BatesLine

Aaron Griffith gives his reasons for voting against the proposed $282 million river sales tax increase. Aaron comes from a left-wing populist perspective, but much of his argument will resonate across the political spectrum, and I like the way he has annotated each of his points with a relevant link.

Tulsa County River Tax: A Question of Style or Substance

It seems like an age old question: What should our priorities be in life? To create well-maintained, vibrant, safe, diverse, green, clean communities? Should our collective vision focus on substance and sustainability or should style and self-indulgent luxuries dictate our priorities? On October 9, Tulsa County Voters arrive at an ozone-polluted, pothole-riddled crossroads to face the decision of which way to go.

The proposed County river tax is not a transformation, but a mutation of the geographic inequity, institutionalized neglect, economic segregation, and false promises of progress as promised as usual in Tulsa County. We will not become a progressive community by continuing to neglect the maintenance of our failing roads and infrastructure or ignoring the environmental elephants in the room in regards to river development.

It will not happen by disregarding alternative sources of funding for river development, which do not increase regressive County sales taxes that steal primary revenue streams away from struggling municipalities or by infrastructure privatization.

It will not happen by perverting the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan to include a 41st St. pedestrian bridge or wasting precious resources on unwanted, unnecessary, special elections.

It will not happen by gambling on exaggerated economic impact projections or empty promises of good-paying construction jobs that won't have any prevailing wage protections and nothing to protect against 1099 worker misclassification abuse, that places honest contractors who play by the rules at a competitive disadvantage.

It will not happen by misguided, last minute, half-hearted attempts to address the hardship this tax increase causes to our at-risk, low income, and fixed income families living paycheck to paycheck by offering a year end tax rebate to those who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit that will do nothing to affect the immediate impact this new tax increase on the basic necessities of life will have on their budgets.

It will not happen by giving private special interest controlled Mayors, County Commissioners, and their politically appointed new bureaucratic unrepresentative river authority the final say on development along the river within the sovereignty of municipalities by voting to give them a giant blank check, a new regressive tax, for continued failure to deliver the progress as promised.

At the polls during the October 9 special election, I urge you to please vote NO, so we can begin a real dialogue on how to provide sustainable solutions to the critical long-term infrastructure, environmental, socioeconomic, transportation, planning challenges we face in Tulsa County in order to promote, preserve, and protect real progressive values.

Would you buy a used car from this dealer at 9404 E. 31st St.?

If memory serves, this same dealer has posted messages accusing those who believe in the enforcement of America's immigration laws of being hateful racists.

Since the signs cost a lot less than $5, maybe people should turn in their signs, then donate the proceeds to buy more signs. :) (I think I saw a variation of that idea on an episode of "The Lucy Show" -- Lucy exploited the double-your-money back guarantee of a brand of canned beans.)

If you'd like a "NO RIVER TAX" sign for your yard, Tulsa Machine (a sign printing shop) at 1503 E. Admiral Pl. has them for sale for a nominal price.

From an email about the upcoming Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County's luncheon (Tuesday, September 11, 11:30 p.m., Holiday Inn Select, I-44 and Yale -- the old Hilton) (emphasis added:

Commissioner Perry will present the Proposed River Plan/Tax in an educational format. He will be aided by an engineer who played a key role in the development of the 42 mile River Corridor plan from which the proposed plan was derived.

Commissioner Perry will present arguments which have been made both for and against the Proposed River Plan and the associated county sales tax to fund it. The matter is scheduled for a county wide vote on October 9th.

If you're a Republican woman and think it's egregiously unfair for a proponent of higher taxes to represent both sides of this debate (a debate where the county Republican party platform comes down solidly in opposition), you might politely encourage the RWC president, Nancy Rothman, to allow an actual opponent to argue the case for the opposition. (I won't reproduce her contact info here; if you're a club member, you have her phone number and email address in the meeting notice.)

In 1980, Congressman Tom Steed was interviewed at Rose State College and had something very sensible to say about the way decreasing voter participation empowers pressure groups. (Found on the Democrats of Oklahoma Community Forum.)

Well, you really struck a nerve with me there because my pet-peeve is the fact that people won't vote. And I have studied it. I've talked to a lot of authorities and there's a lot of people concerned about it all over the nation. And so I've actually come to the conclusion that there's no more insidious enemy my country has than a person who will not vote.

Now, as the vote went down and down over these years, the pressure groups in Washington went up and up and up. Where there used to be a page of them in the telephone book in Washington, now there's many pages. Everybody has a pressure group.

Well, finally the Congressman who votes for what's right and antagonizes one or more of these pressure groups comes home and finds that most of the people that he represents and that he did that for won't even bother to vote. He has no protection. And off goes his head. Well Joe Doaks sees Bill Spivey get it in the neck, so the next time, he gets cautious. And it's a growing sickness.

I don't know how to make people vote. Now in the bicentennial year, we got together, we raised money, we put on a special drive. We had the help of all the media and everybody else. No one was against it. We finally got 55 percent of the eligible voters in Oklahoma to register and we got 94 percent of the 55 percent to vote. And we led the nation - in our bicentennial year. Number one in the nation - in citizenship! Did you hear anything about it? Any hats go up in the air? Have you seen any chamber of commerce slogans or anything? If we were number one in football, maybe we'd a heard a lot, but not on citizenship.

Now after that, I said, well, I don't know, I give up. If that won't set the state on fire, I don't know what you could do. But it's a sad thing and I never pass up an opportunity to scold people because they won't go vote.

When ordinary people don't pay attention and don't support officials who put their interests first, voters are swayed by the ads purchased by various pressure groups. Elected officials learn to fear the pressure groups rather than their own voters.

I think that goes a long way toward explaining how the current ill-conceived river tax increase found its way to the ballot.

I've commented on the pointlessness of the 41st Street and 61st Street pedestrian-only bridges, which are part of the sales tax package Tulsa County residents will be voting on October 9, but which are not part of the Arkansas River Master Corridor Plan. The 41st Street pedestrian-only bridge would in fact obstruct something that is in the ARMCP: A combination vehicle and pedestrian bridge linking Red Fork to Brookside.

The two pedestrian-only bridges will connect on the west side of the river to an industrial area and a railroad track, respectively. Cyclists and joggers may appreciate having more ways to make a circuit around the river, but few Tulsans will make use of these bridges, which are priced at $15 million a piece.

Up in Amsterdam, N. Y., Robert N. Going wonders about the value of a pedestrian bridge proposed to span the Mohawk River. Like our 61st Street bridge, this one would dead-end at a railroad track and would fall well short of connecting the two sides of the town.

In Amsterdam's case, the bridge is being financed by a statewide bond issue that passed a couple of years ago. The local assemblyman (equivalent to Oklahoma's state representative) included money for the bridge in the bond. Just as Tulsa County officials didn't consult with City of Tulsa officials about the City's priorities for the river, the assemblyman didn't speak to Amsterdam city officials about whether there were better ways to use the $17 million that he had finagled for the pedestrian bridge.

Robert presents an alternative and less expensive idea that would improve the city's waterfront and usefully connect one place to another. His idea won't get anywhere, because it doesn't cost enough and involve enough money for construction contracts, so there won't be anyone with a financial motivation to lobby for its approval.

It took me a while to figure this out, but to the people who make the decisions, a plan for civic improvement isn't a real plan unless it involves higher taxes, the issuance of revenue bonds, and lots and lots of concrete and steel. There has to be a sufficiently concentrated benefit for some group of businesses and institutions to make it worth their while to lobby and campaign for something.

I've been outspoken in opposition to several of these big tax projects, but each time I've offered an alternative approach to civic improvement. When The Channels concept surfaced last fall, I used my UTW column to set out what I think Tulsans really want when they say they want river development and the best way to make that happen.

My approach to civic improvements usually involves a series of incremental improvements, none of them wildly expensive. Roberta Brandes Gratz's concept of "urban husbandry," as opposed to "project planning," guides me in this regard. Some of my ideas involve redeploying existing resources or eliminating regulatory barriers (e.g., allowing entrepreneurs to operate private bus services, aka jitneys).

I've always marveled at how quick the Vote Yes folks are to scoff at my alternatives to their plans for civic improvement. They don't want to know my alternative plan for making Tulsa a better place. They want to know my alternative plan for raising taxes and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new construction. The idea that we don't need to raise and spend all that money is unacceptable. I can't find it right now, but there was even a letter to the editor mocking the fact that I always offer a less expensive way to do something.

One more thought connected to this: Vision 2025 included $15 million for the Route 66 corridor. That kind of money could have been used to amazing effect, supplementing the positive impact of the National Park Service's Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program. The money could have funded facade improvements, rehabilitation of neon, and other efforts to preserve and restore commercial buildings along Route 66 in Tulsa County. It's the roadside businesses, and the memories they stir of pre-Interstate Highway travel, that draw people to Route 66. (The federal program has $10,000,000 to spend over 2,000 miles of road. Tulsa County has $15,000,000 for 26 miles of road.)

Instead, much of the money is being used to build a new museum, which means a big general construction contract and lots of money flowing down to subcontractors. No one thought of using the money for restoration and preservation of existing buildings because no one could figure out how to make a buck off of it. (Which is silly, because there is money in restoration and preservation. The notion just hasn't caught on here yet.)

RELATED: An excellent post by Jeff Shaw which fed into my thoughts on this issue as well. He asks some questions of the economic impact numbers the Chamber Pots are touting for the river tax plan. I have a copy of that spreadsheet, which I intend to post soon, and at first glance it looks like their economic impact estimate is predicated on how much tax money is spent on construction. No account is made of the impact of withdrawing the money for construction from the uses to which it would have been put otherwise. The model behind it seems to predict that if you taxed every penny and devoted it to construction of new public facilities, the city would become a wealthy paradise.

Via KJRH's website, here's the complete text of the resolution approved this last Thursday by the Tulsa County Commission, calling for an October 9th election for a 4/10% sales tax for river projects:

RESOLUTION

A RESOLUTION AMENDING A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE CALLING AND HOLDING OF A SPECIAL ELECTION IN TULSA COUNTY , OKLAHOMA, FOR THE PURPOSE OF SUBMITTING TO THE REGISTERED, QUALIFIED VOTERS OF SAID COUNTY THE QUESTION OF LEVYING AND COLLECTING A FOUR-TENTHS OF ONE PERCENT (4/10%) SALES TAX FOR THE PURPOSE OF ARKANSAS RIVER CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT WITHIN TULSA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA, AND/OR TO BE APPLIED OR PLEDGED TOWARD THE PAYMENT OF PRINCIPAL AND INTEREST ON ANY INDEBTEDNESS, INCLUDING REFUNDING INDEBTEDNESS, INCURRED BY OR ON BEHALF OF TULSA COUNTY FOR SUCH PURPOSE; PROVIDING BALLOT TITLE; PROVIDING FOR NOTICE TO TULSA COUNTY ELECTION BOARD, POLLING PLACES AND CONDUCT OF SUCH ELECTION; AND PROVIDING FOR COMMENCEMENT AND DURATION OF SUCH SALES TAX.

