City Building Inspector Mark Stephens has been working on amending the City’s Master Fee Schedule for months, to make it more consistent with other nearby municipalities, making sure that Sapulpa’s fees remain fair, while also ensuring that these expenses are covered so no new taxes or fees will have to be raised to cover the costs.
At Monday’s City Council meeting, Stephens explained that during this process, staff determined that several revisions to the building permit and trade inspection process were warranted.
These changes range from minor price adjustments to existing fees to the addition of fees for fire inspection services that the City has been performing without any cost compensation.
None of the increases result in the City exceeding what any other metro city charges for the same service, and the new City fee structure will remain the lowest in the Tulsa metro area. Moreover, all these modifications help to cover more uncompensated costs associated in performing these services, and will thus allow Sapulpa to maintain its competitive edge in relation to any other metro area municipality.
The Administration and Finance Committee met on May 24, 2021, concerning the proposed Ordinance, and voted unanimously to recommend approval to the City Council.
Ultimately, many fees remained unchanged, some were raised slightly, and others were implemented for the first time. For example, a commercial electrical permit went from $37 to $45, a mere $8 increase. A residential mechanical inspection increased from $25 to $35.
Some of the new fees, that other cities such as Sand Spring, Bixby, Jenks, and Tulsa charge, encompassed services Sapulpa was already doing and providing for free, like plan review fees for new construction, carport fees, and fire alarm reviews and inspections.
The risk of not charging these fees is that eventually those costs to the City might have had to have been made up by the taxpayer through rate or tax increases. “We’re not trying to raise any prices,” said Stephens, “we’re trying to make it fair. Our goal is to protect the citizens of Sapulpa” so they don’t end up bearing the brunt of these costs.
The entire unanimously-approved new fee schedule can be found on the City’s website at cityofsapulpa.net.
Parks and Recreation Recreation Leader, Susan Bencke, presented some minor changes to the City Code to the Council. She explained to Sapulpa Times that during the lulls in the Department’s schedule due to the pandemic, “all of us sat down” in an effort “to make policy, practice, and the [information on the] website consistent,” regarding Parks and Rec fees, hours, and rules.
One of the contradictions that became apparent as she “went through all the park ordinances with a fine-toothed comb” was that the curfew at all parks was 11 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., but at the lakes it is 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. So she proposed matching the lakes’ curfew with that of the parks’ for the sake of consistency.
However, a few Pretty Water Lake neighbors attended the City Council meeting to object to the new curfew times, saying they were concerned about noise. Jeremy Hobbs, a landowner whose property backs up to Pretty Water Lake, spoke for the group.
He said that “over the past year we have seen multiple parties occurring at the lake and a lot of [resulting] trash. What we don’t want is people abusing the time for partying.” He further stated that in the past they have had problems with knowing whether the Sapulpa Police Department or the Creek County Sheriff’s Office has jurisdiction over the area. Hobbs said that often when one of them would call SPD they would be referred to CCSO, and vice versa.
“So we would just like [the two law enforcement agencies] to have a schedule for rotation or something,” so the curfew can be consistently enforced.
This is a “totally valid concern,” said Bencke, and explained that the Council kept and approved all of the proposed changes on the agenda except the ones to the lakes’ curfew.
Bencke also told Sapulpa Times that the Aquatic Center, which opened for the season on Friday, June 4th, had almost 250 visitors on its opening day, 300 on Saturday, and a little over 100 on Sunday, likely low due to poor weather. She said they were closed Monday through Wednesday because of the weather, but that they would be open again on Thursday.
