Norman's Frankenstein Resolution Produced Under Threat
By signing this resolution, the City surrenders its negotiating power entirely and is left with no means to hold the OTA accountable to their so-called "partnership" agreements.
On Tuesday, August 13th at 6:30 pm, the City Council will consider a new resolution. The City staff mashed up our Resolution to PROTECT and PRESERVE the Lake Thunderbird Watershed and Canadian River Corridor and sewed it together with the “partnership” resolution (Item #39) that the OTA is demanding the City approve by September 2nd “OR ELSE.”
And the product is just plain UGLY.
We OPPOSE the resolution as written.
We need you to
Send more emails to your City Council Members telling them why you oppose this resolution as written.
Sign up to speak at the City Council Meeting by 4 PM Tuesday, August 13th. You can sign up to speak about Item #39 AND you can sign up to speak in miscellaneous comments. I highly suggest you come prepared to say what you need to say in TWO minutes, and then if they give you the full THREE minutes, have a few extra elevator pitches to fill up your time.
Come to the City Council Meeting on Tuesday night wearing red.
And if you are feeling really feisty, make some personalized signs to bring with you. The more creative the better.
If you absolutely can NOT make it, then we are asking you to support our community and watch the livestream on the City of Norman’s YouTube channel.
If you would like more information about what is contained in the resolution, then keep reading.
The proposed resolution language makes no party happy because it attempts to placate polar opposite stances. One stance, held by the Citizens of Norman, is there should be NO TURNPIKES IN NORMAN and we should protect our water supply at all cost. And the other stance, held by the OTA and some of the Norman City Staff, is that we should bow down to the power of the OTA and all their corrupt money that enriches a few lawyers, bankers, engineers, contractors and connected real estate developers while stripping common, hard-working Oklahomans of their generational wealth through eminent domain takings.
The only stance that the City of Norman should be taking is NO MORE TURNPIKES, just like the first resolution signed in March 2022. Before you read the current resolution to be voted on next Wednesday, please read what we put in place more than two years ago. Unfortunately, it expired earlier this year, but we would LOVE for some of this language to make it into a new resolution.
City of Norman’s MAY 2022 Resolution (now expired)
Look at #24. WITHOUT THIS INFORMATION (study of impacts on Lake Thunderbird watershed and turnpike justification studies through rural east Norman) WE OPPOSE CONSTRUCTION OF ALL ASPECTS OF ACCCESS OKLAHOMA.
More than two years after the City adopted this resolution, have we seen any of those studies? NO. Therefore, we should have the same language today.
In any resolution regarding tollroads through our city, we should include this language:
We STILL OPPOSE CONSTRUCTION OF ALL ASPECTS OF ACCESS OKLAHOMA.
City of Norman’s Patchwork Resolution
I’m encouraging you to read the currently proposed resolution language to decide how you want to address the council on Tuesday night.
But I’m going to start with the Map and the lack of route location information that is holding everyone in east Norman completely hostage.
Why are we negotiating with the OTA when they haven’t even given us a finalized location map?
Why are we negotiating with the OTA when they haven’t procured federal PERMISSION to build across Lake Thunderbird easements and the Canadian River?
Why can’t the OTA get all of their environmental impact statements done and approved by the federal government and then approach 60% design on all of the routes before approaching the City of Norman with threats of compliance? They would certainly have a better handle on what mitigation measures would be necessary and the exact location of the toll roads.
I talked at length about this in my previous post, so I won’t belabor it here, but this is a full stop for me. The City of Norman MUST DEMAND all permissions and permits from appropriate federal agencies PRIOR to negotiating.
Oh.. and you know what else the City of Norman should be screaming from the rooftops? HOW MANY HOMES AND PEOPLE WILL BE DISPLACED FROM THE CITY DUE TO THESE TOLLROADS? The OTA has REFUSED to answer that question from Day 1. You know why? Because these tollroads will be the LARGEST EMINENT DOMAIN TAKE IN THE HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.
On to the resolution……
#1 - 7 are unnecessary. If the OTA is granted permissions from the US Army Corp and Bureau of Reclamation (not foregone conclusions), then #6 and #7 are going to happen anyway, whether the City of Norman capitulates in this resolution or not. The ONLY way a tollroad makes real estate developers money is when there are service roads and access points.
And the ONLY reason these turnpikes are being built is to develop north and east Norman and generate bond money to pay for the revolving wheel of debt that funds lawyers, bankers, real-estate developers, select engineers and contractors. It has nothing to do with TRANSPORTATION.
I would point you to the part that says “the City of Norman requests that the East-West Connector include…. along with one-way service roads along the turnpike from 60th Ave NW to 48th Ave NE.” So the OTA is designing and paying for the construction of these roadways and then turning them over to the City of Norman for maintainance? WOW that’s a lot of roadway for the city to maintain. Can the City of Norman afford to build out its infrastructure to bring city services out that far? Should they, considering our water crisis?
