OADC director urges collaboration to make improvements to 20th Street

A recent decision to choose another city for a manufacturing plant has prompted renewed calls to consider improvements to a busy thoroughfare in Okmulgee.

Court Newkirk, director of the Okmulgee Area Development Corporation spoke during the public comment section Monday at the Okmulgee County Commissioners meeting.

A nationally known tire company expressed interest in building a manufacturing plant in the area.

“The capital investment would be over $490 million, in other words, right at a half-billion dollars, and they were going to employ 400 people,” he said.

Newkirk stated the process begins with a Request for Proposal (RFP), and if a city ‘makes the cut,’ then “they ask you more and more questions, and they make multiple, multiple cuts” in their decision where to locate.

He stated that after the process, there was a choice to bring the plant to either Okmulgee or to MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor, where Google is located.

“Out of the entire United States, they had chosen Okmulgee and they had chosen Pryor,” Newkirk said.

Three or four days after OADC officials had met with the company, and had multiple visits and tour of Okmulgee, “we were informed that they had made their decision to go with MidAmerica Industrial Park because Okmulgee wasn’t ‘ready,’” Newkirk said.

After inquiring further as to what ‘not ready’ meant, the business stated their decision was based on 20th Street.

“‘We can’t afford to put that kind of capital investment on a lot, and ask 400 people plus a couple hundred trucks per day, to drive down 20th Street with all the traffic it already has on it,’” Newkirk said, naming some of the manufacturers located on the road.

He stated that 20th Street and its traffic has been an issue for a number of years.

“The last time I was here in the early ‘90s,” Newkirk said, “the issue was part of 20th Street is in city limits and part of it is in the county, and they never got the city and the county to sit down at the table at the same time and try to come up with some type of plan.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but the loss of that kind of a deal of that size – that once in a lifetime size deal – is very disheartening, and it was our own fault, because over the year, we never got the city and the county and to work with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and figure out how to make it an industrial access road that would be safe for their vehicles and employees. So I implore you to be the bigger group and extend the right hand of development friendship across 4th Street and say ‘let’s get together and start working on this because it will take literally seven to 20 years to get 20th Street to an industrial access road.”

Commissioner David Walker stated he spoke with a previous city official, and stated there had been a plan discussed years ago to put in a loop around the south part of the city that could be used to access the industrial manufacturers located on 20th Street.

Newkirk stated he had the original documents from that proposal, and stated he was informed that the cost of acquiring all the properties to do the loop would be more expensive than to purchase the few homes on 20th Street to expand that roadway to a ‘full-blown’ industrial access road.

That original plan would expand and widen 20th Street from Hwy. 75 to Madison Ave.

Newkirk also stated the OADC is working with the City of Okmulgee and the Muscogee Nation on the improvements to Fairgrounds Road adjacent to the Okmulgee Business Complex and the Omniplex. That plan would widen the road in anticipation of business and industry coming into the Okmulgee Business Complex in the future.

Newkirk urged the commissioners to consider a public meeting involving the various community stakeholders and talk about what could be done, so as to not lose out on future projects that could benefit Okmulgee County.

During the meeting, the commissioners approved the chairman to execute documents necessary for the sale of the former DHS building located at 5005 N. Wood Drive.

Agenda items approved:

• Meeting minutes from April 17.

• Officers’ Report from the County Election Board for March.

• Blanket Purchase Orders: District 3 to Cintas for $700, O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for $400 and RPI for $800; District 1 to S&H Auto for $1,000; and Emergency Management to ComData for $1,000.

• Employee Forms: Requisitioning/Receiving Officers for OSU Extension Office.

• Private Property Agreement with resident and District 2 for disposal of dirt near the Coca-Cola Plant.

• Disposal of Equipment: Donation of vehicles from Sheriff ’s Office to OCCJA; along with a computer and copier.

• Lease/Purchase Agreement for Wilson Fire Department on property north of the WFD.

• Estimate of Needs for the Commissioner’s account.

• Documentation from the District Attorney for the transfer from the county to OCCJA for the 911 personnel without any adverse effects to their retirement or health benefits. The board tabled action on approval of renovations to the Beggs former health department building pending a lease for the Smoothie Shop. Commissioner Erik Zoellner had asked for this item to be placed on the agenda, but he was unable to be at the meeting Monday.