For many, MAPS is causing a decrease in quality of life

[Timshel]

It's the only thing that has changed during this time.

Remember that the Chamber is the one that pays for MAPS campaigns and to get a measure passed in this town, you need their backing. They want MAPS (have very much to say about what actually goes on the ballot) and know that it would be far less likely to be approved if that extra taxation caused OKC's sales tax to be well over the average.

I edited my post to add a paragraph that you may or may not have seen, which I will reiterate here just in case.

It seems to me that MAPS is being scapegoated for other issues, most likely in my mind being a reluctance to believe voters would approve a general sales tax increase (and to be fair this reluctance is probably well-founded). We could have a material general sales tax increase, keep MAPS, and still remain at or below average compared to other Oklahoma cities.

Based on the figures Ed provided, it seems pretty easy to avoid the issue of extra taxation causing OKC's sales tax to be well over the average.

[OKC Guy]

First, I think it is important to specify what parts of town you are speaking of and exactly what is it you want to accomplish. If you live on the outer fringes of OKC, chances are your home, your school and your shopping is better, newer and more convenient than in central OKC. Therefore, your part of the city doesn't need as much.

I will agree that the parts of town built, say from the 50s up to 1980-ish need sprucing up. But exactly what is it you want to do? New sidewalks? OK. Streets? It's already underway. New parks, possibly but it seems there are a lot of them and exactly who is going to use them? Schools? OK. What is it you want to accomplish. Who is it to benefit and how? Personally, as a roughly monthly visitor to town, I would just like to see the city keep the damn streetlights lit. I understand there are problems around. Lyrewood Lane is becoming a dangerous place but is that OKC or Warr Acres? Either way, how can MAPS help?



Yes, growth is happening outside of downtown, I think we have established that. My point is, by improving roads at a whim on the outer fringe, you are encouraging growth further and further out. OKC now extends far beyond the Kilpatrick to the north. OKC needs to be encouraged to look inward for rebuilds, renovations and infill. Look at the city from an aerial photo and you will see all sorts of unused, vacant or underused land. Again, there was a bond issue for nearly half a billion dollars approved so that issue shouldn't be a problem. Taking care of maintenance is the main problem I see and that is the city manager's job. If he/she can't handle it, OKC needs to find a new one who can.

On the outer roads, thats where business is moving to. So why wouldn’t we want to improve them? These businesses dont want to be downtown in fact some rely on ability to get trucks in and out easily. Thats actually one of our selling points to a business locked in a high traffic city like Dallas, where its now harder to move goods around and out/in of/to city. If we keep neglecting outer parts of city the roads will not handle business growth.

Roads need improved all over city. Street Lighting needs fixed and stay fixed. Potholes and other core services needs better funding. Bus service needs fixed to serve the entire city

I am not against downtown projects. My take is all the prior MAPS improved our city by leaps and bounds and we are no longer behind others and are ahead of some. Our projects are paid for. What I am saying is we have to slow down and be more selective in what we build. Instead of 6 projects lets do 2, and each of the 2 has its own vote. So maybe soccer stadium and aquarium are all we try. Or pick any 2.

As for your claim schools are bad in the inner core then why didn’t we address it instead of all the MAPS projects? Are priorities misguided in the past? Plus we did have MAPS for Schools already.

I am not advocating for major projects in outer city either but due to size of city we need to put money in the til to support areas away from downtown. Its sad we spent so mich on streetcar and not on buses.

We are a road dependent city and nothing will change that anytime soon. We could have helped at least make an effort by making our bus service work. Imagine if we spent half of the $140,000,000 that SC cost into bus system. $70,000,000 would have made us one of the best bus cities of this land size in the country. And instead of driving downtown you have bus hubs with gated parking and can reduce the cars needing to drive downtown. And charm with buses you can change routes to meet changing needs. SC is locked into a set route and still requires people to drive downtown. Thats an example of what we could have done.

Roads are not evil as a form of transportation and we need to embrace our city is spread out. Not all want to live in downtown lots want to enjoy the breadth of our city. Same with business. Paycom is close to 3,000 workers and thats a huge economic impact. Yet we are not takikg care of the basic road needs. And this is anywhere we have business expanding all over the city.

