in some of the uh photos but fuel maintenance so we have our own fuel farm and these are the folks that run that for us and serve all of our tenants um at the airport this is Airfield operations you can see they're out on the Airfield but they make sure the Airfield is safe meet all of our federal requirements and this is the crew that handles all the maintenance on the Airfield and and the front grounds grounds and horiculture for all the landside operate activity that we have and making sure the airport's a good front door for the community general aviation we have two general aviation airports Wy post and Clarance page and this is our crew that takes care of both of those airports this is the admin folks um here in the terminal building on the third floor that uh do all the support for our Frontline operations equipment maintenance have quite a few vehicles that we have to to operate our three airports and these are the folks that take care of that and then Building Maintenance our terminal building that's open 24 hours a day 7 days a week and they can make sure everything is operating every day so that um are some of the highlights of our budget both the city portion our and our trust portion of the budget and be happy to take any questions thanks Jeff appreciate that any questions yeah I have a few questions um thank you for the presentation I'm curi curious to know so this new garage that you're having an architect design how much is the cost of building a new parking garage uh preliminary estimates are probably 60 to 80 million and how much about do you know how much it cost to operate a garage per year um I don't off the top of my head um the generally we find that that on a per for compared to our other surface Lots where you have a shuttle bus operation uh they really aren't that far apart as far as operating cost because a shutle bus operation is very expensive and you don't have a shutle bus operation with the garage operations so um it's a balance I mean obviously that's a large capital expenditure but um it the thing that that hasn't happened you know we continue to see uh people in demand for parking one of the challenges of course in Oklahoma is people like covered parking because of the weather that we uh we see uh as an interim step before we are able to build another garage we have a current surface parking lot that we're adding canopies to so it gives our customers some cover from the weather so we think that's going to certainly bridge the gap for the next couple years before we're able to develop this uh other garage I I ask because I I think I'm concerned about and this is feels like a very um sort of if you build it they will come scenario that we kind of continue to fall in trap that we fall into where parking gets at a capacity and so we build more parking so more people come to park um and I constantly have people asking me about why we don't have any trans public transit to the airport um and for a city of our sort of stature um and I I'd recently spoken probably in the last few months with the director of Embark um about you know I ideas that they had um been playing with because the RTA conversation about the RTA uh connection to the airport is quite a ways off um you know I was asking like what interim solutions could be presented um and there there is there is a sort of little plan they have Sitting on a shelf that could extend a route that already goes down Meridian for about $500,000 a year um the other service I recently saw I was in Los Angeles for a um for a work um work travel and I took the FlyAway bus which is a bus funded by the airport um trust there uh that goes directly from the airport I believe they hit one other airport they have one route that goes to a different airport and then goes downtown but it just really it's like LAX downtown um and then you're at Union Station and you can connect to sort of all of the the transit op options throughout the city and it was only $10 for the the user um you know if we had something like and especially thinking about now that we have this especially for people who maybe are just coming for conventions they're just coming for conferences they're going to be spending most of their time downtown it seems very silly to have them rent a car um I would imagine some folks are maybe utilizing um like ride sharing or taxi but um but I'm just I'm curious about opportunities for the airport trust to be part of this conversation around Transit whether it's a service like FlyAway where it's just a direct connection or maybe it's you know going um to another Hub and then to downtown kind of the way that the the other one has kind of a spoke that it hits um or if there's conversations about you know funding this sort of extra connection with this bus service that already exists um given that it you don't have all the infrastru you know The Upfront cost the capital cost of new vehicles um where that cost is you know minimal comparatively and um maybe you know to start with isn't going to um you know provide the same level where you know a handful of folks aren't going to take advantage of it but I even hear uh from you know Workforce needs you know hearing from people that operate um some of the concessions and other things that um they're coordinating rides for their staff to get to work because there's for folks that um maybe they only have one vehicle or they don't have a vehicle at home um there's a need there as well so I just um I'm curious to hear kind of your interest or kind of what opportunities there might be to fund an interim solution while we're kind of waiting on this longer term RTA conversation so I did have some conversations probably two years ago with with Evar about this at the time um and um happy to bring that conversation back up again and begin that we were looking at the time two years ago about trying to help uh bring employees to the airport and and and we have some large locations there like Amazon has their warehouses it's on the other side of the airport though so it's not really in the same location it's terminal um but no happy to bring that up again as as everyone's coming back and and we're having growth again so I think that's a good time to do that we do track U of all of the people who come to the terminal area about 25% uh um the 30% use ride share um we have about um another percentage of rental car um 30% about 30% use parking so really the remainder is drop offs and Pickups of of passenger vehicles um so we keep pretty close track of that but I don't disagree I think as we continue to grow congestion becomes a problem and we need to look at other ways and so I I'll especially I think from that aspect of you know trying to make that airport Corridor you know visually attractive you know having a sea of parking garages even if you put some art on the side is not um you know I feel like doesn't represent sort of the the natural landscape of beauty that um we could cultivate there so I appreciate your openness to that thank you sure I have a couple questions um and saw you talking about the terminal restrooms just curious as far as Ada is concerned are we looking at adult changing ing stations to be included in this process uh we do have one currently that was completed with the expansion in 2021 so we do have that already excellent thank you um my second question is as we continue to look at um our contracts and and businesses um the my concern is that continually while we see uh more women-owned businesses I I still have yet to see a lot of our more cultural um businesses that could be a part of Contracting within our airports um I know last year I asked about just you know a local Chocolate teer Company being able to house in I looked on their website and she's still not there um she's in Tulsa she's in Texas but she's not in her home City of Oklahoma City um so being able to not have that type of bragging right it's it's hurtful for in my opinion as far as when we talk about tourism and the ways we support local businesses folks can't obtain or attain or support those same local businesses that they could hear especially uh while they're traveling if they know that particular vendor is from our city um and they don't have access to it other things um I've had a a local company like a hot dog company reach out to me and ask me about being housed at the airport and I I'll be honest I feel like it's it's it's a waste of my time