Published: May 12, 2009 10:34 pm      

3 items to watch

EDMOND — Edmond’s Mayor Patrice Douglas faces an intriguing and challenging two years ahead of her. The city is known for its quality of life and excellent school system. Each City Council’s mission is to help propel Edmond even further into a better future. We believe Douglas will be well-suited to this task and we welcome her energy and enthusiasm.

As Douglas embarks on her new mission of assessing the city’s needs and its wants, this board has three items for her consideration.

First, a new Police Department, Central Communications and Emergency Management facility remains at the forefront of this board’s agenda for 2009. The need for an expanded and modern facility is clearly documented. All that remains is for the city’s leadership to chart a course on how to reasonably achieve the goal with the public’s support.

We hope the mayor can assess the previous work of both the citizen’s task force, the consultant’s study and the many ideas offered by the public and begin building a coalition within her first 100 days that will help the city achieve the objective. Cost, location, project scope and funding all remain on the table for consideration. It’s time to begin the hard work of resolving those issues.

Second, Edmond long has struggled with the dual goal of being more business friendly while demanding high quality projects and enforcing stringent code and zoning requirements. Several solutions have been tried in the past 10 years with none of the involved parties really feeling that either objective is being fairly achieved.

The city staff has added the Site Plan Review Team, which has been a huge benefit to developers as they go through the city’s process to gain permits for projects. But there remains more work to be done in addressing what happens between an approved site plan and a permit being issued and the final product receiving its sign off in order for business owners and developers to feel the city is really addressing their concerns.

Some developers will openly tell the council that the process can kill them before they can even open their doors. We hope Douglas will guide the city in an effort to streamline some of these hurdles and that businesses in Edmond will work harder to be a part of the process in order to improve upon it.

Third, one of the main reasons this Editorial Board supported Douglas in her bid for mayor was her response to how she will address revenue stream concerns for the city as the economy continues its malaise nationally. This final item is really more for the public and our government to consider together because we believe Douglas already understands the issue. Edmond and its residents must consider how we will support the government and the services that we want when faced with falling revenues.

The community and City Council will need an ongoing dialogue to help city staff navigate what the city’s priorities should be for the next 20 years and how we will pay for them. It all comes down to money. This community has gained much in quality of life because our government has had the money to support forward-thinking and cutting edge initiatives. We are at the beginning stages of seeing what running a city with less funding will be like. Just like every other government across the nation we will need to start making choices. We ask residents to begin communicating with Douglas and the City Council their wishes now to help Edmond continue to be a great place to grow.

In the meantime, we wish Douglas success and good fortune at the start of her two-year term. Success will not be achieved solely upon the shoulders of one person, but under Douglas’ leadership we can all strive for a better Edmond together.