Let's talk about the east end of downtown

[USRufnex]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y179/rico2/soccerthis.jpg      ........Right click... printing is started.... 35%... 55%... 85%... 99%... printing complete.... set as desktop item... []

Actually Rico, I thought your opinion was that no stadium should be built in the Blue Dome area at all... you argued last year that it would turn downtown Tulsa into one big "sports complex."  Back in December 2005, this was "Tubby's soccer stadium."  Since this project pre-dates Mayor Taylor, the current plans for the East End can just as easily be characterized as "Tubby's baseball stadium."  

I guessed you to be either first or second generation hispanic, but wouldn't venture to assume where you grew up.  From what you say, I'm guessing you did not grow up in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Dom. Repub. or Cuba...  

Everyone's entitled to their opinions, especially me.  []  But I distinctly remember a very honest question you asked last year which I will now paraphrase since I can't look up your original post:

"How many people will pay $200,000 to buy condos down the street from a stadium?"

I am curious to find out what you mean when you say: "My opinion of a Baseball field over a Soccer field has nothing to do with the sport. It has everything to do with the culture that either would create."

Please explain the differences between minor-league baseball "culture" and major league soccer "culture" and what each culture would "create."

[AVERAGE JOE]

Since Ruf can't take anything I post any way but personally, I'll just address everyone else and let him do this thing. I'll also be more brief than him.

Nobody is talking about sales taxes, 3rd penny or otherwise, for a soccer complex. This is a favorite tactic of his -- crap on an idea by introducing something unpopular like a sales tax, but he's the only one saying it.

As far as deleting threads, I haven't seen any of that. All our back-and-forth crap is still out there last I checked.

Heaven forbid someone look at a soccer-stadium/housing project and decide it's too risky, but that a similar project with a baseball park for the anchor is a better fit for Tulsa. You'll be accused of "half-truths" and other unpleasant things.

Back to the ORIGINAL point of this thread, I hope that GDP pulls this off in the near future. I think the Drillers would be very successful downtown for decades to come.

[USRufnex]

I don't take it personally... you're the one who got your panties in a wad last summer when I implied you'd be more likely to support a stand-alone baseball park financed by local sales taxes over Global's proposed soccer stadium/mixed-use TIF project for the East Village/East End...

Let me jog your memory on the 3rd penny...
http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0406/322273.html

quote:So, here's the plan. It calls for a 3-point-8 million dollar soccer complex near 56th Street North and Highway 75. The city is in negotiations to purchase 75 acres.

Some of the money would come from Vision 2025 dollars and the remainder from the third penny sales tax extension. The soccer complex would be the largest one around.

"The magic number is 16," says Greg Warren with Tulsa Parks. "16 is the number when you're looking for a national tourney. They come to look for a soccer complex of 16 or more. We'd like to get 32, but right now we're focusing on 16."

There are additional plans that call for a new motorcross trail and a skate park. But, the news is the soccer complex -- one that's much larger than the ones now.

The 3rd penny tax extension passed last spring...

You had no problems a year ago diverting a thread from discussing a reasonable project initially proposed for a mixed-use/soccer stadium to discussions about baseball......

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2680
(unless my computer's messing up, it looks like all the responses to that thread have been deleted)

Gee, AJ... ain't payback a bee-ahtch!  [:O]

[AVERAGE JOE]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

I don't take it personally... you're the one who got your panties in a wad last summer when I implied you'd be more likely to support a stand-alone baseball park financed by local sales taxes over Global's proposed soccer stadium/mixed-use TIF project for the East Village/East End...

My panties were in a wad because you falsely attributed a position to me. Not to mention that your implication was wrong - I was not and AM NOT in favor of what you outlined above.

And true to form, the first time that idea saw the light of day, it came from you... but you attributed it as my position. That's dirty pool, and THAT'S what set me off.

[USRufnex]

I understand you will NEVER admit to that position.

But I still believe it's true.

I believe to this day that you'd support a baseball stadium funded by sales taxes in the "East End" over ANY possible TIF for a multi-use/soccer stadium there, including the mixed-use/retail/residential development itself...

Just like when Rico suggested Mohawk Park as an alternative location for a soccer stadium, I countered with the fact that any such stadium would need to be financed by sales taxes...

It's called "calling your bluff."

