Broken Arrow City Manager shares updates on 2026 bond, library plans

Broken Arrow City Manager Michael Spurgeon says the city’s 2026 general obligation bond process is moving forward with community input, public hearings, and a possible new library project in South Broken Arrow.

Q: What have you learned from community feedback about the 2026 bond issue?

Michael Spurgeon: “Mayor Wempe and the Broken Arrow City Council made it very clear when we started this initiative last year that they once again wanted to be community-driven. And so we’ve done that through a multitude of surveys asking folks what their opinion was about public safety, streets and roads, parks and recreation, and so forth. Also, the Tulsa City-County Library potential partnership.”

Q: How will the public be involved going forward?

Michael Spurgeon: “It all starts tomorrow night (Tuesday) when the council actually has a work session and they’re going to be hearing the recommendation from the Citizen Steering Committee what those priorities are.”

Michael Spurgeon: “The Citizens Steering Committee has been meeting since early this year looking at all the projects — streets, roads, parks, public safety, fire stations, training center, city facilities, the library potential partnership — trying to formulate what they believe those priorities are, and they’re going to present that tomorrow night.”

Michael Spurgeon: “We have the three public hearings set up for the citizens in different parts of town. That’s going to be on August 28th, September 3rd and September 25th. That’s where the folks can come to one or all three of those public forums and actually share their views on all the projects that we’ve come up with so far.”

Q: What is the proposal for the South Broken Arrow library?

Michael Spurgeon: “We met with Kim Johnson, Executive Director, and a part of their committee last October, and they shared with us that they wanted to replace the South Broken Arrow Library, which is a part of their 24 or 25-library system, and I think it’s fourth or fifth in terms of usage. It’s huge for homeschool, and they talked about the $12 million project and the funds they needed from the community to help, whether raise it publicly or privately.”

Michael Spurgeon: “I’m a strong supporter of the library. The mayor and council absolutely said we want the voters to actually weigh in on this. So there’s a survey going on right now about what they want to support and at what level. And we should have those results back in about a week and a half to two weeks.”

Michael Spurgeon: “Could it be a mixed use? That’s certainly on the table. That’s going to have to be something that we agree and the library agrees to, but whatever’s best. But we want to make sure we have a great facility in South Broken Arrow, which is an area that’s exploding right now. And so having a new library, I think that would really kind of top everything off of what’s happening down in the south part of our city.”