By Mindy Ragan Wood
Staff Writer
It was a night to remember for Piedmont’s new mayor Kurt Mayabb, but the evening was overshadowed by residents who demanded answers from last week’s special council meeting.
Former Acting Mayor Bobby Williamson and Councilman John Brown were not present. Councilman Kevan Blasdell and Mayabb were sworn in by City Attorney Mike Segler as a room full of people watched and recorded the event on their cell phones.
Following the oath of office, public comments rekindled the fury of last Monday’s meeting. The special meeting ended with a tabled zoning request after the wording confused residents, but the preliminary plat for that development passed.
The zoning request was for 47 acres of Phil Boever’s Shenandoah Ridge development at the southwest corner of Edmond Road and Morgan Road. Citizens wanted to know why the agenda stated it was 47 acres, although it had been rezoned in July 2018 and was then included in 103 acres.
City Manager Jason Orr said Wednesday that the land was rezoned from agricultural to rural residential, more than 100 acres, but 47 acres had to be rezoned last week specifically for the development’s phase one which includes the lot that will serve as an entrance.
A planned access road that will cross a pond dam was again opposed Monday night.
Civil engineer for Oklahoma County Ron Cardwell took exception to the flood plan for the bridge and the access road that will connect to the entrance of the development. Cardwell is a certified flood manager.
“It is not in the best interest to allow the road to go across the pond dam. It crosses a special flood hazard area. It is a jurisdictional wet lands area. A 404 permit will be required,” Cardwell said during public comments Monday night.
The area is prone to flooding which drains into a pond. The pond overflows in a runoff spillway to the north.
“When you have too much existing runoff and you go to develop the runoff, if you predict it too high then the ponds are too small,” Cardwell insisted. “When your ponds are too small, they spill over and they flow more than they’re supposed to, so we’re not protecting downstream facilities.”
Cardwell presented to the council an email from Michael Wares of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The engineer had sent over documents related to the plat and a photo of the pond dam with maps of the area. Cardwell asked if a 404 flood permit had been issued to the city.
“Yes!” Ware wrote. “This is definitely jurisdictional. We do not have this project in our database. Can you forward any additional information to Rob Hoffmann of the Regulatory Office.”
Orr said Wednesday they are taking the concerns seriously.
“The city engineer is looking into all the concerns we received in the meeting,” Orr said. “If I see anything that needs to be corrected, I’ll make a correction.”
The meeting’s challenging moments did not seem to daunt the city’s new mayor.
“It felt good,” he said of officially taking office. “The community is behind me. That’s what we need.”
The zoning request for the 47 acres and the lot that will serve as an entrance to Shenendoah Ridge was not on the agenda but it was on Mayabb’s mind following the meeting.
“I talked to the city manager last week and told him that we have a lot of smart people in the audience and we need to be doing our business smart,” Mayabb said. “The legal part of that, I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable with all of it, but if an engineer would sign off it (zoning) then we’ll figure that out. The citizens have a lot of questions before we can approve the final on that.”
The council discussed the proposed budget for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, but did not vote on the agenda item.
