How did OKC get so much more pride than Tulsa?

[Friendly Bear]

quote:Originally posted by Floyd

I see in the Daily Oklahoman that Oklahoma City citizens approved exorbitant upgrades to their arena by a margin of 62 - 38.

Does that shock anyone else?

It's amazing to me that such a dubious proposition was approved by such a resounding margin.  It makes me wonder how the political culture of OKC is so different from that of Tulsa.  Is this an issue of blind pride in the city?  Faith in elected officials?  Totally different political culture?

Someone tell me why our ostensibly sensible, and similarly priced, river vote failed miserably, while their crazy arena upgrade passed with flying colors?

Curious Coincidence that the Maps for Millionaires tax grab REPORTEDLY passed by approximately the same percentage that Tulsa County's Vision 2025 passed in 2003.

Over 60% YES Vote.

Over 60%.  A Mandate.

Hmmmmmhhh.  

Psyops Operation?

And, we are already being told they're awarding the Engineering work to Benham Company.

THAT was a FAST decision.  

Wonder how much Benham contributed to get the new Sales Tax measure passed?

Hmmmmmh?

Certified Tax Vampires.

[:O]

[waterboy]

Artist, I was careful to use the word "leadership" rather than elected officials or politicians. If FB has illuminated anything to me, it is that the city is anything but centralized in its leadership. Our Mayor and Council are temporary managers of public monies. Some are good at it and are not as pr oriented whereas others use the positions to aggrandize themselves.

But the leadership I speak of is through developers, large corporates, business organizations (chamber, rotary, etc.), education, foundations, media, non profits, social organizations and most importantly...faceless bureaucrats many of whom are appointed, others who worked through civil service. These people are in positions of importance to the community that far outweigh mere elected officials and they are in place for long periods of time. It is their attitudes and viewpoints that give Tulsa its personality. If we are cynical, argumentative, myopic and politically divisive, it is on their shoulders. Thats what I mean by a lack of faith in, and a dearth of, leadership as perceived by the masses. The elder LaFortune was pretty good at mobilizing this group but since then its been pretty dismal. OKC's leadership group has done a better job with what they had to work with.

[cannon_fodder]

Politically, does OKC have an "old guard" that is as entrenched and influential as Tulsa has?  Seriously, the 74114 area code dominates politics on many levels - in elected officials, total giving, and certainly influence.  At least that is my perception.

By definition, an entrenched old guard/old money has an incentive to uphold the status quo.  I'm not FROM here, but that is certainly the impression I get.  Someone please enlighten me who is more able to intelligently speak on this matter...

[TheArtist]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Artist, I was careful to use the word "leadership" rather than elected officials or politicians. If FB has illuminated anything to me, it is that the city is anything but centralized in its leadership. Our Mayor and Council are temporary managers of public monies. Some are good at it and are not as pr oriented whereas others use the positions to aggrandize themselves.

But the leadership I speak of is through developers, large corporates, business organizations (chamber, rotary, etc.), education, foundations, media, non profits, social organizations and most importantly...faceless bureaucrats many of whom are appointed, others who worked through civil service. These people are in positions of importance to the community that far outweigh mere elected officials and they are in place for long periods of time. It is their attitudes and viewpoints that give Tulsa its personality. If we are cynical, argumentative, myopic and politically divisive, it is on their shoulders. Thats what I mean by a lack of faith in, and a dearth of, leadership as perceived by the masses. The elder LaFortune was pretty good at mobilizing this group but since then its been pretty dismal. OKC's leadership group has done a better job with what they had to work with.

I can see an argument from that perspective. Its the "leaderships" responsibility to  educate, garner support, creat the environment for, gather information from the people, etc. in order to make positive progress. TN is in a leadership position as well and tries to play a small part in all of the above responsibilities. But even here we are faced with a community that imo is demographically and socially very diverse and divided. Who knows how much of an educational campaign you would need in order to change attitudes on certain topics. Its often far easier to figure out how to "sneak in" your agenda to make it happen versus trying to change everyone else. (Its easier to put on a pair of slippers, than to try and carpet the whole world)  If your a developer, do you really want to try and educate everyone, listen to everyone, before you do something? How reasonable and practical would that be when you have limited funds, are trying to make a profit, and have limited timelines. Which itself brings up the point that developers themselves often need educating on certain topics "form based codes" "context sensitive infill". Seems that we are again at the point where everyone has some responsibility... groups themselves often make mistakes and need educating and need to listen, individuals often make mistakes and need educating and need to listen... Where do you start? Isnt it everyones fault once again? The general population itself? Now we are right back to my last argument that we as a city are divided and whichever side begins to take the upper hand will then begin to have enough critical mass to take over. For instance. Is Brookside going to stay "quaint and small"? Or are we heading towards an "Uptown Dallas" scenario?  I know what I want lol, and I know what that angry lady across from the proposed new development wants as well lol.

