Voters To Decide On Four-Pronged Sapulpa Bond Proposal

Environmental hazards and a sports complex for kids are a part of the recent bond proposal in Sapulpa and it covers a wide variety of issues affecting the community.

A Better Sapulpa committee is asking people to vote yes on four different Bond proposals.

Two have to get done, the vote just determines how the city pays for it.

“They're all very important for our city in order to grow and prosper," the committee's Mark Lawson said.

Four votes. Four bond proposals. And the first two have to be done whether voted on or not.

The city can either pay for them through the bond, with no cost to citizens or pay for them by charging a major increase on utilities.

"It's not just that it's mandated, but it needs to be done," Lawson said.

The first issue at hand is to make repairs to the Sahoma Lake Dam. It was built in the 1950s, and after a recent assessment it was labeled a ticking time bomb.

"The Oklahoma water resources board has considered it a high-hazard dam and if it were to breach, without a doubt, some serious loss of property and/or life," Lawson said.

The second? Replacing an aging sewer line that is currently leaking into Polecat Creek, an environmental hazard.

"The service that is water to a city is probably the most important service, so sewer and water, the first two are very important in those regards,” Lawson said.

The last two proposals deal with quality of life in Sapulpa.

Proposition 3 would fund a safe and humane animal shelter.

Lawson describes current conditions as barely tolerable for volunteers and animals alike.

“We're really just bursting at the seams there, and how they've kept it together so long, I don't know,” Lawson said.

And lastly, Proposition 4 is a new 100-acre youth sports complex featuring baseball and soccer fields.

Lawson says without it, families will keep going elsewhere for kids sports.

“I hate that our families feel that a city of our size can't provide the needs for their kids," he said.

But how much will all this cost?

Committee chairman Lawson says there will not be a tax increase.

In total, the bond issue is for about $6.6 million.

Each proposition comes in around $1.2 million.

It's a bond that Lawson says is a "no brainer.”

Voters head to the polls on Tuesday.