Jeff Bezdek voices his disapproval of Ward 2 Councilman Ed Shadid\’s approach to the streetcar vote, at Tuesday\’s City Council meeting. Photo by Mark Hancock Almost two dozen citizens spoke against and in favor of the proposal, which created a 2 ½ hour discussion of the most controversial MAPS 3 project. Councilmen James Greiner, Ed […]
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Million-dollar members
This year, each of the city’s eight council members will receive a $1 million allocation to spend on projects that were not previously funded. The discretionary spending program comes from the city’s reserve fund, typically 8-15 percent of the total municipal budget. In six of the last 11 years, excess money from the reserve fund […]
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Legislating fear?
“Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact on the United States” focuses in part on state laws that targeted Muslims and the Islam faith, including State Question 755 and House Bill 1060 out of Oklahoma. The report was prepared by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Voters overwhelmingly approved the state question in 2010, which prohibited […]
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Seeking shelters
Their wish is that storm shelters had been in place four months earlier as a powerful EF-5 tornado swept through southwest Oklahoma City and Moore, killing 47 people, including seven students at Plaza Towers Elementary. Among the students who perished were their sons — Nicolas McCabe, 8; Kyle Davis, 8; and Christopher Legg, 9. With […]
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Mayor Cornett wins top honor
Cornett is the first Oklahoma City mayor to ever receive the honor. The award was presented by the Mayor’s Council of Oklahoma during the annual Oklahoma Municipal League conference. Cornett was elected as OKC’s mayor in February 2004 and then won re-election in 2006 and 2010. He is seeking a fourth term against Ward […]
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BREAKING: Petition drive seeks storm shelter funding
Take Shelter Oklahoma is a movement that comes four months after a series of tornadoes ripped through southwest Oklahoma City and Moore, killing 47 people, including seven children at Plaza Towers Elementary. Twisters also struck Canadian Valley Vocational Technology Center on May 31 and leveled parts of Pottawatomie County on May 19, killing two people […]
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Center stage
Although the property’s new owner, Kestrel Investments Management Corporation, has plans to seek a demolition permit in November, hope still exists to somehow save the building described last year in Architectural Record as a “love-it-or-hate-it” structure. For decades, the now-defunct theater — complete with its concrete forms, brightly colored steel ramps and large corrugated metal […]
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Serious play
The rules were simple: kick the ball and run fast. Games ended when the recess bell rang, and final scores were often debated with little, if any, resolution. Many of those same kids have grown up and are reliving their youth in Oklahoma City’s World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA). With competitive and social leagues, there’s […]
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MAPS threat lingers
Kenneth Jordan Since Slane questioned the validity of the MAPS 3 election two weeks ago, OKC’s lead municipal counselor, Kenneth Jordan, delivered a letter Sept. 3 citing a 2011 state Supreme Court case, Thomas vs. Henry, that he claims validates the ballot language and election results. In the letter to Oklahoma Gazette, Jordan said the […]
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The hot place to be
Credit: Mark Hancock Turning tragedy into triumph, Midtown’s meteoric rise from the ashes occurred, in part, because of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, which killed 168 people and wounded hundreds more. The blast damaged more than 300 buildings over a 16-block radius at a cost of $652 million. “So many […]