Our core services have gone downhill. All I’m saying is we need to pause and figure out the citywide priorities in spending. Just the basics like road paint is in bad condition. Potholes. And many other needs. OKC Connect used to be the best system in country to report problems and get fast fixes. Now its not because I suspect its underfunded.

I am not against projects in downtown but think MAPS has done its job greatly and its now time stop MAPS and be selective with new projects. Then we can refund core and other pressing needs all over the city.

It does not have to one or the other like you seem to indicate. It can be both done smartly going forward. An example of bad - If we build a SC extension we are goimg to eat up major future cost needs just for upkeep and upgrade of this money pit. Its going to take away from more pressing needs as it does not serve much of metro. If we don’t think about future costs of existing projects we will fail in upkeeping them too, or have to spend a bulk of money just to maintain or upgrade them. In 10 years just the daily operating costs of SC will be well over$10,000,000. Then the street cars themselves will need replaced at a point I imagine those are not cheap and we have 7 of them.

[Laramie]

In all due respect that I have for Dr. Ed Shadid especially seeing the support he has given the OKC community as well as acceptance of our LGBT community; definitely don't agree with his assessment.

We would not have the NBA Thunder or Devon Tower if we hadn't passed the original MAPS that built our downtown arena--The Peake. Larry Nichols said that without MAPS he would have moved Devon Energy to Houston--that would be another tower in their skyline.

Our 'quality of life' would be lacking; that 'quality of life' issue is why we didn't secure United Airlines Maintenance Facility Center (awarded to Indianapolis) that started Mayor Ron Norick to come up with the 1st MAPS initiative--to improve the 'quality of life' by renovation of old city owned structures and new construction of DT arena & the Bricktown Ballpark--we would have lost AAA baseball.

...and Dr. Ed Shadid, you have always been there for the people to raise questions; however, that's why I didn't vote for you for mayor; I knew you would KILL MAPS...

[Laramie]

On the outer roads, thats where business is moving to. So why wouldn’t we want to improve them? These businesses dont want to be downtown in fact some rely on ability to get trucks in and out easily. Thats actually one of our selling points to a business locked in a high traffic city like Dallas, where its now harder to move goods around and out/in of/to city. If we keep neglecting outer parts of city the roads will not handle business growth.

Roads need improved all over city. Street Lighting needs fixed and stay fixed. Potholes and other core services needs better funding. Bus service needs fixed to serve the entire city

I am not against downtown projects. My take is all the prior MAPS improved our city by leaps and bounds and we are no longer behind others and are ahead of some. Our projects are paid for. What I am saying is we have to slow down and be more selective in what we build. Instead of 6 projects lets do 2, and each of the 2 has its own vote. So maybe soccer stadium and aquarium are all we try. Or pick any 2.

As for your claim schools are bad in the inner core then why didn’t we address it instead of all the MAPS projects? Are priorities misguided in the past? Plus we did have MAPS for Schools already.

I am not advocating for major projects in outer city either but due to size of city we need to put money in the til to support areas away from downtown. Its sad we spent so mich on streetcar and not on buses.

We are a road dependent city and nothing will change that anytime soon. We could have helped at least make an effort by making our bus service work. Imagine if we spent half of the $140,000,000 that SC cost into bus system. $70,000,000 would have made us one of the best bus cities of this land size in the country. And instead of driving downtown you have bus hubs with gated parking and can reduce the cars needing to drive downtown. And charm with buses you can change routes to meet changing needs. SC is locked into a set route and still requires people to drive downtown. Thats an example of what we could have done.

Roads are not evil as a form of transportation and we need to embrace our city is spread out. Not all want to live in downtown lots want to enjoy the breadth of our city. Same with business. Paycom is close to 3,000 workers and thats a huge economic impact. Yet we are not takikg care of the basic road needs. And this is anywhere we have business expanding all over the city.

Our core services have gone downhill. All I’m saying is we need to pause and figure out the citywide priorities in spending. Just the basics like road paint is in bad condition. Potholes. And many other needs. OKC Connect used to be the best system in country to report problems and get fast fixes. Now its not because I suspect its underfunded.