to give him the information because I don't think he's going to get anywhere in order for him to be able to have some type of fruitful conversation or the potential of being placed in the airport and I know the perfect place that could be where that coffee shop Clos which is close to the single digigit terminals um um where is now just open space we have a few little areas that are just open space whereas we could have kiosks or some types of ways that we're supporting our more local cultural type businesses and also you know quite frankly there have been some discussions of of different restaurants being um placed and housed within this area within the airport as well but yet you know while we have um aerio is that say that right yio thank you uh we have that we don't have like a a homegrown another different type of different spectrum of more local um we have Freddy's we have tropical AIS Tropical Smoothie we have you know those types of things but being able to really show our local flare um I I just I hope there are some things that we can do better and I say that to the point of of what councilwoman Hammond was saying when we traveled to um where did we go we went to no that was Council yeah we did Oakland San Francisco we went to San Francisco and hous in their airport were their local businesses um Filipino Fusion because that's what their culture is more influenced by so they had those types of businesses local businesses that were housed in there so I'm I'm hoping maybe one day soon we can at least get a piece of chocolate in the in the airport for us to have the bragging rights and you know I'm not just saying this because she's just you know at an airport in Tulsa she's at Whole Food she's at Trader Joe she's at those types of places and we can't even house it at our airport you know so those are the people I think about when I think of local being able to support those local names and entities and business businesses even when it comes to our airports so I'm just hoping we can um look at that more and further and also on our Billboards talking about um you know when we welcome people in being able to have some more of that influence of more local I've seen us increase some of that but again you know how are we promoting our districts on those Billboards how are we promoting um maybe a festival that's coming up on those Billboards how are we really truly supporting you know not maybe whatever specific person that speaks to whatever's coming um to be on those Billboards to say we welcome you to to our community or to this specific event or or time um those are are also things that that I I look at and look through so just you know I know we've talked about it before but I'm hoping maybe we'll actually get some something where we can say it's it's attainable and there's a process where people can actually go through it and be successful instead of some of our love the businesses that are there but I I just feel as if that there are some more that really should and could be highlighted but because they don't have that type of support they're not able to to participate um sure let me address I know there are multiple issues there but first of all the the the Cher question I did last year put together a conversation with the local um Cher and the company that manages our program out of Atlanta and I know they've had some conversations but I don't know where that's gone obviously I'll follow up on that to see where that is we we do get and I get just approached directly by companies asking for some consideration and I put together some meetings um with the with the company that manages our restaurants and give shops looking to put local products into the airport through your theme and I I completely understand that um I will say one of the things that we've been in we've been under construction the last couple years with new restaurants and gift shops we just wrapped that up here in the last couple months so it is hard to integrate new stuff when you're remodeling so I think really uh we we can take a another focus at that over the next year now that the stores are in place and complete um I know we've been able to bring local products in so I will continue I'll follow up with you on on some of the the ideas you gave me um but um certainly um don't disagree and we want to try to get as much local flavor as we can and we did also open up another local restaurant hatch opened up a couple months ago which is another local venue but for the for these companies that provide these airport programs it is a balance between having local and then having National Brands because the companies The Travelers do look for National brands at the same time so it's usually a mix of what they have available and so that's what they've tried to accomplish here in Oklahoma City but I think from a local supplier that needs some shelf space that I think we should be able to accommodate a lot of that but I will I will go back and have that conversation and see where we stand uh I will relate uh we we have this conversation the mayor is interested in Thunder stuff at the airport and we've been working on that recently also so we know that uh I mean it's a something that is of interest to a lot of people people um as far as the welcome signs and everything else I do believe we we do circulate a number of those if we have a convention coming to town I I'm pretty sure that our signs do reflect that on a rotational basis um but I will I will also follow up on that but I that's a good opportunity right it it's a it's a rotating uh media presence and we can use that to welcome people to Oklahoma City thanks Jeff y appreciate it thank you so next up on the agenda or you want to go to the next yeah so word item four so this is the presentation of comments that we've received through whatever communication method we offer relative to this year's proposed budget yes and Chris York our budget director will just give us an overview the council's received the specific comments and he'll talk about we we've closed the comments for this summary but we're going to keep that open I'll let Chris talk about that as well great thank you Christian York with the finance department just a quick update on our resident feedback uh that we've received thus far uh this initial comment period was from April 30th all the way through this last Friday here May the 24th um and then as the city manager indicated we will continue to receive comments through uh this this week so through this Friday we just need a little bit of time to compile them and bring those back to council um before the June 4th um adoption there we go so just talk about how we solicited our residents for feedback um our partners in Pim used all of the routine social media channels including Instagram Facebook next door X um we also were picked up in a couple of news stories um from their news releases um and so we tried to get the message out there as much as possible and then on this next slide here we're really looking at the effectiveness of how those messages um were received and then how the residents got them back to us and so we ended up receiving 30 39 excuse me comments this year 21 of those via email 18 were posts on our new system vision. okc.gov and then you can see there were no comments through the rest of the channels there now uh Council uh as city manager indicated did receive a complete list of all of the feedback um that we received uh via PDF um that was emailed to you um but we just summarized this for you here and so we had one comment particular to the budget book we had um some editing uh that a a resident caught and they were right we needed to update that based on a revised strategic business plan in Parks um so we will get that updated we had a couple of residents um suggest more resources be put towards homelessness and then the dominant conversation was 23 residents um requested that Min Lake View Center continue operations um as they are currently operating we had one comment regarding uh bus Rapid Transit um that questioned our investment in that system based on ridership we had five related to Public Safety that uh with about four of those requesting a reallocation of police resources to things like Transit development services um and Parks uh and then one resident was um uh approved our use of drones and then uh we had seven comments related to streets and sidewalks and I would say about