I know which side will eventually win. Progress and development... Either that or the city will die.

The trick I see is just what type of change and development we will have. How will we regulate it?  But right now it seems that we are still arguing on many fronts about whether or not we are going to have any change at all. Is the Turkey Mountain best left as green space with no development? Do we have a moratorium on teardowns? Do we do anything along the river? Spend any money on downtown? Widen and build more roads? .... Or do we come to some type of consensus and have a plan/codes, etc. in place that reflects where the city is going and how it is to grow? The battle lines seem to so often be drawn on completely opposite sides of any issue and having bad "growth/infill planning" doesnt help any.  

One of the things I think we need to face is the reality of growth patterns. How cities evolve. Where development is going to happen.  People are going to want to develop along hwy 75 because that is where the population and good demographics are going. Talk of, they should be building something where there is old stuff, ignores the reality that there isnt enough population and money in old run down areas to make a profit. Trying to stop infill in the desirable areas of mid-town ignores the fact that those are the only likely areas where people are going to want to develop infill... unless we spend tax money and effort to jump start development in downtown, the river, or Pearl Street areas. Otherwise developers will just go elsewhere. Those are some of the realities of how development will or will not happen and many people absolutely refuse to either care or do not agree.

[okcpulse]

Politically, does OKC have an "old guard" that is as entrenched and influential as Tulsa has? Seriously, the 74114 area code dominates politics on many levels - in elected officials, total giving, and certainly influence. At least that is my perception.

By definition, an entrenched old guard/old money has an incentive to uphold the status quo. I'm not FROM here, but that is certainly the impression I get. Someone please enlighten me who is more able to intelligently speak on this matter...

To answer your question, not really.  The Gaylords do have some political influence, especially with their newspaper, but they are usually in support of OKC's progress, despite the newspaper's reputation.

OKC is comprised of mostly new money.  The old money is concentrated in Nichols Hills, but Nichols Hills isn't 'old guard' per se.

[TheArtist]

quote:Originally posted by okcpulse

Politically, does OKC have an "old guard" that is as entrenched and influential as Tulsa has? Seriously, the 74114 area code dominates politics on many levels - in elected officials, total giving, and certainly influence. At least that is my perception.

By definition, an entrenched old guard/old money has an incentive to uphold the status quo. I'm not FROM here, but that is certainly the impression I get. Someone please enlighten me who is more able to intelligently speak on this matter...

To answer your question, not really.  The Gaylords do have some political influence, especially with their newspaper, but they are usually in support of OKC's progress, despite the newspaper's reputation.

OKC is comprised of mostly new money.  The old money is concentrated in Nichols Hills, but Nichols Hills isn't 'old guard' per se.

From what I have seen the old guard here is often the instigators of some new development project, while its the "average masses or poor" who are against it. However it must be noted that its also developers from out of town "River District" who end up actually doing things. Though of course this is not always true. We have plenty of old money who give generously to so many things in this town and that we should be very thankful for. And often its "out of towners" who hold onto some property, for instance, and let it rot. Again, I dont think we are that different than many places, other than our general attitudes and demographics which set the tone.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Politically, does OKC have an "old guard" that is as entrenched and influential as Tulsa has?  Seriously, the 74114 area code dominates politics on many levels - in elected officials, total giving, and certainly influence.  At least that is my perception.

By definition, an entrenched old guard/old money has an incentive to uphold the status quo.  I'm not FROM here, but that is certainly the impression I get.  Someone please enlighten me who is more able to intelligently speak on this matter...

I'll bite on this one... OKCpulse is pretty close...

I'll add that the wealthy of Nichols Hills have never been regarded with the same disdain or hit with the same kind of elitist accusations as Tulsa's Southern Hills crowd or the city's   legendary "Midtown elites"...

