Tulsa Markets A Tax Increase With Sailboats, Lighthouses, and Resorts

Get ready for Tulsa's Next marketing blitz for bigger government and crony capitalism. Vision2025 needs more money

  Within weeks, Tulsa's city council and the mayor will be making a visionary pitch for an expanded and oppressive tax to benefit the chosen few. And this time they will bring the sailboats back.
  In the early 1980s, The notion of a massive special tax was promoted in the Tulsa newspapers using make-believe ideas that the Arkansas River would become a massive urban lake adjacent to the downtown and Brookside neighborhoods. And the sailboats were suggested as a virtual reality, if Tulsa dug deep and gave over 1% more of all their disposable income.

This time they are trying to suggest that they will make South Tulsa look like Grand Lake

  Well, now the city fathers are making that same pitch to the wealthy neighborhoods of deep south Tulsa.  This time they are trying to suggest that they will make South Tulsa look like Grand Lake (at least that's the unspoken message of the artist's renderings). Never mind that the city can't even afford to keep all the street lights on at night, or maintain the parks already built and falling apart.  This project clearly has the implication that the city wants to take from every struggling family in order to buy and build a recreational lake adjacent to the wealthiest neighborhoods in the county.
  Just a few years back, the mayor closed every park at sunset. But now there seems to be a presumption that River development can't happen unless the government grabs more tax dollars from every transaction several miles away from the river.
  Just last month, the city council put a stop to private commerce projects along the river until the council could be convinced that the projects were pretty enough and matched their ideal design preferences. To this Tulsan, that just sounds like a shakedown for campaign contributions in exchange for a building permit.
We'll have more to say about this as the developments play out....