Tulsa City Council

On today's installment of StudioTulsa, we offer a discussion with Tulsa City Councilor G.T. Bynum, who is running for mayor. (Tulsa's mayoral elction will occur on June 28th; we spoke with Mayor Bartlett, who is also running, on yesterday's program.) Bynum was elected to the Tulsa City Council in 2008; he still serves on the Council, representing District 9. As noted at the G.T.

On this edition of ST, we offer a closer look at some of the economic development objectives within the Vision Tulsa proposal. For years, the north side of Tulsa has felt neglected and shortchanged when it comes to infrastructure improvements as well as efforts to provide good-paying jobs in the area. But within Vision Tulsa, there is money for a public-private partership that would create a ready and receptive environment for the next potential manufacturing or industrial employer looking at our city as an expansion site.

Last week on our program, we spoke with two members of the Tulsa City Council about the Vision program, which was recently approved by the Tulsa City Council in unanimous vote and is likewise supported by Mayor Bartlett.

On this installment of StudioTulsa, we are talking about the Vision program, which was recently approved by the Tulsa City Council in unanimous vote, and which is now slated to appear on the April 5th ballot. Our guests are City Councilors Karen Gilbert (of District 5) and G.T. Bynum (of District 9), who both describe the Vision program in detail why also explaining why they think it's vitally important for voters to approve this program.

Last fall, about 40 local non-profit arts organizations joined Phil Lakin, CEO of the Tulsa Community Foundation, in launching Arts Alliance Tulsa (or AAT), a United Arts Fund that aims to provide funding for -- and audience-development support for -- the City of Tulsa's various cultural assets. (United Arts Funds, as noted at the AAT website, "seek to raise money to provide ongoing operating support to local arts institutions. Over the past 65 years, more than 100 communities across the country -- both large and small -- have established UAFs.

The recent decision by the Tulsa Public Facilities Authority to sell more than 12 acres of Helmerich Park (at 71st and Riverside in Tulsa) to a private developer is creating controversy and organized opposition. The location has been touted as a future retail site for the outdoor recreational business, REI, on land that (under the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan) does call for some development.

The proposals for the City of Tulsa's Vision sales-tax extension are all now in, and those proposals are many and varied. Some are, indeed, visionary; others seem fanciful. Some are familiar; others seem quite novel. All of the proposals -- there were more than 130 in total -- address perceived needs of one kind or another in our community, and taken together, they tally more than $2 billion in spending. Now comes the difficult task of narrowing down the numerous needs, goals, and desires in these proposals to a coherent set of projects that will be put before voters in April of next year.

After some 18 months and a previous series of public meetings, the Tulsa City Council's Arkansas River Infrastructure Task Force now has a draft proposal for funding a series of low-water dams on the Arkansas River. The $298 million proposal calls for three new low-water dam sites as well as a rebuild of the existing Zink Low-Water Dam, a maintenance and operations fund to ensure upkeep of all these facilities, and money for levee rehabilitation. (The levees in Tulsa County have been deemed among the most at-risk in the U.S.) Our guest on ST is the chairman of this Task Force, G.T.

From public transportation to park spaces, from educational opportunities to crime stats, from ethnic diversity to urban density, how does Tulsa measure up to other cities of its kind throughout the nation? In mid-January, the Tulsa City Council was presented with the annual Quality of Life Report for our city. This report -- per the City Council website, where you can read all of it -- is "an objective analysis of our community, compared to 20 peer cities.

This has been an anxious past few months for many in Tulsa's arts community. That community was very much caught off-guard by the decision of Mayor Bartlett's office to eliminate most of the City of Tulsa's arts funding. Alarming proposals to cut staff positions at the Tulsa PAC Trust, the Waterworks Community Arts Center, and both the Heller and Clark Theatres effectively galvanized supporters all over town, and these supporters quickly spurred the City Council to oppose the Mayor's proposals.

The Tulsa City Council is now moving forward on a $919 million capital improvement project that would continue this community's Fix Our Streets sales tax and property taxes for an additional 5 to 5.5 years in order to fund continued street construction, rehabilitation and widening projects, and a number of other capital improvement projects. Capital improvement, you ask? Well, it's not money for more police officers or more fire-fighters, as our guest notes today, but more money for the cars, trucks, and other equipment these city employees need to do their job (as but one example).