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“The city has repaired or replaced older sections of sidewalk in the past primarily due to citizen complaints,” said City Manager Bruce Stone. “We are already working on prices and plan to repair trip hazards for all existing sidewalks, especially west of May Ave., as most other older neighborhoods were not built with sidewalks.”

Village Mayor Wilkinson said the points Bass brought up were “absolutely right.”

“We knew that if we installed new sidewalks the city would eventually be on the hook to maintain them,” said Wilkinson. “Well, that would obviously extend to existing sidewalks. I think after hearing her speak, I really want our public works crews to go look at all existing sidewalks and present us a plan to fix any sections in need of repair. We can’t put residents at risk because we aren’t maintaining public infrastructure.”

Nearly $2 million from the 2018 Bond Project for sidewalks has created 9.5 miles of new residential sidewalks in the city. 2018 Bond Projects for sidewalks have been completed with two additional Capital Improvement Fund projects coming later this year, primarily south of Britton Road, creating an additional 4.75 miles of sidewalk.

“Creating a more walkable city not only creates healthy and safer options for our resident sto walk or bike, but it also improves the esthetics,” said Stone. “Our initial goal was to connect all of our parks by sidewalk, which I believe we have nearly accomplished.”

Stone said his dream has always been to connect The Village to the OKC Trail System at Lake Hefner via a pedestrian bridge over the Lake Hefner Parkway.

“It will take a lot of coordination, cooperation and funding from The Village, Oklahoma Department of Transportation, and possibly Oklahoma City, to get a new Britton Road bridge built or a new pedestrian bridge,” he said.

The Village sidewalk map. The lines in blue are 9.5 miles of completed sidewalks. The lines in green are coming in 2022-23.

Council approves second agreement with Midwest City for jail services

The council unanimously approved a jail services agreement for FY 2022-2023 with the Midwest City Police Department to oversee city detainees for longer than 12 hours.

Last year, the city ended a decades-long agreement with the Oklahoma County Jail, citing concerns of deteriorating conditions, overcrowding, maintenance issues and unusually high death and suicide rates.

The terms of the agreement with Midwest City, including the daily prisoner boarding rate, are the same as last year. The daily rate is $65.

“We send on average about 10 people to jail per year for municipal offenses,” said City Manager Bruce Stone. “Felonies are all sent to the Oklahoma County Jail as required by law. We probably spent less than $500 last year.”

Stone said although the Midwest City Jail, 100 N. Midwest Blvd, is farther from The Village, the turnaround time is less since the facility is not as busy as the Oklahoma County facility.

Sean Cummings elected to Ward 4 Seat

Voters in The Village elected Sean Cummings, 58, 3015 Lakeside Drive, over Donna Rice-Johnson, 57, 10825 Sunnymeade Place, to fill a vacant city council seat left open by his wife Cathy Cummings who vacated her position to run for the Oklahoma County Commission. Cummings will serve the remainder of her threeyear term.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Cummings received 479 votes, or 66.9 percent of the vote. Rice-Johnson received 237 votes, or 33.1 percent.

Village Mayor Sonny Wilkinson, 36, drew no opponents in his reelection bid for the Ward 5 City Council seat and automatically retained his position on the council. Registered voters of The Village vote at-large to elect council members.