Food trucks are becoming more prevalent in the Sapulpa, with Main Street’s Food Truck Fridays and Rock the Route events, the Food Truck Park on South Main that’s currently under construction, and the upcoming renovated TeePee Drive-In, all of which feature these mobile vendors.
At the Monday, June 21st City Council study session, a new ordinance for food trucks was discussed and then voted on at the regular meeting. The ordinance was also voted unanimously to be recommended for approval to the City Council by the Community and Economic Development Committee at its June 14th meeting.
City Attorney David Widdoes explained that currently, food truck vendors in Sapulpa operate under City Code provisions applicable to “outdoor sellers,” but that these provisions are not tailored to the specific needs and issues presented by mobile food truck vendors, and that “this in turn has impacted the continued and seamless operation of food trucks in the City.”
The proposed ordinance was researched by Urban Development Director Nikki Howard, who canvassed food truck regulations in most Tulsa metro-area cities and ultimately tailored it most closely to Tulsa’s.
Widdoes said that the ordinance will “allow a food truck to stay in whatever spot it wants for a year with a fee,” but that the unit must be motorized and capable of being moved to be cleaned. Additionally, they can only stay in one place for 12 hours, per health code. They will also be s,ubject to several City code enforcement inspections.
The “only restrictions of concern are geographic ones. [A food truck] cannot be located within 150 feet of another restaurant or a school event unless they are given permission or other food establishments that serve similar fare,” explained Widdoes.
A motion to amend the ordinance as written but costing $50, rather than the proposed $25, failed. Another motion amending the ordinance to make the license good for 6 months with a $50 fee was unanimously approved.
Mayor Craig Henderson made appointments to two City boards. City Councilor Joseph Hale is to serve on the Planning Commission for a three-year term and Michael Thompson on the Parks and Recreation Board for a three-year term. Both of these nominations were ratified unanimously by the full Council.
A bid from Limestone Construction, LLC for the Street Department’s Metal Equipment Shelter Project was rejected as being “unresponsive and excessive” at $217,630. The Owasso-based company’s bid was the only one received at the June 10th bid opening and was determined at that time to be in excess of preliminary cost estimates.
The Council further authorized the rebidding of the project at a to-be-determined date and time, after “better specifications are provided by an engineering firm and firm cost estimates [are] estimated.”
The City’s contract with trash-collection company Waste Management allows for an annual increase in refuse collection rates based on the prior year’s Consumer Price Index increase, up to 5%, should the company choose to exercise it, which it has.
The effective CPI adjustment for this year is 3.48%, which equates to an average increase of $00.41 per month, per residential customer. This was approved 9-1 by the Council and will become effective in July.
The Council approved declaring 41 Scott AP.5 2007 edition Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) units and 3 Scott Rapid Intervention packs from the Fire Department as surplus.
Fire Chief David Taylor explained that the equipment was purchased with grant funds in April of 2008 and that it has outlasted its lifecycle of 10 years prescribed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and has no value for resale.
He said that all the units have been removed from service and have been recently replaced to current NFPA standards through $369K of FEMA grant funds awarded through FEMA’s Assistance to Firefighters grant program. Taylor said, “They don’t meet U.S. standards anymore. They basically need to be thrown away or scrapped. They’re aluminum, they could be recycled.”
