City Of Bixby, Tulsa County In Dispute Over Who's Responsible For Fixing Roads Of Potholes

People in Bixby are frustrated with more than two dozen roads on the outskirts of town that community members say are in terrible shape.

It all stems from what Tulsa County calls a paperwork problem and an annexation issue.

Bixby says the documents transferring responsibility for 28 county roads to Bixby were filed in 2016, but the county didn’t enforce it until three years ago. 

The city says it doesn’t have the budget to keep the roads safe.

Drive any stretch of these roads leading into Bixby and you’re likely to see a pothole.

Not because no one is aware of them but because Bixby Mayor Brian Guthrie says he believes the responsibility to maintain them falls on Tulsa County.

“These roads are typically your border roads. Roads that border between Bixby and Broken area or Bixby and the City of Tulsa and those border roads are typically the county’s responsibility,” Guthrie said.

Tulsa County disagrees.

It says the city passed an ordinance in 1992 annexing the roads, but it was lost.

“They were discovered in 2020 whenever the county discovered them as a filed document. They had been filed in 2016 by an attorney that worked for the city at that time,” Guthrie said.

Bixby filed an ordinance revoking the annexation back in October of last year.

That prompted Tulsa County to sue the city of Bixby to determine who was responsible for the roads.

In a statement, Tulsa County says:

As shown by the public record, in the early 1990s, Bixby annexed 28 Tulsa County roadways into its city limits and municipal jurisdiction. Within the past ten years, however, the City of Bixby has taken the position that its 1990s ordinances annexing those roadways were invalid. On June 16, 2023, Tulsa County filed suit to bring jurisdictional clarity for the citizens of both Bixby and Tulsa County as to the planning and maintenance of such roadways, as well as jurisdictional boundaries for police, ambulance, and fire protection. While this suit was pending, the City of Bixby on October 23, 2023, passed a new ordinance purporting to revoke its 1990s ordinances annexing the 28 roadways. Tulsa County has brought the City of Bixby’s new ordinance before the Court, and the Court has consolidated both cases into Tulsa County Case No. CV-2023-1198. Tulsa County believes that Court intervention is necessary due to the changing positions taken by the City of Bixby, the requirements of the Open Meeting Act and a new 2004 amendment to 11 O.S. § 21-103(C) that requires roadways and their adjacent property be treated the same for purposes of municipal annexation.

“I think it would be in the best interest of everyone who travels these roads is that the county continues to maintain them like they have since the beginning of time. Maintain them until the court tells them otherwise,” Guthrie said.

Bixby says it is willing to take responsibility for the roads if the county makes some fixes first.