So what’s the state of the city?
Mayor Dewey Bartlett will give his answer to that question Thursday in his fourth State of the City speech since being sworn into office in December 2009.
Here are a couple of issues he likely won’t tout: river development and Vision2.
Or maybe he will.
Nine months after taking office, Bartlett made river development a centerpiece of his first State of the City address in September 2010.
Last year, he plugged Vision2.
Neither has worked out very well
“It is wild, woolly and wet!” Bartlett said about the river in 2010. “It’s the crown jewel, the city’s future.”
Three years later, the river still spurts and sputters but development along its banks isn’t exactly booming.
But is Bartlett to blame for that?
In 2007, Congress passed the $23 billion Water Resources Development Act, which authorized $50 million for Arkansas River development projects. However, less than $100,000 of that has been appropriated, and local officials are not counting on it to become available any time soon.
In late November 2012, the state Supreme Court ruled that a planned $25 million bond issue to improve the Zink Lake dam on the Arkansas River is unconstitutional.
And then there is Vision2, which went to voters two weeks before the state Supreme Court ruling.
The countywide sales-tax proposal included $41 million to fix Zink Dam. Fix the dam, the water rises, and development will follow, went the argument.
“Our renaissance is true and real, and out future is bright,” Bartlett said in last year’s State of the City speech. “I encourage you to share in the vision. I encourage you to support Vision2. Working together for Tulsa, we can and will move Tulsa forward.”
Voters didn’t buy it.
Now comes Bartlett’s State of the City IV.
Will he talk river development and Vision2?
Bet on river development, but hold on to your money when it comes to Vision2.
If looking back in time teaches us anything, it’s humility.
Bartlett’s push for Vision2 failed miserably. But his push for river development is beginning to look good.
And he can thank George Kaiser for that. Kaiser’s $350 million park along Riverside Drive – A Gathering Place for Tulsa – is bound to spark development up and down the river.
Mayors don’t exist in a vacuum, in other words, so take their State of the City speeches for what they are: one person’s vision.
Nothing more.
Read Bartlett's previous State of the City speeches:
2012:
2011:
2010:
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