I am not against projects in downtown but think MAPS has done its job greatly and its now time stop MAPS and be selective with new projects. Then we can refund core and other pressing needs all over the city.

It does not have to one or the other like you seem to indicate. It can be both done smartly going forward. An example of bad - If we build a SC extension we are goimg to eat up major future cost needs just for upkeep and upgrade of this money pit. Its going to take away from more pressing needs as it does not serve much of metro. If we don’t think about future costs of existing projects we will fail in upkeeping them too, or have to spend a bulk of money just to maintain or upgrade them. In 10 years just the daily operating costs of SC will be well over$10,000,000. Then the street cars themselves will need replaced at a point I imagine those are not cheap and we have 7 of them.

Your cost analysis research raises a lot of eyebrows with many MAPS projects; especially with posters. Know you are in opposition of the MAPS project' junction.

$10 million daily operating costs, really; would you like to correct that figure... ...this is the type of exaggeration that ruins you credibility.

[OKC Guy]

Your cost research raises a lot of eyebrows with many MAPS projects.

$10 million daily operating costs; would you like to correct that figure...

I said no such thing it costing $10m per day? Where did you get that idea

I said in 10 years it costs us $10m but actually it costs us $30,000,000 $3,000,000 per year). So I was off by $20,000,000.

$3,000,000 in annual operating costs
X 10 years

This is not counting extra parts or future car replacement.

[Laramie]

I said no such thing it costing $10m per day? Where did you get that idea

I said in 10 years it costs us $10m but actually it costs us $30,000,000 $3,000,000 per year). So I was off by $20,000,000.

$3,000,000 in annual operating costs
X 10 years

This is not counting extra parts or future car replacement.

In 10 years just the daily operating costs of SC will be well over$10,000,000. Then the street cars themselves will need replaced at a point I imagine those are not cheap and we have 7 of them.

Not concerned about what you 'said,' or thought you said; it's what you posted.

Did you mean $10k? $10,000.00

Go back and read your own post #27

[Ed Shadid]

In all due respect that I have for Dr. Ed Shadid especially seeing the support he has given the OKC community as well as acceptance of our LGBT community; definitely don't agree with his assessment.

We would not have the NBA Thunder or Devon Tower if we hadn't passed the original MAPS that built our downtown arena--The Peake. Larry Nichols said that without MAPS he would have moved Devon Energy to Houston--that would be another tower in their skyline.

Our 'quality of life' would be lacking; that 'quality of life' issue is why we didn't secure United Airlines Maintenance Facility Center (awarded to Indianapolis) that started Mayor Ron Norick to come up with the 1st MAPS initiative--to improve the 'quality of life' by renovation of old city owned structures and new construction of DT arena & the Bricktown Ballpark--we would have lost AAA baseball.

...and Dr. Ed Shadid, you have always been there for the people to raise questions; however, that's why I didn't vote for you for mayor; I knew you would KILL MAPS...

Perhaps I should make one point clearer. Why does it have to be all or nothing; MAPS or no MAPS? It would certainly be possible to have a 1/2 cent or even 3/4 cent MAPS and dedicate 1/4-1/2 cent for operations. That would seem to be a win-win; continue to build debt free capital projects but which have a funding mechanism in place to fund operations and maintenance as well as more adequately fund City Departments which are trying to provide services to more than 600,000 people over an almost unprecedented 620 square mile area.

The people just approved a 1/4 cent increase for the General Fund in a vote last year so they are certainly receptive to the argument that it is needed. Up until the very last minute, Mick Cornett's plan was to have a 1/4 cent for operations (essentially all for public safety) and then 3/4 cent sales tax for "Better Streets, Safer City" (the temporary MAPS tax). The Chamber of Commerce indicated that they couldn't support Mick's plan and demanded that MAPS remain a full penny and the Mayor and City Council acquiesced. We are an outlier in that in OKC the Chamber of Commerce runs the campaign for MAPS and they effectively have veto power over its content. This is the greatest hurdle IMO in decreasing the size of MAPS and more adequately funding City Departments.

[OKC Guy]

Not concerned about what you 'said,' or thought you said; it's what you posted.

