After advancing from a three-person field in February, Dianna Hutzel and Trey Kirby will compete to represent Ward 5 of the Norman City Council in a runoff April 7.
Both candidates have been engaged with the city council previously — Kirby ran for the spot on the dais last year, when he lost to Michael Nash, and Hutzel is a frequent attendee and public commenter at council meetings.
Hutzel worked for nearly four decades at Tinker Air Force Base in roles she said required expertise in finance and data analysis. She has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in business. Hutzel has called Norman home since 1977.
“I spent 37 years at Tinker Air Force Base running programs and projects in the millions and billions of dollars, bringing things in on time, at cost and as needed,” she said. “I retired not too long ago, and so I really have the time and to dedicate to [the council] and the passion to focus on it.”
Kirby is a third-generation Normanite who currently works as an electrician and facilities manager alongside running cattle for his family business, Kirby Land and Cattle.
“I’ve lived in Norman my whole life. My parents both grew up here,” Kirby said. “We started Kirby Land and Cattle right around COVID ending because nobody could get food. (…) We worked for two years with multiple state agencies, as well as [Rep. Justin Humphrey (R-Lane)], to get it to where our farm and other farms in four states were able to take food stamps without having to go to, like, a farmer’s market or Walmart or anything like that.”
Ward 5 is by far the largest of Norman’s wards, encompassing more than half of the city by area. It contains Lake Thunderbird, and because Norman’s wards are roughly equal in population size, it is also Norman’s most diffusely-populated ward, giving it a distinct rural character.
Both candidates agreed to speak with NonDoc ahead of the April 7 election. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, with early voting available at six locations from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
Hutzel: ‘Doing nothing is not an option’ on turnpike
Both Hutzel and Kirby acknowledged the city remains limited in its options to prevent the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority from building a turnpike through Ward 5, but both candidates agreed officials should not give up in preventing harm to the ward’s residents.
“Although the city may not control every aspect, I think leadership still matters, and so I think that we advocate and partner at the state level, and we continue to demand transparency. As a Ward 5 representative, I want to ensure the residents are informed and they’re represented,” Hutzel said. “In my mind, doing nothing is not an option. So while we may not drive the train, that doesn’t mean that we can’t affect the trajectory of where it goes.”
Kirby said the council should make it as difficult as possible for OTA to move forward with the project. He pointed out previous efforts have already made the OTA alter their plans, notably when OTA moved the turnpike’s path in response to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation concerns in December 2022.
“Pike Off OTA worked extensively with the Oklahoma Water Resource Board and everybody else, and they said, ‘Hey, you’re too close to a watershed,’ and they moved it over. You know, even if it was only (moved) a mile and a half, it’s taken years, it’s taken a lot of money, and it’s taken a lot of replanning,” Kirby said. “Even though they did move and are going to reset back up, every time we beat them, it sets them back years, makes them redo bonds, makes them have to spend millions more, and maybe they’ll just finally get tired and reroute around us.”
Kirby and Hutzel both said they have already begun advocating for help at the state level with legislators.
Hutzel said she has worked with Sen. Lisa Standridge (R-Norman), whom she noted is currently running SB 80, which would eliminate authorization for 21 currently unbuilt turnpike plans. It would also require more transparency and availability for community input when the OTA wishes to commence construction of new routes.
Kirby is focusing much of his legislative advocacy efforts on eminent domain reform, as he believes it threatens many Ward 5 families. He said he has supported Rep. Annie Menz’s (D-Norman) legislation regarding the practice this session. (In terms of turnpike-related bills that have advanced so far this session, Menz has signed on as a co-author for HB 3453 and HB 1939.)
Hutzel is particularly concerned with the turnpike’s effect on Norman’s watershed. She noted that while most of Norman’s water comes from Lake Thunderbird, many Ward 5 residents use well water, making it all the more important for residents to have protected water sources.
“It’s critically important, and the turnpike is one of those concerns about what impact that will have, given the fact that we haven’t seen an environmental study on what the impacts of the turnpike will be,” she said.
About 90 miles of Oklahoma City and 20 miles of Moore lie within the watershed, she said.
“I think council should work with those municipalities to ensure that they are doing what needs to be done to protect what goes on into the groundwater and onto the surface that runs to our watershed into Lake Thunderbird,” Hutzel said.
Kirby said he and relatives have observed their well water become less safe to drink over the years as the result of what he believes is increased runoff.
“We’ve watched our arsenic levels and our chromium levels climb,” Kirby said.
To limit chemicals in Norman’s water, Kirby would be open to removing fluoride.
