Vision 2025...Part 2?

[Teatownclown]

What a crock of sh!t. How much more are we as citizens going to dole out to the corporate welfare recipients AGAIN? And are there not more pressing needs for our community?

Shameful.

[patric]

The only part of the last package I was adamantly against was the set-in-stone decision to purchase and install the poorest quality municipal streetlighting we could have possibly found.
There should have been a study, or at least a public portion of the decision process.

Decisions like that are more than just a one-time expenditure, seeing how the electric bill for things like Acorn-style lights come every month, in perpetuity.

[AquaMan]

The only part of the last package I was adamantly against was the set-in-stone decision to purchase and install the poorest quality municipal streetlighting we could have possibly found.
There should have been a study, or at least a public portion of the decision process.

Decisions like that are more than just a one-time expenditure, seeing how the electric bill for things like Acorn-style lights come every month, in perpetuity.

I bet we could take the deal closing fund and apply it to better quality street lighting and accomplish more in operational savings than we will gain from pimping our city.

[RecycleMichael]

I usually vote yes on these issues. I am willing to pay a little more to live in a better community. I also trust the leadership currently serving the county.

$748.8 million is sure a lot of money however. I will need to do a little homework on the specific projects.

[DTowner]

That's the problem.  As of now there isn't much to study and ultimately County officials won't be deciding how a large chunk of this money is spent.  We know what $ will go to fix up the city owned buildings at the airport for aerospace tenants and to create a closing fund.  After that, there are few specifics.  Tulsa and surrounding towns will be allocated money based on population and then each one has to determone what projects to use it on.  The Tulsa mayor wants to use a large portion of Tulsa's share to expand the Gilcrease Expressway (Did OKC have to pay for moving I40 or its major highway loops?).  The reality is, there is very little time to finalize any project list to have on the November ballot.

V2025 had a specific set of projects and moneys allocated to each.  Voters knew what they were voting on, what to expect once it passed and could hold officials responsible as the projects werer completed.  This feels rushed and will have little accountability because we don't have a measuring stick to use to determine if the projects promised are getting done. 

I get that the airport improvement issues may have a short fuse, but locking down this sales tax for another 20 years without a clear idea of how the money is going to be spent is a good way to get the whole package voted down (whatever the merits are on the airport improvements).  This strikes me as a repeat of the Susan Savage approach that was rejected twice by voters.

[Teatownclown]

 Tulsa's an old southern city decaying away because there were too few benefiting from what they've paid for a better standard of living. Many were mistaken to place building new property a priority while the lines that brought safe water to their homes failed. The streets will continue to be funded through an ongoing extension of sales tax.

What next do the reactionaries who run this town have in store for us? Airport? Locks and dams? Waterway improvements? 

Maybe if the Chamberites can illustrate how $750 million to American Air has been paid back or even a cost/benefit analysis portraying how that amount of money invested subsequently rippled through the economy and benefited the population as a whole. Show me the money. Where are the teaheads upset about their taxes? I guess these environmental and infrastructure issues do not directly effect them and therefore "out of sight, out of mind." And, I guess they do like socialism after all....

This Vision thingy needs to be halted until we are shown what really lies ahead and what lies behind...

[Gaspar]

Just went through parts of it, and I can't believe I'm saying this but I agree with Teatown. 

It's basically a ton of money confiscated from tax payers to benefit American Airlines.  They get the benefits immediately, but it's not until 2017 that any projects for the community start, and there's no real ROI analysis.

Basically, it's a quick scheme to stroke AA.

Let me tell you something. . .American Airlines has shown no intension of changing the way they do business or provide improved service to their clients.  They are dyeing of their own cancer (as are many other carriers).  Unless we see a significant change in that, it would be foolish for us to invest in them on a national or local level.  I have no problem incentivizing business to encourage investment and growth in our community, but I do have a problem incentivizing a bad or failing business.

As for the "Vision2025" moniker, that is very misleading.  It is obviously intended to make people feel like this is another "Phase" or expansion of the Vision program.  They are using the success of that program to brand a corporate welfare scheme.  $749 million dollars will do far more good in the pockets of Tulsa citizens then in the hands of bad business.

[shadows]

Pull up the contract on the bus company and view the bottom line. 
Then the AA contract's bottom line.  Apply the commercial rate for leasing buildings and grounds to non-brother-in-law ventures. Adjust the present lease rate the companies should pay to pay off the bonds sold to make the improvement.  And spare those retirees, depending on SS and pensions that inflation has destroyed the purchasing powers.

Sales taxes are the most cruel tax the was ever imposed on the aged.  The rebate system on the sales taxes are a farce as it was brought up before the council that most of the rebate request came from the south of the city.

Remember that many of the employees that are being subsidized do not even live in the county therefore they will not pay taxes in Tulsa county.  Tulsans are being ask to tax themselves to provide jobs the residents of other cities/counties.

