Oklahoma City — During the citizens-to-be-heard portion of Wednesday’s council meeting, property manager Katie Copas said she was wrongly cited by code enforcement while acting under the direction of her employer and asked the council to expunge remaining charges and review enforcement procedures.
Copas said she had been cited 13 times in her name while managing property operations at a distressed low-income housing community and that 10 of those citations were expunged on June 17 after she retained counsel. She said three citations remained on her record and that the process forced her to resign. "It was a denial [of] due process, a violation of my rights under the Fourteenth Amendment," she told the council.
Why it matters: Copas said the citations were issued to her personally rather than to the legal owner or management company, which she said harmed her employment and reputation. She urged the council to expunge the remaining citations and to change issuance practices so on-site employees are not personally targeted for code violations that the legal owner might be responsible for correcting.
What Copas said on the record: She provided a timeline: first citation on Sept. 20, 2024; over the subsequent months she said many citations were later expunged, staff and outside counsel changes occurred within city enforcement, and she retained private counsel in May. She asked four specific questions of the council about citation practices and asked that the remaining citations be expunged rather than merely dismissed.
Outcome and next steps: The matter was presented as public comment; no vote or formal council action was recorded at the meeting. Copas asked the council to act; the transcript does not record a council commitment to specific follow-up steps during the session.
Ending note: Copas framed her experience as a denial of due process and referenced 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in describing the legal protections she said were implicated.