The River...What Now?

[Conan71]

First off, I think Randi Miller, Ken Levit and Mayor Taylor were very gracious in their comments last night and showed a lot of class.

Something can been learned from this no vote, and river development will not go away.  Keep in mind, we are only one year removed from the "Channels" proposal, which may stand to be the most ambitious plan we will ever see presented.  What the Tulsa Stakeholders did was to inspire more dialogue on river development.  The county proposal has inspired more.  The next will inspire even more, and may finally make it a reality.

Private development can still take place along the banks.  If developers smell a bonanza ready to be reaped, they will still seek prime west bank land in Tulsa and Jenks, with or without water in the river.  The only business which wouldn't succeed without dams would be a boat rental outfit.  There are other incentives which can help them develop workable mixed-use facilities.

Scanning the precinct results in the Tulsa World this morning, it seems the more affluent areas of Tulsa were for the proposal, less affluent, blue-collar areas were consistently against.  I'm going to do a little further analysis of the yes/no precincts in the coming days to see if something meaningful can be gained in bringing those people into the fold in the future.  A precursory scan of the results would lead one to believe that lower income people don't want to pay more sales tax and don't want to have to go through a convoluted process to get a tax rebate.

There were three primary reasons people voted against it: the "no new taxes for anything" mentality, those who didn't trust the primary players in this, and those who want to see more concrete plans.  Two of the three things there are changeable.  I don't think you can twist the arms of the "no tax" crowd.  Had the plan/planner skeptics been placated better, it very well could have gone 53%/47% in the opposite direction.

IMO- here are the things the proponents need to do (consider me a proponent of river development, I just could not swallow a lot of the claims being made, and was astonished at the total lack of preparation and planning AT THIS POINT):

- Get the environmental impact study from USACE finished, get dams permitted.

- Use Vision 2025 funds which were allotted to river development to fund any additional studies and give us the Zink Lake improvements which were not contingent on federal matching funds.  My understanding was that only low water dams were waiting on fed'l funds.

- Put out a nationwide cattle-call for private developers to bring their own plans for mixed use development to the table with their own funding, whilst still considering the earlier players in this.

- Finish all infrastructure studies, put a 41st St. car/ped bridge in (this would go a long way in getting west Tulsa involved, leave out the 61st St. ped bridge.

- Study a more pallateable way to pay for the public infrastructure projects.  New sales taxes are generally going to be opposed in lower income areas because they have the perception of being hit hardest.  Analyze the precinct results and see if no votes in those areas can be overcome either via different funding or comprehensive city-wide liveability improvements they can see in their own neighborhoods.

- Let the city take over the funding aspects of the river development in conjunction with Sand Springs, Jenks, & Bixby.  I believe the county thought they were the proper authority to get this through due to their success with 4-to-fix and V-2025.  Too many people in outlying areas simply won't go for "regional development" unless there is brick and mortar going up in their own community.

- Seek out and schedule more public input forums on this plan.  The INCOG master plan was put together, ostensibly with much public input.  The county plan consisted of about 50% or less of the INCOG plan and had less public input.  

- Make sure there is adequate input especially from blue-collar sections of Tulsa.  I believe this vote actually suffered in those areas due to Kaiser's huge and generous gift.  The image in those areas was that a bunch of rich Tulsans were cramming a tax down the throats of Tulsa's working poor.  Making the gift contingent on passing a tax just didn't set well with a lot of people.

- The planning for a new campaign has got to sound more honest, less speculative, and for God's sake, quit using MTCC's pie-in-the-sky figures as enticement to voters.  Also consider the timing of previously un-announced "perks" two weeks prior to the vote.  Things like that are an insult to the intelligence for a lot of people.  

In reading comments from TN posters who were on the yes side, before and after the vote, don't sit around and blame narrow-minded folk who just "don't get it."  A lot of us "got it".  Hopefully the planners on this will be open-minded enough to learn from this defeat, find out why people voted no, and bring them into the fold.

To the defense of the yes campaign, I heard more than once from key people in this that they were disappointed they had to bring this to a vote too quickly.  I think there are good ideas which were brought to the table.  Let's find out if they are feasible or not prior to bringing this back up for public funding.

River development is do-able.  We just need to be patient for another year or two to make this happen.

