The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Norman Fraternal Order of the Police, deciding the Norman City Council violated the state Open Meeting Act in its June 16 meeting.
In that meeting, Norman City Council members voted to cut $865,000 from a proposed increase to the Norman Police Department’s budget. In December 2020, Carter County Associate Judge Thomas K. Baldwin ruled the council violated the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act because the language used in the notice released prior to the meeting was “deceptively worded” and “materially obscured” the meeting’s purpose, not indicated clearly the action the council would take.
The city then appealed to the State Supreme Court, which sided with the prior ruling.
Adam Brooks, who represents the Norman FOP, sent the following statement from FOP president Robert Wasoski in an email to a Daily editor:
“Our members are dedicated to protecting the city every day, and our organization fights to ensure they have the necessary resources to do the job properly,” Wasoski wrote. “We were shocked when some members of the City Council made it obvious they were so eager to cut public safety budgets they couldn’t even follow the rules. But every court which has reviewed this issue has been clear – politicians are not above the law.”
Norman City Manager Darrel Pyle wrote in an email the city staff is reviewing the ruling that will impact every public entity operating under the direction of the Open Meeitings Act. He wrote “there is no Court with whom we could appeal” and the City of Norman “will comply with the direction of the Court.”
Although the cuts were considered invalid, they will not be automatically returned to the Norman Police Department's budget for the current fiscal year, city spokesperson Annahlyse Meyer told the Norman Transcript.
"Council will need to ratify the budget from last year for this year's fiscal budget year document," Meyer said in the Transcript article. In terms of how this impacts our budget process moving forward and how it impacts how we agendize things, we are reviewing that and we will comply with the supreme court's ruling."
Former Ward 5 Norman City Councilmember Sereta Wilson, who was involved with the original meeting and stepped down from her position in July 2020, said the ruling is cause for concern for “every decision that’s ever been made on the council.”
“I would push our city to push that up beyond the Oklahoma State Supreme Court,” Wilson said. “That whole three years that was common practice to amend a budget like that. If they’re saying we need to do it differently, that’s going to have an effect statewide. All municipalities amend their budgets often.”
Wilson said she is supportive of the legal system’s ability to allow citizens to “challenge the way things are done,” despite disagreeing with the ruling.
“I happen to think they’re wrong in this instance, but this is how we get the clarification. I would ask our citizens to question the reach of the (Fraternal Order of Police),” Wilson said.
Ward 6 Councilmember Elizabeth Foreman wrote in a Facebook message that although the adoption vote pre-dated her time on council, the decision has been in the forefront of her nine-month tenure.
“I pray now that Council, NPD and the community can move on from this together and continue the resolve to make sure that every resident in Norman feels safe.”
The Daily reached out to Ward 3 Councilmember-elect Kelly Lynn, and this article will be updated with his comments.
Editor's note: This article was updated at 6:26 p.m. April 13 to include comments from Norman City Manager Darrel Pyle and Ward 6 City Councilmember Elizabeth Foreman.
This article was also updated at 8:53 a.m. to reflect that Adam Brooks is a representative of Norman's FOP.
