Fueling Economic Growth - July 2023

In this month's episode, City Manager Michael Spurgeon and Economic Development Manager Jennifer Rush dive deeper into the creation of Adams Creek Town Center. This groundbreaking 200,000-square-foot retail concept is coming soon to Broken Arrow near Hillside Drive and County Line Road.

Discover how the City Council's creation of Tax Increment Finance (TIF) District 4 is driving economic growth near Kenosha and 23rd Streets. Tune in to learn more about Broken Arrow's retail landscape! Also, check out What's In the News, Rounding Third with Michael Spurgeon, and BA Good Neighbor, where we highlight people and groups doing great things in the community.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Five Broken Arrow. This is the podcast about Broken Arrow created by the city of Broken Arrow as another avenue for information about what's happening in our community. And today we have city manager Michael SPURGEON and economic development manager Jennifer Rush. Thank you both for taking time out of your busy days to to meet with us. Absolutely. Good to be here. Thank you for them by day. It's your first time, too. Absolutely, rookie. I don't love being on camera, but I love talking about Broken Arrow, so I think this will be great. Well, one of the things we're going to talk about or the big thing that we're going to talk about today is the tax increment finance district number four, or more affectionately known as Adams Creek Town Center over in North Broken Arrow, their Hillside Drive and County Line Road. City Council approved the creation of this new Tier four Force Economic Development Administration is in your wheelhouse. It's one of those high priorities for you. What? Why is it so high? Why is it so important? Well, you've heard me say this multiple times over the last eight years, and I've actually said it throughout my entire career. Is that one of the first and first and foremost important things you have to have in a community is you have to have a safe community. And if you don't have a safe community, it's going to have a trickle effect like a pebble in the pond and every single thing that you do. So that's always in the top priority of making sure that we apply the resources we have available to keep our city safe. I've always looked at the second responsibility we have would be economic development in duration. And the reason I believe that is because I think the city has a responsibility to create an environment that promotes private investment. If you have that environment, then what's going to happen is you're going to see businesses expand that are already here. You're going to see businesses that come here. You're going to see more residents want to be in your community. Which leads to one thing it's a better quality of life. And so in every community that I've had the privilege to serve in, I've always tried to make it to where we have a robust team that's focusing on all aspects of economic development, including tourism. Tourism is very, very important economic development driver. And so to me it basically it's the engine, it's the fuel. I should say, that basically drives the engine with the engine being the city departments, the city organization that's focused and tasked with providing great quality of life. And so working with our our TEDx team, the tourism, economic development, also the EDC, I think we have that robust team that is focusing on the the primary tenets that I believe are more important that every community focuses on, which is retail and commercial. We'll talk more about that job retention and expansion of existing businesses as well as recruitment of new businesses. And so we're fortunate to say we got a really good team, and that's why I felt important because it helps provide the revenue we need to maintain a great quality of life. And that's really important because I mean, that high quality of life is something that that we appreciate as our citizens. Me, I'm one of those citizens that we hear from all the time, you know, just our roads, our drinking water, that sort of thing. These tax dollars and bringing in shopping centers like this help to continue to improve, maintain, improve those those quality of life things that we forget about. We do. You know, when you talk about quality of life, sometimes we think of, you know, having great parks, which are certainly a part of it. But as it relates to business, I mean, businesses want to stay here and locate here. If you have the right ingredients, such as affordable land, number one. Number two, a qualified workforce that actually that will just keep it basic, that they're going to build widgets. They want to make sure that there's qualified workers within the city or the area that could come and actually manufactured their product. Retail commercial is extremely important. Having places where people can shop to spend their dollars, local tourism, having the ability for teams to come in to play sports and stay in our hotels. I mean, all those little elements actually create a quality of life that that people within the city and outside the city realized broken Air has. And that's why they're coming here really in droves. You talk about spending their tax dollars here. One of the things that we talk about, a lot of sales tax leakage and so Adams Creek kind of takes care of a little bit of that. And that's part of the responsibilities you have as far as retaining finding ways to to keep those sales tax dollars here. Let's talk a little bit about Adams Creek Town Center. This wasn't an overnight deal. This has been you've been working on this for a while now. But Jennifer. Yeah, we've been working on this, putting this together for for a couple of years. There's a lot of moving pieces that take place in order to make developments like this come to life. So 23 acres. And tell me about this development company. Do they have tenants that they're looking at because what I understand, there's at least ten spots right now, maybe some opportunities for more. So they do have tenants. And so the development company they have done, Tulsa Hills, that's probably the closest area that they've done. They're based out of Tennessee. They've done development in all 50 states. They have a great relationship with the retailers that are on board that are coming into the area. And really it came about because those retailers wanted to be in Broken Arrow and have been trying for some time to get available space within broken Arrow, but there wasn't any available inventory. So it has to come out of the ground and open up some new space for them to come in. And what a great spot to. I mean, you had 23 acres of undeveloped land that's sitting there that's not generating anything as far as sales tax is concerned. Now, we created a tiff. Talk about tiffs. What are those and how does the city benefit? Well, a tax increment financing district is just that is that it's a state statute. Oklahoma state statute authorizes means to help incentivize the the development within your community, provided it meets certain conditions and standards. And essentially what you're doing is, is that the city is giving up a portion of the revenue that will be generated. In this case, this step is just a sales tax only tiff is that you're actually you're you're giving up a portion of the revenue that would be generated in the TIFF district of the TIFF boundaries for a period of time. And in return, the developer uses those funds that are generated to build infrastructure and other improvements related to the business that might otherwise make it difficult for them to be able to get the return on investment. They need to justify the multimillion dollar expenditures that