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<font face="Arial">Below are my thoughts on the upcoming MAPS 3 vote in
Oklahoma City, as published today in my blog at
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.bobwaldrop.net/?p=211">http://www.bobwaldrop.net/?p=211</a>
.<br>
<br>
Bob Waldrop, Oklahoma City<br>
<br>
NOT THIS MAPS! We can do better!<br>
<br>
I have delayed publishing this because I really wanted to support the
MAPS 3 proposals. I have been hoping that more and better information
would be made available, but the City’s campaign seems to be all sizzle
and no steak.<br>
<br>
Below are my concerns about the MAPS 3 proposal, as it is presented at
this time. Advocates of sustainability, social justice, and good
governance must weigh the pros and cons of the various projects to
determine if, all things considered, a “yes” vote for MAPS 3 is
warranted. At this point, with the information we have, I am voting
against the MAPS 3 proposals, and I encourage others to do the same.
We can do much better than the MAPS 3 proposal.<br>
<br>
1. No Assurance of Project Completion.<br>
<br>
There is no assurance that the announced MAPS 3 projects will actually
be completed. The specific projects will not appear on the ballot,
instead, we will vote on a generic grant of authority to the City
Council to keep the sales tax where it is and spend the money on
unspecified projects.<br>
<br>
The resolution concerning the projects is non-binding and could be
changed at any time by this or a future City Council. Some or all of
these projects could be cancelled or replaced with other “priorities”.<br>
<br>
The City is doing this to avoid having to list each project as a
separate ballot issue, which would allow voters to pick and choose
among the projects. Giving the City a blank check for hundreds of
millions of dollars is not a good idea.<br>
<br>
2. The City is being stingy with info.<br>
<br>
The vote is rapidly approaching, yet there is almost nothing other than
fluff at the City’s website, The Oklahoman’s editors are firmly in
favor of MAPS 3. The Gazette seems to have the best reporting I’ve
seen, it’s one of the few places where questions are being asked about
“operating costs”, for example.<br>
<br>
The only local source collecting “all the MAPS 3 news” is the Doug
Dawgz blog, who is doing a fantastic job collecting the meager info
about the MAPS 3 vote, at
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2009/10/all-news-about-maps-3.html">http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2009/10/all-news-about-maps-3.html</a>
.<br>
<br>
Among the most important unanswered questions are –<br>
+ How will the projects be staged? Which will be first? Last?<br>
<br>
The only clue thus far is a statement by the Mayor at a Nov 16 Chamber
of Commerce luncheon that the park would be “first priority”.
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2009/10/all-news-about-maps-3.html">http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2009/10/all-news-about-maps-3.html</a>
(Scroll
down to the Nov 16th report.)<br>
<br>
+ If revenue estimates fall short due to continued economic
instability, which projects get cut? Although the question has been
asked at the City council, no clear answer was forthcoming.<br>
<br>
+ Regarding revenue estimates . . . the city’s website notes that
previous revenue estimates came very close to the actual receipts, but
the website does not disclose the methodology to produce the MAPS 3
revenue estimates. “Showing their work”, as our math teachers used to
demand, would help build confidence in their revenue estimates.<br>
<br>
+ What about operating revenues for the convention center, river
amenities, transit, park, senior citizens centers, etc? Will other
city expenses have to be cut to pay for these new unfunded operating
expenses?<br>
<br>
The designer for the park says some city revenues will be needed for
park operations, but apparently no projected budget presently exists
nor are the future fiscal demands on the city known at this time.
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2009/10/all-news-about-maps-3.html">http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2009/10/all-news-about-maps-3.html</a>
.Scroll
down to the report of the Oct 29 Chamber of Commerce luncheon and the
remarks of Mary Margaret Jones of Hargreaves Associates.<br>
<br>
A Nov 4th article in the Gazette says that the city manager has agreed
to absorb $2 million/year in operational costs for the downtown
streetcar system into the regular city budget. If there is an estimate
on the entire operations budget, nobody is saying anything about it
thus far.<br>
<br>
Regarding operations costs of the senior wellness/aquatic centers, an
article in the Nov. 11th Oklahoma City Gazette says that no budget
presently exists for the centers. <a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tinyurl.com/yhkr937">http://tinyurl.com/yhkr937</a><br>
<br>
This lack of attention to the details of operating costs seems
extremely irresponsible. These days, no one in the private sector would
be able to get funding for capital projects without an operations
budget and a plan for financing the operations. No bank would loan a
business money on the vague promise that “we will have a budget” and
“we will get the money”.<br>
<br>
+ Is there a map of the proposed trail system? Is it configured so
that it could facilitate bicycle commuting or is it strictly a
recreational program?<br>
<br>
3. Equity Issues.<br>
<br>
MAPS 3 has some very real social justice and equity issues. Will MAPS 3
accelerate the process of gentrifying/improving the city’s central
areas – at the cost of driving the de-gentrification of suburban
areas? MAPS 3 programs $600 million in downtown spending, and only
$160 million elsewhere in the city. No transit dollars are programmed
for the suburbs. Dollars spent gentrifying the central city areas can’t
be used to support low income and middle class areas elsewhere in the
city. Oklahoma City’s MAPS 3 may therefore increase the risk of
de-gentrifying areas of the city that are not served by transit and are
not conveniently located for access to the “new and improved” downtown
area. This should be of particular concern to voters and property
owners in the city’s suburban areas.<br>
<br>
It is evident that transportation decisions have enormous impacts on
city development. The extension of early trolley car lines
jump-started the growth of the City’s first suburbs – neighborhoods we
know today as Gatewood, Mesta Park, etc. In the 60s and 70s, the
construction of freeways and Northwest Expressway enabled a new
generation of suburbs far away from downtown. This reflected the cheap
energy and automobile orientation of the late 20th century. But
nothing stays the same. The 21st century is an era of higher energy
prices bringing new interest in public transportation options.<br>
<br>
In the 21st century, neighborhoods served by public transportation have
significant advantages over neighborhoods without access to public
transit. The concentration of MAPS 3 transportation dollars in the
City’s central core will drive housing decisions. More people buying
downtown and in the central city mean fewer people interested in houses
in the suburban areas. It also displaces lower income people from the
areas close to downtown. That is a process that can drive
de-gentrification in suburban areas. Look at the rest of the world –
the slums are in the suburbs, not the central city areas.<br>
<br>
The decision to go for a central city trolley system, without any
improvements elsewhere in the city, means that it will likely be ten
years before a significant upgrade in the rest of the city’s transit
systems will be considered. Given the volatility of oil prices, ten
years is too long to wait,.<br>
<br>
4. Convention Center.<br>
<br>
The proposed new convention center is a great 20th century idea.
