University Town Center

[PhiAlpha]

OUDaily is reporting that students were paid to attend the council meeting where the entertainment district was voted on, filling about half the chamber, keeping other residents from attending and speaking.

https://www.oudaily.com/news/enterta...27abf8bae.html

And yet somehow there was enough speaker participation from concerned parties (who allegedly weren’t allowed to attend) that the meeting didn’t end until 2AM.

[SunRoad]

I disagree . I can only think of two reasons to pay students to attend: to intentionally misrepresent support (which would be promoting a lie) or to keep citizens from speaking (which would be tyranny).

First, it suggests that those who claim student support are disingenuous. If the promoters really have support, they wouldn’t need to pay surrogates. Surely they could find 75 students without spending $4,000 if the supportive students actually exist. If I found out that my favorite presidential candidate was paying half the people who attend his/her rallies, I would certainly question that person’s integrity and motives.

Second, everyone who wants to speak, for or against the project, should have that right. It doesn’t matter if one person or a hundred were restricted and it doesn’t matter which side they would have supported: someone was essentially trying to silence their constituents.

Third, it’s just a bad look, suggesting that the promoters themselves are unsure of their support. Norman voters willingly supported Norman Forward and recent school bonds without anyone having to resort to shenanigans. I have no way of knowing if the people behind this are fabricators or tyrants or devious tricksters or idiots or some combination of those things, but for me, actions like this make me question their legitimacy and integrity.

[PhiAlpha]

I disagree . I can only think of two reasons to pay students to attend: to intentionally misrepresent support (which would be promoting a lie) or to keep citizens from speaking (which would be tyranny).

First, it suggests that those who claim student support are disingenuous. If the promoters really have support, they wouldn’t need to pay surrogates. Surely they could find 75 students without spending $4,000 if the supportive students actually exist. If I found out that my favorite presidential candidate was paying half the people who attend his/her rallies, I would certainly question that person’s integrity and motives.

Second, everyone who wants to speak, for or against the project, should have that right. It doesn’t matter if one person or a hundred were restricted and it doesn’t matter which side they would have supported: someone was essentially trying to silence their constituents.

Third, it’s just a bad look, suggesting that the promoters themselves are unsure of their support. Norman voters willingly supported Norman Forward and recent school bonds without anyone having to resort to shenanigans. I have no way of knowing if the people behind this are fabricators or tyrants or devious tricksters or idiots or some combination of those things, but for me, actions like this make me question their legitimacy and integrity.

After reading the article...Other than Holeman saying that “[he] did observe more than one, what I would describe as elderly or older, person leave early because they were standing for over an hour,” what evidence is there that anyone who wanted to speak wasn't allowed to do so or was prevented from doing so due to students attending?

There were 150 seats, 65 of which were taken up be students (who are residents of Norman and had every right to be there) leaving 85 for anyone else and standing room for anyone who couldn't sit. There was no announcement requesting that students give up their seats but Holman, one of the bigger opponents of the project, said that he saw several students give up seats to elderly residents. There were 72 speakers over 7+(!) hours and apparently the students were only 2 of them. So 70 norman residents were able to voice their opinions for or against the project.

The only "proof" they have that money was offered was a snap chat message (that they didn't share) from a random sophomore (who wasn't offering the money himself) and who's only affiliation with OU outside of being a student is being a Phi Delt and a member of the IFC, that the students (who are 18-23 years old) were doing homework and weren't completely locked into a meeting that dragged on for 7 hours and that a bunch of them left at 9:30. It's just as conceivable that the school asked students to show up to support the project and said that the meeting would last from 4:30 to 9:30...and most of them had seen enough after 5 hours of waiting and watching. I probably would've gone and left early and worked on homework while I was there too if something similar was going on when I was a student.

If it did happen, it's a bad look but there's absolutely no way in hell that any meaningful percentage of 65 college students were paid to attend a meeting and not one of them said anything about it over text or another medium afterward that could be used as evidence to back up the claims something happened. I'm sorry lol, but if you believe that, you either didn't go to college after the advent of the smart phone, have never spent time around college students, or you're just being naive. If texts like that were sent...it's highly unlikely that not a single one of them would have been leaked over the last TWO WEEKS or that no one would've come forward to the OU Daily to confirm that it happened. The story was written by the OUDaily...a student campus newspaper...and contains little evidence to back it up. The claims are dubious at best.

Do you have any proof that there were more than 72 Norman residents who wanted to speak and/or that any of them left for reasons other than not wanting to wait their turn and stay there until 1AM to do so? (Remember...only 2 students spoke...so they weren't taking up the speaking slots that would've made other speakers have to wait longer) Do you have any evidence that anyone wasn't allowed to participate in the meeting because it was too full?