With all three candidates carrying their own link to prior campaigns, Shaista Fenwick, Dianna Hutzel and Trey Kirby will face off Feb. 10 to represent Ward 5 on the Norman City Council.
Kirby previously ran for the post in 2025, but he lost to then-incumbent Michael Nash. Over the summer, Nash resigned from office when he moved outside of Ward 5, and Hutzel was named a finalist to be appointed to his unexpired term, as was Fenwick’s husband. Ultimately, former Senate District 15 candidate Brandon Nofire was appointed to the seat, but he is not seeking election to a full term.
If the Ward 5’s representation has been turbulent over the past year, so have been plans for its future. ACCESS Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s controversial expansion effort, would build a turnpike running through Ward 5 and displace 75 families. Resisting the OTA is a priority for all three Ward 5 candidates.
Each of Norman’s eight wards covers roughly the same population, but Ward 5 is by far the largest by area. It stretches from East 36th Avenue to the eastern city limits, containing more than half of Norman’s land. While the western core of the city holds the University of Oklahoman and more typically suburban sensibilities, Ward 5 is distinctly rural in character, and it is home to many ranchers and farmers, along with Norman’s main source of drinking water, Lake Thunderbird.
The following cheat sheet provides an overview of the Norman Ward 5 candidates and is derived from publicly available information, such as campaign websites, news reports and social media accounts. The cheat sheet also uses information from candidate forums, including one hosted by the League of Women Voters, embedded below.
Candidates are listed alphabetically, and if no one surpasses the 50 percent threshold on Feb. 10, the top two finishers would advance to an April 7 runoff.
Watch the League of Women Voters candidate forum
Shaista Fenwick
Background/profession:Â Shaista Fenwick is an English teacher at Moore High School, where she was a finalist for Moore Public Schools’ teacher of the year in 2024.
“I believe in education because it helped liberate me,” she said in a release published by Moore Public Schools. “I became a teacher for the kids like me. I became a teacher for my colleagues who have also experienced danger and harm. I became a teacher for the teachers I had who made the difference between my being able to survive my childhood and thrive in the world along pathways I chose as my own.”
Fenwick is from Trinidad and Tobago, according to the release. She is pursuing a doctorate in instructional leadership from the University of Oklahoma, where she also teaches.
Fenwick is married to Ben Fenwick, who was a finalist to replace Nash last summer. He was fired from his position as the editor of The Norman Transcript when he was named a finalist for the Ward 5 post, as he had yet to advise his publisher of his pursuit of public office and the paper has a policy against editorial staff holding political office, according to the OU Daily.
Shaista Fenwick previously had a public dispute with former Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. She spoke out against Walters at an Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting in 2023 and, according to The Oklahoman, accused Walters of inciting violence against teachers.
Platform: Fenwick does not appear to have a campaign website or policy platform available online, but she has appeared at forums.
“My platform is very very basic, very straightforward: I believe in keeping people in their homes,” she said at the League of Women Voters forum. “We should have a place to belong. Everybody deserves that. That is a basic human right, and to that end, I do not support the turnpike.”
Later in the forum, asked whether she would support selling energy to other municipalities, Fenwick was hesitant.
“One of the things we’re dealing with in Ward 5 is the encroachment of other actors into the space without regard for the health of the watershed, without regard, necessarily, and sometimes with misrepresentation in terms of the impact of those facilities on our existing residents,” she said.
In regards to addressing the turnpike, Fenwick said she believes the OTA can be negotiated with through “pincer tactics.”
Fenwick supports a homeless shelter coming to a vote of the people, and she believes Norman’s current homelessness services are not robust enough.
“I think 15 years of planning and waiting to address this need and doing bandaids and patches has resulted in some services. It’s not resulted in services robust enough to meet our growing need,” she said at the League of Women Voters forum.
Fenwick also drew on her experience as a teacher and a self-proclaimed “nerd” as to her approach to serving on the dais.
“I love learning, I love working with other people, I love learning from other people,” she said. “I don’t believe there’s anything we can’t do if we do it together. That, for me, is how I’m going to approach all of these challenges.”
Links:Â LinkedIn | Personal Facebook
Dianna Hutzel
Background/profession: Dianna Hutzel worked at Tinker Air Force Base for 37 years, where she “led Air Force programs and contracts, guiding teams and managing projects,” according to her campaign website. She was awarded the Exemplary Civilian Service Medal.
“I did many positions that included finance, data analysis, manufacturing, all sorts of different things that would lend to the city council position,” she said at the League of Women Voters forum.
She also worked for 10 years in retail in Norman. She is now retired, which she said will allow her to give the council her undivided attention.
Hutzel has lived in Norman since the late 1970s, and she has lived in Ward 5 since 1996. She was a finalist to replace Nash last summer, and she often speaks at city council meetings.