[Renaissance]

On the topic of brining more voters into the fold: make tangible, high-visibility progress on fixing the streets.  One side effect of this vote is that Mayor Taylor's "streets panel" now has a mandate from the voters.  If we want river developement, the best thing we can do over the next 12 months is lay a nice fresh coat of blacktop, with pretty new concrete curbs, over as much of Tulsa as possible.  The I-44 fixes will help this, too.  No dilly -dallying from the panel--fix the roads fast and right, and then bring a river plan back.

[chesty]

Conan71 and Floyd.

I think both of you get what I was saying all along.

Conan has outlined why the proposal failed.  Hopefully the city and county will listen and not simply make up their own reasons for why this failed.  Most of us on the No side were all for river development.  Just against the method of financing.

Floyd....You make some good points which leads me to this challenge for all current and future proponents of plans like this:  You heard our reasons for voting no....make our arguments go away and we will support you.  Pave the streets, put more cops on the streets, don't try to tax Collinsville and Glenpool for a municipal project.  If these things would have been done, maybe it would have passed.  Had a TIF district been chosen to finance it instead of a sales tax, maybe it would have passed.

[YoungTulsan]

We need to put pressure on the state to lower the sales tax.  The state taking 4.5 cents is choking the life out of municipalities that RELY on sales tax as the only way to raise money for improvements.  If we could get that 4.5 reduced to 3.0 or 2.25 (cut in half) that would give local governments SO much more leeway in raising funds for improvements.

As it stands, basic city functions already require more than the 2 cents they get right now.  This shortcoming is standing in the way of development prospects being passed.  The vote just showed that some people are seriously concerned about basic functions falling behind before paying for amenities and improvements.  I imagine the "sales tax ceiling" is around 9% locally.  The last half penny we have to work with here will damn well have to be for a cause everyone approves of.  Once we pass 9% local sales tax, I doubt you could convince the people to approve a tax that brought Microsoft, Google, Wal-mart, and the Olympics to town.

While we only have 0.5 cents to work with right now (or possible 0.0 cents, but I think the "right" plan could be pushed through) - the CITY REALLY needs 1.5 to 2.0 extra cents to do everything the people need and want.  Simple street MAINTAINANCE needs at least another half cent, simple city functions need at least another half cent, and development opportunities need at least a half cent.  What we DON'T need is a 10.5% local sales tax.  What we DO need is to reclaim our money from the state.  Imagine if the state sales tax were cut in half.  We could immediately approve, lets say, 1.75% more city sales tax, and pass another 0.5% in savings on to the people.  Local projects would be so well funded that 4-to-fix and V2025 money wouldn't be needed once they expire, lowering the rate by another 0.767% locally once they expire.

I know the money would have to come from somewhere.  But the state needs to seriously study other ways to come up with at least a portion of the sales tax they currently collect.  I don't have the income data to run projections, but my guess would be some fairly minor alterations to state income tax, combined with a negligable bump to fuel taxes could offset 1.5 to 2.25 cents of sales tax.  The first step would be to roll back the income tax cuts they just passed.  State income tax is not choking the life out of municipalities, state sales tax is.  We should lower it, instead.  The second step would be a slightly higher income tax for higher income individuals.  Oklahoma currently treats $10,000 of taxable income as the "top bracket" for the rate that it collects.  I don't know about you, but I consider $10,000 pretty poor income.  How much money would an extra 0.5% above 75,000, and another 0.5% above 150,000 raise?  -  Again, while simply guessing, I am saying the state needs to relinquish sales tax collections to local governments and find other ways to collect the money it needs (while also running a lean budget, of course).

Put pressure on the state!  And once the county initiatives run out, we should stick to city initiatives.

[waterboy]

The state isn't going to budge. This is a rural vs city state with the rural areas dominating. Spend some time in the western part of the state or even the southeast and get a feel for what they think of Tulsa. Its a little hurtful to say the least. We are a legend in our own minds. If the capitol weren't in OKC they would get nothing as well.

We need to take care of ourselves. The dreaded regionalism that local idiot radio so despises was a good chance to fight that statewide bias. Now that its been demonized, all that leaves is fighting among ourselves (city vs. city) for the available sales tax collections.