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, Tulsa was "America's Most Beautiful City" and the "Oil Capital of the World."  And it's my opinion that most Tulsans had a superiority complex when it came to that cowtown on the other side of the Turner Turnpike, the "Cleveland of the South"... OKC... My simple explanation at the time was that OKC wanted to be Dallas when it grows up; and Tulsa wants to be Boston when it grows up... [}:)]

When I went to college at OCU in the 80s, OKC still had a "day paper" like Tulsa, which still had the Tribune.  The "Daily Disappointment" bought out the more politically moderate day paper.... many OKC people who were politically to the left of Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan got so sick of E.K. Gaylord's Daily Oklahoman, that they stopped subscribing altogether and it became vogue to have the Dallas Morning News delivered, at the very least on Sundays... The Daily Oklahoman in the 80s had right-wing opinions posing as "News Analysis" on its front page... it read alot like The Tulsa Beacon reads right now...

In the 80s, I remember going to downtown OKC to the Myriad to see OCU play ORU (both teams were in the Midwestern Cities Conference and played teams like Xavier, Butler and Loyola of Chicago)... downtown OKC was desolate, OCU couldn't draw flies for D1 NCAA basketball downtown, Bricktown was fun but kinda seedy, and the Myriad Botanical Gardens was a running joke... people in OKC at the time HATED the gardens-- it was a big glass syringe from the sky... it was insanely hot in the summer, etc, etc... how stupid...

What changed?  Well, a fellow soccer-nut from Norman told me his opinion:  most of the crazy naysayers, aginners and no-taxers moved away from the "big bad city" in the 80s... they moved to Yukon and El Reno and Harrah... and not necessarily to more affluent areas around Norman and Moore and Edmond... his argument revolves around a change in demographics for OKC proper (the upswing of neighborhoods  like Heritage Hills and Mesta Park), combined with people being able to see tangeable results from the MAPS projects... and now an entire generation of OKCers have gotten used to paying the MAPS taxes; taxes that were originally advertised as temporary keep getting the "yes" vote...

My opinion?... the evil Gaylord Deathstar (The Daily Oklahoman) became the property of Gaylord the Son (Eddie) who mellowed that newspaper, especially when it came to civic issues.  When a legendary anti-tax, anti-everything monopolistic nutty-conservative newspaper endorses something like the original MAPS proposal, it tends to silence the anti-tax opposition... upscale Republicans in Nichols Hills were FOR these proposals, the local arch-conservative newspaper was FOR these proposals... and even The Gazette (OKC's more liberal version of UTW) was FOR the MAPS proposals...

Even then, the first MAPS barely passed... but the political die was cast... and the rest is history.  The Daily Oklahoman endorsing MAPS proposals from Republican mayors was a winning combination... then there was MAPS for Kids... and now MAPS III... The Daily Oklahoman became kinda like Nixon goes to China... Oh, and the owner of the Seattle Sonics happens to be married to one of the Gaylord clan... []

I know I haven't mentioned the bombing.  But I honestly think the second MAPS project would have passed anyway.  Luckily, city leaders didn't screw up the memorial and were sensitive to the requests of the victims' families.

The soccer-nut from OKC was surprised that LaFortune wasn't re-elected after passing Vision2025... he was also surprised that Tulsa couldn't pass the river tax, despite the huge sums of private monies that none of OKC's projects have offered their citizens.  He wonders........

"When will Tulsans stop acting like they live in Del City or Midwest City?"

Hmmm.

 

[YoungTulsan]

For the record, Tulsans approved the river tax, and the "Del city" folks shot it down.  52% IN the city of Tulsa, 48% county wide.  Broken Arrow, Owasso, and the other burbs pulled it down.  I take it the MAPS project in OKC is just a city initiative and not a county one?

That was the foolishness in Tulsa.  We got greedy seeing a larger tax base in the county, the county leaders wanted to see their budgets multiply, so we went and got the whole county involved in the process.

Scaled back a bit, with a 0.5% CITY tax, without the negative tone attached to the corrupt county government, without the suburbanites to vote it down, it may have passed anyway.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

For the record, Tulsans approved the river tax, and the "Del city" folks shot it down.  52% IN the city of Tulsa, 48% county wide.  Broken Arrow, Owasso, and the other burbs pulled it down.  I take it the MAPS project in OKC is just a city initiative and not a county one?

That was the foolishness in Tulsa.  We got greedy seeing a larger tax base in the county, the county leaders wanted to see their budgets multiply, so we went and got the whole county involved in the process.