“I think it would be fantastic if they would take it out,” he said. “There’s studies that say it leads to several types of cancers, and there’s studies that say that, you know, them studies are wrong. But my thing is, I lost my mom at 53 at cancer. So we haven’t had my mom in 14 years. So anything that they say can lead to cancer, I’m going to be against.”
Kirby: Homelessness is ‘heartbreaking,’ supports proposed shelter
While the candidates have similar stances on protecting Ward 5 from overdevelopment, they diverge on a proposed city-funded homeless shelter also the April 7 ballot. The $8 million shelter would increase bad capacity in the community and would be designed to provide many wraparound services.
Kirby said he supports the ballot item.
“I voted against the homeless (shelter) every time it’s been on the ballot before because they didn’t have a plan. They didn’t have land. They didn’t have a building,” he said. “They have a plan. They have the land. They have a design for the building.”
Hutzel said she believes homeless people in Norman need assistance and care, but she drew on her financial management background to explain her opposition to the ballot measure because of the “basic financial situation in which Norman finds itself.”
“Last year, we had a deficit of $5.8 million. This year, we’re on target to have a deficit of $7 million. We’ve had flat sales tax (revenues) relatively for the last six years, and 65 percent of that is the source of our budget,” she said. “The bond issue is an $8 million shelter bond, and my concern is that it does not include the operating cost to operate that.”
Hutzel said the city should work with nonprofits, such as The Salvation Army and The Mission, since the budget restricts what the city can contribute.
“I definitely believe that the city needs to keep its pulse on what’s going on within the city and work with those organizations,” she said. “The bottom line is that we can’t spend money that we don’t have. Our focus needs to be on the basics that residents count on every day.”
Kirby said relying on nonprofits has been ineffective so far.
“I’ve watched people talk about how we’ve had the Salvation Army for 130 years, and how we’ve had The Mission for a lot of years, and we still have a growing homeless problem,” he said.
He said the city’s current temporary shelter cannot provide adequate, compassionate care.
“When I was talking to the person who’s over at City Care, she mentioned that we currently have a couple cancer patients that are there going through chemo, and we throw them out every morning, because that’s the type of shelter we have,” Kirby said. “Like I said, my mom went through all that, so the thought of us putting cancer patients and people that are missing limbs out on the street on a daily basis when they really need care to help them get the services they need to get into a home is just heartbreaking.”
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Regarding the services residents rely on, Hutzel turned her attention to another service she believes the city should improve: public safety responses in Ward 5. She noted a fully-complimented fire response can take as long as 25 minutes.
“Fire calls are up 70 percent, and we need to do more for that,” she said. “In 2014, the city went to the voters and asked them to pass a safety sales tax to increase the amount of money that could be spent for first responders and needs like that, and one of the bases of that was Fire Station No. 5, which is out by the lake. That was in 2014, and here we are in 2026 today, and that fire station has not been relocated and rebuilt.”
Kirby said one of his passions if elected would be increasing offsets for substations, data centers or other similar developments near people’s homes.
“People move out to the country and they’ve been out here for 60 years, and then all of a sudden we let these companies just come up and build right on their front door, and there’s nothing they can do about it, because we don’t have policies in place making it not OK,” he said.
Hutzel also addressed criticisms she has faced online for not posting her campaign finances to Facebook when the Oklahoma Ethics Commission had no way for local candidates to file their campaign reports. Her reports, along with Kirby’s, are now available on the commission’s official interim system.
“I did not put it out on Facebook because that is really an entertainment venue. It’s not an official venue, and so that’s why,” she said. “As for the donations and everything that I’ve received, I view that as support. That does not, in any way, shape or form, though, mean that those individuals have any more say than anyone else does in what I do. That does not garner them any special treatment or anything like that. I’m still opposed to urban sprawl into Ward 5. I know that there were some concerns about the possibility of influence, but there is no influence. My vote is strictly based upon what it is that the citizens of Ward 5 need.”
Kirby, who posted his reports to Facebook before the Ethics Commission had created an official option, said transparency is paramount to his campaign.
“I believe people should be transparent before they’re elected, while they’re elected and after they’re elected, and my biggest thing is that if you can’t take the time to answer the phone and tell people who’s invested in you before you’re elected, then how can I trust that you’re going to do it after you’re elected?” Kirby said. “That’s why I hand out my phone number anytime somebody asks a question or anytime somebody tries to spread a rumor. I put my phone number online, and that’s my personal phone. That’s been my phone number for 25 years. So they can call it now, they can call it after I’m elected, and I’m going to answer that phone.”
Similarly, Hutzel emphasized that being retired will allow her to be available to residents.
“I really, truly believe that this is a full-time commitment to do this job, because there are so many things that you need to do to prepare for council meetings and then to meet with constituents and meet with the different offices,” she said.
