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Hi everyone! Hoping all of you are handling this heat well and are staying hydrated. 12 days ago, the July Heard on Hurd event happened in Downtown Edmond and saw a historic attendance that evening. Everyone was so excited to hear some new music from a loved local entertainer, Darci Lynne.

A post about the event was shared from our website to our social feeds, and on Facebook at EdmondActive, this post reached over 72,000 people total as of this evening. A week before the event I shared to my page that this event reminder had reached just over 56,000 people and that there may be a few people showing up that Saturday. And the rest is history with approximately 60,000 in attendance on a Saturday night in our sweet Downtown district.

Chloe Beth rocked, as did the Sugar-Free Allstars with littles dancing without abandon at the foot of the stage, then at 8:40 pm Darci took the stage and rocked out like a seasoned professional! NBC even wrote an article about her Heard on Hurd performance, bringing Edmond into the national spotlight in a highly positive way! 

This Saturday evening was special as Darci introduced her new original music and the overwhelming crowd just absolutely loved her performances. If you ever get the chance to see Darci Lynne perform, definitely do so, she is highly entertaining with a terrific stage presence and sense of humor to boot, and she is a stellar musician and talented songwriter, at that. Here are some of our photos from the event: [ngg src=”galleries” ids=”7″ display=”basic_slideshow”]

City Buzz on City Complex Not All Completely True

It’s been almost a year since the We the People group, formerly the belligerent anti masker group, have been persistently complaining and protesting a new city complex development, which construction is about to begin on August 1st, that will include a new city office complex, a new municipal court and a new parking garage on the East corner of Littler and Main St. that will offer 9 extra parking spaces when all is said and done – after 20 months of a loss of 140 parking spaces. 

The group of protestors here in Edmond that have repeatedly made claims that this was developed clandestinely by city planners, city council, and by city staff are wrong. Straight up.  Let me remind those who protest loudly at every single city council meeting, PAY ATTENTION. 

In April of 2016, there was quite a bit going on in Edmond, what with a new AZ resident who was also a new OK real estate agent and his wife having unsuspecting people building them a Facebook group called Everything Edmond, having them visit other groups and mining their members by adding them to this group without their knowledge, at a time when groups were hot at Facebook.

It ended 2 1/2 months later, with a woman credibly accusing this man of sexual assault. After she and a few other women tried to make complaints to the police department, they were told there was nothing the PD could do. I was provided with all of the evidence and was shocked, this man and his wife called an attorney to force me to sign an NDA knowing of my knowledge of events, and to threaten me for these two people. I informed the attorney of everything I had been told and had seen, emailed him proof, and during our phone call, he dismissed himself as these folks’ counsel and directly apologized to me for the nature of his phone call.

The man then tried to sue 7 women, who live and work locally, which ended up as a voluntary dismissal of his claims of defamation of character. He and his wife went directly back to AZ within 2 months of all of these events, where later he was found guilty of two counts of lewd behavior toward two women in AZ. Cue the birth of the All Things Edmond FB group, which also build their group the same way, and with the help here and there from some of this man’s prior supporters.

There are a large number of folks here in Edmond that are not participating in this group because of the liability of the last group and it is filled with some Edmond residents but has many people from outside of the metro participating as well.

As of a few weeks ago, this is now also where you can now find Old Ranger, who is the professed leader of We the People folks here in Edmond, who just so happens to be the gentleman who shows up to complain about this city complex’s development, so consistently it’s like he has an alarm set for every Monday at 5:30 pm. Last week, he was arrested for blocking entry to those he didn’t want to speak at last month’s Oklahoma State Department of Education meeting, which is a violation of the Open Meetings Act, but blocking access to a public meeting is also a misdemeanor. An Enid pastor spoke out for Old Ranger and Ed Moore (currently without a church at the moment), who then this week proceeded to threaten the Oklahoma County DA in a video that is simply appalling, based on the arrest of Old Ranger and failed Edmond mayoral candidate Ed Moore, who also was arrested for the same and two counts of assault for pushing a DPS officer and a teacher.