they have to make in order to come to your community. And so the city has agreed to the tiff. And I, I can tell you Jennifer did an amazing job of negotiating that tiff on behalf of the city. So we're giving up a portion of our 3.55% sales tax for a number of years in order for them to receive a certain dollar amount back that they'll put in their infrastructure. And then once the tip is paid off, then all of those moneys will come into the city's proverbial coffers. Now, I understand there's some controversy as it relates to TIFF. Some people don't believe that businesses should be incentivized private businesses in some cases, You know, it has to be in order to make things work. We'd prefer to to work with the developers and look at other ways to try to help them. But this is a tool that's available to the city that has shown to be very profitable in terms of return on investment, specifically the Rose District. If you look, that was our first half. We've probably put in about $40 million worth of improvements and we're probably to 80 to $100 million worth of private investment. So you can see the investment, the city made and basically everyone in the area knows across the street can they continue to come here because it's a great place to go and recreate. You know, the projections show that over the 23 years of this tiff that the developer says that about 1.4 billion in gross taxable sales, which would equate to about a little more than 50 million and total sales tax here in the city. It's a lot of money, especially when you break that down. And while they're still paying off the tip, while the tip is still being paid down, we're looking at just under $1,000,000 annually. And then after it's paid down almost $3 million annually, again, that's that's money coming from an area town that's not developed. That's just sitting there. So it really seems like it's kind of a win win for us because we're giving up, what was it, 2% of the 3.5? Yes. So those are moneys that we wouldn't have anyway. And so it just it really kind of makes sense to do this. Well, let Jennifer answer that. I've got a I've got a thought. When she was working specifically with the developer, maybe you can talk about why that they needed the assistance. So, you know, there's a lot of a lot of factors that go into needing the assistance. And really over the last couple of years, specifically through the pandemic years, cost of construction, cost of supplies has gone up exponentially and the developer needs to in order to generate needs a certain amount of return in a certain length of time to make it financially feasible. Interest rates are also up and and banks are requiring that, you know, developers and projects to front more cash into a project. And so obviously they have to do something that makes sense in order to generate that. So this gives them a way to help with their performers, with their projections on what they can pay back as far as loan loan cost and doing this project. That makes a lot of sense. Whenever you go back to the last city council meeting that we had and the Parks Development group represented here, he said that they were looking for communities that were willing to work together to support. That makes a lot of sense. Now when you talk about the construction cost going through the roof, just like costs have gone through the roof for everybody. That makes sense. How this actually helps them now. And you were going to say. Well, what I liked about this tiff and this was done through negotiations is that the city is retaining a portion of our sales tax, which you mentioned just a couple of minutes ago. And so we know when this project is is completely built out on what they built their financial proforma. And what's really cool about this project is when they built their model about what they were going to need. They left a number of their parcels in the project. They didn't include those in the calculations. So that means that this potentially with the growth that they're going to have, once it's once it's completely built out, this first phase or so, is that it's going to throw off revenue to the city that we can use for operations and for capital improvements. And as those other lights come online in the future, that's going to help them actually recoup what they were looking to get from the tiff in terms of repaying themselves for the public improvements and actually put additional dollars into the the city's coffers, which to me this is really the type of partnership that we want, that public private partnership to where it is We are getting additional places for people to shop, shop locally because we're so heavily dependent on sales tax. At the same time, we also receive those funds. They also get the funds to pay back the debt they have to borrow to make the project happen. So it's like in a conceptual drawing of what they're looking at doing and you mentioned those parcels. So there's an opportunity then for that to be developed as well too. Absolutely. So when you do development and especially on an area that that large, you know, with 22 acres, you always want to develop, you know, the the back part first. Otherwise if you build out the different parcels, then you have blockage for what's behind that. And so there is an opportunity, could be four, could be five lots. And right now the development group and myself, we're speaking to all first to the market, Broken Arrow restaurants that could fill those spaces as far as far as the eatery. And so those will come online. As mentioned, you know, after the back part starts to develop out and fill out. Oh, it's fantastic. Let's talk about traffic here in just a little bit, because you talked about just then the back part and you want to be able to see those things. I want to go back to the traffic just second. But you had mentioned something earlier, Mr. SPURGEON, about sales tax only. Why that delineation, sales tax only? Are there other tips where there are other kind of tax incentives that go into that? There are actually the roads district would be what I would consider to be a full blown tip in that the city is recovering both sales tax and property taxes. And that's just for the roads district. Just for the roads district. That's TIFF number one. In this particular case, Jennifer and I visited at the beginning of this project and we were approached by the developer and we determined that because this is an area that probably is going to develop without some type of incentive, we determined that at this point we were just going to do a sales tax tiff because the sales tax was going to be generated from the businesses. And I think everyone's going to be very, very happy when we start to announce a lineup that hopefully we'll see in 2024. There may be other times in the future, as we did with Aspen Ridge, that we may need to sit down with the taxing entities, the school district, the county, the library and so forth because of the amount of revenue that is needed to make the project work, that we might need all of those increments for a period of time in order to make the project happen. And so we determined this project would be best to do a sales tax only. And we've assured all of our partners that if we decide to do something with regard to a full blown tiff is it will have those conversations with them early on. So they'll be a part of that discussion. So no ad valorem is going to be captured with this TIFF? No. That's fantastic news. I was looking at was looking at some projections there, too. So our friends at the school districts, Tulsa Technology Community Center, Tulsa Community College, Tulsa Technology Center, Tulsa City County Library, Tulsa, the County Health Department, they they're going