oh half of those were wanting specific improvements to um their roads that they listed in their comment um with the other remaining uh requesting traffic like and traffic light enhancements as well as sidewalks at specific locations again residents can continue to submit their comments um and we report back uh by June 4th for Council I would uh mention on Min Lake View Center um the budget office did receive a revised proposal from the Department over the weekend um and so my understanding is that is their commitment to continue to run that uh Center as it is currently operating and that's all I have for you this morning thanks Chris appreciate the update and that is all that we have on the budget for today um excuse me may I ask um I know in my last five years serving on Council there's like a bit of a rotation that happens with the departments in terms of their presentations um what was the thought process in terms of planning not presenting this year there wasn't a specific Target I think like you said we've balanced just try and really mostly trying to focus towards the outward facing departments where there's more services so it wasn't an intentional exclusion it was just like looking at rotation sure um so I've attended uh in the past week a couple different conversations regarding the um backyard Cottages the accessory dwelling units um and if I might just relay a a brief story that I think speaks to the need for us to be very forward- facing uh in in regards to planning and uh housing but I you know I was attending a a conversation in one of our historic preservation neighborhoods and there was it was almost like a um the one of the residents says well why would we do why would we allow why is the city focusing on and so the city got up why is the city focusing on um backyard Cottages these accessory dwelling units when if they were understanding the problem correctly when um we have a lack of one to two bedroom unit you know uh why aren't we doing infill why aren't we doing infill and as I relate to councilwoman Hammond um afterwards who was actually in her Ward uh but she was hosting an event here um as I relate to her my thought was well why not both right you do both you do both but I had to go I had to go to another meeting right after like I had to leave so I couldn't respond so Lisa chronister with the planning department responded I don't know how that conversation went but had I been there to respond I would have cited our affordable housing study and I would have cited those needs saying that we have you know as I keep saying over and over and over again up here right 19,400 people needing one to two bedroom homes and then uh if you know that number right and then you know you only have around 3,600 available units and that was in 2021 so I don't even know that those are available anymore then you understand the need to do both and so that strikes me that that young man my hope would be that had he known those numbers he like okay got it I'm going to support both my I my worry right is that there's a potential for like one of the other push backs I heard in that meeting was from an elected official no less was that their understanding about the uh backyard Cottages is that only uh not only but that the need would be for like mother-in-law type homes like that's kind of been the the other kind of language like mother-in-law flat the sort of stuff right um or maybe the child as they age and get to 18 19 maybe they want to live in that to get a dose of freedom and this respected elected officials concern was that renters would be the ones living there but if you know our housing issues then why would anyone be concerned with renters living in a garage apartment behind a house do you see what I'm saying and that this was happening in Heritage Hills which as a poo resident you know I bike from Zach Taylor neighborhood at about 50th around Bishop mcginness i b from there frequently all the way down here to scorel park through the neighborhoods almost all those neighborhoods have duplexes fourplexes eight plexes backyard adus like we set the tone that is our historical development pattern um councilwoman Hammond and I learned from 1948 at the end of World War II when the city found itself in a housing crisis as we defeated fascism um which seems to be back uh because a good sequel never goes out of fashion I guess uh but we are going to have people we have people who are confused about the need for housing right now they are confused about the need for housing right now and for so many years Oklahoma City and the state prided itself on our low cost of living prided itself on it but that's a myth now that's a myth it's descended into myth but myth is hard to dislodge from people so we probably have a overwhelming majority of our residents who still believe that Oklahoma City that the the crown jewel of Oklahoma city is in fact our low cost of living which means that the city of OKC as a government has an education project on its hand hands multiple hands and so I find it I I'm not saying of course I understand the rotation of not having planning present I of course understand that my caution and guidance would be heading into the summer there needs to be uh I would ask for consideration of a of presentations um from this uh Podium here um on our City's housing needs what those adus are how they do not represent a threat to anyone's way of life how they are not something we're going to force anyone to build right but that we have ones that are out of compliance right now in some of these neighborhoods that our ordinance won't even allow them to bring them up to compliance for their mother-in-law for their children for renters and I just worry that there is a building um uh anxiety right and if about that process and then about the rezoning process in its totality and so I think we need to be very prudent and surgical going forward one more thing on that note as I'm heading into into summer break I'm reflecting a lot on teaching this semester which was always a joy but I'm deeply concerned about our reading levels in a way that I've never been before they are really bad even at a private university and when we present on the zoning updates I've sat in several of these meetings with two master's degrees and I feel dumb sometimes because of the language we're using Luda what is that you don't know does you know but we're using acronyms we're using uh jargon from that field of planning and we are going out there and communicating with our residents with that jargon with these acronyms with you have 30 something per of fourth graders and eighth graders right now reading at their grade level and that's not the fault of the pandemic it got worsened by the pandemic but those reading scores were already true prior to that so I'm what I'm saying is we're going out there and we're communicating with people people who aren't dumb but they don't have some of that academic language because they're in their own fields of study and that's the language they know so we need to be very intentional about how we're talking to people and the information we're relaying to people and for my money right now the planning department is no offense to the other departments but probably the most important one because it is planning it is about planning the community in which we live and I think I I I think that was kind of missed right now and when you have adus as top of mind right now in terms of a conversation in the community we got to figure out this summer I think how to rectify that yeah we will definitely have more information coming forward on the housing study the and the housing implementation plan particularly as it relates and engages with the general obligation Bond planning so we'll have that information coming forward for briefings for Council and then publicly as well thank you and then let me also say as a council member I was looking at my calendar a little bit ago I know I have a uh a meeting that this you all have created for me um I think there are other council members in there with me um that is an update on what our housing implementation plan is going to be it's 45 minutes I don't understand that like to me it needs to be I what I'm requesting is a deep dive like the deepest dive and if the other council members don't want that that's fine I do like I need a deep deep dive into um what that implementation's going to be where where