Ed Shadid Launches Formal Attack on MAPS 3 Conv Center in tandem with Mayoral Bid

[Urban Pioneer]

Jarrett Waller was paid a speaker's fee by Ed for his transit speech. If Sanders isn't charging Ed, he probably should.

[betts]

Of course. Do you think he is coming here for free? Even if he is traveling around out of the goodness of his heart, this is fueling his academic career. He is likely getting grants for his research. Promotions. Not to mention the ego strokes you get for being the "world's expert". Rarely is anything black and white and people tend to find data that supports their theories. I'm not saying he's wrong, but I certainly don't blindly assume he's the ultimate authority. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between and every situation is a little bit different.

[kevinpate]

Hmmm, MAPs 3 includes a Phase I of a convention center.
It does not include Phase II in any manner. That comes later.
It does not include funding for a hotel. That comes from other sources, if it comes at all. It is not a done deal.

So how exactly, if people were told, repeatedly, M3 was only Phase I of a CC, can anyone find fault with M3 not providing a final sized CC?
And how exactly, if no one on the council has ever asked for a vote to devote a dollar of M3 funds toward a hotel, is a hotel the undoing of Phase I in MAPs 3?

[ljbab728]

Hmmm, MAPs 3 includes a Phase I of a convention center.
It does not include Phase II in any manner. That comes later.
It does not include funding for a hotel. That comes from other sources, if it comes at all. It is not a done deal.

So how exactly, if people were told, repeatedly, M3 was only Phase I of a CC, can anyone find fault with M3 not providing a final sized CC?
And how exactly, if no one on the council has ever asked for a vote to devote a dollar of M3 funds toward a hotel, is a hotel the undoing of Phase I in MAPs 3?

Good points, Kevin, but that will go right over Edgar's head unfortunately. Of course, that is making a very generous assumption about Edgar.

[Urban Pioneer]

From Bill Crum of The Oklahoman-

• $152,000: Cost to hold an election if an initiative petition drive is successful in calling a vote on removing the convention center from MAPS 3 and the city council decides to hold the vote in a special election.


• $1.6 million: The amount spent on the MAPS 3 convention center as of Oct. 31.

#OKC Boxscore | NewsOK.com

[PhiAlpha]

Shadid A No-Show In Previous OKC Elections | The McCarville Report

Steve, can someone at the Oklahoman do a report on this? It seems that this is a pretty important point and could use a bigger stage.

[betts]

Sanders has also written a book. Speaking engagements equal book sales. You too can pre-order:

Convention Center Follies: Politics, Power, and Public Investment in American Cities (American Business, Politics, and Society):Amazon:Books

[betts]

Ed is busy rumor-mongering on Facebook too.

"The most fiscally responsible, forward-thinking aspect of MAPS was that money would be collected before being spent to avoid borrowing and interest payments. The convention center complex [ah......tricky!] represents a radical departure in that 5 votes on the council could commit the city to borrowing as much as $250 million for a hotel and parking, while committing our general fund as collateral, without a vote of the people."

[mkjeeves]

Hmmm...nothing here about this being Phase 1 and that we would need to subsidize a hotel with tax money from *somewhere* to make it viable. It was said this would be good "for decades to come." I'll keep looking though.

Proposed Oklahoma City Convention Center will include more space, room to grow | NewsOK.com

Did news ok pay for the opinions in this piece? It seems to this crowd a person is only an expert when expert says what you want to hear.

[Bellaboo]

Who is Steve Hunt in a nutshell? I really don't know... I'll likely look him later anyways.

Taco Bell employee who ran against Mick Cornett in last election.

[mkjeeves]

Sanders has also written a book. Speaking engagements equal book sales. You too can pre-order:

Convention Center Follies: Politics, Power, and Public Investment in American Cities (American Business, Politics, and Society):Amazon:Books

Don't know about you but when my daughter in-law went to med school, her books were in the tens of thousands of dollars. Pretty sure the experts who wrote those and trained her were all paid. Maybe your experience was different.

My son is a political science major, PhD candidate, ABD, weighted in public policy on city development. Sanders is an expert in his field and required reading.

[betts]

I'm in academic medicine. I probably taught your daughter if she went to OU. I'm just saying that anyone who has something to gain financially by their research (or consultation) should not have their data blindly accepted. When a professor spends a lot of time in the public eye, they are doing it because they like the attention. And they make money if their book sells, they are more likely to get promoted, they're more likely to get grants. I'm the first person to say one needs to take information from any consultant with a grain of salt. The pro- convention center consultants are motivated to tell a city they need a convention center. Mr. Sanders has personal and financial motivation to argue the reverse. And I say, knowing academic research, that the truth is probably somewhere in between.