WHEREAS, it is deemed necessary and advisable by the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, to improve the general economic conditions and quality of life of the people of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, by development of the Arkansas River corridor within the County; and

WHEREAS, there are no funds in the treasury for such purpose and power is granted said County by Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 1370, as amended, to levy and collect a sales tax to provide funds for such purpose providing the same be authorized by a majority of the registered voters thereof voting at an election duly held for such purpose; and

WHEREAS, the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, adopted a comprehensive resolution on August 2, 2007 (the “Original Resolution”), calling an election for the foregoing purpose; and

WHEREAS, it has been determined to amend and restate the Original Resolution in its entirety as hereinafter provided in order to clarify certain aspects of the projects to be funded from such sales tax and the composition and duties of the public trust created in connection therewith.

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF TULSA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA:

Section 1.The Original Resolution is hereby amended in its entirety to read as follows:

“RESOLUTION

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE CALLING AND HOLDING OF A SPECIAL ELECTION IN TULSA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA, FOR THE PURPOSE OF SUBMITTING TO THE REGISTERED, QUALIFIED VOTERS OF SAID COUNTY THE QUESTION OF LEVYING AND COLLECTING A FOUR-TENTHS OF ONE PERCENT (4/10%) SALES TAX FOR THE PURPOSE OF ARKANSAS RIVER CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT WITHIN TULSA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA, AND/OR TO BE APPLIED OR PLEDGED TOWARD THE PAYMENT OF PRINCIPAL AND INTEREST ON ANY INDEBTEDNESS, INCLUDING REFUNDING INDEBTEDNESS, INCURRED BY OR ON BEHALF OF TULSA COUNTY FOR SUCH PURPOSE; PROVIDING BALLOT TITLE; PROVIDING FOR NOTICE TO TULSA COUNTY ELECTION BOARD, POLLING PLACES AND CONDUCT OF SUCH ELECTION; AND PROVIDING FOR COMMENCEMENT AND DURATION OF SUCH SALES TAX.

WHEREAS, it is deemed necessary and advisable by the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, to improve the general economic conditions and quality of life of the people of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, by development of the Arkansas River corridor within the County; and

WHEREAS, there are no funds in the treasury for such purpose and power is granted said County by Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 1370, as amended, to levy and collect a sales tax to provide funds for such purpose providing the same be authorized by a majority of the registered voters thereof voting at an election duly held for such purpose.

Section 1. There is hereby called a special election in Tulsa County to be held on the 9th day of October, 2007, for the purpose of submitting to the registered voters thereof the following proposition:

PROPOSITION

"SHALL THE COUNTY OF TULSA, OKLAHOMA, BY ITS BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, LEVY AND COLLECT A FOUR-TENTHS OF ONE PERCENT (4/10%) SALES TAX FOR THE PURPOSE OF ARKANSAS RIVER CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT WITHIN TULSA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA, AND/OR TO BE APPLIED OR PLEDGED TOWARD THE PAYMENT OF PRINCIPAL AND INTEREST ON ANY INDEBTEDNESS, INCLUDING REFUNDING INDEBTEDNESS, INCURRED BY OR ON BEHALF OF TULSA COUNTY FOR SUCH PURPOSE, SUCH SALES TAX TO COMMENCE ON JANUARY 1, 2008, AND CONTINUING THEREAFTER TO DECEMBER 31, 2014?"

Section 2. The ballot setting forth the above proposition shall also contain in connection with the said proposition the following words:

FOR

The Above Proposition

AGAINST

The Above Proposition

Only the registered, qualified voters of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, may vote upon the proposition as above set forth.

The polls shall be opened at 7:00 o'clock A.M. and shall remain open continuously until and be closed at 7:00 o'clock P.M.

The number and location of the polling places for said election shall be the same or the regular precinct polling places as designated for statewide and county elections by the Tulsa County Election Board. Such election shall be conducted by those officers designated by the Tulsa County Election Board, which officers shall also act as counters and certify the election results as required by law.

Section 3. The County Clerk of Tulsa County is hereby directed to transmit a copy of this Resolution to the Secretary of the Tulsa County Election Board immediately upon approval hereof by the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma.

Section 4. Subject to approval of a majority of the registered voters of Tulsa County voting thereon as herein provided, there is hereby levied in addition to all other taxes in effect in Tulsa County, Oklahoma, a sales tax of four-tenths of one percent (4/10%) upon the gross proceeds or gross receipts derived from all sales or services in Tulsa County upon which a consumers sales tax is levied by the State of Oklahoma for the purpose set forth in Section 7 hereof.

Section 5. The tax herein levied shall be and remain in effect for a period commencing on January 1, 2008, and continuing thereafter to December 31, 2014.

Section 6.

A. For the purpose of this Section only, the following words and terms shall be defined as follows:

1.“County” shall mean Tulsa County, Oklahoma.

2.“County Treasurer” shall mean the Treasurer of Tulsa County, Oklahoma.

3.“Dependent” shall mean every person who is a member of the household of the applicant and for whom applicant is entitled to claim a personal exemption under and pursuant to the Federal income tax laws.

4.“Family” shall mean one or more persons living in the same household who pool their various sources of income into one budget to achieve the effect of sharing the cost of providing for support of the group.

5.“Household” includes all persons who occupy a group of rooms or single room which is regarded as a housing unit when it is occupied as separate living quarters, and when there is either:

i. Direct access from the outside of the building or through a common hall; or

ii. Complete kitchen facilities for the exclusive use of the occupants.

6.“Income” includes all money received during the year and available to be used to provide support for the family or household.

7.“Person” shall mean an individual, but shall not include a company, partnership, joint venture, joint agreement, association (mutual or otherwise), corporation, estate, trust, business trust, receiver, or trustee appointed by state or federal court or otherwise, syndicate, the State of Oklahoma, any court, city, municipality, school district, or any other political subdivision of the State of Oklahoma or group or combination acting as a unit, in the plural or singular number.

8.“Resident” shall mean any person who has resided in the corporate limits of the County for the entire calendar year for which the refund is applied.

B. Every person desiring to make a claim for a tax rebate must submit to the County a written application therefore, on forms to be provided by the County, between January 1 and March 31 of the year following the year for which the rebate is being sought, beginning with the year 2009.

C.The qualifications for senior rebate include the following:

1.The person must be a resident of the County.

2.The person must be sixty-five (65) years of age or older during a portion of the year for which the rebate is being sought.

3.The person can claim a rebate only as a family member who contributed the greatest share of the family income and for members of the household who are residents of the County and who are dependent upon the said applicant.

4.No person who may be claimed as a member of the household on another resident’s application shall be entitled to a rebate. If a rebate is claimed on more than one application for the same person, the County Treasurer shall determine the person entitled to claim the rebate provided in this Section.

D. The qualifications for low-income rebate include the following:

1. The person must meet the eligibility criteria for the Oklahoma Sales Tax Relief Act pursuant to Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 5011, as amended, OR the Oklahoma Earned Income Tax Credit pursuant to Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 2357.43, as amended, and must timely file for such with the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

2. The person must be a resident of the County.

3. The person can claim a rebate only as a family member who contributed the greatest share of the family income and for members of the household who are residents of the County and who are dependent upon the said applicant.

4. No person may be claimed as a member of the household on another resident’s application shall be entitled to a rebate. If a rebate is claimed on more than one application for the same person, the County Treasurer shall determine the person entitled to claim the rebate provided in this Section.

E. If the applicant meets the requirements to qualify for a senior rebate, the County shall rebate the sum of $25.00. If the applicant meets the requirements to qualify for a low-income rebate, the County shall rebate the sum of $25.00. A person may claim and shall be entitled to only one rebate, either the senior rebate or the low- income rebate, but not both rebates.

F. The County Treasurer is to administer the rebate program established in this Section. He is authorized to prepare a form for application for rebate and adopt rules and regulations as long as the same are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Section, and shall audit and check the applications. The amount of rebate above set forth shall apply to each year of the seven-year program.

G. The burden is on the applicant to establish that he is entitled to a rebate. The County Treasurer is authorized to require reasonable supporting information which shall be uniformly required of all applicants. Upon an audit of the application, the County Treasurer can require all reasonable written and other information necessary to satisfy him that the application is valid.

Should any application be denied, the County Treasurer shall state the reasons therefore in writing to the applicant and indicate all or the portion of the application being denied. Such determination shall be final unless the applicant, within thirty (30) days after such notice of determination, shall apply in writing to the Board of County Commissioners of the County for a hearing. After such hearing the Board of County Commissioners of the County shall give written notice of the determination to the applicant.

An applicant shall not be entitled to a rebate when he has been denied by the Board of County Commissioners of the County or when he has had an opportunity for a hearing as provided in this Section and has failed to avail himself of the remedies herein provided.

Section 7. All valid and subsisting permits to do business issued by the Oklahoma Tax Commission pursuant to the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code are, for the purpose of this Resolution, hereby ratified, confirmed and adopted in lieu of any requirement for an additional County permit for the same purpose.

Section 8. It is hereby declared to be the purpose of this Resolution to provide revenue for the purpose of Arkansas River corridor development within Tulsa County, Oklahoma, and/or to be applied or pledged toward the payment of principal and interest on any indebtedness, including refunding indebtedness, incurred by or on behalf of Tulsa County for such purpose, including the following projects:

	Total:
Arkansas River improvements including but not limited to Sand Springs low water dam, pedestrian bridge and lake ($24.70 million), Zink Dam modifications ($15.45 million), modification of river channel from Zink Lake to South Tulsa/Jenks Lake ($90 million), South Tulsa/Jenks low water dam, pedestrian bridge and lake, and low water dam, lake and river studies ($24.70 million).	$154,850,000
Arkansas River corridor land acquisition, infrastructure, bridge improvements and site development, and Arkansas river studies for Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Jenks, Sand Springs and Bixby.	$57,400,000
Bridging East and West Arkansas River Banks and Downtown, including but not limited to pedestrian River crossings at 41st Street and 61st Street ($30 million), and connectors from downtown Tulsa to the Arkansas River and transportation corridor studies ($15 million).	$45,000,000
Projects Contingency	$25,000,000

While the cost estimates shown above are believed to be accurate, it must be recognized that the exact cost of each project may vary from the estimate shown. It is the intention of the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County , Oklahoma, that all projects shall be completed as funds are made available. The nature and scope of all projects shall be determined by a public trust having Tulsa County, Oklahoma, the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and any other municipality having its mayor as a trustee of such trust as its beneficiaries. Such public trust shall have nine trustees consisting of, ex- officio, the three members of the governing body of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, the Mayor of the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a member of the River Parks Authority designated by the Chairman of the River Parks Authority, two members appointed by the Mayor of the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and two members appointed by the governing body of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, one of which shall be, ex officio, the Mayor of either Bixby, Jenks, Broken Arrow or Sand Springs, Oklahoma, and the other of which shall be, ex officio, the Mayor of either Owasso, Glenpool, Collinsville, Skiatook or Sperry, Oklahoma. In the expenditure of all funds hereunder, preference shall be given to local vendors and contractors to the extent permitted by law. In addition, such public trust shall approve any deletion or addition of projects from those listed above and any major change in scope of any such project following a public hearing by such trust. The Indian Nations Council of Governments shall provide consulting services to such public trust upon request.

