Community Development Director Lisa Beeman will retire effective Nov. 1 after 30 years of service with the City of Bartlesville. One of the City’s most well-known and popular leaders, Beeman has been responsible for the oversight of some of the largest and most instantly recognizable projects in the Bartlesville community. Among them are:
- Securing easements for the future extension of Pathfinder Parkway
- Implementing the addition of Sooner Pool slides to the recent renovation project
- Spearheading the Sooner Park Play Tower restoration project
- Implementing the recent playground and park equipment replacements
- Planning for ball field and court development and park renovations
- Securing overall funding for park and recreational improvements via General Obligation (GO) bonds and Capital Improvement Project (CIP) funds
- Establishing the City’s electronic permit application process
- Securing funding and contracting for the City’s Geographic Information System
- Helping to establish Lime and Bird scooter services in Bartlesville
- Development of the Lee Lake Recreational Complex
- Securing grant funds that resulted in the implementation of CityRide, the City’s public transit system
Beeman talked about her life and career during a recent interview with City Beat.
Tell us about your early life. Where did you grow up and attend school?
I grew up in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, which is a town of about 900 people outside Emporia, Kansas. I graduated high school there in 1978.
Where did you go to college and what did you study?
I went to Emporia State University and received a bachelor’s in secondary education. I graduated from there in 1982. I taught high school for two years and then went to the University of Kansas and received a master’s degree in Urban Planning.
What other positions did you hold before joining the City of Bartlesville?
I taught junior high and high school English and Social Sciences, which included American history, sociology, government, world history, and Kansas history. After I got my degree in Urban Planning, I worked for the City of Grandview, Missouri, for about five years, and then I worked for Cobb County, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta, for two years.
I ultimately went back to Kansas City and I worked for Johnson County, Kansas, for several years and then worked for a private company doing airport consulting, layout plans and land use plans for airports.
What made you decide to apply for a job with the City, and what positions have you held since starting in 1992?
I was visiting friends who lived in Bartlesville, and I read the front page of the newspaper, which said that the guy before me, Pat Treadway, had resigned to work for the City of Tulsa. I thought, during our visit, ‘This is kind of a nice little town.’ My friends lived on Cherokee Avenue, and I thought, ‘What a great little neighborhood this is and what a neat little downtown.’ So I thought I would just apply for the job — you know, maybe I’ll get it. And I did.
That was in 1992. What positions have you held since then?
I started as the Planning Director, a title that was later changed to Community Development Director. At that time, I had everything that is under me now — Code Enforcement, Building Inspections, and Permitting — and for a while I had Engineering under me as well. Then after I had hired Terry (Lauritsen) and taught him everything he knows, I gave him the Engineering Department. (Lauritsen currently serves as Water Utilities Director. Micah Siemers serves as Engineering Director.)
I also had the Parks and Recreation Director title for a while, but they moved the maintenance portion of that role from under me and gave it to Keith (Henry, Public Works director). So there really was no Parks and Recreation Director any longer, but I was in charge of park planning, which I liked. That was fun.
As community development director, you initiated and have had oversight of several significant and popular projects in Bartlesville. Can you tell us about some of those?
I think some of the most consequential and personally rewarding work I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in is the development of all new construction and land use planning in Bartlesville. There’s not a lot you can do in cases of private development — you can’t really regulate aesthetics and things like that — but I am proud of the work I’ve done that helped set a precedent in land use development.
For instance, when I came to Bartlesville, you could have gravel parking lots for commercial development, so I proposed that we change an ordinance to require asphalt or concrete, as well as a requirement that trees be planted. So I am proud of having made those changes on the private development side, to ensure that the aesthetics of the exterior included landscaping and trees and street trees and sidewalks.
I also recommended the Tax Increment Finance districts, recognizing that something had to happen downtown. Downtown wasn’t going to just change on its own. So I proposed the idea to do TIFs for downtown and helped get those going. And then, of course, I did the TIF for the new housing when we needed new housing in town. Beeman won the Frank Phillips Award for economic development — the only woman to ever win the award — in recognition of the TIF program.
What about some of the projects that are more instantly recognizable by the public?
I think the more popular projects were those I initiated as the City’s park planner. When Ed (Gordon, former city manager) wanted to tear down the Sooner Park Play Tower, I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me tell you the history of that. It’s a really cool thing, and we need to save it.’ I got the council to put money toward it and then I did some fundraising, which I don’t like to do. But I did it to get some money to restore the tower.