we're building this housing at what percentages of the average median income so for example a confusion I have and I'm just going to go on about this because it's just the anxiety I hear from my residents and it's one I feel too I've been confused because people have been saying that the average median income for for us when we build housing that the number we use is about $60,000 but that's the average median income but then when I was looking at the chamber data for the like labor peace agreement and the Workforce Development stuff Oklahoma City's median income is $38,600 Oklahoma City Oklahoma county is $48,990 and then the median income for the other counties within Oklahoma City because remember we touched Cleveland Canadian thank you right am I forgetting one Oklahoma Canadian Cleveland water thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you word four I knew we went on that trip out there didn't we we sure did Todd doesn't Forget You councilman Stone doesn't because we he took me all the way out there when we did a W for tour but when you those counties together that's $559,000 average median income so I guess what I'm saying is an Oklahoma City Council I am really interested in the Oklahoma City number which is that $38,500 number and then when you start thinking about housing that number becomes a much more intriguing number because when you look at $38,600 being the median income for Oklahoma City residents if according to HUD 30% of their income and only at Max 30% of their income should be going to their mortgage or their rent and utilities the 957 a month is what they should be paying go find that go find it right now go find it in all these cool hip districts that we ride Li and brought back to life with our own City dollars a one-bedroom easily uh not even a one-bedroom a studio right now a studio an efficiency no walls separating you from your bedroom and your kitchen and your living room easily over $1,000 right now easily easily easily easily easily easily easily easily that strikes me as deeply anxiety inducing deeply deeply should be priority number one for our people priority number one $38,000 300 is what you're making a a year how are you living how are you living so we can talk about hatch being at the airport all we want but I I and and these big fancy nice restaurants I love madur I will take friends to madur all the time but I guess I'm saying is a lot of our people can afford the Renaissance story that the city the city is in right now so to me planning is top of mind right along streets right and Transit so this summer I'd like to see I'm requesting a very deep layman's term type guidance on our City's actual in income levels and our housing needs and how we're going to utilize the next Bond to address those housing needs thank you so that's all that we have on the budget today and and uh next items the council the plan is for bringing the budget back for adoption uh next council meeting on the 4th okay well that brings us to item five items requiring separate votes um there's no substantive vote today but we do take votes obviously to go into executive session so we will handle that on these two items that were deferred from May 21st item a is to enter into executive session on advice of the municipal counselor to receive Communications regarding Adams uh V city of okay C and I believe people did log in because you asked them to and if they're not we can get a quick verbal vote but uh we want to bring up that virtually we have a motion in a second cash your votes this is to go into executive session on item 5A passes unanimously all right we'll handle that at the uh end of our other business and then Item B this is to enter into executive session to discuss collective bargaining negotiations for fiscal year 2425 with the uh iaf and the asme and that's it got a motion in a second cast your votes passes unanimously we'll handle that at the end of our other business okay um that does conclude votes such as they were for the day this brings us to item six citizens to be heard and we have a few who've signed up to speak I would ask everyone to uh state your name and address and keep your remarks to three minutes or less and uh Amy the clerk will give you a 30 second warning all right first up is Garland puit good morning just got through expressing the uh income of the average Oklahoma County I found it amazing how this particular area that we're speaking on concerning the uh Park and Recreation over in mines Lake how we pick in targeted areas without providing them with an opportunity to participate in the activity and implementation of the things that you do is there any reason that we didn't have a survey as to what the needs of that particular Community was or some input from the community as to some of the areas of concerns that they might have had too often we have a tendency to do that some of the Expressions that my concern would be uh why aren't we having a uh senior citizens program in that area why don't we have a small field for Young Folks to play ball why don't we have a tennis court why don't we have a summer camp program for the Youth in that area recreational facilities supposed to provide these for types of activities a work program a training program out of that same building that we've allowed the Community Action which we are supportive of those particular areas program that they're bringing in but what happened to allowing the community to provide you with some needs that we might have as you move forward we're being Progressive on so many areas why don't we be a little bit more Progressive and allowing the community to have some input senior citizens program job training uh uh we're in tonada alley why don't we have a torat shelter in that particular area for those lwi income folks that possibly already know don't have shelters these are some of the things we can consider when we start moving in taking over implementing programs in certain areas that might not have as big a voice as some others we make the decisions that are not always good decisions uh they talking about uh we want to have the tallest building in the United States 30 seconds remaining huh okay yeah and uh we got D Towers right now the tow building in the state if we want to get a room in any those particular locations it's all vacant right now some of the decisions we make basically my comment has everything to do with allowing the community to have input doing a survey of some type allowing them to have involvement before we make decisions thank you thank you Garland Dennis Ross uh my name is Ross from the Far East Side the area that he uh mentioned this this is my first uh opportunity to come and address the council uh I have two issues that I want to speak about that you all say is a priority for the city council one safe and reliable transportation public transportation for all not just some all and the second is the Criminal Justice Reform and the initiatives that y'all speak about implementing with the law enforcement number one with this Embark and the street cars you have a serious problem with some of the operators and the security Personnel that that that that that work on those buses there's a serious problem with uh these these people harassing discriminating against those that they perceive are unhoused or those that are unhoused and it needs to be addressed I have a special Patron ID I presented the medical documents to receive it and there is no reason why a bus operator or security personnel has any reason to question me about my medical condition at all there is no reason for any of these operators or any of these security Personnel to to question me about where I'm going or how often I ride the bus I pay my fair that's required of me and I should be able to travel in peace without fear 30 seconds or retaliation second issue is with this law enforcement dealing with that you need to address having these police officers being called out unnecessarily to to enforce and to reinforce somebody else's wrongdoing violating people's civil rights their federally protected rights and they show up and instead of trying to deescalate resolve an issue they come and enforce them in their wrongness Mr we're we're over time is there any wrapup concluding statement you'd like to make my concluding statement is I would appreciate it if y'all would look into that I've made my complaints I've done what they asked me to