Or just buy both of the companies and join the bankruptcies we are promoting.           

[Red Arrow]

Sales taxes are the most cruel tax the was ever imposed on the aged. 

They don't need to be.  Things like food, clothing, and prescription drugs should be exempted from sales tax. 

Oklahoma typically doesn't have the highest tax rate on much of anything but we tax everything in sight.  I have no idea how a populist state got to be where we are. By the way, it was this way l-o-n-g before the Republicans took control of the state government.

[AquaMan]

They don't need to be.  Things like food, clothing, and prescription drugs should be exempted from sales tax. 

Oklahoma typically doesn't have the highest tax rate on much of anything but we tax everything in sight.  I have no idea how a populist state got to be where we are. By the way, it was this way l-o-n-g before the Republicans took control of the state government.

True enough. Its like they have always embraced the concept of "we'll make it up on volume" which is of course a joke in the business world. They tax everything and have very little chance of enforcing collections but what they do get is gravy I guess.

A good example is forcing canoe and kayak owners to title, register, pay fees and sticker their small craft. The rules  for doing so are pretty arcane and ignored by most owners who rarely use their boats anyway. Its the fishermen who must pay because they are regular users and on the bigger rivers and lakes. The idea is that if your boat is stolen they can track it down for you (fat chance) and the fees pay for those fish and game people you rarely see who can't seem to stop bow fishermen from shooting game fish off the pedestrian bridge.

[Red Arrow]

A good example is forcing canoe and kayak owners to title, register, pay fees and sticker their small craft.

I believe the only benefit I get from registering my airplane with the State of Oklahoma is the privilege of sending them some money each year.  Fortunately, my plane is old enough it qualifies for the minimum rate.

Its the fishermen who must pay because they are regular users and on the bigger rivers and lakes.

If you have an outboard motor (above a certain size?) on your boat, it must also get a big ugly sticker.   I remember hearing someone in a tag agency once, who moved here from another state which didn't separately register the motor, trying to get legal in Oklahoma.  What a mess.

The idea is that if your boat is stolen they can track it down for you (fat chance)

You have that one nailed.

[patric]

I bet we could take the deal closing fund and apply it to better quality street lighting and accomplish more in operational savings than we will gain from pimping our city.

That seems like a realistic goal, but first we would have to break the city's habit of having the electric utility specify what we need for streetlighting. 

The old "it needs to be a minimum of 100 Watts" is absurd and obsolete.

[LandArchPoke]

Here's a way to think about this: We are essentially paying a years worth of salaries for 6,350 employees ($40,000/year average) in "Infrastructure Improvements" and "Equipment". In reality this is a small drop in the bucket for AA, and they will take anything and everything we will give them and give nothing back in return.

What kind of infrastructure are they even talking about? I assume it's meant to go towards hangers and basically give free rent to AA, like what was done in a smaller way in the first Vision Package. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but we'll see.

I fail to understand where we are going to get much back from this. The deal closing fund also seems like a back up plan for when/ if AA lays off a bunch of workers or ships a large chuck of maintenance oversees that basically shutters the Tulsa campus like every other US based airline has done. Why would we be throwing $200 Million into a black hole essential?? I would rather take the wait and see aspect on this and then take that $200 Million and make it a much larger deal closing fund to replace and diversify our economy after AA downsizes.

Or better yet, take that $200 Million and put it towards transit and encourage redevelopment in the city and grow our tax base, or even better yet take that $200 Million and invest into OSU-Tulsa, OU-Tulsa and our other universities and help them create partnerships with businesses to encourage higher quality job growth.

If we are going to dump all this money into AA/airport we need to have some sort of agreement that they expand direct flight services to and from Tulsa. Work on making our airport more of a regional hub/small focus city for AA that will directly have a financial benefit to the city and our other businesses. This bending over and grabbing our ankles for AA needs to stop.

[sgrizzle]

I believe the airport money is to build new hangers and taxiways for other airport businesses.

That being said, I'm currently a no on both halves because I don't see the airport argument compelling and will not vote in support of the other half until I see specific projects.

[shadows]

How is a bus manufacturing company connected with aerospace at the airport?
How would one get the job of selling a company on moving into a half-mile long building, the GSA was giving to Tulsa with the production machinery, at a cost of a dollar a year for decades?
What was the fee for finalizing such to the person at closure?

I am sure such person, as he sits on the beach of the south sea island, thinks often of the aged and unformatted that live in Tulsa who are hot in the summer and cold in the winter who count their pennies to survive.  The keeping the ongoing taxes, plus additional taxes is a further burden on those with limited incomes.  This group of citizens is contributed enough for the promise of quality-of-life and now other groups seek to take from their meager incomes additional moneys to create jobs. 

Since the warming trend has set in then all that snow removal equipment can be used to haul those green valueless unassigned notes that can be spent at their pleasure.