The 2021 Ponca City Commisioner Election

The City Commission is the representative body of the people of Ponca City. Its members are responsible for overseeing city expenditures and the tedious, sometimes unpopular task of ensuring that community needs are prioritized and addressed under the constraints of the operating budget and State and federal laws imposed on the City.

The City Commissioners play an active role not only in our community, but at a regional and State level as well. Their involvement with the Kay County Mayors Round Table, the Oklahoma Municipal League, the Mayors Council of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority, and the Mid-Size City Coalition (just to name a few) allows them to meet with leaders from around the State to discuss current issues and trends. The Commissioners, in turn, bring this information back to Ponca City to be used as they make decisions, shape policy, and develop goals.

Source: “City Commission: Ponca City, OK.” City Commission | Ponca City, OK, www.poncacityok.gov/94/ City-Commission.

A general election for the City of Ponca City will be held on February 9, 2021. Early voting will take place at the Kay County Courthouse February 4 & 5. And, a Runoff Election, if necessary, will be held on April 6, 2021.

Tell me about yourself and your history in Ponca City.

I was actually born and raised just north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, only 18 miles from where E.W. Marland himself was born and raised, and we both ended up in Ponca City. I ended up in Ponca City after I retired from the Air Force. I had 20 years of service in the Air Force. I was also in law enforcement and was a K-9 Handler. I did four years of direct secret service support for President Clinton and Vice-President Gore and have served in leadership positions all around the world. I’ve been living in Ponca City now for around 12 years. It’s the first place that my kids have actually said that they felt like it was home, and I have fallen in love with Ponca City, the people of Ponca City, and what that represents in our state as far as our values and just life in general. I’m married to Cara Bodick, and we just celebrated three years of marriage. Together we have five children and two adopted dogs. Our youngest kids are in the Ponca City School District right now. My wife is a teacher at Pioneer Technology Center, and I work in retail at Marshalls.

What made you decide to run for the City Commission seat?

My service to my community started in 1988 when I took an oath to serve not just our community, but our country. Local city government is the most important form of government in the United States. It’s where the hearts and minds of people rest. I’ve always had an affection for the leadership. We have a very fiscally responsible city government right now. What really drove me is you know, speaking with the multitude of people that I’ve talked to, there were several of them that work urging me to run. They believe that I have the best boots-onthe-ground leadership experience, both locally and on the international level. I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to make hard decisions in split seconds. And when I look at our local government, I really feel that even though we’re doing a pretty good job, there is a disconnect between the city leadership and its citizens. You know, some of the people that I’ve talked to, I’ve asked them when the last time they actually spoke with a commissioner or anybody in leadership and their answer was the last election. And I don’t think that’s right. You know, I think one of our best city leaders E.W. Marland said best, is that you have to have constant contact with your people in your city, and I really believe that having the experience and leadership with such diverse groups that I’ve been a part of, whether it be the Department of Defense or the Lions Club, I believe that I have the best ability to bring everybody together and to make Ponca City an even greater place.

What volunteer work have you been involved in?

I’ve always been an active member of my church and the community, serving through multiple civic organizations. I’m a small group leader in my church. We were actually really active this year during the COVID-19 response. We were handing out boxes of food and milk to people in the community. That was a pretty big thing. I’m pretty proud of our church for stepping up and doing that.

I am also the current District Governor for Lions Club International for Oklahoma 3 Northwest, which is a pretty large swath of Oklahoma. And you know, my volunteer, you know, I always say I’m boots on the ground, but we as Lions Club, we provide glasses and diabetes support for people in all of Kay county. As a matter of fact, when I took over as President, we used to just serve Ponca City, and now we serve all of Kay County. We spend forty plus thousand dollars a year helping people get glasses.

Most of my volunteerism is been directly with the people out there in the street. You know, I mean I sit on the board for the Marland Mansion, I was part of the historic preservation board in the city and those were very important boards, and they mean a lot to the city, but I think my favorite stuff is when I’m out actually working with people.

Additional volunteer projects I’ve been involved in as a Ponca City Noon Lions are: the Festival of lights; I organized city clean up environmental activities cleaning up trails and park areas; raised money for Scholarships to high school seniors; white cane drives for blind; collected glasses, set up and trained people to use electronic visual aids for people who cannot see well enough to read; supported Main Street and other activities through Child Vision screening activities; Raised money to help purchase disability dog for school age boy; partnered with Provisions Coffee house feeding low income and homeless people both in churches and out in the streets; NERA volunteer in back helping shop/stock; Charity walks; Delivered food and snacks to the school for diabetic children to have healthy alternatives.