to get around 477 this projections, $477,000 annually. I was looking just on Tulsa County Assessor's website that property only estimated the estimate taxes on that property in 2023 or $337. That's a huge, huge jump and they're going to benefit from this. TIF Well, we never lose the underlining increment. So those taxing entities, you know, if it was a full blown tiff, would continue to get the underlining it increment. But in this case, you know they're going to get $4, I like to call it, as soon as the certificates of occupancy are issued in the next available assessment opportunity cycle is they will go on the tax rolls and all those were all that revenue for property taxes will be going to those entities that you just mentioned. Traffic. That was one of the things that we saw on the on the Facebook post hi engagement for this. A lot of people excited about it. Right. One of the questions that came up was traffic that sometimes it can get a little congested right over there off of 71st going into the Lowes area. Is there a traffic study? If there is, have you seen anything there? There is a traffic study. And so I love the helpfulness and that sometimes social media generates. But I think that the public is is can be unaware of the processes that developments like this need need to happen to take place. And one of those would be a pre development, you know meeting and that's meeting with all of the different reviewers, the fire marshal permitting planning everybody. And so there's a lot of for forethought into these type of developments and that was something that was addressed at the pre developed meeting that our traffic engineers, the city's traffic division wanted to make sure that we had a, you know, a study done. And so a study is basically a third party that that comes together that it's paid for by the developer. And I think the study was around $60,000. So it's it's not a cheap thing to do. It's a it's a very you know, it's very labor intensive. It takes about this one took about 60 days to look at the traffic study. So it's not just, you know, somebody going out there for a day looking, going, I think it looks great. So there's there's a lot of engineers, a lot of professional people that that sit down and compute numbers and look at future expansion and what these stores would would drive off as far as traffic is concerned. And that study hasn't been turned back into the study into into the city at this point. The developer still has it. He's received it and he's making some changes, you know, to the site plan based on that and then some other recommendations that they had during the planning process. So but per the what was approved through the Planning Commission and through City Council was their their plan unit development. Their PD had to be accompanied with the traffic study. So if there are any issues out there that are found with this study, then they'll go ahead and make the necessary adjustments then before before they do their development. Absolutely. Absolutely. So that is a requirement and something that was was forethought before, you know, before the plan was approved. So one of the other things that came out of that social media post is that citizens were bringing us some pretty good ideas as far as businesses to brick to bring to the community. As I got tongue tied there, I saw some Trader Joe's, Sam's Costco, Menards. I'm not sure what Menards is, but a lot of different things. Again, you have to do the recruiting. Talk about that process and what it's like and conversations that you have and that sort of thing. Yeah, right. Let's talk about that. Right. This is one that I could really spend a couple of hours talking about this, especially when you talk about a specific retailer. So I'm going to try to condense this for for our listeners and listening to the podcast. So, you know, some of the the common things that we hear, you know, have the Costco, the Sam's, those type of things. Really my job in economic development is to really further those relationships, for those relationships with site selectors, with developers. So that way when there is a point in time where Costco or Sam's wants to expand into the community, they will work with Broken Arrow for that. I would say the best chance of getting a Costco or Sam's and Broken Arrow is to stop shopping at Costco and Sam's within the Tulsa market. And I know that sounds harsh to say, but at Costco and Sam's is a great example of when you swipe your membership card, they have an accurate number of how much your household is spending every single time you shop there, you know your address is tied to it. They know that. They know that if they were to open a Costco or Sam's site, how much that would cannibalize, you know, take away from the sales from their other stores. And so that's kind of a financial decision that they have to put into their revenue models to say, is it feasible for us to open another location? And those are just specific to those some of the other ones that you mentioned or that I see sometimes online is maybe they don't have an Oklahoma market yet, but, you know, continuing to further the relationship with recruitment when they do want to open an Oklahoma space, you know we're we're continue those relationships so they'll come to Broken Arrow IKEA. That was the. Other one. I think there was an April Fool's joke a couple of years back about an IKEA coming right to that. The the IKEA. And the funny story about that, I had stories. I was actually at a at a conference in Dallas when that was announced with other brokers and site selectors. And they all came up to me and congratulated me for IKEA coming to Broken Arrow. And I had to get on social media to see what was going on. So no IKEA at this point and is not coming to Broken Arrow. But you know, stores are always about evaluating the financial models. I would say a year ago I'd say no, there's no way IKEA is even coming to Oklahoma. They've changed their their store layouts, they've changed their business plans. And so could it be a possibility in the future? It could, you know, based on their requirements. Well, let me add this this to Aaron. First thing I want to say about economic development, specifically the recruitment for retail and restaurants is the council and I and Jennifer Rush want all those businesses as well. There isn't any of those businesses that she talked about or you brought up that we wouldn't love to have in the broken air community. Now that being said, it's not as easy as some people believe that it is, that all we got to do is call up Trader Joe's or Cracker Barrel's headquarters and go come to Broken Arrow. It's not that simple. Despite what some people think, that's not the way it works. They have their own internal decision making models that they utilize to determine if they can justify the capital investment, which in many cases is multimillions of dollars. And can they get a return on their investment, i.e. in the case of a Cracker Barrel, Because I hear that weekly and yes, I do. I hear it all the time. Is that how many times are they going to get people to go through those doors? That's what it comes down to is the traffic counts in the area that they're going to locate sufficient enough for them to justify that multimillion dollar investment. And there's a lot of internal discussions. And without those relationships that Jennifer's talking about, the possibility of happening here is slim and none. But by building those relationships, what happens is we continue to give them our traffic counts and areas where there's potential. And we also show them the household incomes within those areas, which are two main drivers that a lot of businesses look at internally. And