Methinks the ladies...... [:O]

And after all the off-the-wall justifications I've read from you over the course of months comparing a 20,000 soccer/football stadium to the friggin' 100,000 seat Rose Bowl or Soldier Field..... then comparing a minor league ballpark to Wrigley Field, then suggesting a minor league ballpark could be multi-use, just like the Arizona Cardinals multi-use stadium???

The Drillers just CAN'T prefer a location on the river!.... cuz you said so.... and a stadium with MLS as the primary tenant can't possibly succeed in the East End and needs to be built next to a couple of dozen youth soccer fields... because you said so...

80% of the investment is in the mixed-use/retail/residential East End... yet last year this was ALL about soccer... a huge referendum on what should have been a minor part of a larger project that would have brought MLS to Tulsa......

The last offer for hockey's Pittsburgh Penguins was $175 million.... as well as an additional $290 million to build the Penguins a new arena... a Tulsa MLS team woulda cost less than ONE-TENTH that ($10 million in 2002... $15 million in 2005)...... the new arena will cost around $150 million.... the stadium that was originally part of Global's plans woulda cost half that...

Yeah, vision??  If any of Tulsa's downtown urban activists ever showed anything that remotely resembled vision for downtown Tulsa, I'd be shocked.

[AVERAGE JOE]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

I understand you will NEVER admit to that position.

But I still believe it's true.

You can believe whatever you want up to and including the Easter Bunny.

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

I believe to this day that you'd support a baseball stadium funded by sales taxes in the "East End" over ANY possible TIF for a multi-use/soccer stadium there, including the mixed-use/retail/residential development itself...

You are wrong.

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

It's called "calling your bluff."

It's call a load of bullschmidt.

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

The Drillers just CAN'T prefer a location on the river!.... cuz you said so.... and a stadium with MLS as the primary tenant can't possibly succeed in the East End and needs to be built next to a couple of dozen youth soccer fields... because you said so...

OH MY GOD, STOP THE PRESSES -- I HAD AN OPINION!! Holy crap, that's never happened in the entire history of the internet. Gee, so friggin' sorry my opinions don't fall lockstep with yours. How on earth do you get through the day? All that whining must be what gets you through.

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

And after all the off-the-wall justifications I've read from you over the course of months comparing a 20,000 soccer/football stadium to the friggin' 100,000 seat Rose Bowl or Soldier Field..... then comparing a minor league ballpark to Wrigley Field, then suggesting a minor league ballpark could be multi-use, just like the Arizona Cardinals multi-use stadium???

There you go AGAIN! Those are NOT my positions. QUIT MISREPRESENTING MY POSITION, you f*cking liar. Liar, liar, liar, filthy, stinking, pondscum sucking LIAR.

I just did a search of the forum for my username and Rose Bowl, Soldier Field, Wrigley Field and Arizona Cardinals between 1/1/2003 and today AND GOT NO MATCHING RESULTS FOR ANY OF THOSE COMBINATIONS. YOU ARE A FILTHY LIAR.

Why would I compare a 20,000 soccer stadium to the Rose Bowl or Solider Field?? That doesn't make sense. Wait, I didn't say that. YOU DID and attributed it as my position YOU PATHETIC LIAR.

And of course a minor league ballpark is NOT Wrigley Field. Nobody is that stupid, so that's a lousy lie even for a pathological LIAR like yourself.

And the Arizona Cardinals stadium wasn't even OPEN when we had our debates. I NEVER compared a minor league baseball park to the Arizona Cardinals new stadium. LIAR LIAR LIAR.

You are beyond unethical at this point. You've reached total slime level with this crap. Quit lying and attributing made-up positions to your opponents. That's beyond pathetic. You have no honor, no shame, no integrity. Engage in an honest debate or get out of here.

The site admins will be getting a private message about you and your antics. You've crossed the line.

[USRufnex]

Yawn.

I challenge the administrators of this site to find the very first post you made WITHIN MINUTES of a sticky thread condemning the original mixed-use/stadium plan for 40 acres of development and 20 acres for stadium.... the original thread that pretended to be the views of TulsaNow...

Those responses have all been erased... and you know it.

Very first post.... you were the first to play your little game... that's where TulsaNow the organization will find how you connected a 20k capacity soccer stadium to the friggin' Rose Bowl... and although you didn't bring up the comparison of the Arizona Cardinals' stadium to a possible East Village stadium... you completely agreed with/pushed the comparison last spring/summer...