Did you mean $10k? $10,000.00

Go back and read your own post #27

You are the one having reading problems not me.

Show me where I said it costs $10,000,000 per day.

Otherwise move along

[Laramie]

It was my understanding MAPS capital improvement money couldn't be used for operational expenses?

Now, if you proposed a sales tax (not MAPS extension) just for operational expenses, Dr. Shadid, I agree with you 100%.

[Laramie]

You are the one having reading problems not me.

Show me where I said it costs $10,000,000 per day.

Otherwise move along

Not trying to make this a personal thing; we both have our opinions which is IMO a good thing.

OKCGuy: See my post #31 (quote) and your post #27; please re-check out those figures...

[Timshel]

This is the greatest hurdle IMO in decreasing the size of MAPS and more adequately funding City Departments.

Similar to the question in your first paragraph, why would MAPS have to be decreased to more adequately fund city departments? There seems to be ample room to increase general tax collections without exceeding the average sales tax in Oklahoma's largest cities because our current sales tax is so low even including MAPS.

(Note that I agree using a portion of the next MAPS revenue for operations is a good idea)

[RaRaRyan]

It does not have to one or the other like you seem to indicate. It can be both done smartly going forward. An example of bad - If we build a SC extension we are goimg to eat up major future cost needs just for upkeep and upgrade of this money pit. Its going to take away from more pressing needs as it does not serve much of metro. If we don’t think about future costs of existing projects we will fail in upkeeping them too, or have to spend a bulk of money just to maintain or upgrade them. In 10 years just the daily operating costs of SC will be well over$10,000,000. Then the street cars themselves will need replaced at a point I imagine those are not cheap and we have 7 of them.

Just admit you phrased that poorly and move on. It reads like the daily operating costs would be $10M. Not the total cost of operation over 10 years. I can easily see where others are getting tripped up in how you phrased that.

[Bullbear]

I agree it doesn't have to be an all or nothing and considering how it seems for Maps 4 the ideas for projects aren't getting overwhelming support and just seem like we HAVE to do something with the money, I wouldn't appose reducing the sales tax towards Maps and increasing tax to general fund and make Maps 4 a Smaller budget. I don't know that I want to see MAPS go away entirely but to scale back and allow room for tax increase for other parts of the budget would be fine by me.

[Laramie]

My understanding about the legality of MAPS; it's a vote for the total amount for capital improvements, say $777 million for capital improvements; the council could easily add, delete or substitute a proposed project. So far, city leaders have been very consistent about the proposed projects--'no bait & switch' to my knowledge.

Dr. Shadid, just want to 'thank you' for your service on the council and health 'spine' services to our community; you guys take a lot of criticism while using the information given you to make 'tough' decisions. Many decisions are 'no win' situations; sometimes a matter of the lesser among the evils.

[king183]

Agreed that good points are brought up but the problem isn't MAPS, it's the silly property tax rules that are the ultimate basis for city and state revenue problems.

To reiterate what others have already said: this is such a poorly argued piece by Ed. He launches a broadside against MAPS, declaring it has lowered our quality of life, and then proceeds to give a host of legitimate reason that endanger our city that have nothing to do with MAPS. The restriction on using property tax, for instance, would still be detrimental to the city's ability to sustain predictable funding priorities even if MAPS never existed.

Ed often makes good points about lack of transparency in our city government and the "good ol' boys" club that runs parts of this city, but he then overshadows those points with seemingly random, poorly thought-out, overwrought attacks on initiatives proven to increase our quality of life. He certainly has a cut of your nose to spite your face attitude about many things in this city.

[OKCRT]

MAPs has raised the quality of life in OKC since it's conception. Next I want to see what they propose to see if the upcoming maps is something that will continue to raise the QOL. If it's not something that I think will benefit the majority of OKC folks or if it has a bunch of COC Pork I will simply vote NO. I would keep the penny totally toward maps at this time. BTW, I am all in on expanding the streetcar system to reach more people.

[OKC Guy]

Not trying to make this a personal thing; we both have our opinions which is IMO a good thing.

OKCGuy: See my post #31 (quote) and your post #27; please re-check out those figures...

Just stop!