Unfortunately, this is the 21st century and we need 21st century ideas,
not old, tired, “everybody’s doing it so we have to” ideas from the
20th century. Many questions remain unanswered. Do the Ford and Cox
buildings have operating deficits? Will the new convention center make
a profit or will it need an annual subsidy? If so, where will that
subsidy come from?<br>
<br>
The City brags about tourism jobs, but the fact of that matter is that
tourism jobs are hospitality industry jobs and that means “low-paid
jobs with few or no benefits.” Do we really want to give such a major
subsidy to an industry characterized by low paid and part-time work?
According to Roy Williams of the OKC Chamber of Commerce, the new
convention center will create 1100 jobs. At $280 million for the
convention center, this is a cost of $254,000 per low-wage job. Will
the contractors at the new convention center obey the law and collect
and pay taxes on the incomes of their workers? Or will they, as is
sometimes the case with contractors for events at our existing
facilities, pay workers cash and thus cheat them and the government of
taxes and Social Security/Medicare contributions? (NB: I spoke with a
low-income worker last week who confirmed that when he works temp jobs
at city facilities, taxes are not withheld from his paycheck and his
employer does not pay social security taxes on his wages.)<br>
<br>
Instead of investing in a new convention center, we would be ahead
financially if that money was instead invested in a comprehensive area
transit system that would allow families to save thousands of dollars
in commuting costs and reduce pollution and damage to our city’s
streets.<br>
<br>
5. Police and Fire-fighter concerns. <br>
<br>
The police and fire-fighter unions have expressed concerns about public
safety being under-funded at the cost of expanding economic development
(a/k/a socialism for the politically well-connected). There can be no
doubt that in recent years the city has neglected its infrastructure
responsibilities. Projects from previous bond issues remain
uncompleted, public safety personnel positions are being cut even as
the City’s area and popuation increases, and the City’s transit system
is exceptionally poor. Of the MAPS 3 moneys, well over half the funds
are “economic development”. This comes on the heels of our recent $120
million welfare check to help 3 of the richest families in the state
steal the Sonics from Seattle, and the decision to invest all of the
property taxes for the next 20 years from the new Devon Energy tower
downtown rather than using them to fund the regular budgets of our
schools, libraries, health departments, and general government
operations.<br>
<br>
6. Sustainability Issues.<br>
<br>
Advocates of sustainability should be concerned about the continued
mis-allocation of increasingly scarce resources that the MAPS 3
proposal represents. The convention center and the piece-meal approach
to area transit are major sustainability issues.<br>
<br>
As noted above, the convention center is an investment in social
injustice (using tax money to create low-wage/low-benefit jobs for
companies that typically treat their employees with injustrice e.g. not
paying social security taxes on their payrolls). Social injustice is
never good for sustainability.<br>
<br>
The convention center is an investment in the travel industry, and the
travel promoted by conventions is mostly air travel, the most
unsustainable and polluting of all the methods of travel. Moreover,
given the on-going economic crisis, and the possibility of permanently
changed economic codnitions, the future of the convention industry is
problematic at best.<br>
<br>
The sustainability problem with the transit component is that the City
has adopted a piece-meal approach to regional transit. This is
inefficient and will greatly increase costs, both fiscal capital costs
and opportunity costs to transit patrons. For example, MAPS 1 built a
downtown terminal for the City's bus system MAPS 3 now proposes a
downtown trolley system -- with a terminal not conveniently locatedat
the same place as the bus terminal. This builds major inefficiencies
into the system for patrons. It decreases the value of the downtown
trolley system by increasing its inconvenience to patrons of the bus
system. City leaders promise eventually to build a regional transit
system, whose terminal may be in a third location! More inefficiency.<br>
<br>
The MAPS 3 proposal accepts the destruction of the rail center of Union
Station, and does not conceptualize its replacement with a multi-modal
transportation center. So we reject our heritage transportation assets,
without a clear plan for their replacement. This uncoordinated approach
to transit adopted by the City will make the eventual creation of a
multi-modal, regional transportation center much more expensive.<br>
<br>
While there are some good pro-sustainability projects in the proposal
(trails and sidewalks) there is no absolute assurance that those
projects will be built, due to the way the City Council chose to
structure the ballot. As presently configured, MAPS 3 is an investment
in unsustainability. And going into the 20th century, cities that
consistently invest in unsustainability will find themselves left
behind.<br>
<br>
Conclusion<br>
<br>
If we continue the City Council’s path of taking from the general
public and giving to the politically well-connected, Oklahoma City will
continue to look more and more like a Victor Hugo novel. We need a
better MAPS 3 proposal that meets essential city needs, not another
give-away subsidy for downtown special interests. I urge everyone to
join with their neighbors to send a message to City Hall – “Not This
MAPS!”. We can do better!<br>
<br>
<br>
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