Section 9. There is hereby specifically exempted from the sales tax levied by this Resolution all items that are exempt from the State sales tax under the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code.

Section 10. The tax levied hereunder shall be due and payable at the time and in the manner and form prescribed for payment of the State sales tax under the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code.

Section 11. Such sales taxes due hereunder shall at all times constitute a prior, superior and paramount claim as against the claims of unsecured creditors, and may be collected by suit as any other debt.

Section 12. The definitions of words, terms and phrases contained in the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code, Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 1352, as amended, are hereby adopted by reference and made a part of this Resolution.

Section 13. The term "Tax Collector" as used herein means the department of the County government or the official agency of the State duly designated according to law or contract authorized by law to administer the collection of the tax herein levied.

Section 14. For the purpose of this Resolution the classification of taxpayers hereunder shall be as prescribed by state law for purposes of the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code.

Section 15. (a) The tax herein levied shall be paid to the Tax Collector at the time in form and manner provided for payment of State sales tax under the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code. (b) The bracket system for the collection of the sales tax provided for herein by the Tax Collector shall be as the same is hereafter adopted by the agreement of the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, and the Tax Collector, in the collection of both the sales tax provided for herein and the State sales tax.

Section 16. (a) The tax levied hereunder shall be paid by the consumer or user to the vendor, and it shall be the duty of each and every vendor in this County to collect from the consumer or user, the full amount of the tax levied by this Resolution, or any amount equal as nearly as possible or practicable to the average equivalent thereof.

(b) Vendors shall add the tax imposed hereunder, or the average equivalent thereof, to the sales price, charge, consideration, gross receipts or gross proceeds of the sale of tangible personal property or services taxed by this Resolution, and when added such tax shall constitute a part of such price or charges, shall be debt from the consumer or user to vendor until paid, and shall be recoverable at law in the same manner as other debts.

(c) A vendor who willfully or intentionally fails, neglects or refuses to collect the full amount of the tax levied by this Resolution, or willfully or intentionally fails, neglects or refuses to comply with the provisions hereof or remits or rebates to a consumer or user, either directly or indirectly, and by whatsoever means, all or any part of the tax herein levied, or makes in any form of advertising, verbally or otherwise, any statement which infers that he is absorbing the tax, or paying the tax for the consumer or user by an adjustment of prices or at a price including the tax, or in any manner whatsoever, shall be deemed guilty of an offense, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not more than One Hundred Dollars ($100.00), plus costs, and upon conviction for a second or other subsequent offense shall be fined not more than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00), plus costs, or incarcerated for not more than sixty (60) days, or both. Provided, sales by vending machines may be made at a stated price which includes state and any municipal sales tax.

(d) Any sum or sums collected or required to be collected hereunder shall be deemed to be held in trust for Tulsa County, Oklahoma, and, as trustee, the collecting vendor shall have a fiduciary duty to Tulsa County, Oklahoma in regards to such sums and shall be subject to the trust laws of this state. Any vendor who willfully or intentionally fails to remit the tax, after the tax levied by this article was collected from the consumer or user, and appropriates the tax held in trust to his own use, or to the use of any person not entitled thereto, without authority of law, shall be guilty of embezzlement.

Section 17. Returns and remittances of the tax herein levied and collected shall be made to the Tax Collector at the time and in the manner, form and amount as prescribed for returns and remittances required by the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code; and remittances of tax collected hereunder shall be subject to the same discount as may be allowed by the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code for collection of State sales tax.

Section 18. The provisions of Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 217, as amended, and of Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Sections 1350 et seq., as amended, are hereby adopted by reference and made a part of this Resolution, and interest and penalties at the rates and in amounts as therein specified are hereby levied and shall be applicable in cases of delinquency in reporting and paying the tax levied by this Resolution. Provided, that the failure or refusal of any taxpayer to make and transmit the reports and remittances of tax in the time and manner required by this Resolution shall cause such tax to be delinquent. In addition, if such delinquency continues for a period of five (5) days the taxpayer shall forfeit his claim to any discount allowed under this Resolution.

Section 19. The interest or penalty or any portion thereof accruing by reason of a taxpayer's failure to pay the sales tax herein levied may be waived or remitted in the same manner as provided for such waiver or remittance as applied in administration of the State sales tax provided in Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 220, as amended; and to accomplish the purposes of this section the applicable provisions of such Section 220 are hereby adopted by reference and made a part of this Resolution.

Section 20. Refund of erroneous payment of the sales tax herein levied may be made to any taxpayer making such erroneous payment in the same manner and procedure, and under the same limitations of time, as provided for administration of the State sales tax as set forth in Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 227, as amended, and to accomplish the purposes of this Section, the applicable provisions of such Section 227 are hereby adopted by reference and made a part of this Resolution.

Section 21. In addition to all civil penalties provided by this Resolution, the willful failure or refusal of any taxpayer to make reports and remittances herein required, or the making of any false and fraudulent report for the purpose for avoiding or escaping payment for any tax or portion thereof rightfully due under this Resolution shall be an offense, and upon conviction thereof the offending taxpayer shall be subject to such fines as set out under Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 241, as amended.

Section 22. The confidential and privileged nature of the records and files concerning the administration of this sales tax is legislatively recognized and declared, and to protect the same the provisions of Title 68, Oklahoma Statutes 2001, Section 205, as amended, of the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code, and each subsection thereof is hereby adopted by reference and made fully effective and applicable to administration of this sales tax as if here set forth in full.

Section 23. The people of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, by their approval of the proposition set forth in Section 1 of this Resolution at the election hereinabove provided, hereby authorize the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, by Resolutions duly enacted to make such administrative and technical changes or additions in the method and manner of administration and enforcing this Resolution as may be necessary or proper for efficiency and fairness except that neither the rate of the tax herein provided, nor the term, nor the purpose of the tax herein provided, shall be changed without approval of the qualified electors of the County as provided by law.

Section 24. The Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, hereby declares for the benefit of the taxpayers of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, its solemn intent that the sales tax levied pursuant to this Resolution be ended at the earliest possible time upon payment of all indebtedness secured by such sales tax, or adequate provision for such payment having been made, and sufficient funds collected for all projects contemplated hereunder.

Section 25. The provisions hereof shall be cumulative, and in addition to any and all other taxing provisions of County Resolutions.

Section 26. The provisions hereof are hereby declared to be severable, and if any section, subsection, paragraph, sentence or clause of this Resolution is for any reason held invalid or inoperative by any Court of competent jurisdiction such decision shall not affect any other section, subsection, paragraph, sentence or clause hereof.”

PASSED AND APPROVED this 9th day of August, 2007.

BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF TULSA COUNTY , OKLAHOMA

__________________________________

Randi Miller, Chairman

Board of County Commissioners

ATTEST:

____________________________

Earlene Wilson, County Clerk

(SEAL)

There's been an interesting discussion over at the TulsaNow forum, looking ahead to the river tax vote in October, and looking back to the Vision 2025 tax vote back in 2003. There were persistent rumors that certain major companies blasted e-mails to their employees, urging them to vote yes, and that one company in particular, the Bank of Oklahoma, pressured employees to allow the vote yes campaign to put signs in their yards. BOk was one of the largest donors to the vote yes campaign, and a subsidiary of BOk Financial Corp., Leo Oppenheim, got half of the Vision 2025 revenue bond business.

In the course of the discussion, a user identifying himself with the handle "bokworker" was denying that there had been any sort of pressure on BOk employees to support Vision 2025, but he finally acknowledged this much (emphasis added; "Oil Capital" and "FB" are other participants in the discussion):

Oil Capital, as I recall the "incident" in question, there was an article posted on the banks' internal intranet informing employess about the Vision 2025 initiative and that the bank, as an entity, supported the initiative. The article stated that those employees that also supported the intitiative could ( note, it said COULD not WOULD) have a sign placed in their front yard to indicate their support. Those that did not want a sign or were not in support of the issue could "opt-out" by clicking the attached link and it was done. There was no effort in opting out besides a finger click. I will agree that I am not good at reading the minds of thousands of BOk employees any more than FB is. I can relate however that the so called "implicite coersion" was not felt by me or any of my co-workers. Is it possible that one or more employees felt uncomfortable in opting out? I suppose, but I did not.

Could the bank have worded the intranet article in a manner that you had to "opt-in" to get a sign put in your yard? I suppose but since I didn't feel like the bank was doing something that put my future with the organization at risk by "opting-out" I didn't give it a second thought. My angst with FB was that the banks actions were some sort of a conspiracy on the part of management to force the actions of its' employees to follow the company line. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It's 2003, and Tulsa has lost over 25,000 high tech jobs in the last two years. You go to work, sit down at your desk, log into the network, and you see an article telling you the company supports the Vision 2025 tax increase, and if you don't support it or don't want a "vote yes" sign in your yard, you can click a link and opt out. Would you click that link, knowing that there will be a record made of your decision?

Or would you suddenly remember your friend at that oil company who opposed the Tulsa Project and was fired after the election? Would you decide that it's not worth it to rock the boat?

There may be an honorable situation for forcing employees or subscribers or customers to "opt out" instead of allowing them to "opt in" but I can't think of one. At the very least Mr. Opt Out is hoping you'll forget to uncheck the box. Or maybe he'll set it up so that opting out requires checking a box, with the hope that you won't read closely enough or will just overlook it.

What BOk did, if this employee's story is accurate, is far worse. If you disagreed with your company's position on the tax, you had to conspicuously identify yourself as an opponent. Making the signs opt-in would have allowed opponents of the tax to blend in with those who just didn't get around to requesting a sign.

While I haven't heard this kind of story yet in this campaign, I am already hearing about pressure being applied by supporters of the new tax to shut down opposition. I've already heard of a neighborhood leader is being pressured not to allow an opponent of the tax to share the stage with a representative from the county at their neighborhood meeting. This is a sign of insecurity on the part of the proponents. If they believe their spin won't stand up to cross-examination, they'll refuse to debate someone who is able to use facts and reason to rebut their claims.

You tax supporters: If this is such a good deal, let it stand on its own merits. You shouldn't need to use threats, either explicit or implicit, to win support.

