Oklahoma City council and mayor vote on a MAPS 4 slate tomorrow that includes all 16 proposals with formal presentations at the special meetings. Allocations are based on an estimate that the temporary 1-cent sales tax will generate $978 million in revenue. If passed by council, the package goes to a Dec. 10 vote for […]
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Addressing homelessness
Community members gathered last week for an Oklahoma City Police Department (OKCPD) meeting to discuss homelessness. The community meeting included presentations from Homeless Alliance and the department’s Homeless Outreach Team. Homeless Alliance executive director Dan Straughan kicked off the meeting with a presentation on the various functions of his organization as well as statistics about […]
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Project proposals
Members of Oklahoma City Council spent more than 10 hours hearing presentations on MAPS 4 proposals last week. On Tuesday, council heard presentations on Palomar Family Justice Center; parks; sidewalks, bike lanes, trails and streetlights; and Freedom Center. On Thursday, presentations were on youth centers, beautification, State Fair coliseum, senior wellness centers and an animal […]
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Park money
An initiative petition to establish a dedicated fund for neighborhood parks was filed last week. Led by former councilman Ed Shadid, the petition would enact a 1/8th of a cent excise tax earmarked for park programming, capital improvements and operations. If passed, the tax would generate about $14 million in additional funding for Parks & […]
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Public input
A recent poll of likely Oklahoma City special elections voters shows many would like to see the MAPS vote done slightly differently moving forward. A majority of people surveyed said they would rather vote for MAPS 4 projects individually. Most would also like to see some of the penny tax spent on operations and maintenance […]
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Road MAPS
Oklahoma City Council will soon start hearing presentations and discussing MAPS 4 project ideas, which Oklahomans have been submitting since October. Mayor David Holt expects to lay out a schedule of public discussions happening throughout the summer by the end of May. While some ideas are buildings and facilities, some are more abstract and deal […]
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Chicken-Fried News: Bus(ted) fleet
Oklahoma City Public Schools faces quite a number of challenges. There are teacher shortages, big class sizes, outdated facilities, upcoming school closures — Chicken-Fried News could keep going, but we would be here all week. As if there were not enough challenges to overcome, the district also has an ongoing issue with buses. Since 2003, […]
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Chicken-Fried News: Street boss
Downtown Oklahoma City was abuzz Dec. 14 when city officials debuted the city’s new streetcars courtesy of city taxpayers and the third Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) initiative. Weighing 80,000 pounds and stretching 67 feet long, a shiny pink-and-red streetcar rolled out in slow motion like a Rolls-Royce at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards. Loud music […]
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Drawing MAPS
For the hefty price that it takes to fund a Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS) plan and for the awe effect that such projects can have on Oklahoma City’s residents, mayor David Holt admits that the process behind choosing a project is fairly simple by comparison. “Since the inception of MAPS in 1993, the responsibility to […]
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Balancing act
Oklahoma City’s 36th mayor, David Holt, said 1993 is the year everything changed for Oklahoma’s capital city. That year, almost half a million people called Oklahoma City home, and some undoubtedly were reluctant. State historians agree that downtown was virtually vacant and the economy was suffering. Oklahoma City was on its way to becoming Detroit, […]