

After sequestered discussions of his employment appeared on multiple Edmond City Council agendas last fall with no action taken, Edmond City Manager Scot Rigby officially resigned from his position at Monday evening’s council meeting following another executive session.
When the five councilmembers first voted to enter executive session and left the chambers, Rigby did not join them. For most of the hour that Edmond’s elected officials conferred about Rigby’s future with the city, he mingled with his now-former coworkers and members of the public. At one point, Mayor Darrell Davis emerged and pointed at Rigby, signaling him to join the private discussion. When Rigby and the City Council retook the dais, Davis announced the council would accept Rigby’s resignation.
“I think it’s been a great three years. I’ve loved my time here,” Rigby said after the meeting. “What we’ve done over the last three years was phenomenal for the community. I’m grateful for Mayor Davis’ lead and effort, and I’m excited for the new councilmembers and what they’re going to do.”
After a 4-1 vote in which Davis was the sole dissenter, Rigby stepped down from his seat to join Monday’s remaining spectators, ending a tenure that began after he took over for Larry Stevens in March 2022. Randy Entz, the assistant city manager, was appointed Edmond’s acting city manager in the interim.
“At this time, I don’t have anything to add,” Entz said Monday. “Thanks to [Rigby] for his time with the city, we have a great leadership team here in Edmond, and we’ll move forward.”
While it is unclear which city councilmember or councilmembers put the employment action on Monday evening’s agenda, Rigby had previously drawn the ire of multiple former mayors, who aired their grievances in a public letter. In that missive, former Edmond mayors Patrice Douglas, Saundra Naifeh, Elizabeth Waner and Dan O’Neil decried Rigby’s “recent decisions and attitudes” after Uncommon Ground Sculpture Park developer Hal French announced he was ending his effort to build the attraction in 2023, citing frustration with city leadership’s handling of his proposal. The park was revived later that year, however.
“For many of us, sacrifice means giving up our egos to keep Edmond a great place to grow,” the letter read. “If the city’s current top management cannot do this, it is the mayor and council’s responsibility to find individuals who can.”
Mark Nash, a 2025 mayoral candidate hoping to succeed Davis, eluded to similar community ill will regarding Rigby’s performance in a Facebook post during Monday’s meeting.
“This has been an issue, I think, since [Rigby] got here,” Nash said after the executive session. “The appearance to many people in the city is that, if it wasn’t his idea, he didn’t want to do it. Many of us firmly believe that he was behind the original stopping of the art park (…) There are all kinds of accusations that have been made about his management style. I don’t have any way to verify any of them. This has been needed — we needed to put an end to it one way or the other.”
Another Edmond mayoral candidate, former Ward 1 Councilman Tom Robins, issued a statement shortly after Rigby’s resignation.
“I fully support tonight’s decision to make a leadership change in the city manager’s position,” said Robins, who was part of the executive sessions on Rigby’s employment in 2024. “I believe community members and stakeholders welcome such an action.”
The looming upheaval of Edmond’s city leadership becomes even more dramatic with Rigby’s removal. On top of replacing Rigby as the community’s hired city manager, Edmond will welcome a new mayor and two new representatives for Ward 3 and Ward 4 in May. Ward 1 Councilwoman Maggie Murdock Nichols only recently joined the dais in December, leaving Ward 2 Councilman Barry Moore as the longest-tenured member of the city council.
Phil Fraim, the Ward 4 councilman-elect, said it “would make sense” for the current council to loop him and Ward 3 councilman-elect Preston Watterson into discussions on the search for a new city manager. Fraim emphasized that he does not feel the process should be rushed or that there is any need for city leaders to “panic” with Entz serving in the role, however.
Monday’s meeting featured no mention of when and how the city would commence its search for a new city manager.
City begins purge of racist land covenants

Monday evening’s meeting also marked the beginning of Edmond’s effort to remove racially restrictive language from plats across the city, starting with the Highland Park housing addition.
The issue first arose when local businessman Wayne Frost discovered racist covenants in the deed for land he had purchased, which stated it could never be owned by a Black resident. Frost’s story ultimately led the 59th Oklahoma Legislature to pass two bills, the first of which, House Bill 2288, allowed individual land owners to repudiate such language in their land records. The second law, approved in Senate Bill 1617, permitted cities to proactively scrub racially restrictive language from its plats.
Edmond had a history of advertising itself as a “whites only” town, and most neighborhoods platted through the early- to mid-20th century included language to keep non-whites from owning property. Although ruled unenforceable in 1948, similar language remains in property records across the country, reemerging during real estate transactions and serving as an uncomfortable reminder of systemic racism in American history.
“This is something that’s needed to be done, and I’m so thrilled it’s finally happening,” Ward 4 Councilwoman Stacie Peterson said.
Frost previously told NonDoc he felt the racially restrictive plats were part of an effort to keep non-whites from holding office, since Edmond’s charter requires candidates for city office to own property in addition to being residents.
Davis, the city’s first Black mayor who has chosen not to seek a third term in 2025, said he will sign the resolution in a ceremony Tuesday at the Edmond Chamber of Commerce to commemorate the historic step.
“This doesn’t just need to be me sitting at my desk signing this, it needs to be memorialized, as we’ve been doing here,” Davis said.
Casey Moore, director of management services, said 19 more cases of racially restrictive language are set to come before the Edmond City Council for removal in the future.