Just got word: To no one's surprise, the Tulsa County Commission voted unanimously to schedule an October 9 vote for a new seven year, 0.4% sales tax to fund river projects.

More commentary later.

A number of people have asked why the county commissioners seem to be in such a rush to put a sales tax hike on the ballot to pay for their proposed Arkansas River projects. The official answer from County Commissioner Randi Miller is that they're not in a rush at all, because the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan (ARCMP) has been in the works for four years.

This is an instance of misdirection, deliberately confusing the ARCMP with the river tax propsal: The ARCMP is a plan for capital improvements and development along the length of the river through Tulsa County over the course of the next several decades. The proposed river tax plan, implements a few projects in the ARCMP, but also includes projects (like a pedestrian-only 41st Street bridge) at odds with the ARCMP, and except for a few million for "studies" it excludes the sections of the river south of Jenks, and between Sand Springs and downtown Tulsa.

The river tax plan wasn't announced until June 20, 2007, and the details of the plan still have not been made public. We don't yet know how much each project line item is estimated to cost. The ballot resolution, the legally binding document that spells out how the tax revenues will be spent and how it will be governed, hasn't been made public yet, but the commissioners will be voting on it today (Thursday). One of the key issues is the composition of the board that will decide how to divvy up the $57.4 million for "River Corridor Land Acquisition." Will the City of Tulsa be well-represented on this board? What is the real likelihood that Tulsa will get any of the money for encouraging private riverfront development within the City of Tulsa's limits. On KFAQ Wednesday morning, Commissioner Fred Perry was unsure of the details of how the land acquisition would be handled and whether the city or the county or a nine-member trust would own the land.

There's a scheduled statewide election, a presidential primary, on February 5 -- we'd avoid the extra $170,000 cost of a special election. There are also two other dates before the end of the year, in November and December, on which an election could be held. There's time to air all the details publicly, receive public comment, and adjust the proposal.

So what's the real hurry? Commissioner Perry gave a very straightforward answer Wednesday morning. (It's about 22 minutes into this podcast.)

I think that to a great extent that is being driven by the philanthropists who have brought forth the private money, who -- basically, the way George Kaiser, I heard him put it, where his $50 million is concerned, is that normally he gives money to educational uses and human needs uses and so on -- his foundation does -- and that obviously there's probably some tax implications coming up on the end of the year, and if the public was not, you know, going to pass this then he wanted to be able to put his money elsewhere. And I've heard, you know, similar comments from some of the other people that are giving money.

Interesting that someone else's tax issues appear to be the reason for rushing ahead with a tax increase vote. There's more to this story, having to do with foundations and required annual payouts, but it'll have to wait.

Michelle sees something amiss with all the getting ready for company in advance of the PGA:

Okay, let me get this straight - we don't have the money to fix our streets or hire enough police officers, but we have the money to take police away from their main job (fighting crime) to direct traffic around Southern Hills for the PGA? Does anyone else believe that our mayor is all image and no substance? We want to look good for Tiger, Phil and their crowd, but who cares about the people that live here day in and day out? I guess we don't matter.

Steve Roemerman has posted some photos that his great-grandmother sent to his grandfather while he was in the South Pacific as a Seabee during WW II. They're pictures of Roemerman Feed & Implement in Blakesburg, Iowa. He also has photos of the remodeling of old Eastland Mall.

Mad Okie's front end is out of whack:

and I can't afford to fix it because of all the taxes I'm having to pay... but at least we have water in the river!

That's the reality of the situation. our "leaders" have thrown so much money around trying to find a "quick fix" that they have neglected the basic needs of the city. Roads and Cops. So what is their plan? Throw money into the river... literally.

Will Tulsa approve of it? Probably, for some reason we have either given up, or we have bought their lies... hook, line and sinker.

The truth is we have already approved a tax for the river in Vision 2025. If we don't hold them to what we voted for, then they will be emboldened to do whatever they please with the money we entrust to them.

Jeff Shaw has his own take on the new "I Am... Tulsa" ad campaign. And he's set up a website for his portrait photography business.

Roemerman and meeciteewurkor have been having fun with Photoshop and Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor, but the first photo in this entry is no fake -- there really was a FSBO sign on the reception desk at the Mayor's office. Mee has Kathy as Borg queen with her new Borg cube City Hall, and the Mayor keeping the Council in line.

Tulsa Chiggers is hosting a Blog Reader Survey for his readers.

(The BatesLine blog reader survey is still open for a few more days too. I'll be giving away at least two $10 Amazon gift certificates selected at random from those who have participated. Thanks to all who have done so already.)

This comment on an earlier entry by S. Lee was so well-made that I thought it deserved spotlighting here:

Rather than be accused of a being a "nay sayer" (which, as we all know, is almost as bad as being a fan of Ann Coulter), I would suggest using Cleveland, OH as an example of how buying stuff does not constitute economic development. Cleveland is a great example of a city population that was sucked into to voting for tax increase after tax increase to pay for stuff that would magically transform the city into greatness. Instead, all they got was rapid population loss, high taxes, and a crime rate even higher than Tulsa's.

Much of what is being hustled to Tulsa voters and the method of hustling looks like Cleveland deja vu all over again. Take a look at Cleveland's web site. If stuff was what made a city, then Cleveland ought to be solid gold. But it ain't. People are moving out of Cuyahoga county over to Lorain county ... where the taxes are lower (probably crime too). Brothers and sisters, can I have a Homer Simpson "Doh!"

Note a web page about living downtown; and (egad!) a waterfront project.

I've read comments about how full the Arkansas river has been lately, and wouldn't it be nice if it were always like that. I wouldn't know since you can only see the river from a very, very small part of Tulsa where I've not taken the time to go so I can see a river. Wow! A river! I'm sure I missed out on the thrill of my life -- but I sure have seen a lot of bad roads. I'll trade some better roads and lower crime for a sandy river (that I don't often see) any day, any time.

It might be interesting, at one of the county meetings, to get a show of hands of how many people know what kind of convention center and city offices Charlotte, NC has. How many people at the meeting care about what other stuff Charlotte has bought lately? If they got a job offer in Charlotte, would they be asking what kind of stuff has Charlotte bought lately; or would they be more interested in mundane things such as transportation, crime rate, and schools?

Some folks are just so stinkin' boring.

It's been a while since I've been to Cleveland, but I attended two weddings in Cleveland and a third in Canton back in the early '90s. I remember going with some friends down to the Flats and eating at (ho hum) TGI Fridays on a Friday night. (It was May 1992 and the night of Johnny Carson's last tonight show.) The Flats is a former industrial / warehousing area on the banks of the Cuyahoga River which was converted into an entertainment district, much like Bricktown in Oklahoma City or Laclede's Landing in St. Louis. I was surprised to read not long ago that the Flats are now under re-re-development.

County Commissioner Randi Miller has scheduled her one and only public meeting on the $282.25 million river tax plan for tomorrow -- Sunday, July 29, at 2 p.m., in the at the east end of the QuikTrip Center (formerly known as the IPE Building and as the Expo Center). That probably means it's in the cafeteria building, a smaller brick building attached to the east end of the bigger structure.

The information was in Saturday morning's Whirled, buried on page A17, in the least read edition of the paper. That's a good way to make sure that, say, county employees know to show up, but citizens with questions and concerns don't get the word.

There will be three other meetings on the topic, all hosted by County Commissioner Fred Perry. Here is the complete list from the Whirled:

Sunday: 2-4 p.m. at the east end of the QuikTrip Center (formally known as the Exposition Center) at Expo Square; Commissioner Randi Miller will give a PowerPoint presentation.

Monday: 7 p.m. at Hardesty Regional Library, 8316 E. 93rd St; discussion hosted by Commissioner Fred Perry.

Tuesday: 7 p.m. at the CityPlex Towers, 81st Street and Lewis Avenue, on the second floor of the atrium building; discussion hosted by Perry.

Wednesday: 7 p.m. at Central on Main, 210 N. Main St. in Broken Arrow; discussion hosted by Perry.

Come and make your voice heard. Word is they'll vote on putting the tax on the ballot on Thursday.

If I'm able to go, I have two three things to tell the county commissioners:

(1) They promised to construct two low-water dams and to improve Zink Lake as part of Vision 2025, and they promised that the projects on the ballot would be fully funded before any new projects are considered. They need to keep that promise and fund the construction of low-water dams and Zink Lake improvements from Vision 2025 money. It's wrong for the County Commissioners to make us tax ourselves twice to get what we've already paid for.

(2) It is irresponsible for the County Commissioners to send a tax hike to a public vote when they haven't given due consideration to funding these projects without a tax increase.

(3) If the County Commissioners say they can't find a way to fund the low-water dams with Vision 2025 money, they are saying that there isn't enough money in Vision 2025 to complete all the promised projects.

MORE: Ken Neal's Sunday Whirled column is already on the web. Neal praises Commissioners Fred Perry and John Smaligo for having become more open-minded about tax increases and accuses City Councilor John Eagleton of trying to delay river development for many years. And Ken's notion that borrowing against future revenues would be like a second mortgage is just plain wrong. Tulsa County has been borrowing against future Vision 2025 revenues all along, with the intention of completing all projects in the first half of the 13 year period of the tax.

STILL MORE: TulTellitarian, writing at meeciteewurkor.com, has been crunching numbers, too. He makes some different assumptions but comes to the same conclusion: There's enough money in Vision 2025 to pay for the low-water dams and Zink Lake work that was promised, enough even for all the essential pieces of the new proposal. (By the way, he used Google Documents to embed spreadsheets in the blog entry. For that reason alone, if you're interested in web technology, it's worth clicking through to see how that works.)

Tulsa County Commissioner Randi Miller held a press conference today to explain why she absolutely has to have a higher sales tax rate in order to build the low-water dams that she promised would be built by the existing Vision 2025 tax.

Miller was responding to a proposal by Tulsa City Councilor John Eagleton, who called for paying for river plan implementation from the existing Vision 2025 sales tax, asking voters to extend that tax if its necessary to complete the projects, rather than increasing the tax rate.

I made a similar proposal in this week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly. Tulsa County voters were promised three river related projects as part of Proposition 4:

Construct two low water dams on Arkansas River the locations of which will be determined in the Arkansas River Corridor Plan -- $5.6 million

Zink Lake Shoreline Beautification -- $1.8 million

Design and construct Zink Lake Upstream Catch Basin and silt removal -- $2.1 million

Last week on KFAQ, Vision 2025 project manager Kirby Crowe said of these funds, only $275,000 has been spent, to cover the cost of environmental paperwork that must be completed prior to constructing the dams. The rest, he said, is "unspent and protected."