Or...we could levy a city income tax on all citizens who work in Tulsa for a limited time period till the city can catch up with deferred maintenance and/or fund the river. A flat income tax if you like. You make family income over 50,000, you pay a rate based on the cost of maintaining the city divided by the number of employees in the city.

The burbs are like spoiled teenagers that think they can make it on their own even though Daddy's paying the insurance on the car, feeding them and putting the roof over their heads. Jenks is the oldest child who really is ready to jump the nest. This is like asking for rent from the mouthy little beggar.

If businesses jump to the city limits, well fine. They then become the responsibility of that community to provide services to and collect taxes from. But they won't if its a 5 year period. If a burb is big enough to employ its citizens (Jenks), then they will opt to not work in Tulsa thereby limiting our drain of resources to serve them and opening up more employment withing the city.

You could spend your lifetime waiting for the feds or the state to bail us out. Remember, a republican president is defying a solid republican senator to veto a bill to help us with the river. And Tulsa is solid republican. What do you think happens if a Democrat wins the presidency and the congress?

No, we're on our own and we just spat in the face of the one of the richest men in the country who actually wanted to help. Wise up, we go after the burbs or they consume us.

[YoungTulsan]

What I was suggesting was not a bailout from the state, just a restructuring of their collections of revenue.  You are right to assume that the rural dominated interests and the OKC fatcats will not conceed any monies for the interests of the Tulsa area.  Im just saying, keep doing what you're doing in the capitol, we're resigned to accept the fact that we get nothing from this state.  Just raise state revenues in a manner that allows us to voluntarily spend MORE of our OWN money on ourselves without regressively taxing the poor an absurd amount (sales tax over 9% on all purchases).

Drop the state sales tax from 4.5% to 2.25-3.0%, and shift the burden to increased income tax if you must.  1% extra for upper-middle class, 2% extra for the rich, and 3% extra for the super-rich?  Would likely be enough to lower the sales tax which effects the poor more than anyone else.  An 11% local sales tax would never pass, nor should it.  But local governments NEED that extra couple of cents to fight for.  Right now there is nothing left to fight for.  We've hit the sales tax ceiling.

[USRufnex]

----------------------------------
Conan--  "Scanning the precinct results in the Tulsa World this morning, it seems the more affluent areas of Tulsa were for the proposal, less affluent, blue-collar areas were consistently against. I'm going to do a little further analysis of the yes/no precincts in the coming days to see if something meaningful can be gained in bringing those people into the fold in the future. A precursory scan of the results would lead one to believe that lower income people don't want to pay more sales tax and don't want to have to go through a convoluted process to get a tax rebate."

Waterboy--  "The burbs are like spoiled teenagers that think they can make it on their own even though Daddy's paying the insurance on the car, feeding them and putting the roof over their heads. Jenks is the oldest child who really is ready to jump the nest. This is like asking for rent from the mouthy little beggar."

Floyd--  "On the topic of brining more voters into the fold: make tangible, high-visibility progress on fixing the streets. One side effect of this vote is that Mayor Taylor's "streets panel" now has a mandate from the voters. If we want river developement, the best thing we can do over the next 12 months is lay a nice fresh coat of blacktop, with pretty new concrete curbs, over as much of Tulsa as possible."
------------------------------------

Gee.  This is starting to read like an SE Hinton novel...

First off, who are these "lower income people"???  God, Conan, there are large areas of east Tulsa where residents have a mixture of incomes.  Uppercrust Tulsans choose not to live in east Tulsa.  This does NOT make the area a place where "lower income people don't want to pay more sales tax and don't want to have to go through a convoluted process to get a tax rebate."  That's a distinct minority of the electorate in these areas... and a tiny one, at that.  That's almost as bad as someone hearing  a couple of my hard-luck stories from days gone by and concluding that I'm "underemployed." []

Calling these areas "blue collar" is another mistake you make.  These people aren't a buncha redneck welders or low-level employees of the American Airlines maintenance center.  

Many of these "no" people are your CNAs and  RNs...  these are the folks who work at DirectTV, Cox, Cingular, etc.  There are small business owners all over the "no" areas of east Tulsa.  The lion's share of workers in this area of town work in the service industry.  And yes, there are also lots of ethnic folks in this area... many of whom also own and run small businesses.  Which could partially explain why they will vote for direct tax $$$ to lure high paying Boeing jobs... but will tend not to vote to subsidize one area of Tulsa over another...