I posted a link to the original thread at bigsoccer.com... which contributed to the TulsaNow thread having the biggest number of hits of any thread in the forum's short history... hundreds of soccer fans from all across the country assumed the Tulsa Now organization had taken a stand AGAINST the proposed mixed-use project/stadium...

This site loses credibility when you go cryin' to mama...

YOU knew what was going on... I didn't ....

I was ACCUSED over the past year of being...

A)  Greg Jennings (or clone thereof...)
B)  A paid political hack of former mayor LaFortune.
C)  A person who was being paid off by Global Development Partners.
D)  A person who stands to gain financially by an East Village/East End project...
E)  An outsider from Illinois who has no right to express his opinions...
F)  Tulsa Soccer Club founder and former NY Cosmos' player Keith Eddy
G)  All of the above.

I have never been the subject of so many accusations until I started posting my opinions/facts on THIS site.

If the administrators of this site could RETURN the deleted posts, I can easily prove my case... and quote ALL AJ's disengenous posts...

I have 5 years worth of posts you can check on bigsoccer.com... I have NEVER pretended to be anything other than I am...

After I received an apology from RM about last year's vendetta against the East End project .... BEFORE ANYBODY KNEW THE DETAILS... I realized that the people I belittled only a few months ago may be completely correct...

David Arnett and Michael Bates have very good points... there ARE hidden agendas on this site...

The best way to HIDE your agenda is to pretend to be open-minded while maintaining your true agenda as a PARTISAN POLITICAL HACK...

This is the only thing I can't accuse you of... AJ... it's your allies that backed you up in the pursuit of PARTISAN POLITICAL HACKERY...

And if you think I'm some sort of pro-LaFortune political operative, consider this...

MY POSTS from summer 2002 are still viewable...

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3135

If you can suffer through a bizarre comparison of Tulsa to "Daisy Duke," consider the above thread as the views of mostly ex-Tulsans who relocated but never HATED Tulsa...

quote: As a summer time citizen of Tulsa when I come back from KU and the Wizards, I was quite astonished to read John Klein writing a headline type article pushing for MLS to come to Tulsa, for Tulsa to build a stadium for a team. But once I figured out that the whole gist was "Hey, let's not let those OKC bastards steal something we've been turning down for four years", I knew that Tulsa would never have a team. We had some great plans to revitalize downtown, but they got voted down. A key component of those plans? A soccer specific or mostly soccer specific stadium, 'bout 20k seats or so. But of course that gets voted down, so, I say as a proud Tulsa citizen, we don't deserve MLS.

quote:Tulsa is Frasier, OKC is Fear Factor; Tulsa is REM, OKC is REO; Tulsa is sushi, OKC is catfish; Tulsa is brilliant but inept, OKC is dumb as a bag of hammers but wealthy.

The above thread has more intense/heartfelt debate over the future of Tulsa (circa 2002) than most all the posts/threads I've read on this site over the past year or so...

Please read the above linked bigsoccer.com thread from 2002...

[Rico]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

Yawn.

I challenge the administrators of this site to find the very first post you made WITHIN MINUTES of a sticky thread condemning the original mixed-use/stadium plan for 40 acres of development and 20 acres for stadium.... the original thread that pretended to be the views of TulsaNow...

Those responses have all been erased... and you know it.

Very first post.... you were the first to play your little game... that's where TulsaNow the organization will find how you connected a 20k capacity soccer stadium to the friggin' Rose Bowl... and although you didn't bring up the comparison of the Arizona Cardinals' stadium to a possible East Village stadium... you completely agreed with/pushed the comparison last spring/summer...

I posted a link to the original thread at bigsoccer.com... which contributed to the TulsaNow thread having the biggest number of hits of any thread in the forum's short history... hundreds of soccer fans from all across the country assumed the Tulsa Now organization had taken a stand AGAINST the proposed mixed-use project/stadium...

This site loses credibility when you go cryin' to mama...

YOU knew what was going on... I didn't ....

I was ACCUSED over the past year of being...

A)  Greg Jennings (or clone thereof...)
B)  A paid political hack of former mayor LaFortune.
C)  A person who was being paid off by Global Development Partners.
D)  A person who stands to gain financially by an East Village/East End project...
E)  An outsider from Illinois who has no right to express his opinions...
F)  Tulsa Soccer Club founder and former NY Cosmos' player Keith Eddy
G)  All of the above.

I have never been the subject of so many accusations until I started posting my opinions/facts on THIS site.