In my column, I point out that these dams were promised as a part of Vision 2025, and that County Commissioners committed to completing all the projects as promised, and as quickly as possible. (I do find it interesting that neither of the two Whirled stories, about Eagleton's idea and Miller's response, mentions that construction of the dams were promised as part of Vision 2025.)

Matching funds or not, County officials made a commitment to complete the projects that were promised. In a July 23, 2003, story in the daily paper about the potential for revenues to exceed expected project costs, County Commissioner Bob Dick said that the Vision 2025 package was structured to be sure that no project would be left incomplete. Commissioner Dick was quoted as saying, “I think the worst thing you could do is promise you are going to build something and then not have enough money to build it.” So any surplus was intended first to be used to finish the promised projects.

Miller claims that we can't predict if there would be enough surplus, and if there is any, it's already been promised to the suburbs for unspecified projects.

But I'm told that no such projects have been approved by the Tulsa County Vision Authority and no such commitment was made. Mayor Taylor denies that any such promise was made. Such a promise would directly contradict something Miller was quoted as saying later in the interview:

The commissioners' primary responsibility is to ensure that the Vision 2025 projects promised voters are delivered, she said.

And that means building the low water dams and refurbishing the Zink Lake dams has to come before any new projects are undertaken.

In fact, the ballot resolution makes a formal commitment to that effect:

While the cost estimates shown above are believed to be accurate, it must be recognized that the exact cost of each project may vary from the estimate shown. It is the intention of the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, that all projects shall be completed as funds are made available. If the Board of County Commissioners of Tulsa County, Oklahoma, determines that all of the projects listed above will be completed with existing and projected funds and that excess funds will be available for additional projects, such excess funds shall be expended for caputal improvements for community enrichment (which does not include appropriation of any such funds to any other entity for such purpose), as determined by a public trust having Tulsa County, Oklahoma, [and all Tulsa County municipalities], as its beneficiaries.

Emphasis added. No new projects until all the listed projects are fully funded to completion.

Miller also claims that we can't get to any of the surplus money until near the end of the tax period, around 2015 or so. But as she knows, Vision 2025 is not a pay as you go project. She and her fellow commissioners have issued revenue bonds, borrowing money against future revenues so that the projects could be completed early, long before we raise the revenue.

I don't know how much has been borrowed all ready, how much has been spent, and how much is committed in the near term, but if the river is a priority, I'm sure some projects can be delayed to so that money already in hand could be used to start work on the dams. I'm sure more could be borrowed against anticipated Vision 2025 revenues. If John Piercey doesn't think he can do it, perhaps we could put the financing out for competitive bidding and find someone who can make it happen without charging us an arm and a leg.

Interesting: According to this, the river projects and all other Vision 2025 projects should have been funded in the second bond issue. The first bond issue was for $242,150,000:

Program manager Kirby Crowe said officials plan to have just one more bond issue to fund the rest of the Vision 2025 projects.

The Arkansas River projects, Broken Arrow's funding for downtown and neighborhood beautification, construction costs for the downtown Tulsa arena and renovation of the Maxwell Convention Center -- as well as the rest of the funding for projects that were only partially funded in the first bond issue -- are anticipated to be funded in the second.

Here's Randi Miller from June 2005:

While they aren't ready to act on projections for what the 13-year, sixth-tenths of a penny sales tax will bring in, Commissioners Bob Dick and Randi Miller both believe the Arkansas River is a likely candidate to see additional funding.

"It's too soon to start spending money above those things that have already been identified," Dick said. "But there's one real easy one, to say if we do have that, I think a high priority would be on the river."

The $5.6 million allocated in Vision 2025 for river projects only pays for a portion of two low-water dams. It is supposed to be used along with federal funds, but Miller said officials may need the extra money to make sure the dams get built.

"If there's any money that's available, in my opinion because we do not have enough for the dams, then I'm going to go with river development," she said.

From the same article, John Piercey provides an early estimate of a surplus and is game to try to make it available early:

Vision 2025 financial adviser John Piercey, a senior investment banker with Capital West Securities, said that virtually all of of the $65 million surplus will be collected in 2016 and 2017.

"The question becomes: Is there a way to have those funds early? We're working on that," he said.

And as recently as this January, Piercey said:

"It looks like they'll (local officials) be able to deliver everything they promised to voters, and then some."

Make it so.

TAKE ACTION: If you want County Commissioners to keep their promise and fund the low-water dams from the Vision 2025 tax, you need to let them know. The vote to put a new tax on the ballot could come as early as next Thursday. Here are phone and e-mail contacts for each:

District 1, John Smaligo: jsmaligo@tulsacounty.org, 596-5020

District 2, Randi Miller: rmiller@tulsacounty.org, 596-5015

District 3, Fred Perry: fperry@tulsacounty.org, 596-5010

It's always fascinating when you get civic and business leaders speaking more candidly than they normally would in public. Back in February, the Journal Record published a transcript of a panel discussion concerning Arkansas River development in Tulsa.

It was the Square Feet Real Estate Roundtable, and the discussion involved Steve Walman of Walman Commercial Real Estate Services, Gaylon Pinc, an engineer formerly with INCOG and now with PMg, William B. Smith, vice chairman of the Oklahoma Floodplain Managers Association and president of Hydropower International Services International Consultancy, Susan Neal, from Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor's staff. The roundtable was moderated by Bob Parker, vice president of retail leasing and marketing with GBR Properties.

Walman has been involved in two riverfront developments: Riverwalk Crossing on the Jenks side and King's Landing on the Tulsa side. He expressed a sense of betrayal about Vision 2025:

I think the problem I have right now, and for a lot of Tulsans is, in Vision 2025 I voted for a river and I got an arena. I sat three years ago with a city hydrologist when we were doing Riverwalk and considering King's Landing and I said, 'Listen, with $27 million of private money going on this river, it's imperative to know when this low-water dam's going in that was the No. 1 priority of Vision 2025 and is so critical to the catalyst that's going to come.' And we were never sold the reality of the process. As simplistic as my mind works, I think a lot of people thought that 2025 was going to get a low-water dam. What that did was pay for a plan to get a low-water dam and for the last three years we've been told all the reasons why it's not happening.

I don't care for the reasons why we don't get it done. I voted for it. I won't vote for another thing before that low-water dam gets built. And I don't think any Tulsan will. Remember how long it took to get 2025 passed? Nobody had faith that somebody can pull that off. Until we pull that off, I don't think anybody's going to have faith that we're going to do anything else.

Maybe that's cynical business, but every week I've got $27 million worth of shopping centers on a sandbar. And I was told three years. This is a Tulsa problem, not a personal agenda issue. If in 2025 you'd said this is a 10-year process and you don't have the money, it's going to require a lot of these things and there's federal mandates, I'd put a dollar down 2025 wouldn't have passed.

Steve, some of us tried to point out that Vision 2025 was all about the arena, and there wasn't much river funding in the package, and the river funding that was there was contingent on federal funds that were unlikely to materialize. That last point was the subject of a report on KOTV. Not many people listened.

According to Gaylon Pinc, the arena is still getting in the way of river development (emphasis added):

There were two low-water dams envisioned in 2025, but a third of the money that was budgeted, if you will, was hoping that the feds would provide the other two-thirds, with our congressional delegation as powerful as they were. The election has turned that upside down. We will no longer have as much power and influence as we would have, and Congress did not act in time to pass the legislation that would have benefited us.

And then, when the overage went to the arena, that was very disappointing, because early on the overage (referring to Vision 2025 tax revenue rising beyond projections) was really talked about going to the river. And that would have made up the gap. And it's a severe gap. We don't have enough money in Vision, if we used all the money to build even that one south low-water dam. So we need more money from the public to do that, and if we don't get that, it will be much longer than that three-year process that it would take to get it permitted, designed and then start construction.

I am very hopeful, and I will remain optimistic that we will get that money because the public wants river development. I would hope they would understand enough to know the money was short to begin with and we will need more. And all the things that caused the multimillion-dollar overage on the arena - concrete, steel, electrical, manpower - will plague us on the low-water dam costs, too. But we have a couple of years to get to that point.

But Pinc says the money is already there to fix an immediate problem -- the Zink Lake Dam (emphasis added):

The Tennessee Valley Authority is working with the Corps in finding ways to improve dam safety. Zink Dam is a killer dam; firemen, policemen, rescue folks hate it because it is so inviting. So we have Vision money to improve Zink dam and add safety, actually reface the weir downstream. Along with that we have the opportunity to do a whitewater park launching from Zink Lake, and the plume that would also double as a fish passage.

Pinc also talked about the environmental obstacles to a 71st or 81st Street dam and to many possible development sites:

The corridor master plan really only has eight potential dam sites, all of which could be feasible. Some have more challenges than others, such as the ones downstream of I-44 and 71st Street and 81st Street have a Tulsa wastewater plant upstream. No way can you build a dam where it's dominated by wastewater. So, at some point Tulsa might want to think about moving that plant that's past its day.

You know, there are major projects that could hinder riverfront development in certain corridors and that 71st corridor is one of those areas. With Helmerich Park (just south of 71st) the public owns a lot of land, there's a lot of land for development, but the bio-solvents facility across river takes away a lot of developable land for a public use that's probably no longer appropriate for that type of urban setting. But it takes a couple hundred million dollars though to move those facilities to a less visible public location. So who's going to put up that money? It's going to take higher water rates, sewer rates, to do that, but that is going to be an obstacle.

Here's Susan Neal on how Riverwalk Crossing falls short of the ideal of riverfront development (emphasis added):

But it's interesting to me how the community defines riverfront development. If they define it by Riverwalk, which is a wonderful project, acceptable to most people - well, that's different from what many of us around Tulsa County view as real riverfront development, which actually lets you interact and recreate with the river. And that's what makes it costly. If you are dining, you are dining on the river. It's not just a restaurant that you look out and you can see the river. And I think that if it were easy, it would have already been done. But until we can play on it and interact with it, walk alongside it, have a dinner beside it, navigate it on a boat and fish on it, I think we are missing the boat on riverfront development.

This little detail in the piece's introduction of Gaylon Pinc raises all sorts of questions:

When Tulsa County took over that guidance role from INCOG last year, Pinc moved to PMg to continue his participation in the next phases of river studies.

This is no reflection on Pinc, who simply moved where he needed to move in order to stay involved with a project he cares about. But who decided that INCOG would be relieved of its involvement in the plan? Did City of Tulsa officials agree to the change? And when was there a competition to decide who would provide engineering services to the County for the river plan?

My new UTW column is up, despite the holiday, and it's a first look at the new river tax proposal. A closer look at details will come in a later column; this is a big-picture analysis of the concepts and the politics of the situation.

I want to remind readers that I do not write the headlines or taglines for my columns, and I do not agree with the harsh, sarcastic tone of the tagline written for this column. I am grateful for the willingness of George Kaiser and other Tulsa philanthropists to contribute to the well-being of this city, and my suggestion that direct investment, rather than matching contributions, may be the best way to make the river the kind of place Tulsans want to enjoy is a suggestion made in earnest.