do call the customer service complain about it file your report they told me come come over here talk to your city council person talk to the city council person I'm here today to talk to the whole Council now because this this is going thank you thank you all right all right Delbert lasy good morning good morning my name is Delbert Las I live at 109 Brook Lane and I'm here uh about the Min Lake View Center uh I did receive an email from uh Miss Melinda Friday and it was good news that the sener will be removed from the budget cuts and I'm happy about that uh but that really doesn't resolve any issues that the center has been uh experiencing over the last few years uh the number one thing is is the budget they're operating like on a Sho string budget of $120,000 I'd like to see that number raised up so that they can incorporate programs where there is participation from the community I.E like I've did a a quick survey of the community and some of the needs that they're wanting and looking at they're looking at uh incorporating more fitness programs Pilates uh pickle ball things like that that U not only the youth can be incorporated in but the older citizen chair exercise program things like this that can be incorporated which will cover the whole plethora of all of the age groups in that community so and one of the biggest issues with that is the budget uh I don't know of any other Center that's operating on a budget less than 120,000 if so I don't see how so with the uh men Lake VI Center being removed from the budget cut doesn't resolve any issues of how they're operating the operating expenses need to be increased so that some of these programs cost money some of the programs that are has been Incorporated by The Parks and Recreation Center cost Z dollar which is good that's very good if you have other programs that are successful uh but right now they have like walking trail bus that cost 0 these are some of the programs offered by The Parks and Recreation um open adaptive gym that's you and I going into the gym with all of our abilities or disabilities and being able to just use the gym zero doar arts and crafts couple hundred dollars a year that they spend these are the programs that Parks and Recreation has incorporated for the center so in order to be successful we're going to have remaining some volunteerism from the community and we need those extra dollars that Shilling is probably not going to get uh we need some of those dollars to make that program not be on the chopping block again thank you very much thank you Hannah Roy good morning members of the council mayor Hol my name is Hannah Roy in ward 6 and I stand before you to day after I was truly inspired by the last 40 days I spent in Europe it was an extreme privilege to experience cities from London and Paris to Italy in the south of France and I can tell you the only reason to councilman Cooper's Point uh the reason I was able to do that as a freelance artist and creative living in Oklahoma city is that my everything I own is packed up and in my partner's garage right now um as I returned the first thing I wanted to do was grab a coffee and sit in a park ingred fatel Lee who studies the Aesthetics of joy in our surroundings says the power of Aesthetics of joy is that they speak directly to our unconscious minds bringing out the best of us without our even being aware of it this underscores the importance of prioritizing people- centered funding that nurtures our communities well-being our Parks our green spaces our public areas are incredibly essential IAL to each of us as they Foster Community promote health and enhance our happiness sitting in the city budget Workshop earlier this year with many of you I thought about the immense value and return on investment if we simply could sustain and improve the community centers as been said the parks that we already have it's Paramount to look creatively at how we care for our community and allocating the largest part of our budget to a department that often perpetuates fear and division sends a really troubling message about our priorities and increased police funding has not proven to make our community safer instead it often contributes to a dehumanizing environment contrary to the values of unity and care that we cherish in our city investing in parks and public spaces is more than beautifying our city it's about creating opportunities for Community Connection and engagement and well-maintained Parks encourage participation in community activities Foster relationships and provide support networks these connections reduce the risk of Mal adoptive behaviors offering Outlets positive for all ages losing Parks like McKinley and Creative Recreation reation recreation centers means losing a vital part of our community's fabric I want us to all recognize that urbanization should consistently incorporate green spaces public art public amenities that create a well-balanced vibrant City cities worldwide show us that thriving urban areas integrate these elements and improve res residents quality of life attracting tourists for enriching experience so as you finalize your 2025 budget may we please prioritize funding that Fosters Community promotes health and well-being and creates a more livable City for everyone thank you and free Palestine thank you Javier Morales Javier Morales hello hello uh well uh I work for live free OKC which is a CVI program Community violence intervention and uh I'm from the community where mckenley Park is and uh that Park before it was built there was a death trap what I mean by a death trap is like everybody who stayed in the community you couldn't even cross through it the only way you could is if you had ties once they built the gym everybody respected it apart because it was a safe haven for our children in that area if you take McKinley Park away it's nothing around the floating area for us to go to you got the Boys and Girls Club on 36 in Western and you got a municipal uh recreational center on Ninth in uh chartel well we never liked going to Municipal because it was too close to like the St Anthony Hospital and the and the jails and stuff so it kept like the bad part part of our community on the other side of classing so once that gym was built there was a lot of them people's kids and children attending McKinley Park so it changed The Narrative of everything that was going around there was Chang the adults and also we we not accepted in the Boys and Girls Club up there on 36 and Western the kids from the community who needed the most not accepted but the kids on the other side up there by mcginness those are the kids who get the attention the boys and girls club uh not only that a lot of the kids in the community also ate took showers learned education from up there thanks to gentleman like Coach Corey right here he made sure every kid that come in there do their homework they eat first before they played any sports I was the first kid in that gym when they built it I was obese I was like 231 PBS at 9 years old once they built that gym I learned morals values principles I learned Sports I got I got in shape it saved my life all around I got four sons that plays Sports went to college I got two I got one about to graduate early thanks to all these Sports in mckenley park my kids go back there to their roots and still learn thanks to Coach Corey and the whole McKinley Park facility so without that Park you take that Park away you take that gym away 30 seconds remaining that Parker is going to become a death trap again it's nothing surrounding that area for our kids to do nothing at all but mckenley park that's all they have that's all they got and it's going to Trinkle right down here to downtown because all those people and kids with nothing to do they going to come closer to a municipal gym which is also going to come closer to the hospital we protected our hospital and the police station and downtown we protected all that from the bad part of our community coming down by policing our own with our partk thank you Jess Eddie morning council members Mr Mayor um I'm here in support of uh the McKinley Park Community um and I certainly want to emphasize what um one of our livefree peacemakers Javier just stated his own personal experiences his many family members and children and he himself went to that recreational center I come admittedly from a position of ignorance in what has uh led up to this