WB, I'm not even sure where to start... were you beaten up by some suburban kid when you were in high school or are you so upset that just under two-thirds's of Broken Arrow voted in their own narrow economic interests... that you insist the city of Tulsa should be considered some sort of landlord who should be demanding rent?!?  When will a third of all midtown Tulsans EVER vote for a $282mil development in BA that brings jobs, stimulates economic growth and helps "the entire region."  Most people, regardless of party, are skeptical of perceived trickle-down economics, especially projects financed by sales-taxes...  

Jenks voted FOR this project.  And Broken Arrow's population will reach 100,000 before Tulsa's reaches 400,000.  For Broken Arrow to vote for $282mil in sales tax that directly benefits Tulsa and Jenks is, at the very least, a "hard sell."  

"Spoiled teenagers?"  Broken Arrow is filled with families raising children.  Most of them don't work in downtown Tulsa.  Would it have been out-of-bounds for BA to ask for 10% of those county taxes?  That's $28.2mil.  Compare that to what Jenks will get from this?  You don't like dem apples?  Then make it a citywide tax.  

Floyd, the streets are simply "the issue du jour."  If it weren't the "streets," it'd be crime.  If not crime, then it'd be education.  A "nice, fresh coat of blacktop" isn't going to pave over some hard realities in Tulsa.  There's alot of opposition to using sales-taxes for downtown-only projects (see Tulsa Project voted down by a "3-to-2 margin" and Tulsa Project: Part Duh!, which failed by the same 52-48 margin this one did).

This river-only project would have used a so-called public/private partnership to leverage $282mil in sales taxes over the course of YEARS... no north Tulsa or east Tulsa projects... nope, those parts of the city are unimportant.

No seat at the table for someone from east or north Tulsa to help the Warrens draw multi-million dollar islands on a napkin... no "voice of reason" to counter the Kaiser Foundation's projects and point out that although Bing Thom may be a great architect, he simply doesn't know Tulsa... and that maybe $282mil in sales-taxes should be used in many different parts of Tulsa, not just the river...

The commercials were insulting.  There may be some dumb rednecks in Tulsa County, but child actors are NOT the way to persuade the electorate, especially when people in east and north Tulsa will logically ask:  Whose  children will benefit?

There's been a breech of trust in Tulsa that goes back decades...

And before you start pointing fingers, please recognize the large numbers of Tulsans who still manaaged to voted FOR this project as "a lesser evil."  This would have PASSED on a citywide vote.

You know, this sounds like the same kind of discussion I had back in 2002... back when I hoped Mayor LaFortune would be a "Daley or Bloomburg" and git-r-done... too much to ask, I guess...

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90058&postcount=57

quote:New mayor LaFortune has a difficult job to do... and if he's learned anything from his uncle he'll come up with proposals recognizing where people actually live and not where he wishes they'd live...

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90622&postcount=58

quote:Just because people live elsewhere doesn't mean they don't want to improve their options. The main topic of debate in the mayor's race was not whether or not downtown/riverparks should be improved... it was on how. LaFortune won because he convinced voters that he could actually unite people to finally get things done. If only down/midtown Tulsans thought this was important for the future of the city, he would not have won such a clear victory.

I don't envy the job... especially with the budget/economic situation he's walked into...but I sure hope he succeeds.

[cannon_fodder]

Here's the problem with a city sales tax:

#1) Its a new tax.  Taxes do not go away.

#2) Paperwork.  Income taxes are massive headaches.

#3) Image.  Cities with income taxes are usually seen as large and intrusive.

#4) Stakeholders.  Where ever you set the limit, odds are you are cutting out the majority of Tulsans.  In essence, you are requiring the young professionals, educated, and entrepreneurs that we are trying to attract to subsidize everyone else and telling most Tulsans that they have to stake in Tulsa (Don't worry, we'll make these other people pay for it).

#5) Bye!  If I owned a non-location specific business I would simply move for that period of time.  A 5% income tax on a law firm paying just 10 people $100,000 a year is $50,000 a year in new expense for that firm (they would have to pay 5% more than a firm based in Jenks to attract the same attorneys).  

