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<font face="Arial">Welcome back to Oklahoma City. I plan to stay here
for my retirement too. "No mortgage or other debt,
super-energy-efficient house, and lots of edible landscaping", is my
retirement plan. With that I can live on social security and have
money left over each month. <br>
<br>
To return to MAPS 3 . . . Downtown Oklahoma City in the 1960s was a fun
place to be. I grew up in sw Oklahoma, and going to Oklahoma City was
a big deal. Downtown had shopping, theaters, nice places to stay and
we always went to the downtown Chicken in the Rough restaurant. <br>
<br>
Unwise political decisions in the 70s and 80s devastated downtown
before the great crash of the oil economy (destruction of the Deep
Deuce and the consequent due processed ethnic cleansing of the area,
the building of I-235, Penn Square Bank and etc). <br>
<br>
I ended up voting for the original MAPS plan. I voted for Maps for
Kids. I voted against Maps for Millionaires (the Sonics money). I
want to vote for another MAPS plan, but I don't see the present
proposal as being the right proposal for this time, in the same way as
the original MAPS was right for its era.<br>
<br>
And not all MAPS 1 projects were completed. There was a transit
component, a light rail project, that was not completed. Instead we
got those tacky "trolley car buses" which are uncomfortable to ride and
expensive to operate. Some of that had to do with the machinations of
Rep. Ernest Istook.<br>
<br>
As far as trusting politicians, well, no, we don't have to trust
politicians to go forward as a City. The original MAPS vote spelled out
the projects in detail on the ballot, so we knew for a fact that we
were voting for the Canal and etc. This time, there is no such
guarantee, and not for very good reasons, if we are to trust Doug Daws
research (and I have a lot of respect for Daws and his website, so I
have no reason to not trust his research). Plus, Mick Cornett is no
Ron Norick, that's for sure. <br>
<br>
I think there are a lot of good ideas in MAPS 3, but the
sustainability/equity problems, the accountability issues, the lack of
certainty about the projects, the problems with operating budgets,
mis-allocation of resources, tourism subsidies . . . all these are deal
killers for me. These are good governance issues, and if everything
was really on the up-and-up, the City would be forthcoming with details
like operations budgets (and the sources of the operating funds), the
proposed schedules for the project, and would have provided a way to
ensure that the projects are built if the money is committed. But they
didn't do these things. And that for me just does not pass the smell
test. <br>
<br>
</font>Bob Waldrop<br>
<br>
brian hammond wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:223376.31244.qm@web81705.mail.mud.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Robert: Your points are well taken.
However, as one who left OKC in 1960 at the ripe age of 14 only to return for a business meeting in 1990 after living in LA, San Fran, NY, and DC, you have to admit that OKC (especially downtown) wasnt very pretty.
Now, twenty years later I have decided to retire in OKC thanks to the quality of life brought on by the first sets of MAPS. My wife and I tried downtown but now are living in a nearby neighborhood where one can enjoy the benefits of downtown without sharing a wall with somebody in an apartment/condomenium.
My point is that if OKC had not delivered on the earlier MAPS proposals, this one would in no way get my vote. However, that has not been the case.
Sometimes you simply have to trust people (even politicians) to do the right thing. If everything promised in MAPS 3 is delivered in the same manner as MAPS 1 and 2, we should be very happy. I see no reason why it would not be.
In the meantime, the neighborhoods and suberbs need to make it clear that MAPS 4 is for them.
Please accept this response as it was intended and that is as a citizen wishing the best for the city he was born in and has now come back to retire in.
--- On Mon, 11/23/09, Robert Waldrop <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:bwaldrop@cox.net"><bwaldrop@cox.net></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">From: Robert Waldrop <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:bwaldrop@cox.net"><bwaldrop@cox.net></a>
Subject: [OKC] Not this MAPS! Social justice and sustainability issues with an OKC ballot proposal
To: "Sustainable Oklahoma City" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:okc@sustainableokc.org"><okc@sustainableokc.org></a>
Date: Monday, November 23, 2009, 2:57 PM
Below are my thoughts on the upcoming
MAPS 3 vote in
Oklahoma City, as published today in my blog at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bobwaldrop.net/?p=211">http://www.bobwaldrop.net/?p=211</a>
.
Bob Waldrop, Oklahoma City
NOT THIS MAPS! We can do better!
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.
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 “yesâ€
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.Â
We can do much better than the MAPS 3 proposal.
1. No Assurance of Project Completion.
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.
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
“prioritiesâ€.
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.
2. The City is being stingy with info.
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 costsâ€, for example.
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 Â
<a 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>
.
Among the most important unanswered questions are –
+ How will the projects be staged? Which will
be first? Last?
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
priorityâ€.  Â
<a 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.)
+ 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.
+ 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 workâ€,
as our math teachers used to
demand, would help build confidence in their revenue
estimates.
+ 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?
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.Â
<a 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.
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.
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 class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tinyurl.com/yhkr937">http://tinyurl.com/yhkr937</a>
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 moneyâ€.
+ 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?
3. Equity Issues.
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.
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.
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.
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,.
4. Convention Center.
The proposed new convention center is a great 20th century
idea.Â
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?
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.â€Â Do we really
want to give such a major
subsidy to an industry characterized by low paid and
part-time work?Â
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:Â 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.)
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.
5. Police and Fire-fighter concerns.Â
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).Â
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 developmentâ€. 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.
6. Sustainability Issues.
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.
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.
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.
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 Â
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.
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.
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.
Conclusion
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!â€. We can do better!
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
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