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Oklahoma
Posted: Jul 08, 2025 10:02 AMUpdated: Jul 08, 2025 10:05 AM
CITY MATTERS 7-8-2025
Tom Davis
The latest on the Bartlesville municipally-owned golf course, the city's unsheltered task force, flouride in the water and local roads topped our conversation with Bartlesville city councilman Aaron Kirpatrick on KWON's CITY MATTERS program on Tuesday.
City Coucilor Kirpatrick said the municipal golf course now has some new rates that the council approved Monday night. According to Kirkpatrick, "All the golfers I've talked to so far said, this is good. It's standard, it's competitive with other regional golf courses and sometimes on the lower end."We're going to have a premium value and premium golf course with a new name as Boots Hollow."
Kirkpatrick said the homelessness task force on which he serves is now in the second phase. He said, "We're continuing to oversee the rollout of some of the things we've been working on. We've been doing a lot of education over the last month. As an example, we know transportation is something that is a constant need in Bartlesville for our homeless neighbors, but also for the rest of Bartlesville. We had City Ride come and do a presentation And I was blown away." He added, "There's a lot of information there I didn't know. They do curb to curb, pick up and drop off. And if you need a ride to work, they'll give you a ride to and from work for a dollar each way."
The topic of whether fluoride should in the Bartlesville water supply came up oin Monday night's city council meeting. Kirpatrick said that part of the reason that it cane up is that it was in the news is last week when RFK Jr. was in Oklahoma meeting with the governor. The governor came out and issued an executive order basically asking the health department to reassess whether or not fluoride is recommended for municipalities.
Kirkpatrick recommended that maybe the council do a workshop and talk about it. We had citizens there that were very passionate about not having fluoride in the water. I've spoken to some who say we absolutely should have it.
My friends who are dentists recommend it. I've got medical professional friends who are very skeptical or concerned about it. So I've been doing a lot of research into the primary data, and especially like meta-analysis. Kirkpatrick said, "If I walked into any medical professional and asked for a treatment and they said, well, okay, we're doing this procedure. We've been doing it since the 70s. I would be a little surprised because all of medical technology changes has changed dramatically in those 50 years. So it is worth, I think it is a valuable conversation."
Kirkpatrick then talked about some of the work being done on Adams Boulevard by ODOT. He said that Adams Boulevard and Hesnley Avenue are state highways. They are owned and overseen by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, ODOT. Adams was supposed to get a complete rebuild this year, but it got bump that back two years. He said that city staff somehow conviced ODOT to try to patch the parts that are really bad.
As far as maintaining our own streets, Kitkpatrick said the election for the G.O. bonds and the CIP taxes is copming up in March of 2026 and then we have to decide what projects do we want to get done.
In closing, Kirkpatrick said, "I love our community. I love what's happening at the city level. I think that we are seeing is the front end of a Bartlesville boom. The businesses that are moving here, the jobs that are being created, the redevelopment that is happening, the new housing that is going in, and the new families and individuals that are coming here." He added, "It's an exciting time to be in Bartlesville and I hope that everybody else gets to feel that."
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