Upgrading deteriorating bridges may lead Lawton to new ad valorem election

City of Lawton officials may have to convince voters to provide more money before they can address three deteriorating bridges.

At a budget workshop held in mid-May, the City Council reviewed a list of capital improvement projects that city staff had identified for the fiscal year that begins July 1, funded via the Capital Improvements and Ad Valorem Roads Improvements programs. Council members agreed with Mayor Stan Booker that two projects should be removed from that list: two bridges on South 11th Street between Interstate 44 and Pecan Road; and a bridge that crosses eastbound and westbound Cache Road between Oak Avenue and Northwest 47th Street.

While the bridges are located in different parts of Lawton, they have two things in common: they cross over Wolf Creek and they are badly deteriorated. The deterioration on the Cache Road bridge can be handled with repair work, but the South 11th Street bridges must be replaced. Cost is an issue: recent estimates put the Cache Road repairs at $1.3 million and replacement of South 11th Streets bridges at $5.43 million.

While Booker and the council don’t dispute the bridges need attention, they don’t agree with city staff that funds should come from the CIP and Ad Valorem programs. The council indicated it wanted to direct city staff to start researching a new Ad Valorem Road Improvement Program, with details to be brought back to the council for discussion and action.

Booker said as badly as the bridge work is needed, “they weren’t in Propel (the city’s name for the 2019 Capital Improvements Program).”

“If we do them out of Propel, we’re not going to have the money to do what we promised citizens Propel was for,” Booker said, citing two specific road projects, Goodyear Boulevard in the west industrial park and Lee Boulevard. “We promised people Lee Boulevard and Goodyear Boulevard. We’re not going to be able to do it if we do this (the bridges). There is not enough money to do them.”

Booker also questioned whether the bridges could be funded from the Ad Valorem program, a program set into place by voters in 2017 that is expected to generate $50.3 million for road work over its 10-year life. Finance Director Joe Don Dunham said the city borrows money based on that annual ad valorem revenue, using it to repay loans. Lawton borrowed $8 million last year under the program, and Dunham said the city expects to borrow about $4 million a year for the remainder of the program.

By ballot definition, the ad valorem tax revenue is restricted to road work and Booker said the law specifies that’s the only thing the revenue can finance. His solution: ask voters to extend the program.

“We could go back to the citizens and ask for more, and do a lot more streets,” Booker said, adding he doesn’t believe the bridge work can be done out of the existing ad valorem program because they are not streets.

Deputy City Manager Dewayne Burk said city staff is satisfied the bridges qualify.

“When we learned about the condition of the bridges, we looked into this and by definition, the bridges are considered streets and therefore eligible for the funding,” Burk said.

“I understand the interpretation, but it doesn’t meet the spirt of what citizens were told was going to be done,” Booker said, adding that while the cost of Goodyear Boulevard has more than doubled from initial estimates, “we promised the citizens certain roads, when we were selling it (the ad valorem program).”

Ward 8 Councilman Randy Warren said priorities are important, but so are promises to voters. He said one of the city’s biggest problems has been residential interpretation was that the city was “changing the mission.”

“We tell them one thing and do something else,” he said, adding while the bridge projects sound like they qualify, “it’s not what we told the citizens we’re going to do.”

Dunham said the council has other options, to include using the city’s emergency reserve fund.

“The council is going to be against tapping into that,” Booker said, adding that unless the projects can’t wait, the better option is creating a new ad valorem CIP. “Let’s start talking about it.”