LAWTON – The City Council, during its meeting Tuesday, discussed a need for more sidewalks in Lawton.
“We’ve been talking about sidewalks for four years,” said Ward 6 Councilman Sean Fortenbaugh. “I want to get the ball rolling.”
A sidewalk from 67th Street to Eisenhower Middle School at 5702 W. Gore Boulevard “has been needed for years,” said Ward 8 Councilman Randy Warren, an Eisenhower High School graduate. Students attending Ike Middle School “have to walk in the mud or in the street,” he said.
“We need to do this for safety reasons,” Fortenbaugh told the Southwest Ledger on Wednesday.
Richard Rogalski, deputy city manager for public works and public utilities, attributed part of the problem to vacancies in the city government. According to a recent report, the City of Lawton has two vacancies in the Planning Department, three vacancies in Engineering, nearly two dozen vacancies in Public Works (14 in streets/traffic and nine in the Solid Waste Collection Division), and 30 vacancies in Public Utilities.
The council adopted a sidewalk master plan that calls for spending Lawton’s share of medical marijuana tax receipts for sidewalk construction, Fortenbaugh said. “We’ve got the money. Let’s get something done.”
The state 7% excise tax collected on sales of medical marijuana products in Lawton between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, totaled $2.1 million, Oklahoma Tax Commission ledgers show. Sales taxes on those purchases during that 12-month period generated an estimated $513,233 for the City of Lawton, according to the municipal Finance Department.
The report on the city’s share of the tax receipts is just an estimation “because the OTC does not have a way to report sales tax collected from marijuana,” said Tiffany Vrska, the city’s community relations director. The OTC “does not currently have a way to separate the sales tax based solely on the type of product sold. There is not an industry code specific to medical marijuana.”