[mkjeeves]

I'm in academic medicine. I probably taught your daughter if she went to OU. I'm just saying that anyone who has something to gain financially by their research (or consultation) should not have their data blindly accepted. When a professor spends a lot of time in the public eye, they are doing it because they like the attention. And they make money if their book sells, they are more likely to get promoted, they're more likely to get grants. I'm the first person to say one needs to take information from any consultant with a grain of salt. The pro- convention center consultants are motivated to tell a city they need a convention center. Mr. Sanders has personal and financial motivation to argue the reverse. And I say, knowing academic research, that the truth is probably somewhere in between.

It's called peer review, and his work is subject to that, like all academics. None of that ^ means he's the hack the cabal here has implied and will imply. If you are going to go there, how about challenging his work with other studies?

[hoya]

Taco Bell employee who ran against Mick Cornett in last election.

Oh that guy. I remember him now.

[Midtowner]

In some of my trial work, we use expert witnesses. I'll have an expert who is well-credentialed who will say in no uncertain terms that my theory of the case is correct. The other side will also have a well-credentialed expert who will try poke holes in my theory. What these guys do is they take big fees and argue for the plausibility of the position they're paid to advocate. Sanders was one of the consultants who said that this convention center would not be revenue neutral. I'm not sure the CC was ever sold to us as being revenue neutral. This CC will be a gathering place for all of the citizens of OKC. High school graduations will be held there, my law school graduation was at the Cox, etc. Cities of our size need large convention centers and the Cox just isn't cutting it. It's like roads and bridges and other bits of public infrastructure. We need space to accommodate large gatherings. I'm interested to hear more on what a large hotel would bring, but I'm not sure we need to subsidize a large hotel. If the demand for rooms is there, let's talk TIF and other ordinary incentives. Building a large hotel for the benefit of a multibillion dollar company isn't something I can get behind without some more solid evidence.

[betts]

I'm going to say what I think about the CC, and its the same thing I've always said. I suspect the consultants are exaggerating any financial windfall that the city will get from a new convention center. I think the C of C is motivated to believe their data, just like Ed is motivated to believe Mr. Sander's data: it fits with what they want to believe. However, I go to a lot of Thunder games and because it's warmer to walk inside than outside, I always walk through the Cox. I go to an occasional dog show there and a few other events. The Cox looks dated and it looks shabby. It is not a great way to present our city to visitors. Although I don't know if we have any chance to get bigger conventions, if I were a convention consumer, I wouldn't be very interested in coming here. So, I'm actually fine with a new convention center, because I think the city needs a fancier, more uptown face for the conventions we do get. That being said, I've always argued that the convention center needs to be close to the back of the timeline. Our biggest problem with attracting bigger conventions is the fact that there's not much for the conventioneer and or their family to do once they get here. If the other MAPS 3 projects were complete, we'd have a streetcar for transport, we'd have a park to visit, we'd have the river complete. Maybe we'd even have the Native American Cultural Center complete (a girl can hope). Maybe we'd have an Adventure line to transport visitors to the Adventure district. We're getting much better retail downtown and Steve says we're getting more. I like to shop when I go to a convention. I'd like the downtown to be all spiffed up when we welcome visitors to our new convention center, because I suspect that once it opens, it will be stuck for a while with the impressions of the first visitors. I suspect the convention business is a small world. Do it right, and people will come here, be impressed with the new convention center, but more importantly, be impressed with what OKC has to offer. That's more likely to happen if the CC is the last thing we complete.

This is all just my opinion, and I have absolutely no data to support it other than my personal reasons to select cities in which to go to conventions and my years of exposure to academic research and its inherent biases. I didn't vote for MAPS 3 because I was dying to have a new convention center. I wanted the park, streetcar and sidewalks. But, I respect the fact that other voters probably had the convention center as their primary reason for voting yes, and I believe that we need to keep the MAPS brand shiny .

As far as a hotel and phase II CC are concerned: There is no phase II in the MAPS 3 budget. Therefore, any phase II would have to be approved by the voters in a MAPS 4. If the city wants to try and do that, they're welcome. If the city wants to give a hotel company a stimulus to build a hotel here, it should not come out of any part of the MAPS 3 budget but the CC portion. If they find money elsewhere, fine. Big fancy hotels aren't a bad thing for a city. I'm extremely happy that the Skirvin was renovated. But, how to find that money is up to them. My attention, once we get the streetcars and line ordered, is to help improve our transit system - commuter rail and bus.