MORE: Last issue OSU political science professor J. S. Maloy wrote a response to my column about Greenwood, its post-riot recovery and its destruction by urban renewal. In this issue, my reply appears, in which I set out the sources on which I relied, should he want to verify what I wrote.

My reply was edited somewhat. Specifically, a different first paragraph was substituted for what I wrote, setting a more pompous and pugnacious tone than I intended. Here is my original first paragraph:

I'm always pleased to know that someone has given one of my columns a close and critical reading, as OSU Political Science Professor J. S. Maloy has done with my column on the rise and fall of the Greenwood district. This aspect of Tulsa history is important but overlooked, so I welcome his interest. I empathize with his disappointment that so little of Greenwood remains. My column was an attempt to use available evidence to explain why things are the way they are.

The rest of the piece appears unchanged, except for a mention of St. Monica's Catholic Church in a list of things that are still standing in "upper Greenwood" -- the few blocks of Greenwood just south of Pine.

Steve Roemerman has a report on Tuesday night's meeting of the South Tulsa Citizens' Coalition. Steve also sent an e-mail to Mayor Taylor about her position on the bridge and has posted her reply, in which she says, "I am asking the experts for recommendations on the best way to finance the bridge and for the best recommendation as to its placement." So which experts is she asking?

HB 1648, a bill sponsored by Tulsa Rep. Pam Peterson, passed the House today. The bill requires competitive bidding even if a construction project is initiated as a public/private partnership. From Mike McCarville's report:

"This bill protects taxpayers from the 'good ol' boy' deals that have plagued our highway and road construction projects for decades," said Peterson, R-Tulsa. "The only people disadvantaged by this bill are those who want to gouge taxpayers."

Due to a loophole in the Oklahoma Competitive Bidding Act, government entities are currently allowed to award construction projects to a single vendor if the private company "partners" with the state by loaning start-up money for the project. The state usually agrees to repay the private entity at very high interest rates.

The proposal was vigorously opposed by the construction industry, including Manhattan Construction, a large and politically influential firm. Rep. Peterson deserves a great deal of praise for her courage in taking on this issue.

Now we'll see if it can survive the Senate.

UPDATE: I misread the information I was given. The bill still must get scheduled for a full vote in the State House, and that is not yet assured. You can figure that the interests opposed to the bill will fight to prevent a vote, because a vote against it would be a vote against basic fiscal responsibility. Ultimately, the decision as to whether to schedule a vote is in the hands of Speaker Lance Cargill. This will give Oklahoma taxpayers an early indication if "pay to play" will be in effect during his time in the speaker's chair.

Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor wants to focus on design regulations for development in the river corridor, not on creation of a new river authority:

"We have this wonderful asset and right now anyone can develop anything on it," she said. "If I want to put a mini-storage warehouse on it, I can."

Taylor has directed the city's Planning Commission to establish a study committee that could recommend the zoning guidelines.

Taylor said the goal of river corridor zoning is to provide compatibility guidelines that enhance commercial development.

"We don't need an authority for private development to occur," she said.

(I assume they mean the city's Planning Division, not Commission. The city doesn't have its own planning commission. That role is filled by the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, and Mayor Taylor doesn't have the power to direct the TMAPC to do anything. Anyway, the city's planners are better suited to developing good design requirements, having already handled the same task on several small-area infill development plans. UPDATE: I've learned that the request was indeed sent to the TMAPC.)

There's a graphic with the story that shows that the City of Tulsa has 17 miles of river frontage out of the 26-mile length of the river in Tulsa County. That's one good reason why the City of Tulsa shouldn't cede authority over commercial development to a County Commission-controlled authority.

Taylor seems support design regulations for the river corridor, but then she doesn't seem to want to fully embrace the idea.

In Tulsa, she said, the process for developing guidelines would include public input on whether the city should have zoning restrictions on the river.

"The citizens have to decide whether we want gas stations on the river," she said.

In late 2005, plans for a Kum & Go convenience store on Riverside Parkway prompted the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission to look at its options as it considers future Arkansas River development cases.

The store's location, with its back facing the riverfront, drew some criticism from elected officials, but there was nothing anyone could do to stop it, control its design or its position in relation to the river.

With this statement she almost seems to be giving herself an out, in case there's some backlash from developers. Wouldn't it be nice if the Mayor actually took the lead and expended some political capital in arguing for the importance of special regulations for development along the river?

You can read my column from last August about the importance of design guidelines for the river and other strategic areas here.

It's not often I find myself in agreement with Bobby Lorton, publisher of the Tulsa Whirled, but in this case, he is absolutely right: We don't need a new river development authority, because we already have one with a 32-year-history -- the River Parks Authority. All of the roles being suggested for the new authority are already under the RPA's purview.

While there might need to be changes to the board or staff to enable it to serve an expanded role, there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

After the jump is a letter that Lorton, as chairman of the RPA, sent to Tulsa County Commissioner Randi Miller, leading proponent of a new authority. Be sure to notice the contrast he draws between riverfront development in Jenks and development across the river in Tulsa. I think the suggestion for expanding the RPA board could be tweaked a bit -- there ought to be someone on the board representing near-river neighborhood associations -- but it's a pretty good letter all told.

The big story I've been working on is finally in print. This week's Urban Tulsa Weekly cover story is the epic tale of a century -- yes, a century -- of Tulsa's plans to do something interesting with the Arkansas River.

This story was a blast to research. UTW's Holly Wall and Siara Jacobs rounded up copies of articles and documents from the 1968 and 1976 plans from the very helpful folks at the River Parks Authority. I spent hours paging through Central Library's "vertical files" and repository of old planning documents. I had far more material than I could use. I was helped immensely by a conversation with architect Rex Ball, whose firm developed the 1968 River Lakes Park plan, and by my long acquaintance with Jim Hewgley III, who was Streets Commissioner when the Zink Lake low-water dam was built by Mayor Jim Inhofe.

It's my intention to scan and upload much of the research material and to provide some sort of bibliography to help anyone else who might want to do further research.

In the story I mention a river concept presented very briefly in a 1959 document called A Plan for Central Tulsa:

A page of that study was devoted to "The Marina," a concept for the river between 11th and 21st Streets. The accompanying illustration showed an artificial lagoon for boats near 15th and Riverside, a floating restaurant and boat club just to the south, a "picnic island" accessible by pedestrian bridge just to the north, and a larger island, accessible only by boat, where the west bank used to be.

Yes, used to be. The drawing showed the river almost twice as wide as its existing width at the 21st Street bridge, backed up by a dam at some unspecified location downstream, with the new shoreline just below the west bank levee. The resemblance to last year's "The Channels" plan is uncanny.

I took a photograph of the illustration so you can see for yourself. It's not as sharp as I'd like, but I think you can make it out. Click on the image to see it in its original size.

(Notice that in 1959, the location of the Inner Dispersal Loop, seen along the top of the diagram, has already been determined, although it wouldn't be completed until nearly 25 years later.)

My column this week is also about Tulsa history:

Oklahoma's centennial year ought to be a year when all Oklahomans -- natives and newcomers alike -- encounter our state's history in a way that engages our imaginations. While every year is a good year to study Oklahoma history, this is a year that ought to be hallowed to that purpose, a year for remembering where we came from and how we got to where we are today.

The June unearthing of the buried Belvedere fulfills that purpose quite well. I propose extending that glimpse back 50 years with the Tulsa 1957 project, which I launched here a while back and explain in detail in the column. I also mention a couple of websites which are helping to capture everyday life in Tulsa as it was. (But I neglected to mention Jack Frank's wonderful Tulsa Films series, which uses TV footage and home movies to bring decades past back to life.)

Also this week UTW gives a rave review to the source of the coffee and quesadillas that helped fuel my 6,000-word feature story. Katharine Kelly gives the Coffee House on Cherry Street five stars each for food, atmosphere, and service.

RELATED: A pretty thorough outline history of the Arkansas River in the Tulsa area.

Encouraging news from new Tulsa County Commissioner Fred Perry, in a January 11 press release:

Due to numerous requests from the media and others, newly sworn in County Commissioner Fred Perry today announced his position on a river authority. “I do not support an additional river authority. The taxpayers and voters elected us, and other elected officials in Tulsa County, to make the hard decisions and I am confident, from comments by many citizens, that they don’t want us to relinquish any of that decision making to non-elected, appointed members of an authority no matter how competent the individuals might be. At a minimum an authority puts an additional layer in place which can slow up the decision making process,” Perry said.

The Tulsa County Commission has, by statute, the responsibility of calling for an election if the county sales tax is to be raised for river development (or any other project such as the 2003 Vision 2025 vote).

“Having taken a stand against a river authority, I want to make it clear that I welcome good advice from any quarter whether that be INCOG, the River Parks Authority and/or Chambers of Commerce. In fact, I look to INCOG for technical advice and evaluation, just as they have been doing with the proposed Channels River Plan. I have met at length with River Parks Authority Executive Director Matt Meyer and have a high regard for his opinion. I have also met with INCOG Executive Director Jerry Lasker and have worked with him during my time in the legislature, and I also have a high regard for his opinion.”

“It has been said that the County Commissioners and the Mayor need help in evaluating any proposed plans. I agree with that but I don’t agree that there needs to be a new authority. I welcome help from any group in evaluating river plans that have been proposed and are expected to be proposed. These could be City Councils, a group of Mayors located in Tulsa County, engineering associations, civic or other groups but I don’t see the need for an authority. And before a plan is put to a vote by the people, I would want public hearings and suggestions for improvement on any proposed plan.”

Perry said that he believed that public money should only be spent on infrastructure that “cleans up the river and the river bank and/or puts more water in the river and possibly other structural improvements to the river itself. If that is done, private developers and philanthropic individuals and foundations will facilitate the development as they would in any private sector endeavor.”

In a related area, Commissioner Perry said, “At the suggestion of Skiatook developer Ron Howell, I visited Branson Landing last October. Shortly thereafter I met with Rick Huffman, along with Commissioner Miller and Mr. Howell, and encouraged him to seriously consider Tulsa. Subsequently he came to Tulsa, toured the river and began talks with the City of Tulsa regarding a site within the City of Tulsa. The Branson project is extremely impressive and something similar would be great for Tulsa whether or not more comprehensive river infrastructure work takes place. I stand ready to help as it relates to any potential development in Tulsa County,” Perry said.

Perry said that he expects to see more river plan ideas come forward soon. He credited INCOG for their previous work in developing a river master plan and the Stakeholders for their time and effort in the Channels and for “re-energizing talk about comprehensive river development.”

Note that next to last paragraph -- a Branson Landing type project on the west bank would be possible without any changes to the river itself.

