Quote Originally Posted by Pete View Post

The burden of proof is on the group seeking to divert hundreds of millions (approaching a billion) from schools to private developers, not the other way around.
THIS right here is all that's being asked by Pete and others. If the city wants to divert tax dollars, fine. If the city wants to divert hundreds of millions of tax dollars, fine. Simply prove that it is the best use of public funds, do it in an open, transparent manner that the average citizen can understand and make sure that the ability to benefit from the program is easily understood and approachable for the average citizen.

We are now in the 17th year of the program and we are only now talking about TIF. Admittedly, the program started out with a budget of <$50M, which is hardly a number that merits major oversight and scrutiny. But in all the expansion that has taken place or is being planned, at some point, the numbers get large enough that it does merit major oversight and scrutiny, and to be perfectly fair, it merits those charged with administering the program to proactively approach the public which they are finally doing with this Chamber event. To be honest, they probably should have held this panel in 2008 BEFORE signing off on the Devon TIF for $177M.

And correct me if I'm wrong, Pete, but the whole reason you started digging into OKC TIF in the first place was because of the disaster that Project 180 ended up being in terms of delivering what was promised and realizing that the whole funding mechanism for the project was a TIF project.

Seriously, asking for transparency and scrutiny should not be anything other than WELCOMED by anyone, especially anybody working for a municipality and their constituents. Had they been forthright from the beginning, it would have never looked so bad in the first place.