No Plan B?

[waterboy]

I'm actually quite fond of beavers. Have been since middle school or therabouts.

I heard that the price of the dams has risen so that the new money will only pay for one and perhaps some Zink improvements. Any truth to that?

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy



I heard that the price of the dams has risen so that the new money will only pay for one and perhaps some Zink improvements. Any truth to that?

Oh I'm sure that is the excuse they will use to weasel out of a promised ballot initiative.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

I'm actually quite fond of beavers. Have been since middle school or therabouts.

Mmmmmm, beaver!  It's what's for dessert!

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

I'm actually quite fond of beavers. Have been since middle school or therabouts.

Mmmmmm, beaver!  It's what's for dessert!

Tulsa should be the beaver capital of the world!

[Neptune]

From Tulsa World

quote:A group of local officials who are looking to advance river development agreed Friday to push forward with river projects that already are funded through Vision 2025.

Those projects include engineering and environmental studies for low-water dams in Sand Springs and Jenks and modifications and improvements to Zink Dam.

Terry Simonson, who represented the county at the private meeting, said the working group also agreed, wherever possible, to have more than one initiative under way at once.

"Those were the two guiding principles we came away with," he said.

The group identified 23 projects that need to be accomplished between now and 2010, Simonson said.

The group also identified the predicted costs of the projects and existing funding sources.

Simonson has said previously that the group will look to see how those funds can be leveraged "for either additional public dollars, philanthropic dollars or private development dollars."

Earlier this week, County Commission Chairwoman Randi Miller said the county is committed to working with other interested parties to advance river development in a piece-by-piece manner.


She has vowed that the latest river development effort will not include a tax increase.

Friday's meeting came exactly one month after Tulsa County voters rejected a 0.4 percent county sales-tax increase to pay for $282 million in infrastructure projects in and along the river.

Earlier this week, Congress voted to override President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act, which in cludes a $50 million authorization for river work pushed by U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe.

Those funds could be used for ecosystem restoration, recreation, and flood damage-reduction projects.

Passage of the water bill and Inhofe's efforts have provided "tremendous new incentive" to pursue river development, Simonson said.

Also attending Friday's meeting were Cynthia Kitchens of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Tulsa District; Tulsa mayoral aide Susan Neal; Matt Meyer, the River Parks Authority's executive director; Jerry Lasker and Rich Brierre of the Indian Nations Council of Governments; and Kirby Crowe of Program Management Group.

The projects list was not made public.

Simonson said the working group plans to meet again as early as next week.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Neptune

From Tulsa World

quote:A group of local officials who are looking to advance river development agreed Friday to push forward with river projects that already are funded through Vision 2025.

One of those things that makes you say: "Hmmmm".

Go ahead V-2025 and call me a pr!ck.  It's what we thought we were getting in the first place. I'm not the only citizen who thought we hadn't gotten what we authorized in 2003.

I sure would've felt better handing over more money if I'd have thought that "progress as promised" was progressing in the first place.

[Neptune]

More at Tulsa World

quote:A group of local leaders plans to recommend that the county move forward with the designing and permitting of low-water dams in Jenks and Sand Springs and modifications to Zink Dam in Tulsa.

The preconstruction projects could be completed as early as December 2010.

"First things first is to start the process that puts water in the river," Terry Simonson, the county's representative at the meeting, said afterward.

The projects to be recommended to the county commissioners are not new, and funding to complete them already exists.

Voters in September 2003 approved $9.5 million for Arkansas River projects as part of Vision 2025; about $5.6 million of that is for the dam modifications and design work.

The meeting was the latest in a series of private gatherings intended to advance river development in the aftermath of a failed sales-tax initiative to fund infrastructure projects.

County voters in October rejected a proposed 0.4 percent sales-tax increase over seven years to raise $282 million to pay for river
projects.

The private sector had pledged to give an additional $117 million if voters approved the plan.

The working group now hopes to use a phased-in approach to implement the core elements of the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan, which was the cornerstone of the public initiative that failed.

Those core elements are the dams.

County Commission Chairwoman Randi Miller said she was pleased with the group's decision.

[Wrinkle]

Shouldn't that last line read, "Lame Duck County Commission Chairwoman Randi Miller..."?

[Neptune]

Me and my random way of cutting things off.  If I'd have posted the entire article you probably wouldn't have seen it.

Still, you may have a point.

[Conan71]

quote:The projects to be recommended to the county commissioners are not new, and funding to complete them already exists.

Do'h! Told ya so!

[Neptune]

Here's the projects to be completed with Vision 2025 funds.

[Conan71]

Heh, that's pretty good stuff.  Seems like Gaylon Pinc was saying they didn't have funds for the studies or wouldn't use funds from V-2025 to fund the studies if the river tax failed because there wouldn't be any point.

[Neptune]

Might seem like it, but the Vision 2025 folks said all along the money was still there, basically untouched.  It was the looneys and conspiracy theorists that implied the funds weren't there.  The only question was, how to fund the rest, and whether or not to proceed without completion funds.  Whether to accelerate the process, or wait on the next relatively normal Fed, which could have taken some time.  

It appeared for quite some time that the Fed was in a cycle that would make them unlikely to provide the completion funds.  The Fed was too busy fattening the foreign cow, and purposefully starving the domestic one.  The City and County are lucky that there was a slight shift in the Fed.

[Conan71]

I need to watch the tape of the TN debate it's been a couple of months, that's where I'm thinking I heard it.  I could swear that Pinc or Piercey said they couldn't use any of the funds for studies.  Hell Kirby Crowe might have said something on here about it.

[Neptune]

By my understanding, part of the Vision 2025 money has already been spent.   Something like 275K for Army COE studies.  

Studies, and design, are all technically part of construction.  So, I don't know why that would have been said, in those limiting terms.