Opinion/Editorial

Three Penny Soap Opera (Printable Version , E-mail to a Friend )
Is LaFortune's Third Penny proposal designed for city's progress or the mayors plan to get himself re-elected?
by Michael Bates

Downtown advocates have taken a good look at Mayor Bill LaFortune's proposal for a new "Third Penny" sales tax for capital improvements, and they're not happy with what they're seeing.

Only $3 million of the $437 million proposal is for downtown improvements, and all of that is for land acquisition. The speculation is that most of that $3 million will go to acquire private land to give to a private developer to build a hotel across the street from the arena. (Wasn't the arena supposed to stir up private investment all by itself?)

Last May, Downtown Tulsa Unlimited and the Urban Development Department came up with a wish list of 14 projects totaling $101 million. Four of those projects, costing an estimated $48.2 million, were identified as "of critical importance to support Vision 2025 projects." What they are saying, in other words, is that for all the Vision 2025 money that is going into downtown, some key elements are missing that could make the difference between success and failure.

For example, the Centennial Walk is intended as both a way to commemorate Tulsa's history and to tie together the islands of activity that are scattered around the area within the Inner Dispersal Loop. But only a core portion of the walk will be funded by Vision 2025. It will take another $10 million to fund phase 2 of the Centennial Walk, which would allow it to tie together all parts of downtown and surrounding neighborhoods.

Completely bypassed in LaFortune's plan is the Boulder Avenue bridge over the old Frisco tracks. The bridge has been closed to vehicular traffic for years, hindering the connections between Brady Village and the rest of downtown. Without vehicle traffic, pedestrians feel uncomfortable using it, too.

To see any benefit to Brady Village from the new arena, the bridge either needs to be repaired and reopened or replaced with something even better that will allow for cars and pedestrians to cross the tracks. But under LaFortune's plan, that long-deferred repair is punted at least another half-decade down the field.

There's a similar concern for near-downtown improvements. The 6th Street Task Force came up with a creative plan for reviving that near-downtown neighborhood, but the key to everything is flood control. The area is within the Elm Creek drainage basin, one of the few creeks within the City of Tulsa that hasn't had its stormwater capacity increased. The area won't be redeveloped until it's no longer prone to flooding. LaFortune's plan allows only $2 million for site acquisition.

Usually, even a little something is better than nothing at all, but in this case, that little something will have to do until 2011. That's when the $250 million general obligation bond issue Tulsa approved last year will finally be paid off, and that will be our first opportunity to fund new projects without raising either sales taxes or property taxes.

The year 2011 is also when the newly-renewed "4 to Fix the County" sales tax will expire. If they're quick about it, City of Tulsa officials might be able to get voters' approval to grab that tax as soon as the county tax expires, before the county has a chance to vote on a renewal.

If approved by the Council and by the voters, LaFortune's proposed Third Penny would run for six years and two months, expiring Sept. 30, 2012. The Vision 2025 sales tax won't expire until the end of 2016.

The fear is that if basic infrastructure improvements like flood control can't be fully funded for another five years or more, private investment won't happen for another five years either, killing any momentum toward revitalization. And, in the meantime, those improvements will only become more expensive, as land, material, and labor costs increase.

There's some hope among downtown advocates that the City Council can be persuaded to put more money into inner city projects before sending the new Third Penny package to the voters. That's unlikely to happen. Every dollar they move to a new project will have to be taken from a project that is already on the list, and that means making some number of voters very unhappy. Even if the Council makes a change, the Mayor has the ability to veto the final proposal.

For the first time since the Third Penny sales tax for capital improvements was implemented, the tax expires in a mayoral election year. The current Third Penny tax, approved in May 2001, expires on July 31.

When the tax expires, $71 million worth of projects that were approved for the current tax still won't be funded. Since 2001, the City's sales tax collections have been hurt by the bursting of the telecom bubble and by the growth of retail in the suburbs. LaFortune proposes to roll that $71 million in with a new five years' worth of projects, to be approved all at once on the April 4 general election ballot.

The temptation to use a massive public works funding package for electoral advantage has been too great for Bill LaFortune to resist. While previous mayors have consulted with City Councilors about their district priorities before releasing a proposed package, LaFortune completely cut the Councilors out of the loop.

LaFortune also excluded Councilors from participation in his town hall meetings, which were billed as opportunities for public feedback, but were, in fact, thinly veiled campaign appearances. Citizens attending those meetings to ask questions of the Mayor and make comments found themselves listening and waiting politely while LaFortune ran out the clock, talking about everything under the sun everyone had gone home or it was time to close the building.

LaFortune's immediate political need is to win the Republican nomination. The richest vein of Republican votes is to be mined in south Tulsa. Spending more money downtown isn't likely to win him any votes he doesn't already have, but spending money down south could win him the votes he needs to keep his political career alive.

A Better Idea
There is an alternative to LaFortune's plan that would keep the Third Penny tax alive and allow priorities to be set by a Mayor and Council with a renewed mandate from the voters.

On April 4, we could vote on extending the current 2001 tax for another 14 months, long enough to pay for the $71 million worth of projects we approved five years ago that still won't be funded when the tax expires. Those projects ought to be done first anyway, out of fairness to citizens who have been waiting for five years to see "progress as promised." Extending the current tax would be non-controversial and would pass overwhelmingly.

The new Mayor and Council would then have a year to work together on the next five-year package, and downtown and urban neighborhood advocates would have time to lobby for their priorities.

Extending the current tax and deferring a new package would help downtown and inner city neighborhoods by removing the next package from the shadow of an election.  It would also give time for the massive public investment already made in downtown to show some results.

By mid-2007, the arena will be nearer to completion, and we should see something happen with the buildings purchased by Kanbar and Kaufman. At that point, Tulsa voters and their elected representatives may see a point to additional public investment in Tulsa's urban core.