My city volunteer work includes the Historic Preservation Committee (former); Marland Mansion Board; Youth Football Coach; Portray E W Marland both locally and at state events with Marlands Grand Home, Mansion, and chamber of commerce tourism, and Main Street events, helped organize and act in Ponca City Ghost Tours at the Mausoleum the resting place of many of our former city leaders; President of the Ponca City Police Foundation; 101 Ranch Supporter Teacher; Small Group Leader/Facilitator; Christmas community outreach events; Back to School Backpack shoe events; Handed out milk and boxes of food to hundreds of people delivered food kits to elderly stuck at home on several occasions during COVID-19 lockdowns; Church Security Team Member and anywhere else they need me to serve.

Tell me about your career and educational background.

When I graduated from high school, I actually went into the restaurant industry and was in that for a while, until I decided I wanted to join the Air Force. I went to the Law Enforcement Academy down at Lackland Air Force Base. I was a dog handler from there. I spent many years in law enforcement. When I moved to Little Rock Air Force base, I was selected actually to do direct support for presidential security. I’ve worked in Portugal helping train the Portuguese government and their canine. I spent seven years in Special Operations out of Hurlburt Field, Florida. I did a lot of different missions – drug interdiction. Of course, everything got turned upside down after 9/11, so we did a lot of deployments in support of the war on terror and the war in Iraq drug interdiction. We basically were the tip of the spear on the war on Drugs from South America and when I retired, I was an investigator working in Germany. I retired to move to Vance Air Force base, and I worked in resource protection and plans and programs for the base there.

I came to Ponca City and I worked. I was the security contract security manager for the refinery for several years. I left that position and went and worked for some time with the Opportunity Center as their Director of retail operations, and then moved over to Marshalls. and I am a key carrier at Marshalls.

And do you have any mentors or people that you look up to or that you strive to be like – maybe politically, locally, nationally?

I think the number one mentor I look at is to be Christlike. I think that’s to love all people and respect them. I have a lot of mentors that have trained me. I have pastors that I’ve worked under, worked by vocationally as a youth pastor when I was stationed in Florida. I’ve always had a lot of really good supervisors and trainers and

in my life. Some of the people that I read that I really like, I’m a fan of John Maxwell. I believe he has sound leadership principles. I’m a fan of Zig Ziglar. That’s another person. Stephen Covey has some really good leadership, but I really believe that a lot of my leadership skills were really driven by life experiences that I’ve had. And a lot of those people – I’m an avid reader – so I read a lot, but those are probably some of the highlights of some of the people that I pull from.

What specific skills or attributes do you have that you think make you uniquely qualified to be a commissioner?

Number one, I think one scale is I’m in touch with the people on the ground. Another one is that I’m not afraid to make hard decisions. I can analyze things very well,

look at the facts and determine what the right course is. I believe that I have a pretty good ability to listen to the people and determine the direction that they want to go. And sometimes the thing in leadership is making a hard decision and being able to explain yourself and make it known to the people and communicate. I think that’s probably one of my number one skills, is just the fact that I’m not afraid to communicate with anybody. I think my life experience, and just in leadership in general, dealing with a large group. I’ve worked with budgets, and our city has an amazing budget. It’s a hundred and six million dollars. Thank God it’s broken down into different smaller budgets because I would really hate to read those sheets. We have a really good long-term plan, and I think my support for that plan is pretty solid. I mean, there are a lot of good things that are going on in there. But I think my thing is I’m not afraid to stand up and make the hard call.

What are your goals as a City Commissioner?

My goals are intertwined with some of my concerns. I think my number one goal is to continue the fiscal path in the growth of our city and to make sure that we’re following our long-term plan and even improve on that plan if it’s deemed necessary. Another goal I would say is to create an environment that brings not just businesses but families to Ponca City and there are four keys to businesses coming to us to a town. The first key is the health and safety of the people in that town, starting specifically with police and fire. People will literally break down and look at your police and fire and the support that they can get. Another one is they look at the school district. I think Ponca City has one of the best school districts in the state. Being in leadership, I think it’s always important to always press for support for those schools, especially when it comes to bond issues because that’s what grows your town. I believe that we need to create the best recreation destination for our town. We have an amazing Parks and Rec team in place. We have an amazing facility and a RecPlex. I’m a member of the RecPlex. We have an amazing lake, but I think we can expand on that. Just go down to War Memorial Park and look and see all the people playing Frisbee golf and other things. I think we can expand on our parks. I think we could add some more campgrounds. I think it’s sad that so many people pass up public Ponca Lake to go to Kaw Lake, even though Kaw is a pretty nice attraction. I think we could add fishing piers, and I think we can add some more campsites.

