Myriad projects proposed in PROPEL 2040 election

Lawton voters will be asked on Aug. 27 to continue a sales tax that has produced millions of dollars for various capital improvement projects throughout the city.

PROPEL 2040 – a six-year extension of PROPEL 2019 – would earmark a penny of the 2.125% Capital Improvements Program sales tax for three specific areas: one-half cent for water and sewer infrastructure, one-quarter cent for parks, and a quarter- cent for streets and bridges. “These facilities have been ignored for decades,” Mayor Stan Booker said.

That penny excise tax would be “permanent for an indefinite period” unless Lawton voters repealed it.

PROPEL 2019 was a 15-year levy that Lawton voters approved on Feb. 11, 2020, and is due to expire on New Year’s Eve 2034. PROPEL 2040 would extend the expiration date to Dec. 31, 2040.

The proposal is a tax extension, not a tax increase, the mayor emphasized.

City officials anticipate the sales tax would generate $34 million annually – $204 million during the six-year term of the levy, plus a projected 3% yearly increase.

If revenues “ultimately fall short” of the estimate, allocations for projects and operating funds would be reduced by the City Council “as deemed appropriate … with the goal of funding as many of the intended projects/expenditures … as revenues allow,” according to the resolution that itemizes the capital projects proposed in PROPEL 2040.

Other projects planned, too Besides the penny of the 2.125% CIP sales tax earmarked for water and sewer lines, parks, and for streets and bridges, other projects and expenditures proposed by the excise tax extension include:

• $6 million for renovations and repairs to the Museum of the Great Plains.

• $13 million for repairs and renovations to the Armory-Community Theater; the 102-yearold Carnegie Library at Fifth Street and B Avenue, which is one of Lawton’s “treasures” but has been ignored for several years, the mayor lamented; and McMahon Auditorium, including new seating and HVAC improvements.

• Renovating and equipping the Public Library at Fourth Street and B Avenue, $2 million.

• City animal shelter and dog parks construction, remodeling, acquisition, and/or improvements at existing or new facilities, $5 million. The city doesn’t have enough room at the animal shelter to accommodate the thousands of dogs and cats it receives each year, and euthanizes a high number of those animals, the City Council was informed last October.

Those issues were discussed during consideration of plans to either renovate and enlarge the existing animal shelter or construct a new and bigger building. The shelter has 61 dog “runs” and a dozen cages in which canines are confined, plus 42 cat enclosures, 16 for felines identified for adoption.

• Renovating Central Fire Station downtown for administrative space, $1 million; capital expenses and improvements at the city cemetery, $1 million; and installing new or replacement storm sirens around town, $1 million.

• Acquisition of a new fire station alert system, $1.3 million.

• Continuing improvements at Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport and acquisition of first-responder vehicles, including a foam fire truck, $3 million.

• $2 million in capital support for the municipal golf course, which “hasn’t received any major funding in several years,” Booker said.

• $2 million for structural repairs and maintenance of the dome atop City Hall.

• $15 million for development, construction and implementation of a “Discovery Zone” for adults and children to explore and learn science and nature and perhaps stimulate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) career courses for workers for local businesses.

The facility would be similar to the Science Museum in Oklahoma City and the Discovery Lab in Tulsa, which is described as “a place where kids and their families can make, learn, explore, and design things using real stuff in new and different ways.”

New lake buildings

• $400,000 to erect new buildings and demolish aged facilities at two city lakes. Those would include construction of a new lake house office building at Lake Lawtonka and demolition of the existing lake house building; demolition of the old store facility at Robinson’s Landing at Lawtonka; demolition and removal of dry stalls in the Ralph’s Resort area at Lake Ellsworth; and demolition of the “old lake patrol building” west of the dam at Ellsworth.

• A $4 million contribution to the Victim Resource Center for annual operations and/or construction of a headquarters or to assist in obtaining grants.

• $5.5 million for juvenile programs, including Arts for All Camps in June and July “and other art activities,” $2.5 million; Summer Youth Work Programs, $1.5 million; and arts and humanities outreach programs for at-risk youth, $1.5 million.

• $10 million for crime-fighting technology, such as cameras throughout the city limits “and other measures to aid in crime prevention and enforcement.”

• Installation of new automated traffic control equipment, including poles, lighting and other essential equipment: $10 million. “We need to get our stoplights beyond the 19th century,” Booker quipped.

Modernizing and unifying all traffic control equipment at intersections throughout town would command a price tag of approximately $34 million, a consultant informed the City Council earlier this year.

A study performed by Traffic Engineering Consultants, of Oklahoma City, counted 86 signalized intersections in Lawton that are operated with 10 different models of controllers and seven different vehicle detection types.

“It’s less costly to maintain when you use just one system,” Councilman Randy Warren noted.

LATS, sidewalks

• $3 million for Lawton Area Transportation System capital improvements and equipment.

• Construction of new sidewalks and maintenance/ repair of existing walkways, $3 million, and $1 million for Americans with Disabilities Act improvements to sidewalks.

• $25 million to establish a residential redevelopment fund.

• $7 million for demolition and removal of residential and commercial properties condemned by the City Council for being dilapidated and dangerous and therefore a public nuisance.

The city is accelerating its “D&D” program to eradicate blighted structures. According to Neighborhood Services Supervisor Josh White, as of a month ago 229 properties had been condemned and torn down since 2020, another 22 residential properties were awaiting demolition, and bids from abatement contractors were being solicited on 14 other blighted properties.

• An initial appropriation of $350,000 would be provided for additional wages and/ or benefits for police and fire personnel, and $40,000 would be appropriated for wages and/ or benefits for emergency communication dispatch personnel, to augment their salaries.

• $250,000 would continue to be deposited into the city’s emergency fund created in the City Code to pay for “qualifying emergencies and events…”

• Infrastructure and support of industrial development and retention projects: $35 million “in addition to remaining funds” from the $28,750,000 that was designated for industrial development in the 2016 capital improvements sales tax.

Incomplete projects still on active list Projects from PROPEL 2019 and previous CIPs enacted in 2015 and 2016 that remain incomplete would be incorporated into PROPEL 2040.

For example, an earlier plan to acquire right-of-way and widen a half-mile section of Rogers Lane to five lanes from Interstate 44 east to Village Drive, at an estimated cost of $4.5 million, has tentatively been scaled back to three lanes.

• Also still pending is a proposed new sports complex costing an estimated $25 million.

• The City of Lawton is investing perhaps $180 million or more to renovate its 47-year-old wastewater treatment plant, as proposed in 2016.

Phase I of the upgrade started in 2022 and those improvements are costing $85 million.

The renovations are being financed with a pair of Clean Water State Revolving Fund loans of $47 million and $72.9 million issued to the Lawton Water Authority, Public Utilities Director Rusty Whisenhunt informed the City Council.

City officials have asked the state Department of Environmental Quality for an extension to complete the Phase I projects, which would result in a new completion date in August 2025.

Phase 2 of the wastewater treatment plant rehabilitation project is in the design stage, Whisenhunt wrote in a May 13 letter to the DEQ. Phase 2 of the overhaul will cost approximately $90 million and “aims to expand solids handling, ultraviolet light disinfection, and sludge digestion,” he said.

The Phase 2 design will take Garver engineers approximately 15 months to complete, Whisenhunt informed the Water Authority on May 14. The design work is being financed “in large part” from a $6 million Federal Communities Grant received last year, and remaining funds available through a CWSRF loan obtained in 2022, he said.