#9. This is where Oklahoma County really got the short end of the stick. I talked about it in this post. Therefore, I agree that if a resolution is inevitable at some point in the future, a statement like this should be included to attempt to protect the City of Norman from damages. However, Oklahoma County had several resolutions that said this same thing and as you can see, the OTA failed to hold up their end of the “partnership.”
But I want to know how the City of Norman can actually FORCE the OTA to pay. Oklahoma County was unable to get the OTA to pay for ANYTHING they agreed to in their resolution. Where is the accountability mechanism spelled out in this resolution statement? How can a resolution be used to hold an entity accountable? Remember, that a resolution is not a legal document; it is a POSITIONAL STANCE.
#10: How popular is the Route 9 multimodal path? On my way to the gym around 4:30 am, I have only seen a few NCED bikers out for a run or a bike. It is not well utilized (or maintained). Who enjoys walking, running or riding a bike alongside a roadway where cars and trucks are driving upwards of 60 MPH above your head? By the way, the speed limit on a turnpike is typically somewhere around 80-85 MPH and the tollroads will be built as a thirty foot embankments over the north-south couty roads.
Who is going to ride from 48th east, ACROSS the “George W Bush style 5-layer flyover interchange debacle” to 36th west, and then south to the planned entertainment district?
What homeowner, who bought a house in RURAL Norman, and is now left staring at the turnpike stealing their peace and quiet wants a multimodal path to run through their front yards? It’s bad enough they will have to look at an elevated, noisy, pollution-inducing turnpike from now to eternity unless they can find someone to buy. In that scenario, they could face significant losses on price because of the reduced property values caused by being next to a toll road.
What if the embankments start looking like the Kickapoo from uncontrolled flooding? Who pays for and fixes the damages?
The City of Norman plans to have the OTA purchase more right-of-way (take additional properties) for this probably lightly-used multi-modal path, and within that same right-of-way build wetland mitigation ponds. How are property owners, now staring directly at a turnpike, going to react to having more of their property siezed to hold not only a multi-modal path but to store storm-water runoff from tollroads full of harmful pollution the City of Norman is trying to keep out of our Lake Thunderbird watershed?
How are these paths and ponds going to be maintained? How much will it cost the city? How often will they have to be mowed and dredged necessitating private property access? What happens when they flood? Does the hazardous pollution contained in the ponds flow out onto the paths and into the property owners’ yards?
We all know the City doesn’t have the money to maintain much of our existing infrastructure, so where is the City getting the money to maintain this additional burden? Additional property taxes?
Stop bootstrapping your citizens with unsustainable infrastructure.
#11-#13: Here is the OTA trying to convince the public that they actually have legislative authorization to build the tollroads, when we all know they don’t. If you haven’t watched my video on the southern extension authorization, you need to.
These three paragraphs are unnecessary and just make the City “AGREE” with the OTA that they actually have permissions. What else could be the reasons for including these three items?
#14-#18. Good. Keep them.
#19. This is a no go for me. The OTA still does NOT HAVE FEDERAL PERMISSIONS TO BUILD. We cannot include their roadways until we have confirmation. Oh… and if this were so important, why didn’t the OTA “account for the EWC and SET projects” when the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG) asked for all regional transportation proposals to include in their 2045 plan? They were collecting information from all agencies in 2021. The OTA knew they were going to spring this on the people at that time. ACOG acknowledged that the OTA refused to participate. They willfully withheld that information. Why?
So if they didn’t want to play nicely with ACOG and have their proposed tollroads be assessed in the master central Oklahoma regional transportation planning exercises, what exactly are the justifications for these tollroads that strive to make a two-lane Indian Hills corridor into a MONSTER 10-LANE-across, heat-sinking, pollution inducing nightmare?
#20. Economic development cannot be the reason used for eminent domain takings. The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution provides that the government may only exercise this power if doing so will increase the general public welfare and if they provide just compensation to the property owners.
The law is clear.
So, did the OTA just announce that they, in fact, ARE utilizing eminent domain illegally and inciting the City of Norman to follow along?
Oklahoma’s Supreme Court was the second state Supreme Court to directly repudiate the US Supreme Court Case KELO v. New London (2005). In the US Supreme Court Case Kelo versus City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), the SCOTUS allowed a taking when the government used eminent domain to seize private property to facilitate a private development. This decision significantly broadened the governments’ takings power, which caused significant controversy. In response, many states passed laws which restricted governments’ takings abilities.