One of the most important things is to find affordable housing and drive some affordable housing for people. There’s a huge gap. There are extremely expensive houses. And then there are extremely lowincome houses. We need to find that middle lane for affordable housing which is going to drive a good workforce into Ponca City.

One thing it’s near and dear to my heart, when I moved here a while back, I used to say “man, Ponca City is such a clean city” and now some areas have just really gone downhill. I don’t think there’s anybody –I don’t think there’s a single person in town that can say that it’s the most beautiful city in the world because it needs cleaned up, you know, it’s a shame. I would like to perhaps increase access to the city dump. Right now, we allow free access one week out of the year in the spring. I would like to change that to two days a month with an active utility bill that matches the address on the driver’s license. The city also has a lot of land. I think they call them urban green zones, for a lack of better terms and it’s from blighted areas where the city has taken over that land and we spend a lot of money cutting that grass and doing other maintenance. We need to reutilize that land. You go to some of your bigger cities and you have companies and churches and other areas that adopt areas in the city to beautify them. You look at ‘adopt-a-roads’ and you see signs going down the roads, but we want people to adopt areas. We have organizations like the boys’ and girls’ club and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Wouldn’t that be nice if we could take an area that we have in the city and let them utilize that for let’s just say an urban garden and start teaching them life-sustaining abilities and just beautify that area? At least that would help save the city some money because we’re not going to have to cut that grass.

I think we need to partner with some of the organizations – and this goes back to cleaning up the city – you know, we have a lot of abandoned buildings. If you talked to the police, they’ll tell you, a lot of what’s driving theft in this city is its drug use. People are utilizing these abandoned buildings. We need to straighten that up.

There’s a theory in law enforcement called the Broken Glass Theory. When businesses and people come to cities and they drive around, and they look at buildings and there’s broken windows and there’s not a lot of upkeep on them facilities. It’s displeasing and it actually brings in elements that you really don’t need doing that.

Another concern and goal is, and this is near dear to my heart, is to ensure personal liberty is always available to everybody in the city. We see personal liberty being trampled on in other cities and other states and we came close to trampling on that just recently [concerning the mask mandate] and it upset a lot of people and rightfully so. Our liberty needs to be protected. I fully believe that if you really look at the people of Ponca City, they’re smart people. They’re trusting people and quite honestly, you know, they should be able to make a determination whether or not they’re going to wear a mask or not.

I’m a COVID-19 survivor. I’ve had it – it knocked me out. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. I can honestly say I wore a mask every day. I wore a mask outside. I sanitized into my mask. I sanitized out of my mask. I changed my mask frequently, and the sad part about the mask mandate or ordinance was, we essentially passed an ordinance saying that we’re going to enforce another ordinance. It was redundant. The worst part about it, and this goes back to what I was saying earlier communication, I don’t think any of it was communicated properly and it really gave an appearance that people’s rights were being were being trampled on. I think there are a lot of people watching those videos of it, and I kind of have to agree.

But I also support the businesses that want to require masks. That’s their right too. When you look at our founding fathers and their writings, they’ll tell you straight up that the personal liberty should trump law. That is paraphrasing, but it’s important that we protect everybody’s rights and personal liberties as well as their well-being so there has to be some balance in there. I personally would have voted no on the mask mandate. I think there were way too many questions that were not answered for me.

Another goal that I believe I would really shoot for is, and this goes back to creating an environment that brings in more families, is we need to make sure that that our police, our fire department and our linemen, who are the most recent heroes, need the best equipment and safety gear that they can possibly get. Our police drive around in outdated vehicles, vehicles that need to probably be put out to pasture, that’s their office. They live in that vehicle and quite frankly, that’s their safety zone. We need to make sure that they’re getting the proper equipment, and we’re supporting that.

Those are some of my basis of what I see in the city. I think it’s a sound approach to take.

Tell me a fun fact about yourself that people may not know about you.

A fun fact? Oh gosh, let me see. Well, I actually had tea with Margaret Thatcher. I was protecting her at Harding University in Arkansas. I got to meet with her and drink a little bit of tea back in the 90s. It was neat.