then they also look at existing where existing store is and they know that there is a certain amount of miles people will drive. And so they're not going to put a store in an area where they know, just like Jennifer said, if they can continue to have people go to that store because it costs so much money today to build a new facility. And so so we build those relationships. And sometimes we get frustrated that it takes longer for a project to happen than we would like. Believe me, we want stick coming out of the ground, as I like to say, as quickly as possible, because I know the sooner that it comes out of the ground, the sooner we finish and the sooner our residents and those in the area can actually start enjoying the benefit of whether it's a restaurant, whether it's a retail store or if it's a new business that somebody is going to go to work to. Speaking, just coming out of the ground, Adams Creek, Do you know what the timeline is like? So they will start hopefully breaking ground quarter into quarter, one quarter to next year. So what that means is, you know, around March or April of next year, construction will take anywhere from 18 to 24 months. So it's a long process and, you know, things don't go quickly. And then by the time, you know, working in economic development, by the time it's done, by the time stores are opening, I actually worked on it for five or six years at this point. And so, you know, the Aldi's, for example, at 121st and Elm is a great example when that opened up compared to the sisters over in that area, the public said, you know, but but how come Aldi's opened up quicker? They didn't realize that that was a six 5 to 6 year conversation, talking with all these planning to come in, whereas research at that point had only been two years. So there's a lot that you don't see in the planning to actually bring something out of the ground to get those sticks to come out. So again, it's not an overnight thing. No, these take years and years and years. So do you want to dig deep into your your bag of magic tricks there and let us know what what the next thing is that you're working on. That'll be years and years down the road. You know, you know, some of the some of the things I see from the public is, you know, talking about South Broken Arrow and South Broken Arrow is an area that is at this point it is taking off. And what I mean by that is I'm seeing a lot of retail movement on my side. It might not be something that people see, you know, actually coming out of ground or sticks coming out of the ground. But we've had an increase in south broken arrow of homes. So there's been a tremendous increase in housing density. That's very important to have the homes to support the businesses in that area. I think right now about 60% of our new built homes and home permits are in South Broken Arrow. So that shows why it's moving quicker. We're also seeing an increase and an investment by the city to create things like the innovation district to be able to keep jobs within the area because you don't want to, you know, open restaurants and things

that can only be supported after 5: 23:54

00 when everybody gets back home. So there's a lot that's that's coming that way. And so South Broken Arrow is not being forgotten about, I promise you that. And we're seeing really expansion in the east part and the south part of our city with with a few projects going on north. But I know that that was where everybody was seeing it in the past. But we're seeing all parts of our city are going through economic growth. But we'll start to put a bow on this. Any last words? Now? I'm just very, very glad that Jennifer Rush is leading our city TED team and working very closely with Jennifer Conway and the EDC, because sometimes I think people don't understand what the grind is as it relates to economic development. I use that term in Jennifer Smiley. I mean, you have to be on the phone all the time. You have to be responding to request for proposals. You have to be talking to side selectors and making sure they know that Broken Arrow is open for business. And I just want to assure everyone is that we're we're working diligently and we're working as quickly as we can to try to make sure that we're putting trying to get folks to know that broken areas open for business and that we want you here. And we're also trying to make sure that we can accommodate what they want to do. And that is look at the areas like South Broken Arrow where there is infrastructure that has been built and so they can accommodate that growth. And then putting the private sector and the public sector together. And it's such a fascinating topic. It really is an art and a science, the science being producing the data necessary for them to justify that that investment. And then the art of developing the relationship is they trust you, that they know if they're going to make that investment a broken arrow. Is that the permitting process is going to be timely, the planning process is going to be understanding. And then when they go to do construction is that the city is going to be there to support them to make sure their their buildings and their all their facility is going to be built a standard and something we can all be very proud of. J.R., congratulations. Thanks for bringing this to us. I know it's a couple of years down the road, but it's going to be it's going to be nice for for the city. I'm very excited. I'm very excited to see these retailers in our city and residents have access to items that they didn't have access to in our city before. Well, I appreciate the conversation. Thank you. Y'all ready for some headlines? Yes. All right. Let's do it. Hi, I'm Lisa Jones. Thanks for joining us for In the News. And I'm with my girlfriend, Lou. And you know, Mike, it's the dog days of summer. It sure is. It's so hot outside and it's a great opportunity to take your dog to the pooch. Plunge. Have you heard about the pooch plunge? I have, but if I had a dog, I'd take it. But for those who are listening, what is the pooch plunge? Well, it's an annual event at the Family Aquatic Aquatic Center, and it's on Saturday, August 19th. And dogs can swim in the giant big family pool. Awesome. And for dogs,£40 and less, they can swim from 8 to 845 for dogs, 45 to £65. They swim from 945 to 10 and then £70 and more can swim with their owners from 10 to 1045. And they have to have their current vaccination records. They go online or go buy and register at Central Park Center at 1500 South Main Street and it's only $5 per dog. And a great opportunity to give your dog an opportunity to learn to swim and just have a good time. And it's a huge swimming pool. So, I mean, I would just love to see all those dogs and owners just having fun with their dogs. Absolutely. And this is to coincide with the ending of pool season. Exactly. Yes. Perfect. So it'll be a good time. Speaking of the dog days of summer, it's also a great time to adopt a pet. Yes, it is. And this all through the month of August, you can adopt a pet for only $63 and it could be a dog or a cat. And that includes spaying and neutering rabies vaccination for dogs. It's heartworm test and a 5 to 1 prevention for cats is spaying or neutering and rabies vaccination. And it's a great opportunity to change your life and change the life of a pet forever. You know our family. We actually adopted a cat through the Broken Arrow animal shelter, and the process was amazingly simple and it was enjoyable for us. They have a huge screen that you can choose from pictures to see what your animal that you're interested in. And then there's a Facebook page. Also, there's all the animals are on their Facebook page and. They always update it to like if one that you