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Should conservatives celebrate OKC's big league status?

Why would any conservative celebrate regressive taxes to support billionaires who kow-tow to Chinese Communists and politically correct causes?

Posted by Michael Bates on March 5, 2022 10:33 AM

How did the Unassigned Lands become unassigned?

This past April 22, 2020, was the 131st anniversary of the land run that opened the central part of today's State of Oklahoma to homesteading by non-Indian settlers. These were lands owned by the U. S. Government and not assigned to any organized territory nor to any Indian nation or...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 15, 2020 12:09 AM

American Indian Cultural Center and Museum: Leave it to local funding

Rep. Jason Murphey (R-Guthrie) calls shenanigans on dumping more money in the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum (AICCM) money pit: Several days ago the State Senate approved Senate Bill 1651 in another attempt to use taxpayer funds to complete the construction of the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 26, 2014 11:45 PM

Oklahoma municipal elections, school runoffs today, April 5, 2011

Oklahoma towns and cities with a statutory charter (which is to say, no charter at all; they are governed by the default provisions of Oklahoma Statutes Title 11) and some charter cities have elections today, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Some school board seats will have a runoff, if none of...

Posted by Michael Bates on April 5, 2011 12:23 AM

Shadowy 527 jumps into Oklahoma City election

Oklahoma City is in the middle of its "non-partisan" elections, and someone is spending big money to influence the outcome: Two groups directly or indirectly supported incumbents Salyer, ward 6, and Ryan, ward 8, and supported challenger Greenwell against incumbent Walters in ward 5. Sam Bowman not running for re-election...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 20, 2011 3:59 AM

Oklahoma roundup, 2010/08/29

Some links around the Oklahoma blogosphere: Brit Gal in the USA is now an American gal in the USA. Congratulations, Sarah! In an earlier blog entry, she writes about her emotions in the days leading up to the citizenship ceremony. And despite living in western Oklahoma for nearly five years,...

Posted by Michael Bates on August 29, 2010 12:37 AM

Urban notes, 2010/07/20

Recent articles of interest on urban policy, both in Tulsa and elsewhere: Daniel Jeffries posts a map of the present-day University of Tulsa campus, comparing it to a map from the 1960s, showing the removal of the street grid over the last half century, and adding this comment: TU continues...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 20, 2010 6:25 PM

Urban history online: Retro Metro OKC, Tulsa 1927

Oklahoma City has a new museum. Retro Metro OKC was launched recently, an online archive of Oklahoma City history, devoted to making artifacts and images of the city's past more readily accessible to the public via the Internet. Its mission statement: Retro Metro OKC is dedicated to educating the community...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 19, 2010 5:10 PM

OKC downtown plan, seven years later

Nick Roberts has dusted off the Downtown Oklahoma City Strategic Action Plan 2010, published in 2003 by the OKC Planning Department, and has graded his city's performance against its plan. For the most part, Roberts is not judging outcomes, but inputs -- whether city government has taken the steps it...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 7, 2010 6:06 PM

Chamber-led cabal chokes off downtown development

This sort of thing never happens, right? Never, ever would a secretive group of private business leaders direct the redevelopment decisions of public agencies from behind the scenes. And if they did, well, we just have to trust that these business leaders know far more about urban development than the...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 22, 2010 11:04 AM

"Born Again": 1977 Oklahoma historic preservation documentary

A 1977 documentary on historic preservation in Oklahoma has been posted online at the I. M. Pei Project website. The half-hour film, entitled "Born Again: Historic Preservation in Oklahoma," is narrated by Norman architect Arn Henderson. It opens with a sequence of demolitions of beautiful and historic office blocks in...

Posted by Michael Bates on April 29, 2010 12:50 PM

City design: How, by whom, and to what end?

Blair Humphreys posts an excellent comment on an excellent discussion at Steve Lackmeyer's OKC Central blog: I agree with the thesis that cities NEED to be designed. Of course, the rub comes when you decide things like: designed how, by whom, and to what end. In Oklahoma City we have...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 18, 2010 12:28 PM

Links of note, 2009/10/07

Too tired and on the verge of getting sick, so no actual writing tonight, but here are a few links of interest from hither and yon: Steve Lackmeyer raises a concern for "Lost Bricktown," the part of Oklahoma City's warehouse district west of the Santa Fe tracks that escaped 1960s...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 7, 2009 11:36 PM

Tulsa blog roundup 2009/10/04

Yet another linkfest: I washed, dried, folded, and distributed seven loads of laundry yesterday, so I'm lagging behind. Meanwhile, Tulsa area bloggers are turning out plenty worth reading. In a post titled, "Why I am a Republican," Man of the West relates the evolution of his political philosophy, having started...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 4, 2009 1:57 PM

Cornett conflict of interest charges; rail fans dial Preservation 911

Oklahoma City has a lot going for it, but it has its problems, too. Here are a couple of recent news items that may be of interest at the east end of the Turner Turnpike. Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has a new job with ad agency Ackerman McQueen. (He's...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 30, 2009 10:59 PM

Oklahoma roundup 2009/07/16

Local links of interest: A bunch of new posts up on Choice Remarks, the blog of the Oklahoma school choice movement, including a story about a left-leaning civil rights organization labeling teachers' unions "implacable foes of reform" and a survey of 1200 likely Oklahoma voters, 83% of whom say they'd...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 16, 2009 11:05 PM

Oklahoma ruins (and Arkansas too)

More linkage, less thinkage, until I get out from under the pile: Abandoned Oklahoma is a website devoted to photography of abandoned places around the state. Homes, industrial sites, parks, schools, churches. Sites include the Labadie Mansion in Copan (north of Bartlesville), the Santa Fe Depot in Cushing, the Page-Woodson...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 11, 2009 12:01 AM

They'll never stop begging

Oklahoma City taxpayers raised their sales tax rate to build a new state-of-the-art arena and renovate their convention center (the Myriad -- rechristened as the Cox Convention Center). The same tax built a new baseball park and a canal. A later incarnation of the same tax was used to revamp...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 10, 2009 6:04 PM

Google Time Machine

Blair Humphreys has downloaded the latest version of Google Earth, 5.0, and reports a feature that will delight urban historian types: The ability to go back in time to earlier images. The coolest new feature of the program is that it allows you to search historical aerials. With Oklahoma City,...

Posted by Michael Bates on February 5, 2009 12:47 AM

Applying imagiNATIVE thinking

Last September, the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce won approval under that city's downtown design guidelines for a new headquarters building at 4th and Gaylord, where Gaylord jogs left to connect to Broadway. Approval was controversial, because of the suburban site plan -- the building sits back from the street,...

Posted by Michael Bates on February 2, 2009 11:23 PM