Edmond voters are being asked to increase property taxes roughly 14.3 percent for 10 years to finance $231 million of road, park and public safety projects.
At their meeting Monday night, the Edmond City Council placed the long-awaited proposal on the Nov. 5 presidential election ballot. Council members also reached a tentative $7.15 million settlement with a man who spent almost half a century behind bars for an Edmond murder he did not commit.
To conduct a pre-election informational campaign about the bond proposal, the council approved a $70,000 contract with the Gooden Group, an Edmond public relations firm hired by Oklahoma City during its MAPS projects.
The measure would mark the first time city government has issued general obligation bonds for such projects, an oddity that has set Edmond apart from many Oklahoma municipalities. Meanwhile, Edmond Public Schools uses GO bonds to pay for new facilities and renovations regularly.
The $231 million proposal has been designated for various projects: expanding local roads to ease traffic, improving safety at troubled intersections, and improving park amenities. The full project list will be printed on the ballot for voters to review.
A 25-member task force, which designated projects for the proposal, finished its work July 15. The body was chaired by local development attorney Todd McKinnis, with other notable members including former Ward 2 City Councilman Josh Moore and the president of the Edmond Public Schools Board of Education, Marcus Jones.
McKinnis refuted criticism he had seen online that the task force was only a “rubber stamp” for projects the city identified as highest need. He said the list represented what Edmond citizens considered priorities.
“There was a give-and-take, and a dialogue that was organic through each meeting,” McKinnis said. “This wasn’t just a gold medal list of things it sounds wonderful to do with $231 million. They address problems.”
The task force also recommended creating a GO bond oversight committee of citizens to ensure the bond funds are spent appropriately.
McKinnis and other task force members have said they are confident voters will see the need for the listed projects.
The only citizen unaffiliated with the proposal who spoke during Monday night’s public comment period backed up that theory.
“It is a tax increase. I just want to make sure from a public perspective we’re not hiding from that,” Edmond resident Taylor Wilson said. “But it is needed.”
No one spoke against the ballot proposal.
‘They are real dollars we’re asking people to spend’
To pay for the bonds, the city would establish a 15-mill property tax levy for a 10-year term, with the City of Edmond’s full faith and credit pledged as collateral.
According to data presented by the task force, the owner of an Edmond home valued at the city’s median price of $304,700 would pay an extra $487.76 in taxes each year, or about $41 per month. The tax would vary for residents with more or less valuable properties.
On Monday, McKinnis said using a GO bond to complete projects usually covered by Edmond sales tax through the Capital Improvements Program could free up CIP money for “more exciting and more motivating” quality-of-life efforts.
When considering an appropriate tax levy, the task force examined similarly sized municipalities across the state and other metro cities, McKinnis said. Oklahoma City’s levy, for example, is around 15 mills.
“The dialogue was very robust around that because everybody came from different standpoints,” McKinnis said. “These dollars are not Monopoly dollars. They are real dollars we’re asking people to spend.”
Mayor Darrell Davis said the quality of life and street safety projects included in the proposal are valuable, despite the tax increase.
“Even if you don’t want a tax increase, I’ll guarantee that you want to live in a safe place, you want the people living there to be educated properly, and you want to have fun,” Davis said.
Edmond settles wrongful incarceration lawsuit
Following a short executive session to close the evening, the Edmond City Council authorized the city attorney to proceed with a $7.15 million tentative settlement in a lawsuit brought by Glynn Simmons, a man wrongfully convicted and incarcerated more than 40 years for a deadly Edmond robbery that occurred while he was not in Oklahoma.
Simmons, 71, was approved for a state settlement of $175,000 in June, the maximum allowed under law for such cases. That results in less than $10 per day for 48 years unlawfully behind bars, a figure Simmons described as “a mockery.”
“I’m going to call it like I see it,” Simmons said in June. “They paid private prisons more to keep me in the cell than they agreed to give me on this $175,000. That’s less than $3,600 a year.”
Now, the City of Edmond has reached its own tentative agreement to compensate Simmons more than 40 times that amount.
The printed resolution that the council released following the executive session lists the settlement as $7.15 million in exchange for “release of all claims” against the city and the estate of Edmond Police Department Capt. Anthony Garrett, whom Simmons also named as a defendant.
Documents posted online prior to the meeting proposed that Edmond would set aside $1.6 million for “payment of settlement claims filed in the matter of Glynn Simmons v. City of Edmond.”
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In Simmons’ petition, his attorneys allege that Garrett and Oklahoma City Police Department investigator Claude Shobert fabricated police reports claiming Simmons and Don Roberts, who was also falsely imprisoned for the murder, were picked out of a police lineup by a witness.
The parties reached the settlement agreement after a July 29 mediation, according to city documents. Simmons agreed to “release all claims against the City of Edmond and the estate of Garrett” as terms of the settlement.
Shobert and the City of Oklahoma City are not parties to the settlement, according to the documents.
(Correction: This article was updated at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13, to correct reference to the percentage tax increase proposed by the bond package.)