Platform: Hutzel is a strong supporter of limited government, according to her website.
“Dianna represents the everyday hardworking American. She believes in making decisions based on solid data, real world evidence and common sense,” her website says. “Hutzel is running for Ward 5 to protect the ward’s rural character and prioritize residents’ values in City Hall.”
She lists resisting ACCESS Oklahoma, minimizing urban sprawl, protecting water resources and responsible spending among her priorities. In regard to Ward 5’s “rural character,” she said she intends to preserve open spaces and safeguard natural resources.
“I am against the turnpike. I also want to protect the watershed, which actually involves more than just Norman because we aren’t the only ones that sit on the watershed. Moore and Oklahoma City sit on it, as well,” she said at the League of Women Voters forum.
Hutzel said she would like to work with those two cities to improve the watershed and collaborate with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to monitor water quality. She also said she would like to review zoning codes to ensure they are “up to par” in protecting the watershed.
Hutzel advocates for “infill and restoration” in the western parts of Norman instead of expansion into Ward 5.
“I am against the urban sprawl into Ward 5,” she said at the forum. “I think we should concentrate on where infrastructure currently is, versus trying to move out and leapfrog into Ward 5 where it is not, because then you don’t have affordable housing, as well as you don’t protect the watershed and our rural lifestyle.”
At a forum hosted by the Norman Chamber of Commerce, Hutzel was leery of a new homeless shelter, owing to costs.
“We don’t know what the operating cost is to do the shelter 24/7, which now includes medical care for the homeless,” Hutzel said. “I think that we owe great compassion and we need to do something for the homeless, but our city can’t sustain the debt. Last year, we were $5.8 million (in) deficit. Had to pull money from reserves. This year, that amount is a $7 million deficit. We do not have indefinite, infinite reserves.”
Links:Â Website | Personal Facebook
Trey Kirby
Background/profession: Trey Kirby is a rancher and small business owner, according to his campaign website. He runs Kirby Land and Cattle, and the OU Daily reported Kirby helped the federal Food and Nutrition Service develop a program allowing small farms to accept electronic benefit transfers, also known as food stamps. The OU Daily also reported Kirby’s family has lived in Norman since the 1950s.
In 2021, Kirby and his wife were sued by former business partners for a planned marijuana grow. The plaintiffs accused the couple of civil fraud by misrepresenting themselves as intending to transfer parcels of land without actually having any intention to do so. However, in February 2023, the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice.
Kirby previously ran to represent Ward 5 in 2025, when he lost to Nash with 16.6 percent of the vote in a three-way race.
Platform: On his campaign website, Kirby lists three main policy priorities: homelessness, ACCESS Oklahoma and TIF funding.
ACCESS Oklahoma, which would build a turnpike cutting through Ward 5, seems particularly important to Kirby. He opposes eminent domain when used as a “planning tool instead of a last resort” and emphasizes preserving Ward 5’s “heritage” as a largely rural area of Norman.
“I won’t pretend the city council can control OTA, but I will make this commitment: I will stand with Norman residents every time these issues reach the city level. I will not support any measure that enables forced land takings, weakens property rights, or places bureaucratic agendas above the people,” Kirby states online. “Norman deserves representation that listens, protects, and refuses to look the other way.”
To address Norman’s growing homeless population, Kirby advocates a “balanced and realistic approach” that extends aid to those seeking help, while being punitive toward “criminal behavior, open drug use and repeated disturbances,” according to his website.
At the forum hosted by the Norman Chamber of Commerce, Kirby said he had spoken to people both in favor of and against a new homeless shelter, and he expressed concern about a low-barrier approach.
“[I’ve spoken] with a few of the councilmen, and they told me that within a few years of it being opened up, it will be fully funded itself by the people operating it, which would mean it would save Norman almost $800,000 a year. If that’s the case, that’s fantastic,” Kirby said. “The biggest concern we’ve been hearing is will registered people, like sex offenders, be able to be in there and near the families, because there’s going to be the four family units.”
Kirby said he’s glad a potential shelter will go to a vote of the people.
“I love that it’s going to go on the ballot, because if the majority of the people vote on it, then that’s what should happen, it should go forward,” Kirby said. “Altogether, we’ve tried not doing nothing, and things got worse, so it’s time to at least try to do something. If it don’t work out, cancel the contract 10 years from now, or whenever. Set a date that if [it doesn’t] meet your expectations, then we can leave it and go on.”
For Norman’s controversial University North Park TIF, Kirby’s online presence does not take a particular stance, instead noting “major projects deserve clear communication, open dialogue and careful evaluation of both benefits and consequences.”
Links: Website | Campaign Facebook | Personal Facebook