If the administrators of this site could RETURN the deleted posts, I can easily prove my case... and quote ALL AJ's disengenous posts...

I have 5 years worth of posts you can check on bigsoccer.com... I have NEVER pretended to be anything other than I am...

After I received an apology from RM about last year's vendetta against the East End project .... BEFORE ANYBODY KNEW THE DETAILS... I realized that the people I belittled only a few months ago may be completely correct...

David Arnett and Michael Bates have very good points... there ARE hidden agendas on this site...

The best way to HIDE your agenda is to pretend to be open-minded while maintaining your true agenda as a PARTISAN POLITICAL HACK...

This is the only thing I can't accuse you of... AJ... it's your allies that backed you up in the pursuit of PARTISAN POLITICAL HACKERY...

And if you think I'm some sort of pro-LaFortune political operative, consider this...

MY POSTS from summer 2002 are still viewable...

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3135

If you can suffer through a bizarre comparison of Tulsa to "Daisy Duke," consider the above thread as the views of mostly ex-Tulsans who relocated but never HATED Tulsa...

quote: As a summer time citizen of Tulsa when I come back from KU and the Wizards, I was quite astonished to read John Klein writing a headline type article pushing for MLS to come to Tulsa, for Tulsa to build a stadium for a team. But once I figured out that the whole gist was "Hey, let's not let those OKC bastards steal something we've been turning down for four years", I knew that Tulsa would never have a team. We had some great plans to revitalize downtown, but they got voted down. A key component of those plans? A soccer specific or mostly soccer specific stadium, 'bout 20k seats or so. But of course that gets voted down, so, I say as a proud Tulsa citizen, we don't deserve MLS.

quote:Tulsa is Frasier, OKC is Fear Factor; Tulsa is REM, OKC is REO; Tulsa is sushi, OKC is catfish; Tulsa is brilliant but inept, OKC is dumb as a bag of hammers but wealthy.

The above thread has more intense/heartfelt debate over the future of Tulsa (circa 2002) than most all the posts/threads I've read on this site over the past year or so...

Please read the above linked bigsoccer.com thread from 2002...

One small correction in your last post... I did not accuse you of being Greg Jennings... I merely asked if you were.

The rational that you used suggested a high degree of Education. Mister Jennings always demonstrated that he was indeed well Educated.
Furthermore; The aggressive way in which you chose to pursue the Soccer Stadium... was not at all unlike the way in which Jennings pursued some of his objectives.........

If you are not.. You are not..

Sorry you took it as an accusation..

You and AJ may go to neutral corners and proceed ...  [}:)]

[aoxamaxoa]

The Tulsa Business Journal rag is all about the east end project. Double attendance? BS. A snowball effect? More like a snow job.

So, if the city annexes the Fairgrounds and ends up losing the primary tenant to downtown that's a lose lose proposition. Government ineffectiveness.

Reading the article, it seems Chuck Lamson wants to downsize into downtown.

Sure hope this fuels a redemption of downtown. But it won't. Global Development is a scam promoter based on my analysis.

[sgrizzle]

We all know they've done horribly before.

Keep in mind our neighbors to the SW just did the same thing quite succesfully. Plus, Bell's paid more in rent than the drillers do..

[carltonplace]

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

The Tulsa Business Journal rag is all about the east end project. Double attendance? BS. A snowball effect? More like a snow job.

So, if the city annexes the Fairgrounds and ends up losing the primary tenant to downtown that's a lose lose proposition. Government ineffectiveness.

Reading the article, it seems Chuck Lamson wants to downsize into downtown.

Sure hope this fuels a redemption of downtown. But it won't. Global Development is a scam promoter based on my analysis.

Just to be clear, if the city annexes the fair grounds, it won't mean that the EXPO management will change or that the county's role will change. What will change is that the City will provide water and other services at "in city" rates and collect sales tax on all goods and services sold there. Hopefully what is collected is much more than what is provided.

The Drillers would not be our tenant, but they would impact the amount of sales tax collected on the fair grounds. However if you move the Drillers downtown the sales tax impact increases exponentially.

BTW here is the story that aox spoke of: Read

[TheArtist]

^It is dead and buried.  But the odd thing is, Why are they still around?  What are they doing?

[carltonplace]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

^It is dead and buried.  But the odd thing is, Why are they still around?  What are they doing?

Not sure who or what you are referring to.