The Oklahoma State Capital

On Monday, August 28, the Edmond Council made the decision to allow a change in Edmond Plan III and rezone to allow a General Commercial facility to be located just east of the Trails near the Danforth and Santa Fe intersection. This approval was far from unanimous however as two Edmond Councilors (Gary Moore and Barry Rice) expressed opposition to the change.

The purposed facility will be a Christian Brothers Automotive Center. The automotive center should service about 20 cars per day. None of these cars will be allowed to remain outside overnight. Christian Brothers promises to maintain the looks of the property and also promises to down zone the property should they be forced to close up shop. They also stated that no tires will be sold, no paint and body work will be done and no cars parked outside for any length of time.

Opposition to the facility was expressed at this meeting by Dave Pierce the President of The Orchards Homeowners Association, Jeannie Pratt, President of The Trails North Homeowners Association, and Dan O'Neil of Neighborhood Alliance.

Although they lost the fight to prevent the Council from allowing this facility, the members of The Orchards Homeowners Association led a move to circulate and have signed four petitions that would allow the voters of Edmond to vote to amend the Edmond Plan. The petitions were filed with City of Edmond on September the 26th. Two of the petitions were subsequently rejected on October 10th. Why were these petitions rejected? Edmond city officials stated that the Councils action was not subject to the guidelines of the referendum petition process because the ordinance was declared an emergency.

In addition to disqualifying two of the petition because of the emergency ordinance, city officials also ruled nearly 250 signatures in the remaining petitions invalid saying that they were not of area registered voters. Neighborhood advocates contend that it is not the role of the city to declare signatures invalid but instead is the duty of the citizenry after the signatures have been publicly posted.

This denial left the members of homeowners associations one option. The cities decision has been appealed to Oklahoma County District Judge Carolyn Ricks. The associations are alleging mishandling of the petitions that were submitted to the city. In response to the suit City Attorney Murdock states that the actions taken by the city were correct. It remains to be seen how the court rules. In the event that the court finds in favor of the homeowners an election could be called as soon as December or January.