Improve Our Tulsa 2 election today

Postdated to remain at the top through the end of the election. Polls are open in the City of Tulsa November 12, 2019, special election from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Oklahoma State Election Board's new Oklahoma Voter Portal will tell you where to vote and let you view sample ballots before you go to the polls.

I have no illusions. The election is a classic example of concentrated benefit and diffuse costs. Those who stand to benefit directly from the new taxes on the ballot have strong reasons to give money to the vote yes campaign and to turn out to vote. The cost, although nearly as much as Vision 2025 and over $1500 for every resident of this shrinking city, is divided up among all the property owners and all those who shop in the city limits of Tulsa. There is no organized opposition to the three tax questions.

And yet, I'm hearing from many people that they plan to vote against at least one of the three propositions, for a variety of reasons:

• Because it's daft to invest another $427 million in a financially unsustainable growth paradigm.
• Because, for the first time in the nearly 40-year-history of Tulsa's "Third Penny" sales tax for capital improvements, none of the money will go toward basic infrastructure.
• Because you're outraged that the City of Tulsa would force people from their homes and demolish a historic neighborhood to build a stormwater detention pond to benefit new home construction.
• Because you're generally tired of the City of Tulsa abusing its power of eminent domain and hollowing out our historic urban core in the process.
• Because the current tax expires at the end of June 2021, and the City could have scheduled this vote for the November 2020 mayoral (and presidential) general election, when the turnout would have been much higher, rather than wasting tax dollars on a special election.
• Because the City still doesn't list the election on the cityoftulsa.org calendar of events, or in the city's list of press releases, or anywhere else on the home page, or on the city's Twitter account -- apparently trying to discourage turnout except among those with a vested interest in the tax increases being approved.
• Because you think Mayor G. T. "Selfie" Bynum IV should maybe focus on Tulsa's crime rate and declining population.
• Because you think Mayor Bynum IV should have the guts to defend his tax proposal and record as mayor on the air with a courteous but skeptical radio host like Pat Campbell.
• Because we already gave $65 million to Gilcrease Museum and $25 million to the Tulsa Zoo in the 2016 Vision Tulsa package, and they don't need another $6 million EACH just three years later. (This looks a lot like payola.)
• Because you're tired of Bynum IV & Co. enshrining the deadly religious beliefs of the Sexual Revolution as official City of Tulsa policy.

Nothing wakes up government officials as quickly as depriving them of the money they were expecting to spend.

Click here for just the facts about the tax proposals on today's ballot, including the official legal descriptions of each, and a diagram showing a timeline of City of Tulsa and Tulsa County sales taxes, both permanent and temporary, and how the proposals on the ballot fit into the big picture. And don't miss city planner Brent Isaacs' analysis of the general obligation bond issue for streets from an economic sustainability perspective.