I was especially pleased to see that Commissioner Perry appreciates the importance of keeping decisions in the hands of those who are directly accountable to the voters. Recall that when the Vision 2025 proposal came before the County Commissioners in 2003, they (Dick, Miller, and Collins) treated the recommendations of the "leadership team" as immutable, even though as the elected authority responsible for putting the propositions on the ballot, they could have put the arena on a separate ballot to stand or fall on its own merits.

Belated congratulations to the South Tulsa Citizens' Coalition -- on Wednesday District Judge David Peterson ruled against the motion for summary judgment brought by Infrastructure Ventures Inc., which would have dismissed STCC's lawsuit against the latest deal to build a toll bridge across the Arkansas River at Yale Avenue.

The story in Thursday's Whirled brings up several issues that really ought to be addressed by the State Legislature, issues where there are gaps or ambiguities which will otherwise be left to a judge to sort out:

• Should an authority formed by multiple municipalities be allowed to condemn property outside the bounds of the beneficiary municipalities?
• Should such an authority be able to condemn property belonging to a non-beneficiary government?
• Should a franchise agreement like the Arkansas River Bridge Authority has signed with IVI be subject to a vote of the people, in the same way that municipal franchises are, for a maximum term of 25 years?

I'd also like to wish Judge Peterson a happy retirement. He was someone you could count on to rise above political pressure, and he will be missed.

The developer of the Branson Landing riverfront mixed-use development has expressed interest in developing the west bank of the Arkansas River between 11th & 21st Street, and that's the topic of my latest column in Urban Tulsa Weekly. I reflect on a recent visit to Branson Landing and to a startlingly similar (but non-waterfront) development in the Florida panhandle called Destin Commons and consider how well that sort of thing might fit on our west bank.

Also of note in this week's UTW:

• Holly Wall reports on plans to build an 85-room boutique hotel on the grounds of the historic McBirney Mansion at Riverside and Galveston. It's an interesting approach that seems to try to be sensitive to the historical context, but the neighborhood impact has to be considered, rezoning would be required, and there are preservation easements, donated by the owners to the City of Tulsa and the Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office, that prohibit the kind of development being proposed.
• Jarrod Gollihare has a feature story on the Tulsa Violin Shop, on Main north of Brady downtown. There's more to getting a violin or cello ready to play and keeping it playable than you might think.

A blog called Brand Avenue has an item about The Channels and at the end of it, they link to a webpage about proposed islands in another stream, the Mississippi River at St. Louis:

When the Great Rivers Greenway District called upon Balmori Associates to provide a proposal for the St. Louis riverfront master plan in October 2005, the firm initially developed four schemes for the underutilized three-quarter mile riverfront. Traditional plans of a pedestrian promenade in a landscaped park were discarded, however, for a more bold and atypical concept: a riverfront of floating islands....

The current proposal includes a series of islands suspended on catamaran-like supports and linked by floating walkways. The original proposal included detachable landforms, which would be flexible enough to change the shape and size of the islands. A major benefit of the proposal is not only this flexibility in landform configuration but also in the potential to change the riverfront’s seasonal activities. As [project manager Javier] Gonzalez explained, “You could detach one of the connecting pieces to attach a new one with a new function. In one you may have a kiosk in the summer, then you could take it to the shipyard and come back with another island with something for the winter.”

When I read the word "landforms" I keep thinking about Colorforms.

By the way, the reason the St. Louis riverfront is "underutilized" is because it was cleaned out by urban renewal.

In today's Whirled, John Kennington, president of the Tulsa Audubon Society, writes, in a letter to the editor, that there are studies that have not yet been done, but ought to be done before putting funding for The Channels to a vote of the people:

The Tulsa Audubon Society is concerned about the impact of The Channels on wildlife and river habitats, especially least terns and bald eagles. TAS serves on the Arkansas River Advisory Committee, which has received answers to its environmental concerns.

Because of those answers we cannot endorse this project. There are too many unknowns, assumptions and guesses about specific design elements and costs....

The studies and modeling needed to develop detailed plans and cost estimates are all scheduled after the design phase, after the proposed election. The detailed groundwater model will take nine months, so a February vote will be based on optimistic guesses. It has been stated that "researching flow volume and cost to validate our order of magnitude costs" are still being studied.

Emphasis added -- when Kennington quotes The Channels' backers as saying they need to validate their "order of magnitude costs," they aren't talking about the difference between $788 million and $888 million, they're talking about the difference between $788 million and $1.6 billion or more. At the public hearing at OSU-Tulsa last month, it was argued that the Tulsa Stakeholders had done their homework, they had the best experts in the world studying this, and we should stop complaining and trust them. It's apparent now that the concerns raised at that hearing hadn't been considered at all -- e.g., the impact of rising river levels on groundwater levels in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Last week, the Brookside Neighborhood Association and the Coalition of Historic Neighborhoods hosted a forum about The Channels that focused on dialogue rather than slick presentations. According to the Whirled's story, the group identified four things they liked about the islands-in-the-stream proposal and two pages' worth of things they didn't like.

I hope that the Tulsa Stakeholders are beginning to realize that their plan isn't going to move forward for a long time, if ever. Perhaps they can begin looking at alternative ways to spend that $100 million, where strategic, positive things can be accomplished without the public expense and logistical problems involved in The Channels' proposal.

Just got this in e-mail:

SpiritBank Business Resource Center

You are invited to join us for a very important
Think-A-Torium&tm;
Reaching Tulsa's Full Potential
Maximizing the Momentum of Our City

Co-facilitated by
Don Himelfarb, Economic Development Director, City of Tulsa
Thursday, November 16, 2006
4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Penthouse Reception 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
SpiritTower - Community Room
1800 South Baltimore Avenue, Tulsa

In May 2005, Kathy Taylor, then Oklahoma's Secretary of Commerce, co-facilitated a BRC Think-A-Torium designed to illuminate the many efforts underway that are supporting Tulsa in reaching her full potential.

Please join us as we gain a better understanding of all the public and private projects being launched or are underway in Tulsa and the surrounding region.

This interactive strategic brainstorming session will be graphically facilitated by Sean Griffin. Outcomes include the following:

• Increased understanding of the many projects currently in process


• How to plug into existing projects


• The value of "coopetition"


• Creating a collaborative and diverse community


• Meeting the challenges of the global war for talent


• Gain new perspectives on our changing city


• Interacting with Tulsa business leaders

RSVP to Christy Gehrki at 918-295-7236 or e-mail cgehrki at spiritbank dot com.
Seating is limited so sign up early!

Sponsored by James Shirley Management Consultants, Inc., HR Business Links and Triad Interactive Marketing & Software.

To give you a flavor of this sort of event, here is a link to a summary of the May 2005 Think-A-Torium. Based on the description above, I think it would be important for anyone involved with a project for improving Tulsa to show up and share information about it, so it doesn't get left out of the big picture. If nothing else, this is a chance to educate Mr. Himelfarb, new to the job as the City's economic development director, about aspects of Tulsa's economy of which he may not yet be aware.

UPDATE:

See Dubya suggests a tongue-in-cheek tag line for Think-A-Torium: "Where rational thought goes to be incinerated!" He also says he knows someone who once went to a similar event with the name "Visioneering."

It is an interesting choice of suffix. I can't think of any really positive words that end in "torium." There's crematorium, moratorium, vomitorium, sanitorium.

So we've been told that the Arkansas River is far too wide to make for an intimate river walk setting. Anyone who has been to the San Antonio River Walk knows there's something to this. (On the other hand, Riverwalk Crossing in Jenks seems to be doing fine with development on one side of the river only. Ditto for your typical seaside boardwalk.) Bing Thom says you need to build the $600 million islands in the river so it'll be close enough to wave at someone on the opposite shore.

Is there another way to create a narrower water feature? Perhaps using tributaries of the Arkansas?

About a month ago (I've been meaning to get this posted), John Neas was kind enough to send me a concept drawing from 1991. I had heard about this, but had never seen it. There's a creek that was long ago buried and routed through storm sewers. It's called Elm Creek, and it flows, mostly underground, from Kendall-Whittier, through Central Park (6th & Peoria), south through Gunboat Park (11th to 13th, Elgin to Frankfort), to 15th & Boston, along Baltimore Ave, along the western edge of Veterans' Park, emptying into the river under the 21st Street bridge. The stretch from Central Park to Veterans' Park consists of an 84" arch tunnel.

This plan, shown in the picture above (click on it to download a higher res version in PDF format), would have brought the creek back to the surface from about 16th & Baltimore to Riverside Drive. Disregard the buildings and the street closings, and just focus on where the creek is relative to the park, the 18th & Boston district (considerably more active now than it was in 1991), and the river. It would make for an interesting connection between 18th & Boston and River Parks, providing a back door to businesses along Boston and opening the possibility for new businesses in place of the parking lot on the west side of Baltimore. Obviously the idea can be tweaked to fit the positive things that are already happening in the neighborhood.

The idea of bringing a creek to the surface as a promenade and neighborhood focal point is an important part of the Pearl District plan, which would open Elm Creek up as a canal along 7th Street to connect the new lake at Central Park with a proposed stormwater detention facility further east.

River development proposal delays actual funded river development :

[River Parks director Matt] Meyer said all of the third-penny sales tax that goes toward river improvements in the area between 11th and 21st streets will be on hold until a decision is made on The Channels.

Urban Tulsa Weekly has a bright and shiny new website!

All the links in my archive category are now broken! But it's worth it! (And they'll be easy enough to fix -- it will just take time.)

(There's a really simple forwarding trick they could do to fix all the broken links on the server side.)

Here's this week's column, part 6 in the series dealing with The Channels proposal, this week asking about the best way to create a more pedestrian-friendly city, learning a lesson from the success of a waterfront development in Florida.

This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly is a report and commentary on the public comment session of the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan Advisory Committee regarding The Channels, held a week ago Tuesday, October 3, at OSU-Tulsa.

The copy editor is evidently bored with the topic, as my column was given the headline Poltergeist X. (It's actually the fifth column in a row that has had something to do with the islands-in-the-Arkansas plan.)

I, on the other hand, feel like I've found my muse again. It's not that I'm smitten by The Channels (which should be obvious), but the proposal has given me a jumping-off point to talk about many other important issues: How do we create interesting and lively urban places? What makes for walkable communities? What should we be doing to compete for population with other cities and with our own suburbs? What do we mean when we say we want river development?

I've uploaded several audio files and will be uploading more over the course of the evening, along with comments. This first group were mentioned in this week's column, so that you can hear for yourself what was said. These are all MP3 files, each less than 1 MB in size.