You made it personal the first time and then the second time and now third time

Are you this dense? 10,000,000/day would come to 3,650,000,000 per year and $36,500,000,000 in 10 years! And you honestly think thats what I said lol.

My post 30 made it clear yet you have to keep on attacking me for no reason. Stop trying to win the internet and stop attacking my credibility for some type of internet style points. You knew exactly what I meant you just hate my points of view so find anything you can to attack.

I am speechless

[Ed Shadid]

To reiterate what others have already said: this is such a poorly argued piece by Ed. He launches a broadside against MAPS, declaring it has lowered our quality of life, and then proceeds to give a host of legitimate reason that endanger our city that have nothing to do with MAPS. The restriction on using property tax, for instance, would still be detrimental to the city's ability to sustain predictable funding priorities even if MAPS never existed.

Ed often makes good points about lack of transparency in our city government and the "good ol' boys" club that runs parts of this city, but he then overshadows those points with seemingly random, poorly thought-out, overwrought attacks on initiatives proven to increase our quality of life. He certainly has a cut of your nose to spite your face attitude about many things in this city.

Tough crowd. Quite a bit of work and research went into the original post; could be wrong but is well researched with as long of an explanation as anyone would likely read and isn't poorly thought-out or random. Show me where my logic, contentions or research are wrong rather than utilizing one or two sentence blanket statements.

Perhaps I should add another caveat. Whether one has realized an increase in quality of life from MAPS programs (particularly projects such as the very expensive Whitewater amenity which most families in OKC cannot afford, or the Convention Center) and whether one was particularly vulnerable to a decrease in quality of life due to anemic City Department budgets such as parks and public transit at least partially depends on one's socioeconomic status.

In my post I referenced how devastating the last ten years have been for those tens of thousands of people who live in the city but do not own a car and who lived in one of the only large cities in the developed world without public transit on Sundays or evenings with only once an hour service on Saturdays. In my experience, the argument that inadequate city services led to a decrease in quality of life is more readily received and agreed upon by those who were not able to be connected to jobs, or food, or family, or social events, or medical appointments due to a lack of public transit. If you ride public transit you likely have had such conversations; if you don't, ask friends or family that utilize public transit; if you don't have any friends or family that utilize public transit then be open to the possibility that the City acted in a sadistic and extremely harmful manner to those who are transit/bike/pedestrian dependent and the possibility that the reason the Transit budget was so anemic was to accommodate a program of utilizing such a large amount of sales tax for capital projects.

Likewise, those who live in larger homes with backyard amenities, or gated communities with gathering places, might not utilize city parks with the same frequency as those individuals and families without the same amenities at home. They might not notice that there are virtually no restroom facilities in our parks throughout the city other than, maybe, a port a potty that oftentimes can be smelled from a block away. Or that there might just be one trash can for an entire park oftentimes located on the periphery of the park.

As other have pointed out, all municipalities in Oklahoma are subject to the same unique property tax restriction as OKC. Their response has been to incrementally increase their sales tax rate to a level considerably higher than OKC to accomodate the growth in population and size of the area being served. It is my belief that we were unable to follow suit because we had a full cent dedicated to the MAPS tax. Keep in mind that we could have increased the OKC mil rate and sold larger GO Bonds (the OKC mil rate on its property tax is also lower than surrounding municipalities) and built many of the capital projects included in MAPS; but instead we chose to build these capital projects with sales tax rather than property tax. Capital projects can be built with either sales tax or property tax. Operations and maintenance can use sales tax but not property tax. So a City like OKC which chooses to heavily utilize sales tax for capital projects (ie: the MAPS program) is going to be limited in how much they can increase sales tax to pay for operations and maintenance.

Another observation as to socioeconomic class implications of which I admittedly haven't completely sorted out as I need more data : MAPS 3 was passed because of the turnout in Ward 8. Period. MAPS 3 was either virtually tied or lost in every single ward except a slight amount in Ward 2 and a large amount in Ward 8. MAPS3 is a Ward 8 phenomenon as it would have gone down in defeat without the Ward 8 vote. Although I have not seen median income measures by Ward, I would assume that as a whole, Ward 2 and Ward 8 contain large pockets of higher income residents and have a higher median income as a whole than the other wards. Ward 8 also has the highest voter turnout of any Ward. This, in my opinion, is not lost upon pollsters and those who formulate GO BOND and MAPS packages. If you want MAPS4 to pass, it will have to poll well, and have good turnout in Ward 8. Ward 8 will then have a disproportionate say in the final formulation of MAPS4.

