First, Clifton Adcock’s two articles, “Shift happens” and “Crossed wires,” quote Dr. Shadid. Then, Shadid’s two-page paid advertisement tells the complete jaw-dropping story about how we taxpayers are being suckered and gouged.
When we voted for the MAPS 3 sales tax in December 2009, one of the projects to be funded was a convention center, although only 27 percent approved and a large majority opposed, according to a Gazette/News 9 poll. Nevertheless, MAPS 3 passed because several other projects were popular, and this was an “all or nothing” vote. Now Oklahoma City will have a third convention center — in addition to the Cox Convention Center and the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
However, we were not told before the vote that a hotel with about 650 rooms would accompany it, and we taxpayers would owe roughly another $50 million as our part for that hotel.
Then the City Council approved a 10-acre site chosen by the convention center subcommittee whose members are “some of the most powerful business leaders and downtown real estate holders in the city.” This 10-acre site is in an area where slightly less than an acre recently sold for $6.9 million as listed on the Oklahoma County assessor’s site. Switching the location of the convention center, then, will cost us tens of millions more than necessary.
Incidentally, that MAPS 3 sales tax will cost about $930 for the average OKC resident: about $10 per month for this 93-month tax (based on an economic analysis conducted by Mark Snead of Oklahoma State University for the Oklahoma City Finance Department).
In conclusion, there’s much more; but this is about all my blood pressure can stand because of all the devious changes that we voters did not approve.
—Wanda Jo Stapleton Oklahoma City
This article appears in Jul 20-26, 2011.