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Edmond Life and Leisure - August 14, 2025
Council, School Board hold joint meeting
By Richard Mize The Oklahoman
Traffic, taxes and the timing of both were hot topics when the Edmond City Council and Edmond school board met jointly to get acquainted and hear of issues facing each.
With the fall semester starting Thursday, Aug. 14, sending about 26,000 students back to class by foot, bicycle, car and bus, traffic was top of mind, especially around elementary schools.
But taxes loomed large, specifically the March 31, 2027, expiration of a 1-cent city sales tax for general operations and a half-cent tax for capital improvements. The school district's need for bond financing, paid for by property taxes, will come up sooner, in February of next year.
The two groups tackled both issues during a joint meeting of the Edmond City Council and Edmond Public Schools' Board of Education on Thursday, July 31.
Voters will be asked to extend the sales taxes. If they do not, the city would lose millions of dollars of revenue, causing cutbacks in services and capital improvement projects.
The school board typically calls for a bond issue election every two years, next time in February 2026. Timing the city and school tax votes so as to not overwhelm or confuse voters is important, as well as clarity, the two sets of elected officials agreed.
The city has only sales and use taxes for revenue, no property tax. The school district has only property taxes, no sales tax. Voters' defeat of three bond measures last fall was blamed partly on fears it would erode regular support for school bond elections.
Losing either sales tax would be a blow to Edmond, interim City Manager Randy Entz said, but one would land harder.
The tax for capital improvements, "while critical to the city (government) and the city at large, that one we could set aside awhile if we had to," Entz said. "We would just suspend projects and live off our other CIP (capital improvement project) tax that we have. The more important one is the general fund, 1-cent.
"That's what keeps police cars rolling and fire trucks showing up when you dial 911."
A vote to renew it, he said, should be "early enough so in a worst-case scenario, we can do it again."
Mayor Mark Nash said the city sales tax election and school bond election need to be at two different times far enough apart for voters to understand and appreciate the difference.
"There's some thought of how fast can we do it," he said, then, chuckling, added, "And there's some thought of how slow can we do it? We'll figure it out. We do not want, I don't think we want, our sales tax
at the same time as your bond issues. It's so complicated. It complicates it for everybody when that happens."
Traffic discussion centered on areas near schools.
School administrators don't usually know about street projects that increase traffic congestion around schools until the projects start and lanes are closed, said Debreon Davis, executive director of secondary education.
"If I had an ask," she told Entz, "it would be for a heads-up if we know that there are big traffic projects and construction projects happening, that even if it's not right next to the school, it does affect our flow of traffic, specifically in the mornings and afternoons."All of you have tried to get around town once school starts, and we know that starting Aug. 14, the flow of traffic is going to drastically change in the city with all of our kiddos coming back to school."
Traffic is likely to congest even after construction is complete on Post Oak Elementary and Horizon Middle School, under way southeast of Air Depot Boulevard and Covell Road and funded by the 2024 bond issue.
Entz said the city has no money to widen the roads or improve the intersection, although Steve Lawrence, director of engineering, said interim improvements, such as a temporary traffic signal at the intersection would make traffic more manageable.
School safety officer Mike Johnston explained Edmond schools' new bus system, a transportation tracker called My Ride K-12, which uses student ID badges, a scanner on each bus and a mobile app to keep up with students' whereabouts.
"It's a way for parents to be able to track the bus, to be able to track their students," he said. "It's a way for us to track our students if we need to. They all scan on the bus and scan off the bus. Once they scan on that bus, (it indicates so).
"As soon as they get to (a) stop, if it's not their stop and they try to scan off, then it alerts and says, 'Hey, this isn't your stop.' At their stop, it's green, and they get off the bus. If they miss their stop ... it'll alert the bus driver, 'Hey, this kid was supposed to get off.' They can make sure they get off at the right stop."
A new high school?
Looking ahead, Nash said the city cannot afford to wait until a new high school is under construction to start dealing with the changes it will bring. The school district has land set aside for a fourth high school at Westminster and Covell roads, but plans and a timeline are not set.
"We need to be talking about that issue now, not waiting until your design work is done and you're breaking ground."
School board member Lee Ann Kuhlman, a former teacher who represents District 1, said a new high school won't be an easy fix for the district's continuous growth.
"Our schools are packed," she said. "Every year, we need to build a new school. It's difficult for our constituents to understand how the classes are so full that we can't transfer students from one school to another. If we had openings, we'd be happy to do that. But we don't."
"I look at Santa Fe (High School), which is so far to the west we have no place to go with another high school out there. So what we do is we keep building on to that school to accommodate those students."
Kuhlman went on:
"If, when, it comes to redistricting, we can't expect people that were at Santa Fe and that particular area to drive past North (High School) and Memorial (High School) all the way out to the east. We're going to have some real challenges as far as communicating with our neighborhoods. It's going to be difficult," she said.
Nash said he hoped to see the city council and school board meet together three or four times a year.
"So many people move to Edmond because of the schools, and so many people move to Edmond because of the amenities that we have, and we've got to make it work. We've got to figure out what that vision moving forward is," the mayor said.
District Superintendent Josh Delich, hired in April, agreed. Delich previously was an associate superintendent in Anoka-Hennepin Public Schools, Minnesota’s largest public school district, with 38,000 students.
"Great schools have great communities and great communities have great schools," Delich said, and coming together to explore what each is doing and wants to accomplish "is really powerful for our future."
In addition to Delich and Kuhlman, other school officials participating in the joint meeting were Jamie Underwood, vice president, representing District 3; Cynthia Benson, of District 4; and Marcus Jones, of District 5.
In addition to the mayor and interim city manager, other city officials at the joint meeting were Maggie Murdock Nichols, of Ward 1; Barry Moore, of Ward 2; Preston Watterson, of Ward 3; and Phil Fraim, of Ward 4.