Tell me about yourself and your history in Ponca City. I have been living in Ponca City since November 2009. I grew up in Anadarko. I went to college at Oklahoma State University. I moved around a lot working actually in agriculture – different ranches mostly, in the show industry, the show cattle industry. I enjoyed that, but it felt like more of a hobby and less like a lucrative way to make a living, so my family purchased the boutique, which was formerly The Bag Lady boutique and we moved to Ponca City and ran it alongside my family. We’ve since done a rebrand, so it’s now Liles & Company. I have also recently taken a job with the Ponca City Art Association as Executive Director. Through my volunteer work in Ponca, the love and admiration for the Arts was sparked for me. I could almost say my arm was somewhat twisted into loving the Arts, probably eight years ago when I met John McNeese and he really showed me what art can do for a community – the youth in a community and the adults. It’s nice to be passionate about your career. I have been blessed to be passionate about both careers I’ve had since I’ve been in Ponca City. I love Ponca City. We’ve made it our home and plan to be here for years to come. I like a small town; Ponca City is just the right size. It can always grow, and I hope to help it grow, but I love the small-town values that Ponca City holds dear. What made you decide to run to decide to run for the City Commission seat? I have thought about running for City Commissioner since I moved to town. I’ve been involved in many organizations by volunteering, and I feel like serving on the city commission would be that next step to be able to give back to my community. A quote that I try to live by – Fred Boettcher said that “giving back is the rent you pay for living on this Earth,” and I feel like I owe it to the community of Ponca City to give back to it. And I think that this is a great opportunity to take that next step to do so. What volunteer work have you been involved in? I am very heavily involved in things that happen downtown and in the art scene, and that’s another reason that I would like to serve as City Commissioner because I would like to serve and volunteer for the entire city as a whole. I think running for City commission, while my past experiences would help me in that position, I feel like it’s just a great opportunity to serve Ponca City as a whole. As far as my volunteer work, volunteered for the Ponca City Art Association before I became the Executive Director. I have been chairman of the Marland Mansion Gala twice, which is a fundraiser for the Marland Mansion. During my time as chairman, we raised over $35,000, which I’m very proud of. I have sat on the Mayoral-appointed Marland Mansion Estate Commission. I have also served on the Marland Mansion Estate Foundation, the Ponca City Chamber of Commerce and Ponca City Main Street, all of which invest in the arts, humanities, tourism and the revitalization and upkeep of some of our most treasured places in Ponca City. I have served as a board member for the Opportunity Center and Leadership Oklahoma. I have been a Big Brother in the Big Brothers/big Sisters program, I co-chaired the fundraising party for Hospice of Northcentral Oklahoma and have also served on the allocations committee for Ponca City United Way. Tell me about your career and educational background. I went to college at Oklahoma State University majoring in Agriculture Communication, which is a public relations for the college of Ag. I worked on different ranches everywhere from Fort Cobb to Elgin, Oklahoma, up to South Dakota. So I’ve been a little bit of everywhere. Since I’ve been in Ponca City for the past 11 years. I have worked for retail and my family boutique, Liles & Company, and now I am the Executive Director of the Ponca City Art Association. I also am an event coordinator, but with my new position with Art Association, I’m taking a break from that to focus on the Art Association.

And do you have any mentors (locally or nationally) or people that you look up to that you strive to be like?

I have local mentors for sure. I think everybody can say this, but my family first. They have been my rock, my whole life. They have been role models, all of them in their own way. They’ve made me who I am, and I love them for that. Someone else locally, who I previously mentioned, is Mr. Fred Boettcher. He was very impressive to me because he was kind to everyone, no matter socio-economic background, education level; he was just a kind man that believed in giving back to his community. If I wanted to say someone famous, that’s really hard. A lot of people look up to famous people, which I appreciate that, but my role models seem to be people I know really well, and I was lucky enough to get to know Mr. Boettcher. What specific skills or attributes do you have that you think make you uniquely qualified to be a commissioner?