I also worked extensively on helping to get CityRide established, which is, of course, the City’s public transportation system. This was several years ago, when we realized some form of public transportation needed to happen here. So I secured a grant and the City began working with Cimarron Transit and (Cimarron Transit System Transit Director) Laura Corff to run that program for us.
And I’m very proud that I was able to help secure the funding to renovate Frontier Pool, which was not much of a pool at the time. It was actually a diving pool that Phillips had built. And, more recently, I had a hand in getting the Sooner Park Pool slides, which is a great project that will help generate more interest in that pool.
So I think park improvements are the projects that have been most impactful and visible to the public. But equally important, although certainly not as noticeable, is the work I’ve done to help implement sidewalk construction throughout the city. More sidewalks will provide more walkability in our community, which is not only important from a planning and development perspective, but also as a practical matter for the public who depend on them to get from Point A to Point B. Additionally, I think some of things that happened downtown, while I didn’t ‘do’ them and they’re not ‘mine,’ I did help to provide oversight for that development and kind of help push for those things to happen.
What do you feel are your greatest accomplishments as community development director?
I think we’ve tried to place a greater emphasis on ‘built environment’ and quality development. I’ve been fortunate to have been part of a team that has worked hard to improve the built environment to be something the community is proud of.
Do you have any regrets or things you wish you had done differently?
I regret that I wasn’t able to get the sidewalk construction program to a stronger level than it currently is. It really is that important to a community. My hope is that the next community development director will move that further along, at a faster pace.
What has been the best thing about being the community development director or working for the City of Bartlesville?
That I was part of a community. You know, working in bigger cities, like I had done before, you’re never really part of the community. Sometimes that’s a bonus and sometimes it’s a pain, but I’ve always felt like I could work here and live here, and truly be a part of the community. When I was a consultant, I would do the job in front of me and never really see those projects through to fruition, but being here, I could see the things that we started through to the finished product. Sometimes in planning and development you might not see tangible results for 10 years — like the work that’s been done downtown, for instance. We’ve been working on that for 20 years, and we now can see the fruits of that labor. So the best thing is being able to be in the community and be a part of it and see what happens with the work that we do.
What has been the most challenging thing about being community development director?
It’s that people tend to think I don’t like them, or I’m against the things that they want to do — like baseball or softball or soccer — because part of my job is to enforce the rules.
I’ve always believed that it was most important for me to be fair, flexible, and honest. And so, I think that’s the challenging thing, trying to find the gray and to try to do that in a way that you can be flexible and help people get what they want done and not be so rigid that you only see the rule and you say, ‘Nope, can’t do that.’ So the most challenging thing was trying to find a way to get to “Yes,” and do that in a way that didn’t compromise the spirit and the intent of the law but rather helped people accomplish things that were good for the community, or maybe even that just weren’t ‘bad’ for it. It has been challenging.
What challenges do think Bartlesville and local government face going into future?
There are more things now that people think government should be involved in, which typically aren’t things we would get involved in before. Like homelessness, for instance, and child care — making sure that we have the things that people need in order to live here. An example of this is that, in the past, we didn’t get involved in retail development. We had economic development involved in getting people jobs here, but over the years we’ve seen that the culture, the economy has changed in such a way that people can choose where they live, and so now the City is involved in those things that benefit the community and help make it a community of quality, where people want to live and choose to live. They don’t live here because they necessarily have to, but because they choose to live here. We have a really good quality of life in Bartlesville, and parks and recreation, obviously, is part of that.
What will you miss the most?
I’ll miss the comradery of the employees. I love the department directors, and I love being a part of that team. I really, really like that. It makes me happy that I can make an impact and help make things better in Bartlesville and do it with people I love and respect.
What does the future hold for you? Do you have any plans after retirement?
I plan to retire, probably stay around Bartlesville. I plan to spend a lot of time with my son, Kyle, his wife Whitney, and my granddaughter, Kit, who live in Dallas. But I also plan to volunteer for some organizations. I would like to not sit on any boards or be involved in politics. If I can stay out of all of that, that would be really nice. I’d like just to be a citizen.
If you could sum up your leadership and experience with the City in just a few sentences, what would you say?
I would say I’ve learned a lot — and changed a lot — during my 30 years here. I generally believe that tomorrow will be better than today, that people are more good than bad, that difficult meetings go better with a tray of chocolates, that you should always treat people the way you want to be treated — especially when dealing with the public — and that as public servants, we should always approach matters with an attitude of ‘how to get to Yes’ and, failing that, there is an art to saying No. I am very proud of the work that I have done in these 30 years and feel that when I am done, I will leave this place better than how I found it.