The Public Buildings Authority of Oklahoma County voted to extend the closing date on a real estate purchase with Allen Contracting by two weeks, giving commissioners and community representatives additional time to review a proposed land swap and related details.

The extension applies to a first amendment to a real estate purchase agreement dated March 28, 2025, between the Public Buildings Authority (PBA) and Allen Contracting to move the transaction to May 16, 2025. The motion to extend was made on behalf of Commissioner Lowe, seconded, and approved by the members present.

The vote followed public comment from Nadine Gallagher, president of the Crooked Oak Association of Classroom Teachers and an English teacher, who criticized county officials and said she would use the episode "as an explanation of what is the wrong thing to do." Gallagher told the authority she had read text messages obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and accused named commissioners of breaching trust.

Bradley Richards, a community member who spoke after Gallagher, framed the issue as fiscal as well as local: he said the PBA was created "with the explicit purpose of generating revenue" and said allocated bond funds must be spent "within the next 18 to 24 months," a timeframe he described as "reportedly" true and not certain. Richards urged the authority to consider the revenue potential of an acre-for-acre swap, saying the county could leverage parcels near the jail for income-producing uses and arguing the Crooked Oak site has future value.

Commissioners and staff discussed outstanding questions about the parcels, including which party would have frontage on Eastern Avenue under proposed maps and the acreage split. Transcript discussion referenced the county's purchase price for another property at Fifteenth and Grand as $5,000,000 and said the county is considering approximately $6,000,000 in expenditures at a related site. Participants identified the Allen property as roughly 33 acres, the Crooked Oak parcel as about 21 acres and the county parcel as about 12 acres, though staff said some of those figures and frontage allocations remained conceptual and not finalized.

Commissioners agreed to meet with Crooked Oak representatives and to tour sites as requested; Richards said a tour and a meeting were planned for the seventh. The commissioner on whose behalf the motion was made said he planned to research other options and indicated he intended to propose a motion to rescind the deal at a future meeting, meaning the extension was granted as a courtesy while additional review occurred.

The authority did not adopt any changes to the purchase agreement’s substance at the meeting beyond the two-week extension. Members said the extension was intended to produce written documentation of any agreed-upon timeline (where earlier communications had been verbal), to clarify frontage and acreage on competing maps, and to give the absent commissioner an opportunity to consult with constituents. The meeting record indicates the extension was approved with all members present voting in favor.

Observers and speakers repeatedly tied the land-swap debate to student welfare, with Richards asking rhetorically whether commissioners would consider a student's "peace of mind" when weighing property and financial trade-offs. No final land-swap terms were approved at the meeting; the record shows continuing negotiation and an intent by at least one commissioner to propose rescission at the next meeting.

The item was discussed publicly, followed by the PBA chair’s remarks about the authority's revenue role and a motion to adjourn.