SAND SPRINGS — Voters here on Tuesday will decide the fate of a proposed $15.7 million, four-proposition general-obligation bond package that focuses on street improvements, modernized storm sirens, a new animal shelter and dog park, an array of park improvements and a host of community development projects.
The bond package’s total cost would increase the property taxes on a $100,000 home by roughly $3 a month.
“We’ve put forward a package that I think is in the best interest of our city and what people want to see,” City Manager Mike Carter said last week. , but “people need to vote their conscience. It’s not our role to tell people that they should vote for anything.”
City leaders over the past several months have met with civic organizations and community groups, held block parties and used the city’s website and social media platforms to get the word out about the bond proposal.
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“If there’s been a group that wanted us to come talk, then we’ve done that,” Carter said. “What we don’t want is for people to feel like they didn’t know about it.”
Proposition 1 totals $4.3 million and would fund a host of street overlay and maintenance projects throughout the community.
Proposition 2 totals $3.9 million. Of that, $825,000 would be allocated to upgrade and modernize storm sirens citywide, including adding as many as half a dozen sirens.
The biggest chunk of Proposition 2 — $3.09 million — would fund the design and construction of a new Animal Welfare facility on Wekiwa Road just west of 129th West Avenue.
As the animal shelter’s mission has evolved, City Planner Brad Bates said, the current shelter no longer meets its needs.
“The way our shelter currently is run is more of a caring environment,” City Planner Brad Bates said, with more emphasis on homing or rehoming pets brought to the shelter and less focus on euthanasia after a short holding period.
“We don’t do much of that,” he said. “We’re basically, by all premises, a no-kill shelter today.”
Overcrowding at the shelter last week led Animal Welfare officials to sound the alarm that adoptable dogs were in danger of being euthanized for space concerns, but a media blitz led to the adoption of seven dogs the next morning, which relieved the pressure, at least temporarily.
Proposition 3 would total nearly $3.8 million and encompasses roughly a dozen projects under the auspices of parks and recreation.
The largest project dollar-wise is a “near complete rehabilitation” of Page Park at $1.2 million, which would include new playgrounds, fitness equipment, a splash pad, restrooms and a shelter, expanded parking and lighting.
Other features of Proposition 3 are lighting and field surface improvements for Case Community Park, neighborhood trail improvements, adding a roughly 1-acre dog park next to the new animal welfare facility and parking lot improvements at the Canyons at Blackjack Ridge golf course.
Proposition 4 totals $3.7 million and would fund or help fund three major community development projects, including paving work in Case Community Park, a downtown streetscape plan and the design and construction of a community gathering area downtown in coordination with Sand Springs Public Schools.
Carter said the election is not about winning or losing. It’s about doing as little or as much as residents want.
The city’s police chief before he became the city manager last year, he said the approach has its origins in community policing.
“We look at this as a public-private partnership with our citizens, and we collaborate,” he said. “Instead of community policing, this is community governing, and our council very much adheres to that.
“I think that’s how good governing happens.”
‘I don’t have to choose my life or my pets’: Domestic violence shelter remodel allows dogs, cats
Shelter
Only 15% of domestic violence shelters in the United States today allow pets, yet 48% of abuse victims will delay leaving their abuser if they can’t take their pet with them, according to RedRover, a national organization dedicated to helping pets in crisis. The organization partnered with Purina in 2019 to launch the Purple Leash Project and set a goal of making 25% of domestic violence shelters pet-friendly by 2025. A Sand Springs-area shelter is one of its newest successes.
The Spring had the need, said Executive Director Leslie Clingenpeel, noting several clients with pets housed elsewhere. And The Spring even had the perfect place — an existing 24-by-14-foot metal building on site at its secure location just crying out to be converted into pet lodging.
What it didn’t have was the money or the skills to make such a transformation.
“We wouldn’t have been able to accomplish it on our own,” Clingenpeel said.
Shelter
The cat room at The Spring offers finicky felines a plethora of perches. RedRover contributed $30,000 toward the shelter’s renovation, and Greater Good Charities absorbed the remainder of the cost of the roughly $100,000 project.
Back inside, the cat room has a series of shelves and wooden, hexagon-shaped climbing boxes to provide innumerable perch opportunities, along with a couple of soft beds, seating for the humans and a litter box disguised as a potted plant.
An open ceiling covered with fencing material will let light, heat and air conditioning in without letting the cats out.
Shelter
The reimagined facility at The Spring is the perfect combination of utility and comfort, with six stainless-steel indoor dog kennels, each with a bed and a separate doggie door that leads to a private, fenced outdoor kennel and relief area.
Behind the six outdoor kennels is a fenced outdoor play area with a shaded bench for the humans, toys and plenty of grass for the pups, and a waste station with “poop bags” so the owners can easily clean up after their dogs.
Shelter
The outdoor play area at The Spring offers off-leash space for dogs and a shaded bench for their owners, as well as a waste station with “poop bags” for easy cleanup.
The renovation project at the domestic violence shelter also included an ample supply of dog and cat beds, litter boxes and toys, and The Spring will be providing pet food and cat litter. “Our furry friends will definitely not have bad living accommodations,” Clingenpeel said.
Shelter
These stainless-steel kennels can house as many as six dogs belonging to residents at The Spring.
“Unfortunately, with domestic abuse, we come up against a lot of different barriers,” Clingenpeel said. “And many of them have to do with power and control. Pets are one of those barriers,” she said. “They stay in a dangerous situation rather than leave the pet to be killed” by the abuser as retaliation.
Being able to get out of an abusive environment and take their pets with them “allows them to be able to say, ‘I don’t have to choose my life or my pets.’”
Shelter
A $1,000 gift card from Purina will help The Spring take care of immediate needs, such as food and litter, but nearly everything else that was needed, such as purple leashes, was provided.
Any day now, companion animals will start arriving at The Spring.
Clingenpeel said the goal is to launch in early March, a date that can’t come soon enough for some residents.
“We have a couple of guests that have been waiting for this,” she said. “We have been helping them house their pets somewhere else, and they have been champing at the bit to get their pets here.”
Only clients with preexisting pets will be able to bring them along. The idea is not for any resident who wants a pet to go out and get one.