Certainly Tulsa does not need to encourage people to live AND work in the suburbs, let alone encourage business to move out of the city.

Want to fix the roads?  Tax driving more - in gas, or an added city tax on tags, or more tickets (god forbid).  Taxing driving is the way to fix streets.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

----------------------------------
Conan--  "Scanning the precinct results in the Tulsa World this morning, it seems the more affluent areas of Tulsa were for the proposal, less affluent, blue-collar areas were consistently against. I'm going to do a little further analysis of the yes/no precincts in the coming days to see if something meaningful can be gained in bringing those people into the fold in the future. A precursory scan of the results would lead one to believe that lower income people don't want to pay more sales tax and don't want to have to go through a convoluted process to get a tax rebate."

Waterboy--  "The burbs are like spoiled teenagers that think they can make it on their own even though Daddy's paying the insurance on the car, feeding them and putting the roof over their heads. Jenks is the oldest child who really is ready to jump the nest. This is like asking for rent from the mouthy little beggar."

Floyd--  "On the topic of brining more voters into the fold: make tangible, high-visibility progress on fixing the streets. One side effect of this vote is that Mayor Taylor's "streets panel" now has a mandate from the voters. If we want river developement, the best thing we can do over the next 12 months is lay a nice fresh coat of blacktop, with pretty new concrete curbs, over as much of Tulsa as possible."
------------------------------------

Gee.  This is starting to read like an SE Hinton novel...

First off, who are these "lower income people"???  God, Conan, there are large areas of east Tulsa where residents have a mixture of incomes.  Uppercrust Tulsans choose not to live in east Tulsa.  This does NOT make the area a place where "lower income people don't want to pay more sales tax and don't want to have to go through a convoluted process to get a tax rebate."  That's a distinct minority of the electorate in these areas... and a tiny one, at that.  That's almost as bad as someone hearing  a couple of my hard-luck stories from days gone by and concluding that I'm "underemployed." []

Calling these areas "blue collar" is another mistake you make.  These people aren't a buncha redneck welders or low-level employees of the American Airlines maintenance center.  

Many of these "no" people are your CNAs and  RNs...  these are the folks who work at DirectTV, Cox, Cingular, etc.  There are small business owners all over the "no" areas of east Tulsa.  The lion's share of workers in this area of town work in the service industry.  And yes, there are also lots of ethnic folks in this area... many of whom also own and run small businesses.  Which could partially explain why they will vote for direct tax $$$ to lure high paying Boeing jobs... but will tend not to vote to subsidize one area of Tulsa over another...

WB, I'm not even sure where to start... were you beaten up by some suburban kid when you were in high school or are you so upset that just under two-thirds's of Broken Arrow voted in their own narrow economic interests... that you insist the city of Tulsa should be considered some sort of landlord who should be demanding rent?!?  When will a third of all midtown Tulsans EVER vote for a $282mil development in BA that brings jobs, stimulates economic growth and helps "the entire region."  Most people, regardless of party, are skeptical of perceived trickle-down economics, especially projects financed by sales-taxes...  

Jenks voted FOR this project.  And Broken Arrow's population will reach 100,000 before Tulsa's reaches 400,000.  For Broken Arrow to vote for $282mil in sales tax that directly benefits Tulsa and Jenks is, at the very least, a "hard sell."  

"Spoiled teenagers?"  Broken Arrow is filled with families raising children.  Most of them don't work in downtown Tulsa.  Would it have been out-of-bounds for BA to ask for 10% of those county taxes?  That's $28.2mil.  Compare that to what Jenks will get from this?  You don't like dem apples?  Then make it a citywide tax.  

Floyd, the streets are simply "the issue du jour."  If it weren't the "streets," it'd be crime.  If not crime, then it'd be education.  A "nice, fresh coat of blacktop" isn't going to pave over some hard realities in Tulsa.  There's alot of opposition to using sales-taxes for downtown-only projects (see Tulsa Project voted down by a "3-to-2 margin" and Tulsa Project: Part Duh!, which failed by the same 52-48 margin this one did).

