(Update: The Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 on Jan. 6 to drop its lawsuit against the City of OKC over a zoning permit for the site at 1901 E. Grand where a behavioral health center and new county jail will be built. The decision comes after the AG’s office issued an opinion on the lawsuit that was favorable to the county. That opinion is legally binding. A pretrial hearing between the City of OKC and Oklahoma County had been scheduled for Jan. 23. The following article remains in its original form.)
After unsuccessful pre-Christmas mediation between Oklahoma County and Oklahoma City leaders failed to settle a zoning dispute over a proposed jail and behavioral health center, Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office today affirmed the county’s sovereignty through a formal opinion on the ongoing conflict.
Two weeks after issuing a non-binding letter of counsel, Drummond wrote in his formal opinion Monday that Oklahoma County is not universally superior to the City of OKC, but that the county can build its planned jail and accompanying behavioral health center at the controversial 1901 E. Grand Blvd. site — a location for which the city had previously rejected the county’s zoning application.
“While Oklahoma County is not a ‘superior sovereign’ to Oklahoma City, applying the Rutgers factors, Oklahoma County enjoys immunity from Oklahoma City’s zoning power in this matter as it relates to the site of the new county jail,” Drummond concluded in the opinion.
While the Dec. 12 letter of counsel served as an advisory guideline for the two parties, an opinion from the AG’s office carries the force of the law until a court rules otherwise. In the county’s litigation against the city over the dispute, the two parties are scheduled for a Jan. 23 pretrial conference in Oklahoma County District Court in front of Tulsa County District Judge Doug Drummond.
The timing of Drummond’s letter also allows the county to move forward with the $40 million behavioral health center that is to be paid for through ARPA funds, District 2 Commissioner Brian Maughan said. The deadline to have those funds encumbered is 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.
“I was very happy to read it,” Maughan said Monday afternoon. “I was just impressed that it came down so decisively on the county’s position, advocating for our side. It’s crystal clear that we can move forward, and I’m of the hope that it will allow us to avoid costly litigation, not only in terms of what it would cost but also the time involved. This is a very big win for the county.”
Oklahoma City director of public information Kristy Yager said the city had no comment on the AG’s most recent communique.
Ward 5 Councilman Matt Hinkle said he was disappointed the two sides failed to find agreement over the disputed terms.
“I kind of echo what the mayor said pre-mediation,” Hinkle said. “It’s a shame that we couldn’t agree. The council realizes the jail has to go somewhere. We just wish the county would have done a little better trying to take care of the citizenry around there, as well as the people they’re releasing from the jail.”
Hinkle attended the pre-Christmas mediation and said the sticking point over the behavioral health center centered on transportation. Responding to concerns of residents in the vicinity of the proposed site, Hinkle said the city wanted the county to provide bus services to detainees to get them out of the area and nearer to services that are mostly centered in downtown OKC. Hinkle and Maughan said the county’s position is that it cannot require people to get on a bus after they have been released from jail.
“One of our original requests was to take them downtown and release them close to services where they are released now, and if not, provide transportation,” Hinkle said. “And all along the way and even up into mediation, we were told they were making arrangements for that. It’s just not an ideal situation where you have people released from jail, sometimes at four in the morning or whenever it is, and they don’t have anywhere to go or any way to get there. There’s no bus service out there. And of course, I feel bad for the people around the site who have talked about their concerns. It’s just been chaotic, the whole thing.”
Maughan said the county could not meet the city’s demand on that issue because of objections and legal questions.
“That was the issue. They were asking for us to mandatorily require every exit from the jail to get on a shuttle and to be deported to another place in the city, and they also wanted to limit the times we release people,” he said. “Those both were ruled unconstitutional by our DA, and the presiding judge didn’t feel comfortable with that arrangement, and nor did the public defender who was opposed to it, as were many trial attorneys.”
Drummond takes OKC City Council to task
Before Monday’s AG opinion, some county officials were concerned that the lingering litigation and end-of-year ARPA deadline would spell curtains for the behavioral health center proposed alongside the jail at the 1901 E. Grand Blvd. property. The opinion issued by Drummond, however, seems to offer a clear path for the county to move forward with its jail and behavioral health center projects.
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“The city’s denial of the permit and the county’s appeal to the district court prompted this request for an official attorney general opinion,” the AG’s opinion states. “Due to the time-sensitive nature of your request, this office initially responded on Dec. 12, 2024, through a non-binding letter of counsel. Since then, the city council effectively ignored the letter of counsel and proceeded to unsuccessful mediation with the county. Accordingly, this office hereby converts the answers previously given to meet the time-sensitive nature of the request in a letter of counsel to a formal opinion.”
Drummond also criticized the city’s unwillingness to address the dispute while finding that the county doesn’t have “carte blanche” to disregard the city’s concerns.
“This does not, however, give Oklahoma County carte blanche discretion to run roughshod in disregard of Oklahoma City’s valid and pressing concerns about the proposed jail site,” Drummond wrote. “Instead, Oklahoma County ought to consult with Oklahoma City, listen and study local objections, problems, and find suggestions in order to minimize the conflict. Oklahoma County demonstrated good faith seeking to work with the Oklahoma City by participating in the permitting and zoning process.
“In contrast, the city council responded to the county’s efforts dismissively. First, as described above, the city council flouted its own planning department and commission’s recommendation to approve the special permit. This prompted Oklahoma County’s current appeal before Judge Drummond. Second, after a failed mediation, the city council ceased negotiations altogether and refuses to respond to Oklahoma County’s continued efforts to raze the impasse between itself and the city council. Though the city council may believe that it asserts valid, pressing concerns, its action (more appropriately, inaction) smacks of the bad-faith politics of obstruction and obstinance.”
The history of the dispute
Before he left office in November, former Oklahoma Rep. Jon Echols (R-OKC) requested an attorney general’s opinion to clarify whether Oklahoma County has sovereignty over land it owns, such as the proposed jail site in southeast OKC. In response, Echols initially received the non-binding letter of counsel owing to “the time-sensitive nature of this request.” That letter encouraged mediation between the county and city to settle the matter outside of court, but those discussions arrived Dec. 23 and yielded no agreement.
While the OKC Planning Commission signed off on the Grand Boulevard location for the jail earlier this year, the OKC City Council later rejected a county rezoning request. The county sued the city in June, alleging it does not need municipal zoning approval to pursue its core obligation to provide a jail, particularly when OKC does not operate its own jail.
Commissioners voted Dec. 13 to direct Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna to communicate with the city in an attempt to resolve the dispute out of court.
The dispute centered on whether the county can claim governmental sovereignty and move forward with the construction of the jail and its associated mental health facility regardless of the city’s zoning rules.
Oklahoma County voters approved $260 million in bonds to build the new jail in 2022, but the cost of the facility since that vote has escalated from about $300 million to more than $600 million. Filling that gap, and wading through a lengthy legal process with the city, has created a two-front war in the county’s effort to build the jail.
After allocating about $1 million of ARPA funds to more than a dozen organizations in back-to-back meetings last week, the Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. Tuesday. An executive session regarding the county vs. city zoning litigation appears on the agenda.
Read the attorney general’s opinion on county sovereignty
