Tulsa World: May 2006 Archives

So it would seem from Doug Marlette's latest cartoon in the Tulsa Whirled.

I shouldn't be too hard on Mr. Marlette. Since he doesn't live here, he can't be expected to be too familiar with local geography.

For cartoons by a long-time Tulsa resident, pick up one of these.

Somewhat related: On Sunday, Julie Del Cour wrote this:

Every five years for the past quarter century, the city of Tulsa has offered voters a deal: If they approve a third-penny sales tax the city will keep chipping away at capital needs.

"Chipping" is the operative word. Even with regular bond issues and renewal of the third-penny four times, the city has about $4 billion in unmet capital needs. Theoretically the city could dedicate its total budget for the next seven years to those needs and still not catch up.

It's funny: The amount of unmet capital needs has been $4 billion as long as I can remember, at least going back to the 1999 bond issue. If we've been "chipping away at it," shouldn't it be getting smaller? Between two bond issues and two third-penny renewals since then, plus Vision 2025 (which mostly unded one of the biggest single items on the list, the arena) we've funded roughly $1.4 billion dollars in capital needs, if memory serves me correctly.