closure I've spoken to some of the employees that work there who advised me that they were terminated uh advised that they would be terminated by the end of this month last week I learned about it on Friday uh Community Action Agency I understand operates out of there um and I think no absolutely to no fault of of of her own but my understanding is councilwoman Hammond wasn't given notice uh of this this closure so I'm I'm obviously in ignorance but I'm I just find it hard to believe that such a critical piece of the community over there was uh a decision was made to shutter it number one with no real notice um and then number two to shutter it at all given the importance it it has and Carries in that part of the community um so I really hope the city council members can can investigate and and and see what's going on there um speaking to the critical piece of that and Javier really laid it out um pretty eloquently and clearly and personally but a as a community violence intervention professionals that we are um our work is to deal with people who are actively engaged in gun violence and to prevent that from continuing um so when we see people who are doing what we call Upstream work um with at risk youth um it's something that we want to support because it's so valuable and meaningful especially at that age of of young adolescence to you know teenage years having constructive uh uh programming and mentors um in in their neighborhood is so critical to preventing a lot of these kids from getting into criminal activity is so critical I cannot underst understand it and I think it it's been made very clear to me as I've over the years come to learn about uh Community violence and gun violence just how critical these kinds of programs are to preventing um to improving Public Safety uh to helping kids not go down the wrong track and I I just think it's is so important that we continue this and even expand this program now that we're taking a look at it and hopefully you can kind of hear the magnitude of the impact um the staff there who've been working there for decades my understanding I mean h Javier's older than me old man 40 years old and uh and and he with there since he was nine so we're talking 30 years uh generational work um that is so so critical um and so I'm honored to speak on on their behalf today thank you uh before we go any further I only just heard a a snippet of this over the weekend can I can we get like a official up what's going on with McKinley so thank you this has been operated by Community Action since 1991 and they've had a contract there we found out about this last week as well that they were planning to end their Head Start program so I think there's ongoing dialogue and conversations around that but it's not a budgetary change for the city it's not it's something that they were leasing the property and they were actually managing the property so that's what's happened at this at this point so they just informed us that they're ending that and that happened like you said we learned we learned of that on Wednesday and so we're having conversations with them still just understand better the timing and what the plans are with I'm sorry Council in in our operating agreement with these entities that private entities that run are there not sort of like stipulations about how much notice they're supposed to give when when they can't or decide not to operate certain parts of yeah I don't know what's in what is specifically in these operating agreements but we're having the conversations with them but I would think typically we'll have within those agreements there's a notification period I just don't know exactly what's in this room because it is frustrating that is such short notice particularly in sort of this budget process where we don't really know yeah like can Parts absorb it just the timing is um is frustrating that it it I'm hearing that people are and sort of similarly with Min Lake View where the sort of information vacuum of we're hearing this from folks on the ground but this is what we're hear it it yeah it it it seems to be sort of an issue that we need to find some systemic ways to address um how we uh and I know Melinda had mentioned they're trying to uh sort of uh make those agreements more similar across the board but um but obviously there's some disconnect between um between the communication about what's happening on the ground and what and sort of how it's getting to folks that um should be it seems like should be notified of these situations with a lot more um and not to speak of the employees who should probably get more than a few weeks notice about um after having been employed somewhere for so long so I would be very curious I I know I I had a brief interaction with Melinda on Friday after after I heard about this um to ask kind of what's the plan um and yeah if whatever we can do to figure out how to keep this Center operating because I do hear um I've heard for years that this is a very important Community Asset for that neighborhood um yeah and it's it's again sort of going back to my conversation a few weeks ago about frustration when private entities operate these public facilities public buildings there's not really any mechanism that we have um you know in to to you know it's it's a private entity we have some maybe operating agreements but it obviously those aren't robust enough to make sure that there's ample time for public involvement and input on kind of what's happening with these publicly owned um facilities and that are providing such um needed programming for communities so whatever we can be doing to make sure that this continues to operate and and that these folks can still provide these um this programming for youth especially as summer is coming up um I'm really curious to hear what we can kind of pull out of the hat and to the point of what she just said I think that expresses the dynamic of what has taken place uh in relation to even Min Lake View so the the time frame of them just now giving a notice for this they're trying to create and establish a contract to uh operate another Recreation Center where we could have the same type of situation occur um so those are grave concerns and not to mention you know across this city they are closing 11 community action programs in our city most of those belong to our our more uh underserved underrepresented black and brown communities who now have to figure out ways to go further to to access um education for their children so this entity as a whole is restructuring and it seems as if we're just okay with allowing them to do what they want with our facilities and I I think that's that's an issue um if we look at just the history and overall understanding of where they are with their budget process and and right now it's they're in a in a crunch you know quite frankly they're in a crunch um I think that's understandable with Federal Cuts everywhere um and and they go for those types of programs in Education First but for our city to to be in front of that I would hope that's something that we can look at further as well and and um pertaining to our other uh centers that are within our our purview that are operated and maintained by us that will also be housed by community action programs and even with frustration with certain situations I do want to acknowledge Community Action Agency has been a great partner in our community for a long time and we really appreciate their investment I think there are some challenges there that they're facing and trying to restructure but they've been a great partner for a long time providing great services in our community I'd like to I'd like to receive some sort of Diagnostics about Community Action Agency like what's going on I don't know what's going on like Menace park was the first time I heard anything um now I'm hearing this news I have a vacancy on that board and now I'm wondering like well who do I appoint and why you know um but I also hear they do good things one of my w to um residents is an atlarge member and she speaks very highly of them literally called me to do nothing but speak highly of them a few weeks ago um and you know Brent a pretty respected member of of the community so I'd like a diagnostic for the Council of like what's going on and and because something's going on um but and then let me let me also just say like kind of doubling down on what I just heard from the two