The issue: What are we doing wrong here?
That was the question some city officials were quietly asking themselves after Tuesday's public meeting on the city's proposed $919.9 million capital improvements package.
How, they wanted to know, could the city be seven months into putting the package together and there still be people wondering what they're up to?
Or so it seemed Tuesday night, when a few speakers at a public meeting on the proposal stood to ask city leaders to separate wants from needs.
They wanted to know why, for example, the BOK Center, which brings in revenue, is asking taxpayers for $450,000 for a new fire alarm system?
Where is the need there?
The BOK Center, city officials are quick to say, is a city-owned facility.
Like roads. Parks. The zoo.
A capital improvement is a need - an enhancement to a city-owned property.
So how did it come to this?
Councilor G.T. Bynum had an opinion - and in his case, there was nothing quiet about it: "As far as the differentiation between wants and needs, something that we are failing miserably to convey to people on this is that everything in here (in the package) is a facility that they own or a product that they own. ... So long as we own them it is the responsible thing to maintain them in a prudent way rather than just allowing them to run down and then end up having to spend a lot more to fix them up."
The issue: Brady Street meeting
City councilors have sent written notices to each property owner along Brady Street to invite him or her to Thursday's 6 p.m. council meeting.
That's when the council is expected to consider a proposal by Councilor Jack Henderson to change the name to Burlington. Only some say the name comes from a New York family with ties to the slave trade.
It will be interesting to see whether all of the city councilors and the mayor show up for the meeting.
And what should we take from their absence if they don't?
- KEVIN CANFIELD, World Staff Writer
QUOTABLE
"In legal terms, we don't want to get in hot water."
- City Council Chairman David Patrick on the city's new trash ordinance during a council committee meeting
"I still think (tourism) has been an undersupported aspect of economic development from the city of Tulsa."
- City Councilor Blake Ewing, during an economic development strategy meeting
FROM TWITTER
Tweets from Tulsa city officials and World City Hall reporters Kevin Canfield (@KevinCanfieldTW) and Zack Stoycoff (@ZackStoycoffTW)
"After hearing from local business owners about changing the name of Brady St. I don't think I will support it. What are your thoughts Tulsa?"
- Mayor Dewey Bartlett @deweybartlett
"Councilor Jack Henderson asks mayor to tell residents at Brady Street public hearing next Thursday what he told councilors (this Thursday) night."
@ZackStoycoffTW
"Message we're failing to convey at @cityoftulsagov: Capital projects are bricks & mortar. We are funding more Police thru normal budget."
- City Councilor G.T. Bynum @gtbynum
LOOKING BACK
Brady Street: Changing the name of Brady Street to Burlington Street became a little more complicated last week.
City Councilor Jack Henderson has proposed using the name because a 1907 city ordinance shows Burlington as the original listing for the street.
City officials have said the name comes from Burlington, Kan. Officials there say the name comes from Burlington, Vt. Some reports say the New England city is named after the 18th-century Burling family. At least one publication indicates that the New York City family had ties to the slave trade and owned slaves.
Brady Street is named after Tate Brady, an early Tulsa businessman and member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Bartlett says no: Mayor Dewey Bartlett told the City Council on Thursday night that he does not favor changing the name of Brady Street.
"To change our history, to ignore it, I think, is a mistake," Bartlett said.
Bartlett amendment: The Bartlett administration asked the City Council last week to approve an exception to the Bartlett amendment so the city can include widening Riverside Drive as part of its upcoming capital improvements package.
The amendment was proposed by then-City Councilor Dewey Bartlett in the early 1990s. It requires a separate vote of the people to fund improvements to Riverside Drive and Houston Avenue as contemplated in the 1993 Conceptual Plan for those streets.
Storm's economic damage: Tulsa officials expect a slight drop in sales tax revenue after the July 23 hurricane-force windstorm but say a run on hotels at the peak of the ensuing power outage may modestly boost lodging tax collections. In either case, the effect will be far less pronounced than that of the ice storm that crippled the city in December 2007, Finance Director Mike Kier said.
The drop likely would have been greater if not for sales of generators and other supplies, Kier said.
- KEVIN CANFIELD & ZACK STOYCOFF, World Staff Writers
LOOKING AHEAD
6 p.m. Monday: Capital Improvement Package Public Meeting, OU-Tulsa Schusterman Center Auditorium, 4502 E. 41st St.
6 p.m. Tuesday: Capital Improvement Package Public Meeting, Rudisill Regional Library, 1520 N. Hartford Ave.
6 p.m. Thursday: City Council meeting and possible vote on renaming Brady Street; City Council chambers of City Hall, Second Street and Cincinnati Avenue.
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Mayor Dewey Bartlett and former Mayor Kathy Taylor have eight weeks to make their cases before voters go to the polls Nov. 12.
Michigan-based Horizon Group Properties and Charlotte, N.C.-based Collett & Associates, the developer of the Tulsa Hills shopping center, seek to build a large outlet mall on a 64.8-acre parcel at 129th East Avenue and Interstate 44, officials said.
