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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?
Vision 2025's broken promise: Economic development
We were promised in 2003 that if we passed Vision 2025, our economy would grow so much that we'd have enough additional revenue to pave streets and hire more police officers and re-open our closed city pools. If Vision 2025 made our economy grow, why are we now being asked to increase our permanent operating sales tax rate by 17.25% (from 2% to 2.345%) to fund basic police and fire coverage and street maintenance? Why are we demolishing rec centers and pools?
Bakeries, coffee houses, and economic development
Julie R. Neidlinger has written a moving account of her final farewell to the Patisserie on Fourth, a bakery in downtown Bismarck, North Dakota, where she worked as a baker for a couple of years. The Patisserie on Fourth closed permanently on Tuesday. As she helped the owner clear out...
Bring on the LFL!
Finally, a women's pro sports league a heterosexual male can get excited about: The 10-team league features seven-on-seven tackle football in which women are clad in helmets, shoulder pads, bras, panties and garters. But the mayors of Oklahoma's two largest cities aren't excited about the Lingerie Football League coming to...
Help the Little Light House win $500,000 from Kohl's
Kohl's is running a contest via Facebook, the Kohl's Cares for Kids $10M Giveback Contest. From now until Friday, September 3, 2010, you can vote up to five times each for your favorite school. (You have 20 votes total.) The top twenty schools nationwide will be awarded $500,000 each. I...
College football realignment: Why not the English system?
Once upon a time, conferences were straightforward. You had a group of universities within a bus ride of one another, and they played each other in football, baseball, basketball, and other sports. At the major university level, you had a dozen or so conferences, each with no more than 10...
HS wrestling tourney loses money at Wichita arena
On my recent business trips to Wichita, I've been staying at a hotel that provides a free copy of the local paper (75 cent newsstand price), which I've been reading over breakfast each morning. It's fascinating to see the parallels and differences between Tulsa and Wichita. Over the next few...
Rocky Frisco musical fundraiser this Saturday
There's a fundraiser and voter registration drive this Saturday afternoon for Rocky Frisco, Republican candidate for Tulsa District 4 City Councilor. Here are the details: Rocky Frisco fundraiser and voter registration drive Saturday, August 8, 2009 1 p.m. Ed's Hurricane Lounge 3216 E. 11th St. As befits a candidate who...
Des Moines farmers' market
I broke the journey back from St. Paul into two legs, was later than planned getting out of town, and that put me in downtown Des Moines Saturday morning. I didn't have time for a look around on the way up, so I took time on the way back. I...
Joel Kotkin on civic improvement schemes and city policy
This morning on KFAQ, Gwen Freeman and Chris Medlock interviewed real estate expert and urban critic Joel Kotkin. Last week in the Wall Street Journal, Kotkin wrote a pointed takedown of cities that chase the "Creative Class" with civic improvement schemes -- arenas, convention centers, government-planned entertainment districts, light rail,...
Old arena to stay
First thought when I read this was, "This makes sense." Instead of demolishing the Maxwell Convention Center arena, they're going to keep it in place and instead expand the exhibit hall to the north into what is now a surface parking lot between 3rd and 4th, Houston and Guthrie. As...
Sizing things up
A couple of facts for everyone afeared that Expo Square will lose its competitive advantage if the City annexes the Fairgrounds, subjecting it to city sales tax, and all the boat shows, car shows, RV shows, etc., will relocate to the new downtown arena. From the Expo Square website: The...
At the tipping point
The backers of The Channels plan have referred to a 2004 study done by the firm Booz Allen Hamilton called Dallas at the Tipping Point: A Road Map for Renewal (800 KB PDF file). The study was commissioned by the Dallas Morning News to answer the questions: What are the...
Eminent domain moratorium on Thursday Council agenda
A proposal for a one-year moratorium on the use of eminent domain for economic development will be before the Tulsa City Council this Thursday night. (Click here for a PDF of the proposal.) The resolution would establish as the "policy of the City of Tulsa" the implementation of a "one-year...
LaFortune picks management for Oklahoma City arena to run Tulsa arena
To no one's surprise, Mayor Bill LaFortune selected SMG to manage both the new downtown sports arena and the convention center. SMG is a joint venture of the Hyatt Hotel Chain and ARAMARK Corporation. The company manages 156 facilities worldwide, including 63 arenas and 44 convention centers. One of the...
The money pit at 2nd and Elwood
I thought there was something funny about the numbers being bandied about for the cost of building the new downtown sports arena and upgrading the convention center. The ballot resolution for Proposition 3 of Vision 2025 (PDF) included this item: Tulsa Regional Convention/Events Center, including Convention Center modernization, land, design,...
Teach a man to fish, lend him enough to buy a fishing pole
Traditionally, economic development aid in the Third World has involved western banks lending massive sums of money to Third World governments for massive public works projects. That approach has been very effective at lining the Swiss bank accounts of despots and putting these countries deep into debt, but it hasn't...
Arena: An ungracious beginning
UPDATE 9/6/2005: Bobby has reorganized and purged Tulsa Topics, so with his permission, I've taken his audio of the speech, reduced the fidelity to radio quality to get the size down, and uploaded it here (4 MB MP3). UPDATE 9/7/2005: Bobby has reposted the groundbreaking audio in both MP3 and...
The Field of Dreams mentality
Urban Tulsa Weekly writer G. K. Hizer has had it with hyper-optimistic predictions of what the new arena will do for downtown Tulsa: Ground breaking is finally scheduled for later this month, and the spin doctors have been working overtime to remind everyone what a great thing we’ve got coming....
Arena naming rights survey
Found on a website called Revenues from Sports Venues, the naming rights for arenas and stadia around the country, what was paid for the rights, and the length of the agreement. (That's an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.) The nearest comparable arenas are the Ford Center in Oklahoma City and Alltel...
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