saw last week isn't there, it could be it was found. It's forever home, you know. So the process was easy for our family. We found that our adorable cat and a yeah and he's been crazy ever since he's he loves he loves our family. And I was happy to rescue him. I love it. Another story that came our way is have you ever heard of the U.S. mullet champion? I have not. Tell me more. Well, there's a student that attends Sequoyah Middle School here in Broken Arrow. His name is Elwood Williams. Elwood Williams. And he is actually in in nomination for the middle school division of the U.S. Mullet Championships. Party and no business in the front party. And that's right this is in the front party in the back. And for those who are listening only, you know I don't have any hair my head. But if I did, I would love a mullet. Just maybe not forever. I think my wife would let me have it forever. But, you know, maybe in this season I see it. I can totally see it. But one of the things that inspired him to grow a mullet is, you know, he plays soccer and he want to keep the hair off his eyes and he decided to grow his hair long. But then there was a challenge as well. And that is that just a nomination for the U.S. Mullet Championship for kids and teens? And he actually has a name for his mullet. Can you guess anything about. No, no idea. Okay. Well, his mullet is called the Oklahoma tornado. And there's a picture of him were also up on the screen and on the website for people. But he's pretty serious and it looks pretty awesome. So if you're able to both link as well, but vote for this young man's mullet to be famous forever. Go, Elwood. Go, Elwood. Well, thanks for watching. Until next month, We'll see you around. See you around. Broken Arrow. Hello, Broken Arrow with City manager Michael SPURGEON and Communications director Aaron McCulloch. Let's get into it. Let's do it. So Assistant City manager Kenny Schwab made a presentation to the City Council about the Oklahoma Department of Transportation notifying us that the Broken Arrow Expressway corridor study is going to be on their eight year plan. What does this mean? Well, I don't need to tell you or any resident in our community that one of the topics we hear the most about is transportation. And we're constantly trying to widen our roads, maintaining our roads, our populations growing. And so probably one of the criticisms or complaints that we get from our citizens on a regular basis is the congestion that exists at Hillside Lane Lane and Highway 51, and it's just a matter of volume. And so we've been working for the last two years trying to come up with a solution for addressing the traffic issues that existed in intersections as well, to look at all of our intersections that intersect with 51 Elm place, for example, as well as Kenosha. And we determined that probably from our perspective, the best approach would be to visit with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, also known as ODOT, and find out if there's a possibility that we could get get added to their eight year plan. Now they get funded from the federal government just like every other state in our amazing country, $4 tax dollars that come back to the various states for transportation and road types improvements. And so we approached them a couple of years ago and they were very interested in discussing with us. And we've had a series of meetings led by Assistant City manager Kenny Schwab on how we would go about getting added to the eight year plan. And I'm very pleased to say is that they've indicated to us that we're moving that right direction, which would essentially mean that they would provide probably 80 to 90% of the funding necessary to be able to complete the improvements that would eventually be approved by the city council. And those improvements, they'd include improvements, safety as far as the expressway is concerned, maybe some lanes as far as interchanges, ramps, that sort of thing. But there's also bridges. Oh, absolutely. So we have a company that we hired as a consultant to actually look at the various options for redesigning that entire interchange, as I like to call it, off of Highway 51 right there at Lynn Lane, which we all know needs to be redesigned. And it would include from from the design that we're working with. ODOT, is that a larger bridge, new bridge with additional lanes? Also, there would be additional way to get on to Highway 51 going west. It really just going to improve the overall functionality. I like to call it intersection to move the traffic basically on and off the the exchange right there. We you know, we're super excited because obviously, as everybody knows, it gets off there, it backs up, it backs up and it backs up onto the highway, which creates a safety issue for those that have gotten off as well as those that are heading to places further east into into Wagner County. And so this this plan, once it's finalized, I think is going to improve not only the the functionality for folks getting off at Lane Lane and Kenosha, but also for those that are basically continuing travel home or to places to the east of our community. And I guess the thing to really think about here is patience is key because this is an eight year plan. It signifies their intent to do something. But this isn't going to be starting any time soon as far as construction or the improvements or anything. No, I mean, look, let's talk about that for a minute. You know, we all want the improvements to be made tomorrow, and I understand that. But it is going to take it could take up to eight years before they actually start construction. So we're looking at a project, total project of it could be 40 to $60 million based on what the final design of all the improvements would be. And if you look at our community, we're blessed enough and the voters have always been supportive when it comes to transportation projects, it becomes a matter of priority. I mean, the next time that we'd be able to go to the voters and ask for any type of funds to do this project would be 2027. And our next bond package proposal, we're going to start working on next year. I think that was an opportunity a couple of years ago. But now that these we're moving towards being on the eight year plan, this is a win win for our citizens because actually we're going to get the work done and the money is going to come back. Their tax dollars that they give to the federal government or basically buying gas, whatever it is, where the funds come from, the federal government is going to come back to Broken Arrow. So we're actually going to be getting our tax dollars back. And that doesn't require us to make hard choices about what improvements would be in the next bond package. So, you know, and the second thing is, if you look at how long it takes to do any type of transportation project or a road specific is going to widen the road, build a bridge, there are so many facets in it and that's why it never happens so quickly, is first, you have to just you have to scope the project wishes, determine exactly what you're going to do. Once you do that, then you have to develop a cost estimate and make sure you have the funding available for that project. The third thing you have to do is you have to acquire possibly right of way to be able to make the improvements. Then you have to coordinate with your other public utilities like LNG. So because they may have assets or infrastructure within the area, the right of way that you've acquired. So those are going to be relocated. And in most cases the city has to pay for that. So that's part of the project costs. Then you have to finally finish the final design, which could take a year or longer depending on the scope of the