This river-only project would have used a so-called public/private partnership to leverage $282mil in sales taxes over the course of YEARS... no north Tulsa or east Tulsa projects... nope, those parts of the city are unimportant.

No seat at the table for someone from east or north Tulsa to help the Warrens draw multi-million dollar islands on a napkin... no "voice of reason" to counter the Kaiser Foundation's projects and point out that although Bing Thom may be a great architect, he simply doesn't know Tulsa... and that maybe $282mil in sales-taxes should be used in many different parts of Tulsa, not just the river...

The commercials were insulting.  There may be some dumb rednecks in Tulsa County, but child actors are NOT the way to persuade the electorate, especially when people in east and north Tulsa will logically ask:  Whose  children will benefit?

There's been a breech of trust in Tulsa that goes back decades...

And before you start pointing fingers, please recognize the large numbers of Tulsans who still manaaged to voted FOR this project as "a lesser evil."  This would have PASSED on a citywide vote.

You know, this sounds like the same kind of discussion I had back in 2002... back when I hoped Mayor LaFortune would be a "Daley or Bloomburg" and git-r-done... too much to ask, I guess...

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90058&postcount=57

quote:New mayor LaFortune has a difficult job to do... and if he's learned anything from his uncle he'll come up with proposals recognizing where people actually live and not where he wishes they'd live...

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90622&postcount=58

quote:Just because people live elsewhere doesn't mean they don't want to improve their options. The main topic of debate in the mayor's race was not whether or not downtown/riverparks should be improved... it was on how. LaFortune won because he convinced voters that he could actually unite people to finally get things done. If only down/midtown Tulsans thought this was important for the future of the city, he would not have won such a clear victory.

I don't envy the job... especially with the budget/economic situation he's walked into...but I sure hope he succeeds.

Pretty full of ourselves this morning, eh? I respect your intelligence Ruf and you swing your double edged sabre in all directions, but no one person gets to say just what Tulsa is and how we operate. I made 6 other cogent assertions in my post. Your cherry picking one of those remarks and slamming them is not getting the big picture.

I agree with some of your assertions and criticizms. My own remarks were an effort to put this loss into a context. Of course the cities will vote for their own interests. Take your logic to a statewide or federal level and compare. Why would voters in Ardmore care if the roads in Tulsa are bad? They don't. Now talk to them about I-35 into OKC, they will listen. But the state should know that Ardmore gains in the end if the state has good roads in the metro areas as well. If they don't, the state should apportion funds anyway without being tied to improving I-35, because they have the bigger picture, but they don't because of the relative strength in the legislature of the rural areas. Its selfish and shortsighted, but there it is. We're in the same boat. Tulsa should consider a temporary city income tax to balance off the natural shortsighted interests of its surrounding burbs. With no malice, simply good parenting. Rent's due.

And please, bear in mind I live here. I spent my life here. I worked in BA for 8 years during its formative growth in the late 70's and 80's working with businessmen in the area. Bedroom community with a capital B. Small town inbred political leadership. Short sighted (refused to merge Tulsa street numbers with their own). Most residents DO work in Tulsa, though not likely downtown. They know who their school board members are but couldn't tell you who the city manager is. BTW, no one questioned WHY BA has little or no development plans along their stretch of the river. Could it be because the exclusive golf course some of the movers and shakers in BA have planned along that stretch? I understand they have close relations with city administration. In fact its likely they don't want development and used this as a good reason. But i digress.

It doesn't help to blame the breach of trust by leadership either. We have had mayors, and councilors from all walks of life, all over the political spectrum, from all social status and they have ALL failed us. We are prisoners to our conservatism, religious evangelism and oil money circumstances. Easy to blame the Lorton's social demo when in fact 30% thought this election was the Channels or downtown.

The frustration with yet another badly managed, badly promoted, river development is expected. I heard Bixby lost by one vote. SS was close too. BA killed the thing. North Tulsa loves to vote no. Bring them to the table for sure, but understand its never enough. If we have to provide a banquet of special interest bribes, like v2025, to get the river done, I'm not sure I would support it.

[Conan71]

USR- you are mistaken that I have an image of beer swilling rednecks in blue collar jobs.  Lower income isn't implying a bunch of spam-sucking trailer trash welfare grubbers.  I'm talking about the difference of people earning high five or low six-figure incomes, vs. people earning less.