Scaled back a bit, with a 0.5% CITY tax, without the negative tone attached to the corrupt county government, without the suburbanites to vote it down, it may have passed anyway.

OKC is practically all of the county, YT. Well said Ruff. Though I think the Murrah was more of an influence than you do.

[Kenosha]

http://newsok.com/article/3212461/1204767376

Team players: Residents willing to pay for progress

The Oklahoman Editorial
TUESDAY'S landslide approval of a plan to upgrade the Ford Center was just the latest example of Oklahoma City residents' willingness to reach into their own pockets to help move this city forward. For that we say thank you, and bravo.


Thirty-one percent of the city's registered voters — about double the turnout for most city elections — went to the polls and gave 62 percent approval to extending a 1-cent sales tax to pay for improvements to the downtown arena. If an NBA team gets placed here, the tax also will be used to pay for a practice facility.

Proponents said this vote would give Oklahoma City a chance to join the big leagues, and it will. If the proposal had failed, then the NBA's honchos almost certainly would have taken us off their list of possible franchise relocation sites.

But this was about more than the NBA, because while approval gives the city a real shot to land a team, nothing is guaranteed. The yes vote does mean the Ford Center will get the sort of upgrades that will help us compete with Kansas City and Tulsa and other cities in this region when it comes to luring NCAA and Big 12 sporting events and concerts. The importance of those can't be overstated.

It's now imperative that the Ford Center truly becomes a jewel, as advertised. For the fourth time in 14 years, city voters have chosen to spend their own money to benefit the city. They did it with MAPS, the MAPS extension and MAPS for Kids. Now, to their great credit, they have done it yet again. And once again, that trust must be rewarded.

[TheArtist]

They are already working on the plans for what to do after this extension. Their "Core to Shore" plan really looks nice. Our 6th street Pearl District plan could be a uniquely Tulsa version of that. But you should have heard the *****ing and squalling about the 1 detention pond/park that mentioning the Central Park brought up in a TW article. Can you imagine how they would holler if we dared ask for the 50 mill to put the rest of the Pearl lakes and canals into place?

[Doug Loudenback]

Hi, Tulsans! I've been reading through this nicely developed thread and decided to register and give you an Okc perspective on some of the things which have already been said here.

I'd give a qualified "agree" to the observation that Okc doesn't really have more "pride" in itself than Tulsa does. Tulsa has a rich heritage and much to rightly take pride in. Historically, Tulsa has been seen (and I'm speaking as an outsider) as more "urban" while Okc has been seen as more of a frontier or "cow town." Plus, Tulsa has natural resources (the terrain, the river) that Okc will never possess. There's a good history to be read for each city.

The "qualification" is this, and without comparing ... I'm not qualified to do that since I only know and am a student of Okc history, not Tulsa's ... but just stating these opinions about Oklahoma City ... and when I say "we" when referring to Okc, I'm intending to say what is typical ... certainly others who live here would see what I'm saying differently than I do, below.

Okc in the main DOES have a great deal of pride in what its citizens have done for themselves since 1993 (when the initial MAPS passed) and we take a great deal of pride in what has been accomplished so far and are excited about what we see unfolding before our eyes and about what that means for our children and grandchildren.

Before the 1993 MAPS vote, I, for one, would not have made such statements. They would not have been true. Downtown Okc's late-1950s-current history has been well documented in a fabulous book by Steve Lackmeyer & Jack Money, two Oklahoman reporters, Okc: 2nd Time Around, a lengthy review of which is here: http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2006/11/okc-2nd-time-around.html . City pride and self-esteem were at low points in the late 1980s & early 1990s.

Into that mix came an unassuming short man (like me), Ron Norick, who was elected mayor 2 or 3 years before the 1993 MAPS vote. It was this man who put together the initial MAPS proposal which many were certain was doomed to fail. Some wanted to break its several components into pieces (river development, library, convention center expansion, Bricktown ballpark and canal, sports arena, convention center and a major upgrade to the Civic Center where plays and orchestras  perform). One of those was the Oklahoman's Edward Gaylord who wanted the ballpark to be built at the state fairgrounds and who thought that money would be better spent razing Bricktown ... and who though that the Bricktown canal was one of the stupidest things he'd ever heard of.