project. And then you start construction and we typically use well over a year, 12 to 14 months, typically for a road widening. And so to me, there are so many steps associated here, but without getting on an eight year plan, this simply was going to be very difficult to manage. And so I couldn't be happier with with the efforts of our team to secure that. The efforts of State Representative Ross Ford has been very helpful. And I know that he and the other legislators are going to try to work to make sure that it happens before eight year. So this the state's got to accumulate the funds in some way, shape or form once they have all the funds, plus the local funds, which we're going to have to come up probably between ten, ten and $12 million to meet our match, which we currently have. So I'm excited to say that. So it is going to take some time, but your point is well taken. Something else you're excited about and staying with that transportation theme is the United States Department of Transportation awarded the city a $5.84 million raised grant raise being. Let me see if I can get this correct. Rebuilding American infrastructure with sustainability and equity. Absolutely. I think I nailed it. You got it. I think I nailed it. So this is a planning grant and this stage right over there in that same vicinity with Broken Air Expressway, North, south, it's all about reconnection. Talk to me about this. Well, let's just say at 30,000 feet for a minute, we're moving towards getting the the state to approve a project that could be hypothetically between 40 and $60 million for the improvements that are much needed. And we got $5.4 million planning grant to give us the funding that we need to hire the right consultant to come in and to look at this corridor which really runs from about 41st and Olive all the way up to the Kenosha. So we're talking about a corridor. So we have the opportunity to actually take the time to look at all the improvements that need to be made within that corridor, which the first and foremost is always how you make sure you move traffic and you move it safely. Secondly is how do you accommodate the the amount of traffic that you're currently facing? And then there's other opportunities such as lighting, landscaping, streetscape. I mean, there's so many walkability connect, connect connectivity, as they say. So this is going to allow us to look at that entire corridor. But essentially what we have is between 40 and $60 million and then a $5.4 million grant to help us do that. So this is a big, big, big deal for Broken Arrow to receive those kind of federal dollars back to our community, which are so important. And I couldn't be excited about putting the two together. And I need to send a shout out to in COG and Rich Air and his team because they were very helpful in giving us the parameters in terms of what they thought would be a really good application to submit to the federal government. And we're very blessed to say that we've received that grant and the planning will start later this year. This is the first time we've we've applied for this grant. Either this is what, third, fourth, fifth. Did you. Say fifth. Is the fifth time? Yes. Obviously, we're not going to give up. And it's a very competitive process because you're competing with cities all across the country. And they're they were looking for bigger projects. And so we decided that the competition in terms of construction, that we were going to go away from that because the planning is so important in terms of addressing this corridor. So working within COG, we actually applied for the planning and we were successful and I couldn't be happier because obviously you want to plan things. You not only want to look today in our community about where we are with growth in terms of vehicles traveling back and forth. The numbers right now along that corridor are about 90,000 cars a day. Where are we going to be five years, ten years, 20 years down the road? And how does our corridor look to be able to accommodate the growth that continues that's currently happening, I should say, and continues to happen in Broken Arrow. You know, Mr. Schwab mentioned that last night, whenever he was presenting this to city council and he talked about the strategy and applying for a planning grant in the planning is so important because there you're talking about the engineering design, you're talking about environmental concerns that you have to that you have to get cleared. You're talking about the preliminary right away and utility line coordination. He also said that when you get this, it doesn't guarantee that you're going to get the next level of grant, which would lead to possible money for construction. However, it makes it more likely. So was that part of the strategy that you saw as far as going into this race grant application? Absolutely. I mean, in my career, what I've learned is that if you're going to an agency asking for for funding, if you receive funding from them for a planning grant and you plan your planning grant funds are used in a project that that they believe is consistent with your their overall goals. And we've talked about those previously, then you're much more likely to be able to be funded if there is funding going to be available for actual construction. So I feel real confident that should we decide to apply for a construction grant, that we would have a great opportunity to to be approved to help us with the construction is going to be needed. You know, I'm proud to say that in the last eight years since I've been here, we have secured over $20 million in grant funding to help us with our road widening projects around the community. And that's extremely important because one of my tenets in terms of city manager is to try to make sure that we're bringing back dollars from the federal government, state government, if that's a possibility, back to our community to help offset what it takes locally to be able to pay for improvements, especially when they're you're talking about capital improvements, which are always very, very costly. And so I'm very proud to say that we worked very hard with councils approval for applying for these grants to receive those type of funds and then another 5.4 million and then eventually with our corridor for the ODOT in the Federal funds. I mean, this is a very, very exciting time. Really exciting time. Let's get into some ordinances that City council adopted on July 17th. The first one is the noise ordinance limits construction noise from 10 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Then they made an exception for the Rose District and New Orleans Square, some entertainment districts. Why Was it important to make those exceptions for them? Well, just like every other community, the residents in Broken Arrow would like their peace in good order. And essentially is that those that are doing construction, mainly in the areas where they're there, they're building, there's a lot of residents that live around around those developments, and they deserve the right not to be disturbed. And so the council felt very strongly that we needed to further define exactly the times when you when you can work and when you can't work. And I think they made that very clear when we've had a few issues over the last several months that that precipitated this in terms of we had some contractors that were out there working in hours that they shouldn't have, and it's just not going to be tolerated. I mean, they've broken Aaron's work hard in this community. They shouldn't be woken up at three or 4:00 in the morning because the ordinance says you can't start til seven. And so, you know, we took the appropriate action to try to prevent that from