I think if you look at past City Commissioners as a whole, you’ll notice they have historically been older than I am. So I bring, I hate to say youth, because I am almost 40, [laughing] I’m 38, but in the whole scheme of things, that is a youthful outlook. I also think that if you look at past or current City Commissioners, you don’t have an Executive Director for a nonprofit, and I think that my outlook from working for a nonprofit in our community is going to be very beneficial as a City Commissioner. I also think running my own business with my family and running my own event coordination company, as well as now running a nonprofit. I’m very familiar with budgets, so that that’s been very beneficial. I’ve looked over the city budget, which is a multimillion-dollar budget and it’s not scary to look at it, because I’ve been looking at budgets over the last 10 years. Another thing that I think is a benefit is my array of friends and associates. Since I’ve moved to Ponca City, I pride myself in the fact that I have friends from lots of different groups and lots of different backgrounds. I think that my diverse network will be really good for the City Commission because I’ll be able to hear the opinions from a diverse group of Ponca City citizens. What are your goals as a City Commissioner? People have asked what my platform is for City Commission and I try to explain to them that as a volunteer elected official for a community, you shouldn’t go into it with a platform per se – unless there is a true issue that needs fixed. Luckily, we live in an amazing community with very few problems by comparison to other rural communities around us.

Probably my number one goal is to keep Ponca City fiscally responsible. I think that is the most important thing a city can be as in the black. Without a solid budget, without being slightly conservative with our funding you can’t get your community anywhere. That is something that our current City Commissioners already do an amazing job of, so my goal would be to continue their work in that aspect.

Another thing that I do feel passionate about is supporting our fire and police personnel. I have always supported our fire and safety departments in Ponca City. I have donated goods and services to multiple Back the Blue fundraisers, All Fired Up fundraisers, as well as donated to the Ponca City Police Foundation and the Ponca City Fire and Safety Council. I was an avid supporter of the sales tax to fund the new safety center which the community thankfully supported and

passed. To have a safe and orderly community, you must have properly funded and staffed Police and Fire Departments. While I know these departments are having difficulties filling vacancies, I think they are doing a tremendous job for the staff size, equipment and funding they both have available. Cities in Oklahoma are only given the sales tax that they collect within their community to fund operations, and to fully fund our fire and safety departments would require more than the amount we collect annually in sales tax. Ponca City is so fortunate to own our utility company which helps fund the remainder of the city’s annual budget. The Black Live Matters movement has also made an impact on the way many people view law enforcement in the United States. We are so fortunate to live in a community that has remained removed from police brutality incidents and issues. Our department is staffed with respectful officers and is led by an exemplary Chief of Police. After speaking with organizers of Ponca City’s own BLM peaceful rally last year, I was relieved to hear they also felt that our police force was viewed by minorities as being much better than most Oklahoma communities of our size. Organizers also told me that our local officers are open to, and actively seeking, diversity training, and they too have a good relationship with the PCPD. I think also, and I hate to list this as a problem because I think it isn’t a problem yet, but I think that place-making and public art and anything else that could help us recruit new people or new employees to live in Ponca City or retain our current citizens should be a goal. We need to focus on things that we can do that would incentivize people to stay after high school or come back from college, just move here in general. Place-making helps cities to create a place that feels like home, places that people want to go back to and hang out at, and we need that for all ages from youth to our retired citizens.

Ponca City is already doing an amazing job at place-making. We’ve created the walking trails, that’s a place-making project – we have splash pads, which are all excellent. We have the RecPlex, which is a gym in Ponca City. Some of the things that happened organically in our history are also great places in Ponca City. The Marland Mansion and the Marland Grand Home to name two, and those are expensive places to take care of and maintain, and our city does a great job. I think specifically what I will bring to the table is my new viewpoint on place-making and public projects. We are so fortunate to live in a community with so many beautiful facilities, an outstanding Parks and Rec Department and so many foundations and organizations dedicated to the preservation and funding of some of these facilities. The Ponca City RecPlex, the new walking trails at Lake Ponca, the Marland Mansion Estate and Grand Home, Cann Gardens, multiple splash pads and the beautiful flower beds downtown are just a few of the examples of the well-kept places paid for and cared for by our city. Eric Newell and his staff do a phenomenal job with the upkeep and hosting community events. These facilities help create a sense of place in our town, which helps raise the quality of life which in turn assists in employee recruitment and citizen retention. These are all costly endeavors, but through the successful efforts of citizens voting in support of sales tax funding and our city coordinating and caring for these outstanding facilities help make Ponca City a unique and beautiful place to live. Tell me a fun fact about yourself that people may not know about you. I grew up showing cattle, I was in 4H and FFA in “small town rural southwest Oklahoma”. So I think that probably is kind of a unique fact. Another unique fact is that I’m kind of a little old lady at heart, and I collect some pepper shakers.