Oklahoma State Supreme Court rejected KELO and ruled in the 2006 Board of County Commissioners of Muskogee County v. Lowery case that economic development is not a constitutional reason to use eminent domain under the Oklahoma Constitution. The Oklahoma State Supreme Court concluded that “our state constitutional eminent domain provisions place more stringent limitation on governmental eminent domain power than the limitations imposed by the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. To permit the inclusion of economic development alone in the category of “public use” or “public purpose” would blur the line between “public” and “private” so as to render our constitutional limitations on the power of eminent domain a nullity. If property ownership in Oklahoma is to remain what the framers of our Constitution intended it to be, this we must not do.”
And newsflash. WE DON’T WANT FUTURE TURNPIKE FACILITIES IN THIS AREA, so no collaboration is necessary.
#21. No. Full Stop. The City DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE SET PROJECT. You know why? Because we do NOT WANT IT. We do NOT NEED IT. Our aquifer can NOT TAKE IT. Because the OTA does NOT have the ETHICS to complete the environmental studies needed to get the federal permissions and set a final route and let 30,000 Norman residents get on with their lives.
The OTA isn’t asking the City to be partners. They are coercing the City into powerless servitude without any intention of making good on their promises.
Regarding the bullets underneath the paragraph…. “The City of Norman is requesting…..”
Environmental studies. Riddle me this. Why didn’t the OTA do those environmental studies PRIOR TO LAYING THE ROUTES? That’s what’s called “Ethical engineering.” That’s what our City of Norman 2022 NO MORE TURNPIKES resolution asked for. We should HAVE those environmental studies already, so we can intelligently decide how to properly mitigate all the potential hazards. Why would the City of Norman enter a blind negotiation?
Alternative Routes. OH PLEASE. Are you serious? In every bogus townhall the OTA and their minions held with the citizens in April and May of 2022, they were CLEAR that the routes would not change. In fact, the Corridor Manager, Poe and Associates, have stated NUMEROUS times that the routes won’t change. If anyone on the City Council believes they will, in good faith, explore alternative routes, and then present the city with alternative routes, after already telling the City they are 60% done with design on the east-west connector and that if the City doesn’t comply, the OTA will take away turnpike ammenities, they are living in an alternative reality. The OTA has no intention of “studying alternative routes.” So how is the City going to FORCE them to do it? With what STICK?
Mitigation Measures. Come on. Jenks faced similar challenges with the Creek Turnpike in the early 1990s. The OTA refused to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that the US Army Corps and Fish and Wildlife wanted them to complete. They stuck Jenks with a hefty bill to pay for the mitigation measures and shut off a major arterial into Jenks that the City had to sue them about in federal court. Tell me who the OTA plays nicely with again?
Stakeholder Consultation. You’ve got to be serious. The City Staff are still meeting with the OTA in secret. The Mayor has not disclosed to the public that he has met with the OTA recently without City Council present. The City Council can’t get the City Staff to tell them anything. The City has reduced the citizen speaking time to two minutes at each council meeting. It’s an absolute mess.
Public Awareness and Involvement: Blah blah blah. This is just placating the public.
Collaborative Efforts: Blah blah blah. Same thing. These are just empty words on a piece of paper.
Legal Actions: Keep this. Make it stronger by saying something like “City Staff are directed to deny any and all permits until an approved environmental impact statements (EIS) following NEPA processes on the Canadian River Corridor, the I-35 Crossing and the Lake Thunderbird Watershed are completed and approved by the US Army Corps and Bureau of Reclamation.”
City of Norman Staff Report
The City of Norman’s Staff Recommendation is predictable.
Wait… where did the previous Public Works Director Shawn O’Leary Golden Parachute to?
Oh yeah.. POE and Associates.
And who was his understudy at the City?
Right. Interim Public Works Director Scott Sturtz, who met with POE and Associates on July 15th without telling ANYONE on City Council.
Don’t ever forget the conflicts-of-interest within the City of Norman Staff.
So, how are you feeling? Think we can rally the troops with enough muster to convince the City Council to shut this Frankenstein resolution down and demand a more citizen, environment and City of Norman friendly resolution?
See you Tuesday. Don’t forget to wear RED!
City Council Members
Mayor - Larry Heikkila; mayor@normanok.gov or 405-876-9216
Ward 1 - Austin Ball; ward1@normanok.gov or 405-876-9170
Ward 2 - Matthew Peacock; ward2@normanok.gov or 405-876-9196
Ward 3 - Bree Montoya; ward3@normanok.gov or 405-876-3143
Ward 4 - Helen Grant; ward4@normanok.gov or 405-876-9237
Ward 5 - Michael Nash; ward5@normanok.gov or 405-876-9239
Ward 6 - Joshua A. Hinkle; ward6@normanok.gov or 405-876-9262
Ward 7 - Stephen Tyler Holman; ward7@normanok.gov or 405-876-9263
Ward 8 - Scott Dixon - ward8@normanok.gov or 405-876-9166
All City Council Members: city_council_members@normanok.gov
City Manager
Darrel Pyle - darrel.pyle@normanok.gov or 405-366-5402