happening. And we just want to tighten up our audiences. Now, with regard to the Rose District and the Orange Square, obviously the Rose District is an entertainment area and we're starting to see a lot more opportunities for indoor entertainment. And we anticipate the same thing's going to happen at New Square over time. So we wanted to make sure that it was clear in those areas that we you could be you could be basically playing music a little bit longer in order to do those folks that are down here wanting to listen to some to some live or some real good music. Fantastic life, right? Emergency medical services. So they passed the ordinance last night that essentially removes the opt out provision. And this is going to be a mandatory fee that will appear on customers monthly utility bills. Why mandatory? Well, two things. First off, is that any time when you talk about increasing fees, I take that I know that the mayor and council do very, very seriously. I mean, we're always very cost conscious about what we need from our citizens in terms of being able to provide the services that we need for for our community. And then secondly is that, you know, you've heard me say this and jokingly is that, you know, sometimes if you ask me what time I'm going to build you a clock. And in my job as city manager, I spend a lot of time actually explaining what we do. And so let me start that construction here real quick with regard to life right now. First, we established the program in 2015 at a rate of $5.45 per month. In the money was the money is our was and is being used to help pay for EMS emergency medical services in the transportation that are broken. Our fire department, paramedics provide to those that that need need to be transported to to one of our health care facilities are either in broken arrow or or within the area. And we had extremely high participation when it first started, even though it was you could opt in or opt out on an annual basis. And slowly over the last eight years, we've seen that high participation being in the way up in the high nineties down to less than 70%. And the demand for Broken Arrow Fire Department and providing EMS service has not stopped. In fact, I think the statistically last year the chief advised me that I think 78 to 80% of all the calls that the Broken Air Fire Department makes on an annual basis, at least for last year, was EMS related. And so that's a very, very important service. In fact, that level of service is probably the best in the state of Oklahoma, in my opinion. And it's a very important element of quality of life, is that they're there if you need them and if you need them, they're going to come and they're going to do a great job. I know that for a for a fact. And so the council has decided, because of the lack of participation, to make it mandatory later this fall to where everyone has to pay for for life. Right. And just just a quick reminder for maybe some new residents is that if you need an ambulance, you make that run. Then we're going to bill your insurance. And if you have life, ride whatever your insurance pays. And that's what we accept. And anything that's over that, it's there's no efforts to collect If you don't have life ride and you had a need for an ambulance, whatever your insurance pays, if there's a balance, then we're going to see from you of those funds to pay for the service. And so at this point, once it's mandatory for everybody, for anyone that needs a ride, there's a tremendous benefit is that, you know what, if your insurance is going to pay, that's we're going to accept. Even if the cost of the ride was was more which in most cases it usually is. You know, I remember during the the budget workshop back in May, there was a presentation from Finance and we talked about an independent third party study that was done based on the June 22 numbers and according to that study, our revenues were only around$4.6 million and the expenses to operate the Emergency medical services program was about 8.5 million. So, I mean, you've got a deficit there. Of course, if I do my math here, about 3.9, almost$4 million, that deficit. And that's been historically like that since we kicked this off back in 2017. So raising these fees is helping to offset some of that that gap and to help pay for this service, because we can't essentially rely on sales tax. Absolutely not. I mean, you covered it very well. Sales tax is a very elastic source of revenue. It is our number one source of revenue that helps pay for for predominantly operations, but also some capital improvements. And I'm concerned about that. I get concerned about sales tax every single year. Now, we've had some some very positive years since I've been here, but I still take a very, very conservative approach in terms of forecasting because I know it can be elastic and that it ebbs and flows with the economy. You know, for example, the last four months, I believe that we've been around 2%. Our projections for FY 2024, which just started, we forecasted 2.5% in sales tax collections above what we collected last year. We got our July numbers and it was, I think 0.89, which is less than 1%. And so I do get concerned about sales tax. I'm constantly watching it. I mean, we have we have a lot of needs, and I understand that. But I also know is that I believe in if we're going to start something, it needs to be sustainable. And EMS service is one of the most important services that we provide in our community. Once again, it has a lot to do with quality of life, public safety. And so this is the council and I we believe that everyone should share in the cost of paying for EMS service should they need it. And if they do need it, our folks are going to be there. They do amazing work and this is going to be a way to help sustain that very, very important service within our city. So that $6.45 cent monthly fee be effective October 1st, 2023, and be reflective on the November utility bill. Yes. I mean, just one more thing and we point out, Erin, is that I am going to be sending out a letter to all of those customers that are currently not only fried, letting them know that they will it will be essentially no option, no longer be an opt out provision. And so they'll be getting notice probably by Labor Day of the fact that we're going to do start to make the change and be effective this fall. And then we'll do some messaging thereafter just to keep people in the loop. Yes, the last ordinance, high visibility, high visibility, safety, apparel for solicitors, panhandlers. Let's talk about this. This as safety ramifications for for citizens who are driving and for those who are or who are in the roadways panhandling and asking for money. Why why was this so important? It is important to those that are driving and our citizens. And I just to be honest with you, because sometimes people wonder what the genesis is of how something came about the mayor council and I have received I would say I, I would say dozens of phone calls, communications, personal contacts with people expressing their concern and really dislike for panhandling. And in the eight years I've been here, it happened has happened periodically. But within the last year it's been pretty consistent and the residents are concerned. And number one, they don't like to be approached about it, basically to be asked if they'd like to give money. