Norman’s TIF and Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s Ethics.

Friday’s live podcast on October 4th featured Whitney Mullica and Kelly Wilson from PikeOffOTA (Oklahomas For Responsible Transportation) to talk about a recent ‘win’ they had with the Norman City Council.

This year, the OTA – which is attempting to build a turnpike extension through the city of Norman (and numerous other places) – presented the Norman City Council with a contract in which they would provide Norman a list of items for the turnpike right of way.

PikeOffOTA researched the contract and found that no town with which OTA had signed a contract previously, came out getting what they expected. All, instead, were forced to pay for road repairs and other infrastructure issues created by OTA activity for which they hadn’t budgeted.

Kelly, Whitney and the group took their research to the Norman City Council, who, after a listening session, decided against signing the OTA contract – something that hasn’t happened previously.

After discussing this win, Kelly and Whitney showed more of their research on the OTA, which, as it turns out, is simply a glorified, Roosevelt-style works program for favored individuals and companies. Whitney and Kelly explain this thesis, below.

It’s maddening, but tolls don’t go back to simply repairing the roads, they are used as collateral for FURTHER BUILDING. Why does Oklahoma need so many toll roads? To keep paychecks rolling in – and not for the taxpayer.

As mentioned in the video, Governor Stitt has a PAC called The Turnaround Team PAC. Donations to this PAC have been made by people who have benefited from Stitt’s governance.

For example, David Streb, President of POE Associates, has donated $15 thousand dollars to the PAC, $5,000 each year from ’22, ’23, and ’24. The Hilliary’s of Hilliary Communications in Lawton – of which both Dustin and Edward have been appointed by Governor Stitt to the Regents for Higher Education and the State Board of Career And Technology Education, have donated a total of $50,000 over the course of 2020 to 2024. To name just a few examples.

This cronyism at the taxpayer’s expense must stop, but the only way this will happen is if this information is shared widely and people decide they don’t want to fund the bank accounts of OTHERS with their tax dollars and stand up against OTA in their cities and towns and work to have legislators dissolve the agency and return toll roads back to the citizens.

NORMAN TIF

At the end of the program, Kelly introduced Dr. Rogers – a professor of economics at OU – who explained what a TIF is, why it works and who is benefiting from the TIF.

This is yet another example of crony capitalism and economic development WITHOUT CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. She explains here.

As Dr. Rogers so eloquently explains, a TIF is a way for a project to garner funds that excludes the direct will of the people over how they intend for their tax dollars to be spent.

While it is true that the City Council has to pass the TIFF and the City Council is an elected body, meaning that their voice is SUPPOSED to be directly tied to that of their citizens, as it often happens, developers and others involved in the TIFF have the time and money to skew the opinion of Council members while the citizens may not even understand the ramifications of the issue at hand.

Raising the tax rate of any city or town must be done by a vote of the people. In the case of a TIFF, taxes aren’t raised, but diverted, leaving the people with no direct say on this type of financing at the ballot box. In the case of the Norman TIFF, OU – the benefactor of the TIFF – paid 65 OU students to be at the Norman City Council meeting where the vote was taken – making it seem as though the TIF had more community support than it did. Dr. Rogers argues that the community doesn’t want the TIF and the only way to determine that, is through an initiative petition to recall the vote and institute a public vote on the matter, an effort currently underway in the City of Norman.

Dr. Rogers doesn’t say that she doesn’t believe the Norman arena project should be undertaken at all, but that there were no alternative ways to fund the project explored before the TIF was voted into place. By circumventing the will of the people in the matter of how their tax dollars are spent in their community, the people lose control of their government and are stymied in their ability to control their fates. In a Republic this is wrong.

To find the full live video please see our YouTube and Rumble channels.