Council women like and I just want to connect this back to that $38,500 a year income thing I talking about like in the urban core and I'm sure we could speak about it out in the rural parts of our city as well but we have a lot of residents who this income is the high-end income and it's been like the 38,000 is a high number that like 21% of our population I've learned is in Hospitality retail and entertainment so 21% of the workforce and they are making $27,400 a year okay so with no benefits no benefits no benefits right none no protections um so no health care and then good good God what happens to their teeth if they have to go to the dentist right so you're you're talking about a lot of people making $27,000 a year so that's not even middle class that's actually below middle class middle class is about 30 something thousand to 80 something so you have workingclass people and for decades they have defined the population of the urban Corp of this city for decades for decades and their Parks we didn't invest in their streets we didn't invest in their education God bless the state because they sure as heck weren't investing in them um so Javier your story almost more than anything I've heard in all my 5 years on Council it just cut right through to the truth of like who our people are like who so many of our people are and who often don't get a voice on this horseshoe um so I can't thank you enough for speaking it so that raises a second question for me so my first question was like can we have a diagnostic my second question is I remember when maps for was in its infancy and we were talking about the youth centers I remember the current parks director Melinda she you know was interested in the parks department being the operator of the youth centers of course now we know it's Boys and Girls Club I'd like to better understand like with these facilities what it is that's preventing our parks department from being able to operate a [Applause] mckenley unlike Lady Gaga do not live for the Applause but I appreciate that like that's a song reference for those of you who don't know that um it's pride month coming up but I no I just I I I need to understand to councilwoman Hammond's point the systemic what we're going to have to do systemically to stabilize we can't I just can't stress enough I mean I know it's not my word but I'm right there as you know and I bike over there I walk over there I'm there all the time we can't afford for it to go back to that dark despair place that you're talking about we we can't afford it summer as you all know is when crime Rises it's when crime Rises that is a statistically true fact um we can only interrupt so much violence um so but I also want to clarify this was not a this wasn't a budget thing like we're this isn't part of this budget cut okay that's that's comforting but it's like a perck victory because now we got to figure out like how do we stabilize them I just can't I hope this is a priority for over there as much as it is for those of us who have spoke so far just we can't let the urban core fall into chaos um not after so many of us have worked so hard on this hor year even before me and before us and within the community to get us here so okay I want to say in relation to that you know um that's that's where the dynamic is similar but different pertaining to Min Lake View while we were able to now say it is is no longer going to be purposed or defunded if you will um we're now able to have a different conversation but I also I want to I want to preface and say that none of us have have said that Community Action was not a great partner I think we all acknowledge and and recognize that the difficulties right now are the fact that we haven't been able to receive the information that pertains to the core residents that we serve in the ways that we are unable to at least give them the proper information to assist them to understand what is about to take place so that um people call us when these things happen they call us because they expect for us to know what's going on and when we don't know what's going on um here we are and and you have folks coming here and letting us know that these things have occurred are occurring and that they have not been a part of these conversations so uh again I I do say you know I I don't uh don't say that and will never say that Community Action is not an important partner because I I think we all acknowledge and recognize the great things that they have been able to do this is a transition for them um and unfortunately right now our communities are at stake with their transition okay uh back to Citizens we still have a few who have signed up Paul padet hello my name is Paul padet I live uh Northwest 39th Street 73112 um I would just like to say I appreciate your uh six and seven questions uh towards the airport I think it's important to recognize that companies will prioritize their parking Revenue over transportation for the public that's cheap and accessible I also want to uh acknowledge W two's acknowledgement of the salary in Oklahoma City I this past school year I worked with okcps and I'm on the Executive Board of our classified uh classified workers for aft I don't represent them right now but I can tell you my experience I had to work two jobs while working on that board because I was going to school couldn't I can't afford to go to school next semester even at o c um I was making $12 an hour came out about $730 every other week it's unsustainable can't do that um now let me get to what I need to say um a call for a ceasefire from Oklahoma City Council seems like an impossible ask our city is the capital for a state where a ceasefire goes against all interest at least the interest of the ones the ones making money of the genocide are off of the genocide rather in the occupation of Palestine our state's economy runs off of oil gas and weapons of war meaning calling for it into the genocide would mean calling for an end to a paycheck for Oklahoma and the wealthy this seems radical only to the ones who have sold their soul for a check the ones who have no investment in a safe future for me my peers my elderly parents my future children or themselves Oklahoma City must set a standard for what Oklahoma could be John F Kennedy said those who make a peaceful Revolution impossible will make a violent revolution inevitable I believe that God willing Oklahoma will see an end to its current system and way of life if it seems scary that's because it is the very foundation of the state rests on the blood of first Americans who are murdered for their land money and oil every day indigenous women go missing and are killed I'm reading the killers of the flower moon right now great book um now is the same thing happening in Palestine we must remember to reconcile our past and remember it to build a sustainable future starting today it's time to promise a few things to the Oklahoman people to set an example for what our state and our nation could be 30 seconds remaining no new oil and gas and phase in industry for sustainable indust energy sovereignty to indigenous peoples streets designed for people not cars with accessible and free public transportation funding for public schools and our support staff because our schools would do nothing without our psrp public support and related professionals uh or School related professionals sanctions on all products and raw materials from Israel and Congo a boy a city boycott of Caterpillar machinery and weapons manufacturers and a permanent ceasefire in occupied Palestine to end the census killing and to bring the hostages home I'm sure y'all all saw the pictures coming out of Rafa a couple days ago of the beheaded children from the bombings of a Umbra Mr Page your overtime is there anything you want to sum up with um let's focus on the videos that we're seeing rather than speculation from our president that have been confirmed to be false thank you all for your time peace be with you and may you have God's mercy thank you aelius Francisco aelius Francisco good morning Council our really friend off of 50 the Kelly W 7 East Side um here to speak on a couple things try to keep it under uh 3 minutes first and foremost as I've said since the beginning of this budget process I really want to encourage uh a creative and imaginative budget process that leans on a participatory model rather than um departments coming and presenting and you