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that panhandling is a protected part of basically first the First Amendment rights of free speech. Whether we whether you agree with it or not, there they have they have tested. Right. To be able to do that. So we have a responsibility to make sure that it's done in a safe manner and in such a way that it doesn't create a problem for the person that's panhandling, number one. And secondly, for those people that are through the area. And so we've looked at different ways that we could actually improve the situation that is allowed and to make sure that, you know, we also protect our rights in terms of there being any any accidents that happen, you know, within the area. And so the council passed an ordinance saying that those people that choose to panhandle have to wear what I call a road guard or reflective vest if they're going to panhandle within our city. So since the city manager, Norm Stevens, and the chief of police, Brandon Berryhill, have discussed, you know, how to go forward with operations. And so all of our shift commanders and police officers will be made aware the audits to effect and they will begin the process when they actually when they're doing their patrols throughout the community. If they see someone that's panhandling that doesn't have a vest, they're going to make contact with that individual or individuals, and they're going to let them know that they need to secure a road guard or a reflective vest that meets our expectations. That's in the ordinance. And they have wear that if they're going to panhandle in a community, if they choose not to, then they could be subject to getting a ticket to come to a municipal court and explain to judge why they're in violation of the code. So this new ordinance dovetails really nicely into this new partnership that we've entered two entered into with John 316 mission, the Giving That makes Sense campaign. And this is an alternative to rolling down your window, handing out cash you can actually tax to be a250155. This I think is you just talked about the genesis. I think this was born out of a lot of the concerns of citizens, you know, for safety and then being able to assist individuals who are truly in need. Do you want to talk about this just a little bit? Oh, absolutely. I think the most important thing I want to mention on this topic, Erin, is the fact that Broken Air is a community that is very giving. I mean, they the support we get from the citizens, whether it's a general obligation bond package or the renewal of the PSL franchise or helping the sports teams in our community, the businesses, there is a giving spirit within this community. I mean, it is amazing to see how broken errands help other broken errands. And so we looked at this issue about how broken arms could truly help those that that need help and. We determined that the best way to do this from our perspective is to partner with John 316 because their mission aligns with the values that we have in our community of giving and helping those that need help. And so this program is going to be a perfect partnership between John 316, the City of Broken here, and most importantly, the citizens. And and I believe that folks are actually going to to help and participate because they they do have a giving heart and they want to help those folks that they need assistance. And I truly believe that giving to John 316 is a better way to help those who need help than they been basically giving someone more money that's asking at one of our intersections respectively. Absolutely. I mean, because know exactly where your money is going whenever you make that donation. You're just an interesting little nugget here.$2.50 will provide somebody in need with a warm meal and a warm bed at John three six. Yes. So it's it's a more specific allocation of your dollars than just rolling down the window and just handing it, because now you know exactly where it's going. Yes. And who you're going to help. Super excited council members have worked very hard to do in their own research that they brought to the council's attention during a few meetings. We've discussed this and making sure that we find a compassionate way to help those that need help. And I think it's going to be a great partnership. All right. So that's our that's our deep dive there. If you want to know any more information about the meetings, any of the items that were on there, the presentations, videos, you can go to our website and just click on the Agendas and minutes tab there on the website. Well, thank you for all you're doing and I'll close with my saying that I always do, is that, you know, I look forward to seeing everybody around town. And remember, Broken Arrow is the city where Opportunity lives. Hey, I'm. Mike, and I'm Aubrey. And we're here to bring you be a good neighbor and to remind everyone, be a good neighbor are stories about broken earth citizens that are a good neighbor doing good deeds, good works for people. That's right, Mike. So I have a story for you, Aubrey. This, you know, as we all know, we just went through this huge storm. A lot of cleanup happened. A lot of people were helping each other. But one story that was pointed out to us is that an entire neighborhood was helping out the hospitality house. Now what that is, the hospitality houses. If you're familiar with Ronald McDonald House, it's a it's a facility where people that are family members of yours that may be going to the hospital, may be having surgery. You can go to that hospitality house and just have a place to just rest and and unwind and things like that while your loved ones are at the hospital. Another facilities. But during the storm, they had a huge need. So the Oneida Estates neighborhood, the entire neighborhood and they they they heard about their need when the power went out. So they did over 20 loads of laundry. Now, I don't know what your laundry load is like at your. House a lot. Yeah. And I'm sure everyone took bits and pieces of laundry, but 20 loads is a lot. But not only that of the clothes, you know, just the sheets, towels, pillows. And after the storm, because of their help, they're able to clean all the empty rooms and make sure all the beds were in preparations for the families to return to the hospitality house. So kudos to the United States neighborhood for helping out the hospitality house. That's awesome. I know we had kind of during that storm, there was a lot of spotty power outages. So you could have power, but your neighbor across the street would not. And so it's really cool to see all these neighbors kind of interconnect during this post. Severe storm and see how they helped each other. And I actually saw a story on Facebook through one of another neighborhood Facebook group, a woman posted saying that she did have power. She's one of the very few in that kind of that section of the neighborhood who had power. And she opened it up to all of Broken Arrow through this Facebook post that she was going to be giving out power banks that she would charge up for people the hot water or water hot coffee and, of course, hot dogs because it's summertime. Hello? Yeah. And I just thought that was awesome. And just one little Facebook post, one little thing reached so many people who were affected and that was just what we saw online. Not all these stories that we heard of people just coming together during this storm. Absolutely. And it just goes to show that I think when tragedy happens and Broken Arrow like a storm or severe need, we rally together. Absolutely. And that happens day to day, too. It doesn't have to be a storm. I love hearing Broken Arrow stories of people just helping out, you know, kindness on the street. So if you do have stories and want to send them to us, you can go to Broken Arrow. Okay, Dog Dove or follow us on Social media. And until then, we'll see you around the neighborhood. The broken arrows produced by the City of Broken Arrow. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe to hear more about Broken Arrow. The City Where Opportunity Lives.