City focusing on turnpike, hospital needs
If you were having Coffee with the City last week, you were given a preview of the topics for Mayor Karl Nail’s annual State of the City luncheon with the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce.
The luncheon will be from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Newcastle Library Community Room. Attendees can RSVP online at [email protected].
Nail, who helped City officials host the Coffee with the City, is also the featured presenter at the State of the City.
During the Coffee, Nail said, “We try to do things generationally here. We started out as community that didn’t have any money, and we didn’t have any sales tax, and we were a farming community. We became a bedroom community and we had people moving out here. We needed infrastructure, and we had no money to build it.”
Nail said Newcastle had a lot of two-inch and four-inch water lines, and was always playing catch up while also addressing the needs of not just current residents, but for those 20-40 years into the future.
He said when the City does projects, they take longer to get them done, and build bigger than what is needed currently, and maybe what is needed 10-15 years from now.
“We want to do it right. We want to spend money right for the citizens of Newcastle. Because of that we don’t get as much done as fast as we would like to get it done, but rest assured, we have plans that we have in place for well after I am dead and gone,” Nail said.
He said the City is doing everything it can to plan the community out judiciously to address the coming growth.
With that, Nail noted the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority expansion and the Chickasaw Nation hospital.
Nail said the OTA is getting ready to make offers to the affected area landowners, and the OTA will begin construction on some areas CITY on page 3 in the “very near future.” He said they would begin with the bridge and the areas across the Canadian River. The OTA’s timeline is to have the corridor open is September 2027.
CITY: OTA timeline to have turnpike open September 2027
He said the hospital was held up for about six months, and would be coming up out of the ground in about 14-15 months if they stay on schedule.
Nail said, “That got delayed. They had intended to get their agreement with Indian Healthcare Services last June, but it was delayed until December.”
He said that put them behind on their original timeline about six or seven months.
The City has been meeting with the Chickasaw Nation to discuss and plan out huge utility projects, water and sewer and road projects.
“You will see a lot of stuff happening over the next year and a half on that project,” Nail said.
There are a lot of sales tax generators that are ready to develop in our community.
He said this is a goal of the City in order to continue providing the projects that provide quality of life for the citizens of Newcastle.
Because of the projects for the turnpike and the hospital, the City is delaying other projects it would like to do for a couple of years.
He said the City is very busy with these projects, and even though you don’t see the activity, rest assured they are diligently working.
Nail said, “We are planning for a bright future for the City of Newcastle. We want people to be excited about the future. I know there’s a lot of apprehension because of the unknowns. It’s not what a lot of people who have lived here for a good long while have wanted, maybe.
“It’s not what people who moved out here thought was going to happen to Newcastle when they moved to get out of the City.
“But the things that we are facing that we cannot control are going to fundamentally change the City. We just have to keep our identity the best we can and best prepare for it that we can. We are going to do our dead-level best that we are going to have the best community moving forward no matter what.”