all uh voting on the budget uh we saw earlier the amount of comments that have been received so far 39 in total over the several weeks that that we've had this open process right uh if you would have hired me and live free and a couple other uh Community organizations we could have got you a couple hundred by now no joke right like so if you actually were partnering with Community organizers and people who are in the community every single day right that particip uh particip uh participation right that Community voice would already be there right instead focusing on social Med media channels that people everyday community members are not accessing so again a participatory budget process would allow community members to actually have hold and weight of the money that is impacting our everyday lives right so we need to think about really reimagining this entire process because it's backwards right it's it's it's people who are working for the city telling us as community members what we need and we have parks that are being defunded or that are no longer being uh uh used um that are crucial services for our community members the second thing that I want to talk about and this may not seem like something that this Council should take up but it absolutely is as uh the previous speaker and future speakers will speak to uh the issue that is happening right now in Palestine um over the weekend and Rafa 2,000 PB bombs were dropped on uh an area that was that the Israeli government specifically told Palestinians to move to that was regarded as a safe Zone in images over the weekend videos of babies burned to death imagine if you have kids nieces nephews cousins little ones who you love imagine them being burned to death that's what's happening right now in Palestine and to Palestinians right you all have a responsibility to choose what side of History you want to be on if you want to be on the side of complicity and silence or if you want to be on the side of freedom and Liberation for oppressed people across the world if you see your children your nieces your nephews your cousins and those little babies or if you see terrorists you have a choice to make Oklahoma City can lead the state of Oklahoma and calling for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful resolution or thousands more babies women and children and men will be persecuted with us bombs bombs that are made right here in Oklahoma ceasefire now free Palestine these issues that we talk about around policing and our jails are deeply and and and and clearly connected to what is happening in Palestine thank [Applause] you Yasmin abush hello my name is Yasmin I'm in Ward one and today I'm going to be speaking about uh Oklahoma City passing a ceasefire resolution um sorry my name is Yasmin and I am Palestinian americ my grandparents were forcibly removed from their homes and as a result my parents immigrated here as a first generation palestinian-american I deeply ashamed of knowing that my tax dollars go to fund war and genocide the past eight months we've witnessed the slaughtering the starvation burning of children women and men we've also seen the attacks of hospitals and designated so-called safe zones yes yesterday Israel targeted tents in refugee camps leaving children headless parents childless and further proving the target deliberation of civilians this massacre took place days after the international criminal CT Criminal Court ruled that Israel must not continue with their invasion of raah world leaders including the United States said that Invasion on raah would be crossing a red line yet now that it's happening they refuse to do anything to stop a genocidal state it is clear to it is clear that our federal government is failing Us in continuing to send weapons to an apartheid and genocidal state it is the job of city council to step in and regulate the needs of their citizens while our tax tax dollars get sent overseas our citizens in Oklahoma Suffer Without the necessary funding for State programs such as food stamps and education cities across the United States have passed ceasefire resolutions demanding that the unlawful mass killings must come to an end they demand that food must be sent to Starving Children and they demand that there is no place for anti-semitism islamophobia or xenophobia Oklahoma City has a duty to protect and serve its people and pass a ceasefire resolution past resolutions condemning anti-Semitism islamophobia and xenophobia I hope you all find it in your hearts to condemn the unlawful killing of civilians and work with your constituents to pass the resolution and as you decide the 2025 budget I hope you find it in your hearts to reallocate the money away from murder and destruction and put it back into life and prosperity these are the dead children in the images that we're seeing kamav come out of razza if this can't if this does not change your mind then I I don't even know what to say anymore and I notice which ones are looking down and which ones are actually paying attention 30 seconds remaining thank you khed [Applause] shahab hello my name is Khaled 1029 noreast 6 Street in Ward 7 uh I'm a Palestinian and have lived in Oklahoma my entire life and I'm currently a medical student at the OU Health Sciences Center here in OKC I come this morning to share with you that every single Hospital in Gaza has been attacked by the Israeli military many hospitals have been completely besieged and raided by soldiers while the injured and sick remain inside doctors are performing procedures on the floor with phone flashlights because of electricity cuts and exhausted medical supplies we are getting reports from the ground describing the catastrophic situation in which patients can't get the treatment that they need babies and incubators are dying due to lack of fuel infections are going around due to the attack on water and sanitation and medical supplies have almost completely run out due to the Complete Siege on humanitarian Aid most recently just a few days ago Israeli military bombs rain down on a camp filled with Palestinians already displaced previously because of bombings in their original homes the camp where they had their tent set up was a designated safe Zone a place where Palestinians thought they would at least be safe from the air strikes and bombs that destroyed the rest of the Gaza Strip they were mistaken there is no safe place in Gaza instead over 40 people were killed including women and children many were burned to death others were not able to be saved due to the lack of medical supplies and treatment this cannot continue this has been going on for more than seven months again I'm a medical student here in Oklahoma City and I engage in health advocacy here in Oklahoma on a variety of different health issues how can I expect to work with my city or elected officials when my elected officials have not even acknowledged the suffering and oppression of my people the people of Gaza and Palestine there are many Palestinians in OKC and in Oklahoma at large not to mention those who watch the news news with their own eyes and are horrified yet they do not feel supported or even seen or heard the most basic of things the right to live with dignity has been Stripped Away from Palestinians this is very much an Oklahoma issue just as it is an American issue because our tax dollars are funding this genocide the billions of dollars sent to the Israeli military are in the form of air strikes on homes seconds remaining and bombs on children the very least our city council here can do is to reject The Killing of innocent men women and children to support Aid to enter so that the sick and injured can be healed and to stand in support with our Oklahoma communities who are hurting we must call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza from here in Oklahoma City as has been done in many other cities in the United States such as Chicago Atlanta San Francisco Iowa City Richmond Dearborn Atlanta and many more let's be people of conscience and stand on the right side of History free Palestine thank you that concludes citizens who signed up to speak we will now go into our previously voted on Executive sessions and we will return e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right we have completed our executive session and we have returned and we have reached the final item on the agenda item seven adjournment and we are adjourned