Hi everyone! After being taken down by Covid, and then contracting the “Kindergarten” stomach flu immediately afterward, I am up and about at almost 100%, and my voice is almost back to full speed. You’ll find the audio of this blog above, should you choose to listen and not read. Also, keep your eyes out this weekend for 2024 Community Favorites Around Edmond ballots to fill in so that voting can start November 1, 2024.

15 years ago, I published my first print magazine, after my husband had done so nationally for 20 years prior in the motocross industry. When the economy had collapsed, our niche in the motocross industry had collapsed, then Congress placed a ban on all things lead for kids 12 and under and our sport stopped overnight. My husband wanted to cover local sports but there was no community ad support in doing so, but since I had been out for 3 months talking with community business owners about EdmondActive, they liked the idea of a community magazine about city happenings and events.

Because I had already branded EdmondActive,  I stuck with it, because socially, politically, and physically active, you get the gist.

I had the only magazine at the time in Edmond 15 years ago tell business owners I was a fitness magazine to try to sway advertisers away using the name of this blog Around Edmond to try to sell ad space.

This pissed me off, excuse the language, so I wrote my very first story about an Edmond 8th grader, Summer Stolz, who was a local pageant winner but also an altruistic volunteer with Infant Crisis, helping littles who were homeless.  The cover was a last minute change 4 days before it went to the printer, and was Summer in her tiara and sash, shot with the back of now Evoke as the background.

Summer and her mom knew of why I wanted to place her on my cover and they both giggled at the idea of seeing a princess with a tiarra on what was claimed as a sports/fitness magazine. It was the beginning of having so much fun around Edmond. Very demure. Very punk. It was awesome.

But the best part, Summer is still in Edmond, as an adult, making a difference in kids’ lives, and thinking about her start and having her support in what I was starting, has come full circle, and it means the world to me. Just like every one of you, who come back to read Around Edmond here at EdmondActive each week.

I tell you this story because this young lady has come full circle, gone to college, went to Arizona to gather her master’s degree, and is now a Speech Pathologist in Edmond Public Schools. I still connect at Instagram occasionally, and had fun watching Summer go through the National Parks this summer running marathons with her mom and dad, who both reside in Edmond.

I do not run my business only for one group or another politically. People are discontinuing reading anything in print and so here I am with EdmondActive online in the same form as I presented in print for 13 years, without the quadrupled print bill due to horrible increases in paper costs. With 40 times the reach because of Facebook and Instagram, if you can even believe that. I understood social media to be the next way we consume information in 2012 and knew print was heading south and quickly.  I am so grateful and so humbled by all of your continued support when things started to change rapidly in 2022.  I started EdmondActive with $50 to my name. I did it because the economic collapse destroyed our 20-year-old national newsstand magazines industry, and it took 9 years for that niche to come back, and it only did so partially. Now I do it because good or bad, I love Edmond, and there is no one who can say that I don’t. If you will have me, I would love to do what I do for a living until I am 90.

City’s GO Bond on shaky ground with residents

As this economic downturn has progressed, it is a recession like I’ve never experienced before in my life. Inflation is stressing consumers and businesses alike. Homeowner’s insurance is causing escrow accounts to increase mortgages, and the increased sales prices of homes over the last 3 years has caused property taxes to skyrocket by the OK Treasurers office, again increasing everyone’s mortgages. 

In October 2022, in what seemed a surprise vote by City Council, an $84 million dollar city complex was approved, to the chagrin of many residents.  Then, the school bond was approved, further increasing property taxes, and stress of increased summer Edmond utility bills, and further increase of inflationary prices on everyday goods and services. This summer Edmond city employees picked a group of people from Edmond’s business community, and they created a group of projects as the subject of a General Obligation bond, to be paid over 10 years with a 14% or more increase to residents’ property taxes.

The projects are not bad, but the timing is just tone deaf, in my opinion with such a recession as we have going at this point in time.

At a local Facebook group, All Things Edmond, I have yet to see one resident that is remotely interested in this GO Bond in this group, except for a lawyer who is trying to shoot down criticism by residents. Bizarrely, another group in favor of the GO Bond claimed they hadn’t seen any negative responses, but that is because this person left the group like 9 months ago. So, there is that.

There is a last meeting to discuss the matter at the Edmond Senior Citizens Center at Mitch Park on October 8th from 5 to 7 pm.

I am not here to tell you how to vote. There are very noteworthy projects listed as subject to this bond. You will have 3 questions on your November 5th ballot. If you vote yes on even one, the GO Bond will go through. If you vote no on all three, the GO Bond will fail. 

For a rundown, Blake Douglas at NonDoc did a fantastic write up here:

Today, visit Downtown Edmond’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to vote for your favorite Downtown Edmond Scarecrows by clicking the banner on the top of the page. My suggestion is to hop in your car, grab some lunch or dinner, then walk around the district personally viewing the scarecrows to see the detail put in then head over and “like” your favorites as your vote. Voting lasts until October 31st.

On a last note for this week, the dockworkers strike is over. My husband and I went to Costco to buy some toilet paper, because we needed some, and all of you wiped out Costco of toilet paper, just as happened March 15th with Covid. Then we headed to Neighborhood Walmart on Western, and boom, it was almost gone, too. Let them restock…

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continued support of my baby EdmondActive, which is not my hobby but my small business, where my enthusiasm is what sets what I do apart from others, because of my genuine love of Edmond. That is something palpable, not just words on a page.

Have a fun weekend and stop by next week to see what’s happening around Edmond! And check out our FB, Threads, and Instagram and if you can stomach it, X, by clicking the buttons above. If you have anything you’d like me to share next week, send it over to Sherrih@Edmondactive.com .

Sherri