LAWTON — Lawton City Councilmen George Gill, Allan Hampton and Kelly Harris will serve on a new committee to oversee the city’s ad valorem street improvement projects.
The council voted 8-0 Aug. 8 to create the committee, whose responsibilities will include reviewing a 2022 study of city streets, developing an eight-year plan for improvements and educating Lawton people about the plan. Staffers from the city manager’s office, the engineering department and the public works department will serve on the committee along with the three councilmen.
Hampton said he is looking forward to serving on the committee.
“It certainly is good to be working with the city staff and looking at long-term maintenance, maintaining our roads and making sure that we stay on the plan,” he said.
Gill is chairman of the committee, which is part of the city’s response to the 2022 street study. That study said the city would need to spend about $30 million a year just to keep up with the backlog of street repairs.
Mayor Stan Booker said he recently rode along with a former engineer in the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s maintenance division as the engineer drove around town. Booker later joined another ODOT maintenance division engineer on a similar tour, and both engineers told him the city should adopt a road improvement strategy similar to ODOT’s.
The two engineers also told Booker it was impossible for the city to replace every road that residents thought should be replaced, Booker said. He added that the ride-alongs influenced his thinking about street repairs and convinced him that there is a reasonable solution to the problem.
“We do not have to continue to flounder, which I think is a fair term for where we currently are,” Booker said. “It’s time to stop wringing our hands because of the size of the task and roll up our sleeves and define the pathway forward.”
Street improvements
Residents will go to the polls Sept. 12 to decide whether the city should extend its ad valorem street improvement program, which earmarks part of the city’s property tax revenue for street repairs.
If voters approve the proposition, Lawton will issue $60 million in general obligation bonds to pay for repairs and upgrades to city streets and bridges. Part of the bond money will cover costs associated with acquiring rights-of-way and relocating utility lines.
The city’s existing property tax for street repairs will remain in place for another 10 years, but the mill levy will not increase as a result. The city would use those tax revenues to pay off the bonds over 25 years.
The new committee’s first task will be setting priorities for street improvement program. The committee will also look at ODOT’s road maintenance and improvement program, then work with staff on developing a similar policy for Lawton. Other assignments will include setting priorities for road replacements and improvements, and developing a long-term plan for making those improvements.
Continuing the street improvement program is only part of the city’s plan for moving forward, Booker said. He noted that the city’s budget includes additional funding for street materials.
“We’ve gone from approximately $1.5 million to $4.5 million,” he said. “That’s triple our materials budget, and that will do a lot of overlays.”
Gill said water drainage is causing Lawton’s streets to deteriorate, and the committee must address that problem.
“We need to look at this,” he said. “We need to do maintenance where we can. We need to keep our maintenance going. We need to resurface roads. And those roads that we have to replace – which will cost us a lot more money – we will do those.”
Harris said the city must invest in better roads, and the extension of the street improvement program is the way to reach that goal.
“You’re going to squawk when we say, ‘We’ve got to pay for it,’” he said. “But if you want nice stuff –if you want nice roads – they cost money. And they’re about a million dollars per lane mile if we have to replace them.”