Where will you be in 2012 when the river is dvlpd?

[waterboy]

Has anyone seen the TGOV episode with the mayor, Randi Sullivan and the INCOG river development manager? Could three people be more boring, uninformative and downright misleading?

I listened for as long as I could and never heard a date or even a time frame for when all this wonderful activity will commence (if they moseyed around to that subject please let me know when). However, they keep asserting that development is already happening! Excitement is at an all time high level, doncha know! Why, we're planning a widening of the existing river parks paths! Sometime in the future.

I guess if you define development as talking, planning, talking, planning...ad infinitum then we're there. They imply RiverWalk and the Aquarium is part of their hard work.  Yeah, it was hard to transfer that V2025 money to the debt-ridden Aquarium at Jenks. What was it $12 Million? For another 12 million we can develop a baseball stadium there in Jenks for the Drillers. And Riverwalk was an example of what private land ownership along the river banks can do as opposed to land ownership by government.

The people involved with planning along the river and designing the dams are sharp. These elected folks are not. Tulsans were led to believe that river development was coming from V2025 by the Mayor, Sullivan, Dick and co. And coming soon. Rumors of 5-7 years is not soon. Now we are being told that development is contingent on matching funds from government and private sources. Perhaps they are taking heat for nothing being done and think doing some pr to calm the little people was necessary. Its all about the Arena and the prognosis for actually doing river development IMO has dropped to 50/50.

One solution would be to put selected RPA land parcels up for bid to private consortiums. Kind of like that bridge consortium only they have to pay up front.  Then provide them matching funds when their developments mirror the INCOG dreams. We could do the lowater dams just like the private Bixby bridge too. Well, what do you think?