[mkjeeves]

I might get behind the extended costs too. How about we talk about all that now that we know it might be an issue instead of blindly run the train full speed ahead?

I'm going to leave it at this and go make some money today:

do have a hypothetical question, is there any point along the trajectory of a public project that is going off the rails where it would be appropriate to inform the voters and check in with them again, or should a city just say "they voted for this" and run it off into the ditch?

The consensus here seems to be no, they should run it off into the ditch no matter what. The citizens voted for it.

Maybe we should eliminate the petition process too. It's so inconvenient.

[hoya]

It's called peer review, and his work is subject to that, like all academics. None of that ^ means he's the hack the cabal here has implied and will imply. If you are going to go there, how about challenging his work with other studies?

Actually that isn't implying he's a hack. It just means he has an agenda and you have to take that into account. One of my favorite professors in college was fond of saying "no one writes anything without a reason". You have to identify that reason when you analyze their work.

There's a middle ground between "no convention centers, ever" and "convention centers for everyone". Now I've been on OKCTalk for several years, and so perhaps I'm more informed than the average voter, but I remember quite clearly before the MAPS3 vote that this would only cover the first stage of the convention center, and we'd still need to arrange some sort of financing for a hotel. It was clear to me before the vote, certainly.

[Midtowner]

I might get behind the extended costs too. How about we talk about all that now that we know it might be an issue instead of blindly run the train full speed ahead?

No, it was talked about in 2009. A vote happened. It passed.

[betts]

It's called peer review, and his work is subject to that, like all academics. None of that ^ means he's the hack the cabal here has implied and will imply. If you are going to go there, how about challenging his work with other studies?

Does he have peers? There aren't a lot of other people in that field. Again, I didn't say he's a hack. You overinterpret. I said he has motivation to see things in a light that supports his data. Every person who uses research to get promoted, get grants, etc. does. Bias is phenomenally difficult to remove for anyone. I doesn't mean his data is incorrect, but you don't know what information he's ignored. He's dealing with fuzzy science. How do you measure quality of life, civic pride? There are things that don't fit neatly into any research. I will stick with my statement that the truth is probably somewhere in between and every city is different - more different than his research indicates.

[mkjeeves]

No, it was talked about in 2009. A vote happened. It passed.

I added this (unanswered) question again while you were posting.

do have a hypothetical question, is there any point along the trajectory of a public project that is going off the rails where it would be appropriate to inform the voters and check in with them again, or should a city just say "they voted for this" and run it off into the ditch?

The consensus here seems to be no, they should run it off into the ditch no matter what. The citizens voted for it.

Maybe we should eliminate the petition process too. It's so inconvenient.

[Midtowner]

The petition process is a valid way to get a redo. This has nothing to do with killing the convention center though. Let's be honest. Shadid just wants to make sure there's an anti-MAPS part of the ballot to draw his kind of voter out. Very smart stuff politically, but let's not get caught up and think this has anything to do with sound public policy.

[hoya]

I added this (unanswered) question again while you were posting.


do have a hypothetical question, is there any point along the trajectory of a public project that is going off the rails where it would be appropriate to inform the voters and check in with them again, or should a city just say "they voted for this" and run it off into the ditch?

The consensus here seems to be no, they should run it off into the ditch no matter what. The citizens voted for it.

Maybe we should eliminate the petition process too. It's so inconvenient.

You're going with the presumption that the convention center is going off the rails though. To me the information available is exactly the same as it was when people voted for it.

[soonerguru]

MKJeeves,

The reason people ignore your questions here is you don't have honest dialogue. You frame questions as you want, people respond with facts challenging the basis of your questions, and then you change the subject by asking new questions. People see through your "Oh, I'm open minded and may vote for this" facade, just as they see through your "I'll probably hold my nose and vote for Cornett" facade, after which you spend three weeks tearing into Cornett and putting patron saint Shadid on a pedestal.

Crickets.

[mkjeeves]

MKJeeves,

The reason people ignore your questions here is you don't have honest dialogue. You frame questions as you want, people respond with facts challenging the basis of your questions, and then you change the subject by asking new questions. People see through your "Oh, I'm open minded and may vote for this" facade, just as they see through your "I'll probably hold my nose and vote for Cornett" facade, after which you spend three weeks tearing into Cornett and putting patron saint Shadid on a pedestal.

Crickets.

I don't always expect people to answer them but when asking them is a valid response to regurgitated and repeated mindless statements it's appropriate to respond again in kind.