• Facilitator Gaylon Pinc explains the format for the evening.
• Pinc explains that answering questions would allow things to "get out of hand."
• Debbie Sanditen of changethechannels.com reads a letter of concern from the Oklahoma Floodwater Management Association.
• Richard Baldwin, a property owner along the north bank of the river west of downtown, explains the effect of high river levels on land north of the levee and on the river's tributary creeks.
• Architect Dan Hicks describes his alternative proposal for development on the west bank of the river.
• W. K. Warren, Jr., declares that Tulsa is a backwater community and says, “I don’t want to give $10 million dollars to something and hear a bunch of naysayers.”
• Attorney Mike Redman discounts Hicks' plan because it lacks a presentation as slick as that produced for The Channels.
• Tamara Daniel touts The Channels as a cure for Oklahoma's obesity epidemic.
• Flood control expert Ron Flanagan says that we ought to handle unfunded higher-priority projects to take water out of the flood plan, rather than using tax dollars to build new land in the floodway.
• The next to last speaker, Josh Walker, describes the concerns raised at the meeting as "ignorant statements."

Also, don't miss my colleague Jamie Pierson's column, which covers the history of the relationship between Tulsa and the Arkansas, up to and including the Arkansas River Master Corridor Plan.

Tomorrow's Tuesday, so I'll be on the radio as usual at 6:10 on 1170 KFAQ with Michael DelGiorno, and I'm sure one of the topics will be the editorial and front page story in Sunday's Whirled.

I don't have them ready yet, but by late Tuesday night I plan to post a number of clips from last Tuesday's public hearing of the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan Advisory Committee regarding The Channels, which is also the subject of my UTW column coming out this Wednesday.

One of the fascinating things about Tuesday night's public comment session regarding The Channels is how few of the people speaking were "the usual suspects" -- the sort of people who have turned out frequently in the past to comment either for or against a major tax initiative. Only a half-dozen or so of the speakers were familiar to me as people who are engaged in civic matters.

Two of the new faces belonged to Erin Johnson and Debi Sanditen, who have set up a group called Change the Channels. According to their website, the group's "goal is to examine and research questions about The Channels project, then responsibly bring forth our findings." They have a list of concerns, and they have links to related resources, including a letter from the Oklahoma Floodplain Management Association opposing The Channels
.

On the INCOG website, there is this PDF document laying out a timeline which would get The Channels ready for the Tulsa County Commissioners to put a sales tax on the ballot in December. The reason for targeting December is that Bob Dick will no longer be on the County Commission after January 1, and it's possible that Wilbert Collins will be defeated by John Smaligo in his re-election effort. They want this put on the ballot while the current commissioners, who have never met a sales tax increase they didn't like, are all still in office.

Except for the no date listed notations, the table above is as it appears in the linked PDF document.

It's unclear how much of the current phase of the process is going to be accessible to the public. Evidently Tuesday night was our chance to speak up for the benefit of the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan Advisory Committee, although I haven't seen a list of members of that committee, and I don't know how many of them were in attendance Tuesday, other than Don Walker of Arvest Bank and mayoral aide Susan Neal, who each recognized as leaders of the committee. Then there is some sort of steering committee. If this process is to have the transparency which has been promised, the public needs to know who sits on these committees, and where and when they will meet.

In the previous issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly, I wrote that when Tulsans say they want river development, they are really seeking a lively promenade, a place to see people and to be seen. This week, I propose a way to make that kind of bustling promenade happen along the banks of the river between 11th and 21st Street, working within the existing river master plan.

I'd be very interested in your comments on this concept, and to that end I've started this thread over at The Voice of Tulsa forum.

The Fijian island of Vatu Vara is being offered for sale by Coldwell Banker Morrisons Private Islands. Also known as “Hat Island” after the 1,000-foot-high round mesa that dominates the center of the island, it’s described as “The Most Beautiful and Expensive Private Island in the World.” It’s about 2 miles across – about 4,000 acres in size, a hundred times bigger than the proposed archipelago in the Arkansas River.

The price tag: A mere $75,000,000, a tenth of The Channels’ $788 million cost. In fact, for the price of The Channels, you could buy the 100 most expensive islands offered for sale on www.luxuryrealestate.com and still have about $58,000,000 in change.

(Sandy Cay, in the Bahamas, the private island owned by the owners of Tulsa’s monopoly daily newspaper, is a bargain at a mere $2,675,000.)

You'll have a chance tonight to voice your opinions about "The Channels" to the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan Advisory Committee. Here's the press release:

NEWS RELEASE

Public Hearing for Arkansas River Channels Project to be held Oct. 3

The Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan Advisory Committee will host a public hearing to receive comments on the Arkansas River “Channels” project proposed by the Tulsa Stakeholders Inc (TSI).

The hearing will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., on Tuesday, Oct. 3, in the Auditorium in the North Hall Conference Center at the OSU Tulsa campus.

TSI will make a brief presentation on the “Channels” project at the beginning of the hearing. The primary purpose of the hearing is to elicit input from the public regarding the proposed Channels projects.

The Tulsa County Commissioners have asked the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan Advisory Committee to review the “Channels” project.

The Advisory Committee guided development of the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan, which has been recognized as part of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Comprehensive Plan and was adopted by the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, the Tulsa City Council, and the Tulsa County Board of Commissioners.

-30-

And here's a link to the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan.

Last week's Jenks Journal has an interview with Brent Gordon, an Oklahoma Wildlife Department biologist based in Jenks, about the tremendous amount of rubbish and debris in the Arkansas River:

Gordon says he would like to see someone get concerned about other things in the river - junk - everything from Wal-Mart shopping carts to remnants of yesteryear's visionaries....

Gordon says he has not seen any thing in the paper work nor has he heard any discussion about what is to become of the huge pieces of metal, mounds of steel cable, overall trash, shopping carts and steel pipes so prevalent in the river.

"Are we just going to flood the river over this stuff," he questions.

A call to Wal-Mart about the carts only brings a shrug. Who can prevent people from pushing the carts off the side of the nearby drainage ditch where the next downpour will deposit them into the river. The Wal-Mart logos on the handles are still visible on some of the carts. Others, as many as two dozen are all but buried in the sand.

Less likely to disappear, except by raising the water level are huge amounts of what looks like old oilfield and construction equipment. Pipes are everywhere, some protruding vertical from the river bed and bubbling.

A huge, broken barge or perhaps the remnants of Jenks old ferry system rests near bank erosion and other junk at the bank at the north side of the RiverWalk development. Except where old concrete, brick and building parts have been dumped, high dollar real estate is gully washing into the river.

On the TulsaNow forum, Steve Smith, who used to run airboat tours on the Arkansas, comments:

I have made note to anyone who cares to listen of the debris scattered along the river. No one has really cared. Since the river has been invisible to passing traffic it suffers from "out of sight-out of mind". It is particularly bad under the bridges where old bridge structures were just pushed into the river making for future difficulty in navagation. That is a state responsibility.

Some may find it hard to believe, but it gets worse the farther downstream you go. Jenks debris is much more visible because of the lower water levels and increased populations in that area. Lighting their pedestrian bridge really shows off the trash. Much of it is oilfield equipment but equally to blame are sand dredging companies. Oil company cleanups that are advertised on TV restoring Blue Bird camps need to spend some of that money reclaiming the pipelines and driiling equipment they left in the river. Sand dredging companies need to follow suit and the state needs to hold contractors liable.

...several million years ago.

Charles G. Hill reports on a bold, visionary plan to transform Oklahoma into a major tourist destination.

Now we just need some mountains, and we'll be all set.

For your reference and mine, here is a link to the website for the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan, developed in 2004 and 2005 by the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG). Not only have they posted the plan itself, but you can separately download presentation graphics, attendance lists for the public meetings, and the public comments. It was a lengthy process, involving a great deal of public input.

If you want to begin with a good overview of the plan, start here, at the page honoring the plan for having won a landscape architecture award from the Texas Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. It's a good summary of the goals and values, expressed by the public, which were used to frame the design.

With all the hype about The Channels, it's important to remember that that isn't the only river plan out there, and the INCOG plan has had a good deal more deliberation and public input.

By the way, during the Okie Blogger Round-Up, Don Danz pulled up the video of The Channels presentation to show to some Oklahoma City bloggers who thought we were pulling their leg about this $788 million plan to build islands in the Arkansas. One of them, a normally mild-mannered Christian gentleman, loudly exclaimed "Holy $#!+!!!" not in delighted surprise, but in shocked incredulity that Tulsa officials were actually taking the Channels plan seriously.

I enthused about New York City's Bryant Park during my trip to the Republican National Convention. It sits between 42nd Street and 40th Street, east of 6th Avenue, occupying the west half of the superblock that also is home to the New York Public Library. It's about eight acres in size.

It's a nice mix of green space and human activity. Here is a list of amenities you'll find in Bryant Park:

• An upscale grill (open year-round) and a seasonal outdoor cafe on the east end of the park
• Four food kiosks on the west end of the park: coffee and breakfast items, ice cream (plus hot chocolate and cider in the winter), sandwiches, and soups and salads
• A flower kiosk
• A carousel
• A reading room -- connected with the library system, an assortment of books, magazines, and newspapers for reading there, not for checking out
• An area where you can rent chess and backgammon sets and find an opponent
• A court for bocce-like game called pétanque
• Free wireless internet throughout the park
• Chairs you can move around the lawn and terraces as you please
• Clean, safe, frequently monitored restrooms

The park was considered a lost cause in the late '70s, but an effort began to reclaim and restore the park. A non-profit organization is responsible for maintaining the park and maintaining order. Revenue from the restaurants and kiosks helps to fund the personnel to keep the park in good shape, but volunteers play a role as well.

This kind of collection of amenities might be a good fit for the eastern shore of the river between the 11th and 21st Street bridges, extending the existing node of activity around the River's Edge Cafe at Riverside and Denver. The INCOG river plan puts more intensive commercial uses on the west bank, but there is supposed to be a promenade along this stretch of the east bank. A sprinkling of commercial kiosks here would not overwhelm the park or the adjacent neighborhood.

And the adjacent neighborhood is what makes this section of River Parks the best choice for this kind of place. There is a high concentration of people within a 10- to 15-minute walk, thanks to the presence of several high-rise apartment buildings, many other condo and apartment complexes, and many single-family homes. The area is on the upswing.

Unlike Bryant Park, this area isn't in the heart of a busy commercial district, and 20,000 visitors a day is probably too much to hope for, so the mix of amenities should be somewhat different. Like Bryant Park, this park should have free WiFi, some food kiosks, well-maintained restrooms, movable chairs, a reading room, and tables for playing games. There ought to be a couple of places to rent bicycles and rollerblades, and some place where you can buy sunscreen and bug spray in case you forgot yours at home. A carousel would be a summer-evening attraction, perhaps along with one or two other small, relatively quiet kiddie rides. One of the kiosks ought to be a coffee house -- preferably one that's independent and locally-owned.

I think it could be a very successful public space. What do you think?