[BoulderSooner]

The idea that the lack of Sunday service had anything to do with maps is naive at best. More likely completely disingenuous

[OkieDave]

Unfortunate title maybe? It is kinda shocking that OKC is running at about 75% of sales tax compared to most of the other top 30 largest cities for general operations. How do we fund real improvements to many of the things people on here appreciate? A conversation to adjust where that 1 cent goes is needed.

[RedDollar]

A straight comparison of sales tax rates between cities is lacking, all cities are different.

OKC is a water broker. We sell water to all the bedroom cities. That has to help keep our water rates lower.
And Moore et al, has to pay a higher price for water, so does that mean they need more sales tax revenue ?

Edmond operates an electric utility.

And there's economy to scale, the larger the city , the more the fixed cost can be absorbed.

And if you're comparing major cities, how deeply are other cities funding social programs, which IMO, is a function of state and Fed govt, not municipal. Spending would have to also be compared to revenue rates. All cities don't have the same demands.

Would also have to analyze each major city individually, to compare how County govt does or does not participate in providing services, same for state.

Comparing rates has to be much deeper.

[hoya]

Another issue is that as far as public safety goes, OKC is covered by both Oklahoma City police, as well as Oklahoma County Sheriff. While Del City, Midwest City, etc are as well, the great majority of the land area is OKC. Most of the time, they're patrolling OKC.

[Ed Shadid]

A straight comparison of sales tax rates between cities is lacking, all cities are different.

OKC is a water broker. We sell water to all the bedroom cities. That has to help keep our water rates lower.
And Moore et al, has to pay a higher price for water, so does that mean they need more sales tax revenue ?

Edmond operates an electric utility.

And there's economy to scale, the larger the city , the more the fixed cost can be absorbed.

And if you're comparing major cities, how deeply are other cities funding social programs, which IMO, is a function of state and Fed govt, not municipal. Spending would have to also be compared to revenue rates. All cities don't have the same demands.

Would also have to analyze each major city individually, to compare how County govt does or does not participate in providing services, same for state.

Comparing rates has to be much deeper.

Excellent Post. Furthers the discussion significantly. I agree that there is an apples to oranges component to comparing a municipality like OKC to say a Edmond, Moore, Norman etc for the reasons you have outlined and your post will help target additional research. Thank you.

Couple of thoughts:
While I agree that comparing rates has to be deeper, there are probably no true apples to apples comparison for the City with the second largest land mass of any city in the U.S. (620 sq. miles) with municipalities buried within its borders (ie: Midwest City, Nichols Hills, the Village etc..) and the residents belonging to one of three counties (Oklahoma, Canadian, Cleveland) with two of the three having a county sales tax (Cleveland, Canadian) and the other (Oklahoma) without a county sales tax.

Lawton and Tulsa are probably the best comparisons within Oklahoma. Best comparisons for city services are probably peer cities throughout the country (although again, since Oklahoma is the only state in the U.S. which precludes cities from utilizing property tax for operations, such comparisons as to sales tax rate will be difficult). But we can ascertain where we are an outlier compared to cities across the U.S. When we are the only city in the U.S. not providing evening and Sunday bus service it should have been obvious that we had a problem and needed to adjust our sales tax rate. Perhaps less obvious, but still troubling, is that we are only spending about 28% of what the average major metropolitan municipality is spending on parks maintenance. (Some will argue that the Zoo should be included in these spending numbers).

Oklahoma City social services budget is about $200,000 out of a Billion dollar + budget. It hasn't been raised in more than 15 years. The City's policy is effectively that we will manage federal pass through funds and not have a meaningful social services budget.

[Of Sound Mind]

I am speechless

If only that were true.

[OkieDave]

Good Title

Streetcar costs seem fairly straightforward. Embark budgeted about $3 million/year for operations and maintenance.