I didn’t report on these things individually because so many things were happening at once, I just observed and kept thinking “Ok, surely nothing else will happen.”  Big nope on that, so here I am putting it in one place so that people will understand where the misinformation is coming from. 

The above scandal that eventually spawned All Things Edmond started during April of 2016, when we had an election, specifically to approve the extension of a Public Safety Center 1/2 cent sales tax to include road work, upgrades to the public splash pad, and …… wait for it…. new city buildings.

See the video put out by the City. I know this information was never hidden from the public, and I heavily promoted the extension of the sales tax because of the age of the city buildings and the scattered nature of city offices around Downtown Edmond, sharing this information and voting yes to our then 16,000 followers and shared this same video on many occasions.

I have to wonder if the Edmond Sun was still here if the level of misinformation our city has experienced since May of 2020 would have been so easy to attain. Joe Tomlinson on the Edmond beat for NonDoc surely has his hands full for the time being and he’s doing a stellar job of reporting happenings in Edmond city council and civics-related dealings.

To those who are new and believe the untrue statements that the city never told the public about their current city building expansion/upgrades, please know that what you are being told is not true. And to those who are spreading misinformation, shame on you, you lived here then. If you weren’t paying attention, that is on you, and doesn’t give you the right to berate Mayor Davis, or any city council member repeatedly.  I am happy about the development but do not agree with the way the city staff has rolled out their 20-month closure of 140 Downtown Edmond parking spots and streets at Main, Littler and making it hard to enter 1st Street along with road closures on Hurd and west 1st Street – with little communication with business owners at all about their concerns, this was and is no bueno. More on that in a second. Take a look here at the 2016 election city video. Not one thing about what our 1/2 cent tax extension was to be used for was concealed. At all.

 

Downtown Edmond Businesses Worry About Loss of Parking and Future Business

My heart goes out to businesses located in Downtown Edmond right now, and if you are so inclined, for the next 20 months, make sure you stop there at least once a week, intentionally, and enjoy something to eat and drink, and go shopping or try a barre class at The Body Barre. These folks are charged an enormous amount of rent to be located in this district so that you will have quality high-end shops, experiences and restaurants, bars, and dessert spots to enjoy. During the pandemic’s height with closures, it was horrifying for all, to be sure. 

Now, a new gigantic obstacle presents itself 5th Street businesses and restaurants had to endure the same interruption of revenue with the infrastructure construction that occurred just before construction started on Stephenson Park, which is coming along beautifully.

With infrastructure construction that has gone on for a lengthy period, west side artery streets have been blocked due to construction of the new Oxlley Apartments and The Lark, not bad construction, just all scheduled to happen simultaneously, and that is still ongoing. Cue the city’s construction project closing east side artery streets and alleyways FOR 20 MONTHS, due to what I am assuming was/is poor planning or an attitude of “growth hurts, do it anyway” by city staff who won’t speak to anyone about business concerns at all so far as of the publishing of this blog, and you have an absolute nightmarish scenario in which your patience as consumers need to be set on high because none of what is happening is in any way the fault of the businesses. AT ALL. 

City Staff oft are railed on for what feels like everything. I am not sure where a breakdown of communication is being ordered from in not ever speaking to any of the business owners but this is insane to hear from long-time city leaders that this breakdown is happening. To the residents of Edmond, the one thing I can tell you is that these businesses can only handle so much, and with the amazing development happening and improving our downtown district, it would be a shame if one more project hurt the long-desired development, we all hoped for 17 years ago. Start this weekend by supporting all the businesses you can in Downtown Edmond for the decades-long Krazy Days event first started to sell off one season’s inventory to make way for the next! 

Serendipity Market, one of our supporters will be having a store-wide sale Friday and Saturday at their store on 917 E Danforth Rd, right next to Ted’s, and they will be open 10-6 pm! 

Hoping all of you have a great weekend, and don’t forget to support our local businesses so that we don’t lose them! 

Check back next week to see what’s happening around Edmond! 

Sherri