Okc does not have a "strong mayor" system but one wouldn't have known that by how the mayor handled the matter. Mayor Norick refused to break the package into pieces thinking that the pieces were all integral to the success of the whole -- to create a "mass" downtown one thing feeding another. So, you had the symphony's conductor touting the virtues of sports facilities, and you had sports guys doing the same for cultural things like the symphony and the arts. For the mayor, it was an all-or-nothing proposition. Not very many years earlier, a bond election which had separate components (but not as comprehensive as MAPS) had met with mixed but less than desired success ... police and firemen bonds did pass but the proposal to build a new downtown library failed, as an example.

MAPS did pass but not by a large majority. As the fruits came to be seen, city pride began to rise and it has been doing that and continuing upward since that time. The "vision" instilled by Mayor Norick and a city making good on its promises caught on with more and more people ... the citizens had done this and the results were good. Maps For Kids then passed and schools got a very needed shot in the arm. A huge bond election passed last fall for roads, streets, parks.

While Okc doesn't take pride in the Murrah disaster, it does in the results of another, Hurricane Katrina. With the Hornets in town for 2 seasons, we got a taste, and a glimpse, of something unknown to us before. And, with that taste, we wanted more. Hence, the March 4 arena vote.

The results of that vote show that the "can do" spirit that Ron Norick opened our eyes to remains intact today (though I was seriously worried about the March 4 arena vote and what failure might mean to the "visionary" attitude that many if not most of us had come to embrace.

That's my short version of how Okc came to have pride in itself. We had the leadership when it was sorely needed, we took a chance on what the leader proposed, and it worked because they delivered. Our trust in that leadership has continued through this date.

I disagree that the 1995 bombing played a role in our self-perception. That hideous event, if anything, could have been taken as a death-blow to what had started only 2 years earlier. We don't like being perceived by tags such as the "dust bowl" and "Murrah bombing." While it is doubtless true that many out-of-towners do want to go to the memorial, it is not something that Okc finds or takes pride in ... I live about a mile from the memorial, drive by it daily on my way to work, but I never stop unless we have out-of-town company that wants to see it. I suppose that we did take "pride" in the way the city pulled together, but that was a matter of survival and not something one would build on for the future.

I love Tulsa and visiting friends in Tulsa. I always have. I'm too uniformed about the River Vote to know what that was all about, but this much I will speculate: If Tulsa had passed the river vote, I cannot but think that it would have been an amazing project were it to be successfully carried off. But, that's just me as an outsider opining about something that is your business and not mine.

[TheArtist]

Thanks for the reply Doug. I think it is helpful for Tulsans to remember that it took a while even for MAPS to show progress. I remember many in OKC still being skeptical and whining about it, even years after the vote. It took close to 10 years for things to really get going.  I keep saying that 2012 looks to be a good year for Tulsa. Lots of potential developments and redevelopments will be online by then. We often want instant gratification. We hear an announcement then are dissappointed when we dont see anything a few months later "Mayo Hotel, Matthews Building, first street lofts, etc". You likely wont see any construction on the River District till next year as well. These things just take time. Vision 2025 passed in 2003 I believe? It too will probably take about 10 years to show the kind of results that MAPS took in the same amount of time. Then people will likely be looking back and saying, "Yea it was our positive, can do attitude, that made all this happen [8D]".

[Doug Loudenback]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

Thanks for the reply Doug. I think it is helpful for Tulsans to remember that it took a while even for MAPS to show progress. I remember many in OKC still being skeptical and whining about it, even years after the vote. It took close to 10 years for things to really get going.  I keep saying that 2012 looks to be a good year for Tulsa. Lots of potential developments and redevelopments will be online by then. We often want instant gratification. We hear an announcement then are dissappointed when we dont see anything a few months later "Mayo Hotel, Matthews Building, first street lofts, etc". You likely wont see any construction on the River District till next year as well. These things just take time. Vision 2025 passed in 2003 I believe? It too will probably take about 10 years to show the kind of results that MAPS took in the same amount of time. Then people will likely be looking back and saying, "Yea it was our positive, can do attitude, that made all this happen [8D]".

All true! When we voted "yes" in 1993, the "can do" spirit was largely if not only found in the city's leadership (and who can say what their private thoughts might have been) ... the rest of us probably just had our fingers crossed, hoping against hope! But, not today. It has been a grand time to be alive and to actually "see" the tangible results of the gutsy leadership that Norick gave us way back when.

[cannon_fodder]

Thanks OKc peoples for your insights.