Look at the average home price in east Tulsa and North Tulsa, less per sq. ft. than other areas where this tax was overwhelmingly voted for.  I honestly don't think it was a proximity issue near as much as an income issue as far as how people felt about this.  Consider that Sand Springs and Bixby both voted no for this proposal.  I believe there were a couple of precincts around 61st & Peoria where this initiative failed.

My cursory scan of the results last night revealed that precincts which were close to apartment complexes which cater to lower income people didn't pass it.

East and north Tulsa have always been an afterthought in infrastructure improvements, and in issues of public safety.  These are people who feel a distrust for government to be looking out for their best interest.  

It was hardly meant as a slur on classes, it's basically where a the "income" lines in Tulsa are drawn.  Take a close look at the polling numbers, it's pretty interesting.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

If we have to provide a banquet of special interest bribes, like v2025, to get the river done, I'm not sure I would support it.

Sorry, but that was the coalition that led to a County-wide vote in the first place.  Citywide votes were in the 90s were a big fat hairy "NO."  LaFortune produced a coalition of PROJECTS that were supported countywide.  And it worked... whether any of the pols and political activists from either party want to admit to it and give proper credit is another story...

Calling other county projects "bribes" is the usual condescending tit-for-tat bull mularkey territorialism that seeks to polarize people in all areas of Tulsa and the suburbs...

BTW, Evanston, IL has never used any of Chicago's street names either... and somehow, they're doing just fine.  []

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

If we have to provide a banquet of special interest bribes, like v2025, to get the river done, I'm not sure I would support it.

Sorry, but that was the coalition that led to a County-wide vote in the first place.  Citywide votes were in the 90s were a big fat hairy "NO."  LaFortune produced a coalition of PROJECTS that were supported countywide.  And it worked... whether any of the pols and political activists from either party want to admit to it and give proper credit is another story...

Calling other county projects "bribes" is the usual condescending tit-for-tat bull mularkey territorialism that seeks to polarize people in all areas of Tulsa and the suburbs...

BTW, Evanston, IL has never used any of Chicago's street names either... and somehow, they're doing just fine.  []

Yeh, well I'm one of those mid-town, Maple Ridge tea sippers with issues. Thanks for clearing that all up. They are bribes. They are designed to entice otherwise leary voters into thinking there is something in it for them. Just because city issues didn't work in the 90's doesn't seem too powerful and argument. Especially since the city proper passed this one by 2% and it was the burbs that killed it. Get the chip off your shoulder.

Evanston is the format we should be looking to emulate?

[Conan71]

^^Randy Brogdon was saying that Owasso will contribute along the lines of $17mm to V-2025 or some such number and they will get less than half that back in projects.

It's a point to think about for the smaller communities when they could raise their city sales tax and keep 100% of the benefits for themselves instead of being donors to their larger neighbor.

I'm not saying that's the right attitude to have but it goes a long way in understanding why the majority of the suburbs weren't behind this.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

^^Randy Brogdon was saying that Owasso will contribute along the lines of $17mm to V-2025 or some such number and they will get less than half that back in projects.

It's a point to think about for the smaller communities when they could raise their city sales tax and keep 100% of the benefits for themselves instead of being donors to their larger neighbor.

I'm not saying that's the right attitude to have but it goes a long way in understanding why the majority of the suburbs weren't behind this.

I think it is the right atitude Conan. But they want it both ways. They want the cheap water that we sell below cost to them, they want to work in our city, using our roads that they complain about, they want our entertainment and they love to participate in our festivals and runs. They just don't want to pay for them. I'm all about self determination and responsibility. Did Brogdon say what the return was on all that?

[cannon_fodder]

Tulsa should have adopted a "swollow the suburbs" mentality long ago and annexed them all while they were small enough to be swallowed.  I don't recall the exact number, but an Oklahoma city can swallow another one if certain guidelines are met - the swallowee does not need to be a wiling participant.

Not really advocating this, but the "us v. them" crap is insane in the Tulsa area.  With the possible exceptions of Sand Springs (which has a lot of industry near the river) not one of Tulsa's suburbs would be live able.  Too few jobs, too little to do.