Seeking a second term representing Ward 3 on the Norman City Council, incumbent Bree Montoya is touting her financial and legal background in her race against challenger Sandra Artman, who declined to be interviewed about her campaign.
Montoya has held the seat since 2023, when she defeated Kelly Lynn with 53.14 percent of the vote. Montoya was elected amid allegations Lynn was in an altercation with a 66-year-old woman and questions as to the validity of his campaign, as he had accepted a judgeship in Wewoka in January 2023. A judge later ruled Lynn had vacated his seat by accepting the judgeship, and after the city council declared his seat vacant, Montoya took her oath of office earlier than anticipated in June 2023.
Montoya, 51, is the director of the business valuation and litigation support department at Gray, Blodgett and Company, PLLC. In an interview with NonDoc, Montoya said she chose to run again because she received positive feedback from constituents and wants to see certain projects through, including establishing a stormwater utility — something particularly important to her ward, as it has become more prone to flooding — and purchasing the land around Griffin Memorial Hospital for redevelopment.
“I’ve enjoyed representing my ward and being their voice on the dais,” she said. “Norman is near and dear to my heart, so it would be an honor and a pleasure to be able to stick around.”
Artman, 57, is a small business owner and the founder of a nonprofit organization serving youth, according to her website. Artman did not return phone calls requesting an interview. She responded to an email request with a press release also published on her website.
However, Artman, along with Montoya, participated in a League of Women Voters forum Jan. 27. In it, she said her top priority was “public safety and lowering crime.”
“The Artman family has a legacy in public service in Norman for 80 years, and I aim to build on that foundation for years to come,” she said, adding her husband’s grandfather was mayor of Norman in the 1950s.
Polls will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Ward 3 comprises the westernmost portion of Norman. Along with its representative on city council, Ward 3 residents can also vote for mayor on Tuesday.
Artman focuses on police funding, criticizes homeless shelter
As part of her emphasis on public safety, one of the first things Artman said in her introduction at the Jan. 27 forum was she has received an endorsement from the Norman Fraternal Order of Police.
“We definitely have to fund our police department,” she said. “We are short nine positions right now, and I think that fully funding the police department would help with all the issues our constituents are concerned about in Ward 3.”
Both Artman and Montoya approved the idea of sending a new iteration of Norman’s public safety sales tax out to a vote of the people to fund new school resource officer and firefighter positions. Artman also tied public safety to homelessness, which she brought up when asked about common concerns she had heard from residents.
“Their number one concern is public safety. The public safety of the area that we live in, in Ward 3 — we have the largest homeless camp in Norman right now, and that affects the houses in the area. It affects everything that happens there,” she said at the forum.
When later asked about ideas for addressing the city’s homelessness issues, Artman once again suggested further funding the Norman Police Department.
“It goes back to, again, funding the police, getting more officers out there to help citizens,” she said.
Beyond policing, Artman expressed hesitancy to spend tax dollars on addressing homelessness and criticized the idea of city-funded shelters.
“The government should not be in the business of having shelters,” she said. “Also, no low-barrier shelters. The Salvation Army was created for this (…) I think we need to give it to the nonprofits, the churches.”
At the forum, Montoya advocated for a more holistic approach to addressing homelessness. She said the best solution is to prevent individuals from becoming homeless in the first place by creating more affordable housing opportunities in Norman. She also advocated for a shelter that provided additional services to help people improve their situation.
“The best case scenario would be to implement our ‘home base’ plan, where we would have a 24-hour shelter where people can get services, get their documents, get help to get a job, get on their feet,” Montoya said.
As for increasing affordable housing opportunities, Montoya said in an interview that she would like to be proactive in encouraging improvements to Norman’s housing stock. She named the 2023 approval of Crimson Flats, a new development for low-income families and individuals, as one of the council’s biggest accomplishments during her first term on the dais, and said she would like to look to other cities’ success stories as examples for improving Norman’s housing shortage.
Montoya said there are different types of “affordable” housing, and she said Norman needs homes for a financially diverse array of renters and homebuyers.
“There’s affordable housing for low-income families and people, and then there’s just workforce housing, you know, people who aren’t on Section Eight, but don’t make enough to really get into the upscale homes,” she said. “It’s kind of like that middle ground.”
Montoya draws on professional background, experience in Norman Ward 3
Montoya, a certified public accountant, said one motivation she has to return to the council is to ensure the city’s internal audit charter is “adopted appropriately.”
“I am a former internal auditor, and I am very familiar with the institute of internal audits and the elements that should be present in an internal audit charter,” she said at the Jan. 27 forum.
Montoya also told NonDoc she draws on her professional experience as a certified public accountant in her role as a councilwoman, especially as the city considered the controversial tax increment financing district that would include a new entertainment district and arena for the University of Oklahoma’s basketball and gymnastics teams.
“Especially when the the arena and the TIF was coming around (…) 80 percent of my work is for litigation, so, I mean, I’m pretty familiar with how to read the law,” she said. “So, I’m digging into the details of the Local Development Act and just understanding kind of how all that works, and watching how the projections on the revenues on the TIF morphed and changed.”
Montoya was skeptical of the Rock Creek TIF, as it is officially known, and she was one of the four votes to oppose it when it narrowly passed last September.
In the Jan. 27 forum, when asked about the financial aspects of the agreement, Montoya expressed concern over redirecting commercial spending from elsewhere in Norman to an area where taxes would benefit the financing of an arena, instead of the general fund.
“Given that there’s not a cannibalization clause in the project plan, and the discounted cashflow into 25 years — yeah, that’s a little risky to our General Fund,” she said. “I have never seen a discounted cashflow analysis prepared into 25 years, especially one that did not have adjustment for any type of economic meltdown.”
Artman, however, approves of the TIF district, and said during the Jan. 27 forum that most concerns she heard from residents were born of the misunderstanding that the TIF district would create a new dedicated sales or property tax.
“The question from my constituents is, ‘Is the taxes, is the property taxes going up?’ And the answer that I got is, ‘No,’” she said. “The only time that you’ll pay taxes is when you go there when it’s completed.”
In her press release, Artman said she offers conservative leadership with a vision of a “safer” Norman.
“I will bring back common sense to Ward 3 and demonstrate exceptional leadership that truly reflects ‘We the People,’” she wrote.
Montoya, whose campaign slogan is “positively professional,” said she believes her experience makes her the best choice for Ward 3.
“I was born and raised in Norman, and I’ve lived in Ward 3 my entire life,” she said. “I’m the only person on council that would have any of the financial background that I have (…) I have a lot of experience and knowledge and connections and network.”
During her interview with NonDoc, Montoya also addressed three previous DUI charges from the 1990s, 2014 and 2020 — the only record of which remaining on the Oklahoma State Courts Network being an order to modify her license. Montoya, who is four feet, 10 inches tall, said she has learned one beer puts her over the legal limit to drive.
“I made a mistake, and that’s what it is,” she said. “I mean, I don’t have any excuses.”
