Edmond planning commission recommends city resiliency action plan to council, 3-1

The Edmond Planning Commission on April 22, 2025, voted 3-1 to recommend the City of Edmond Resiliency Action Plan and its online dashboard to the City Council.

City planning staff said the one-year project, produced with consultant Lotus Engineering and Sustainability, focuses on operations and fiscal resilience as well as environmental and public-health objectives and is organized into six sectors with about 120 strategies grouped under “adopt,” “act” and “advocate.” If the council approves the plan, staff intend to publish the dashboard on the city website and keep metrics updated in near real time.

Mr. Bridal, city planning staff, told commissioners the project began last summer and was conducted with several staff focus groups and external interviews, including the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG) and the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO). He said the plan is a digital-first document intended to be updated regularly and to show metrics tied to each strategy, including a greenhouse gas inventory that staff update every five years.

Commission discussion focused on funding and implementation. When a commissioner asked whether the commission was approving the plan or only recommending it, Mr. Bridal replied, “You’re voting to recommending to city council that the plan be approved.” He said the plan is not a capital improvement plan with line-item project costs; rather, staff and elected officials could use it to prioritize projects, align the budget to strategies, and pursue outside grant funding as opportunities arise. Mr. Bridal also noted that several strategies are already funded or embedded in ongoing work, including updates to engineering standards and the city’s intelligent transportation system (ITS).

Staff highlighted regional air-quality work conducted by ACOG as part of the plan’s background. The presentation noted ACOG’s nonattainment study under the Clean Air Act and described the resiliency plan as including cost-avoidance elements tied to air-quality and transportation actions.

The draft plan incorporates existing local studies and policies, including the city comprehensive plan, the East Edmond study, and prior green-infrastructure work. Lotus’s dashboard, staff said, links directly to source documents and federal or state program pages where relevant and is intended to be a public-facing resource.

Immediate next steps recorded in the meeting: the consultant team will present the plan to the City Council the week after the planning commission meeting; if council approves, staff expect to publish the dashboard soon afterward. The planning commission’s action on April 22 was a recommendation to council; the commission set no binding citywide funding allocations as part of its vote.

The motion to recommend the plan to the City Council carried 3-1. The dissenting vote was recorded but individual commissioner vote names were not recorded in the transcript.

The commission heard no public comments on the item during the April 22 meeting.

Phil Jones, identified in the presentation as the city’s sustainability planner and the project manager for the initiative, was referenced as the staff lead who coordinated with the consultant team and will help maintain the dashboard and follow up on strategies.

The plan and its dashboard are scheduled for a City Council presentation on April 28, 2025; publication of the online dashboard is contingent on council approval.