The Norman Transcript

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April 14, 2008

Commissioners approve agreement with tribe

Transcript Staff Writer

Cleveland County Commissioners Monday approved a mutual support road agreement with the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma Indian Reservation Road Inventory.

Commissioner Rod Cleveland said this is the first time the county has been able to take advantage of the mutual road agreement for section line roads.

"This has never been done before," Cleveland said. There is up to $500,000 in the Indian Reserve Roads Inventory for construction and the rebuilding of roads, he said.

There is additional funding for bridges, he added.

"We have to take advantage of every opportunity. The county gets only 20 percent funding for roads and we need to encourage the state to get counties more road funding," Cleveland said.

Ingrid Boone, who lives east and south of the new jail site at 24th Avenue NW and Franklin Road, addressed the board about her concerns with flooding in the Little River. She brought photos of the high water from last Wednesday's rain.

She told commissioners she has spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars cleaning the creek because every time it rains, her house gets flooded. She is concerned about 28 more acres of concrete, she said.

"We joke, you can't spit into it without it running over," Boone said.

She also said, "The city decided 15 years or so ago they would not issue any new building permits between 77 and 12th Avenue ever. Now there is a New Life and Second Chance."

Chairman George Skinner assured that they wouldn't add to the problem.

Commissioner Rusty Sullivan said the county is working with a civil engineering firm, the City of Norman and FEMA and they were "addressing all those concerns."

There were an average of 185 inmates in the county jail for the week of April 1-8 with 15 of those housed at other facilities, Lt. Ed Miller reported to the commissioners. Bookings for the week were up from 165 to 180 for the same week in 2007, he said.

Skinner told Miller the state health department jail inspection last week was the best "we ever had. I congratulate you."

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