Norman City Council approved an amendment to an ordinance prohibiting certain activities at public park sites and an ordinance and a contract setting up the employment of the city auditor during its meetings Tuesday evening.
Prohibiting of certain public park activities
The news: Council approved an amendment to an ordinance prohibiting certain activities at public park sites, including discharging firearms and the use of watercrafts.
The amendment originally intended to remove the prohibition of camping within the George M. Sutton Urban Wilderness Park to avoid redundancy as council works on a companion ordinance to address camping at public parks.
If passed, the ordinance would prohibit camping in all publicly owned spaces including George M. Sutton Urban Wilderness Park. Because that ordinance has not yet passed, Ward 6 Councilmember Kyle Steele proposed the Tuesday ordinance be amended to include camping as a prohibited activity. Steele said without the now-approved amendment, camping would have been legal until council approved the ordinance prohibiting camping in all publicly owned spaces.
Council unanimously approved the amendment adding camping back to the list of prohibited activities at George M. Sutton Urban Wilderness Park.
The amendment also expands regulations on watercrafts from the prohibition of boats and canoes to “any watercraft, including boats, canoes, kayaks, rafts, float tubes, paddleboards and similar floating devices” and updates provisions relating to projectile weapons to include the discharge of firearms, bows, slingshots, air guns and similar devices to better align with Oklahoma law and maintain public safety. It also updates the restriction to include all public park sites.
In addition to changes regarding the Sutton Urban Wilderness park, the amendment updates restrictions related to community and neighborhood parks, applying the same restrictions on watercrafts and projectile weapons, and allowing the use of power-driven mobility devices by individuals with disabilities
What they’re saying: Because the approved ordinance was originally a companion to an ordinance prohibiting camping on any public property, confusion remained around the suggestion to reintroduce camping as a prohibited activity.
Ward 3 Councilmember Robert Bruce asked why the approved amendment first included the revision to remove camping as a prohibited activity.
“...There was a reason behind doing that and now we’re going to put it back in?” Bruce asked.
Steele clarified his reasoning.
“If we pass it tonight, and if we pass it under the emergency clause, then tomorrow morning it'll be legal to camp in Sutton Wilderness,” Steele said.
City Attorney Rick Knighton explained that because the park is leased to the city by the state of Oklahoma, the city is required to uphold certain ordinances including the prohibition of camping.
“So it potentially could be a violation of that lease agreement,” Knighton said about the possibility of allowing camping.
The vote: Council unanimously approved the ordinance.
City auditor
The news: Council approved an ordinance and a contract regarding the appointing Deborah Rohrbough as city auditor. The ordinance adopted a compensation structure for the position and the contract set up terms and conditions for employment.
The ordinance set the auditor's salary at $137,622.94 a year with 15% going to a deferred compensation account each year.
The contract detailed an employment agreement between the city and Rohrbough, who is expected to begin Monday.
The city’s former auditor resigned in October 2025 after the city discovered the original job posting was incorrect. At the time, Norman Municipal Code called for the city auditor to be a certified public accountant, while the job posting allowed alternative certifications. In April's election, Norman voters passed a proposition allowing future city auditors to hold other certifications equivalent to a CPA.
What they’re saying: The city auditor's employment agreement outlines the terms of termination. In the event of termination, the city must pay severance equal to all amounts owed to the employee, plus 12 months salary. Additionally, the employee would retain health and dental insurance for up to one year post-termination.
Bruce raised concerns about the duration of the severance pay.
“When I looked at industry standards, when I looked at other municipalities' termination for employment issues, I thought that's a significant benefit the way it's written for termination for performance issues,” Bruce said. “I just want to know why we went that direction.”
Knighton explained the severance conditions are set as an incentive to attract quality applicants.
“A lot of times for somebody who’s hired into this type of position, they’re actually leaving another position that if they had chosen to probably could have stayed there for some significant time period,” Knighton said. “It’s just a little bit of an incentive to get a better quality applicant.”
The vote: Council approved the city auditor's compensation ordinance unanimously, and the employment agreement contract passed 8-1 with Bruce voting against.
Economic development advisory board updates
The news: During the special meeting, council discussed revisions to an ordinance concerning membership of the Economic Development Advisory Board.
Currently, the board has seven members, with four required to have knowledge or experience in areas such as economics, law policy analysis and community development.
Council discussed amending the ordinance to include ward-specific appointments, with each of the city’s eight wards being represented as well as one at-large member.
This would increase board membership from seven members to nine. Seven of these members would be required to hold expertise. In addition, council discussed amending the ordinance to allow expertise to include business ownership in represented wards, even if the member did not live in that ward.
If council were to adopt this plan, all wards would not be represented until October 2027 because current members’ terms would need to expire before new members would be appointed. With this in mind, council members suggested the board temporarily increase to 11 members to sooner represent each ward. Once other board members’ terms expire, the board would return to nine members, fully representing each ward.
With concern that wards may not have applicants for the board, council members discussed the possibility of allowing qualified applicants of other wards to fill vacant positions after a certain amount of time has passed.
The ordinance will appear on the agenda again Nov. 10.
This story was edited by Spencer Windholz and Audrey McClour.
