Alright, I’m Back
Forgive me, but life got a bit chaotic this past week.
So what can I share with you today?
First order of business: the spammers are going nuts right now. Today I logged 130 messages caught up in the filter. I’ve done my best to rescue anything that shouldn’t be killed. But if you have posted a message and you’re not seeing it, contact me and I’ll work with you to get back on the site.
Work is proceeding on Hideaway Pizza along Automobile Alley. I’ve had a blast helping them obtain historic photos of Broadway that they plan on displaying in the restaurant. Those of you who know me know I love seeing area businesses take pride in our history and sharing it with customers.
Believe it or not, work is also still proceeding on Sammy’s Pizza along the Bricktown Canal. I’m not sure if they are challenging Larado’s Mexican Restaurant at Classen and NW Expressway (now known as Casa De Los Milagros) for marathon construction schedules, but obviously it’s gone a lot slower than they intended and a spring 2010 opening is now looking like a spring 2011 opening.
Sad news about Maker’s Cigar Lounge being auctioned off last week. It was a first class operation, a genuine asset for Bricktown, and it lasted for one great decade. Blame the economy, the weather and an early expansion upstairs.
Tracking a lot of different moving pieces with MAPS 3 relating to downtown. In the middle of this we await results from Tuesday’s city council election, in which challengers in Ward 8 and Ward 6 have made it clear they are no fans of MAPS.
I’ll try to have a couple more substantial posts the next couple of days. Surely things will slow down soon.
- Steve
Deep Deuce Rising
So now we’ve got Level apartments under construction, the Aloft hotel ready to start up as soon as the detox moves and Ron Bradshaw preparing to move forward with an apartment complex as well.
Expect even more announcements in the next few months. Deep Deuce is emerging as downtown’s first fully-mixed neighborhood.
Are Tea Party candidates ducking the voters?
Tea party candidate flier attacking Meg Salyer for the condition of roads across the state and for reconstruction of SW 15 taking longer than two months. It also blames Salyer for the closing of bridges as part of the STATE's reconstruction of Interstate 40. Does this indicate knowledge of how city government works?
Doug Loudenback has been hitting hard at the two Tea Party/Windsor Hills Baptist Church candidates running for city council. He notes that promises made to voters during the MAPS 3 campaign could be reversed, as could much of the momentum we’re seeing downtown, if Cliff Hearron, 74, wins Ward 8 against Pat Ryan and Adrian Van Manen, 61, wins Ward 6 against Meg Salyer.
Hearron and Manen did extensive mailings this past week to constituents. The fliers argued the current council is responsible for OKLAHOMA – not Oklahoma City – but the entire state being ranked low for bad roads. Both Hearron and Manen are without any prior experience or involvement at City Hall. Maybe that’s why they don’t realize the city doesn’t control the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
This would be a good question to delve into at a public forum. But as reported in today’s Oklahoman, Hearron and Manen chose not to appear and answer the voters’ questions.
We at least know what they might be thinking…
These races are very low turnout; literally a couple thousand voters will choose who gets the seat, so we stand an excellent chance of winning these two seats if we put money and effort into the races. No doubt other conservative candidates will be found before the filing deadline, so the Tea Party could simply take control of OKC city government if we can rally the Tea Party members.
- Al Gerhart
Co Founder, Sooner Tea Party
Founder, Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance
FYI
OKC City Council Candidates’ Forum
One of the most important decisions affecting land use and development in Oklahoma City will be made on March 1 when voters go to the polls to elect city council members in four wards.
Who are the candidates? Will they continue to move OKC forward on its present course? Or do they favor a change of direction? Where do they stand on MAPS 3, economic development, and city government’s role in improving the quality of life in our community?
Come find out what’s at stake in this election. Voter turn-out is expected to be small and your vote could be decisive. Don’t miss this opportunity to get your questions about land use and development answered by the people seeking to lead the city for the next four years.
Date
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Location
The Skirvin Hilton
One Park Avenue
Oklahoma City 73101
Time
5pm – 7pm
For more information please contact:
DeShawn Heusel
ULI Oklahoma
P.O. Box 20780
Oklahoma City, OK 73156
Phone: 405.607.6801
Mobile: 405.921.3482
deshawn@cox.net or deshawn.heusel@uli.org
New Aloft Hotel Renderings
Aloft Hotel - NE 2 and Walnut, Deep Deuce
Aloft Hotel, NE 2 and Walnut, Deep Deuce
The Recovery Continues
A few weeks ago I told you that I was tracking more than $50 million in retail/hotel/residential development for downtown. Now I can reveal $16 million of that $50 million. Read here.
The Out-of-Towners
The upper deck of the Bricktown Ballpark will soon be covered with tarps with advertising.
Bricktown Ballpark. I know it’s a name that is endeared in the community. Many of you do as well. But once again, there’s an effort to do away it. First we saw Southwestern Bell Park. The city revolted. Then there was a compromise offered by the owners of the RedHawks – Southwestern Bell Bricktown Ballpark – that was accepted and embraced. Then onto SBC Bricktown Ballpark, then on to AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.
All along there has been a quiet understanding – keep the name Bricktown Ballpark and everything will be fine.
Now the fad of corporations paying big bucks for naming rights is over (aren’t we all excited about the improvements over at “Oklahoma City Arena”?). The RedHawks were bought by out-of-town owners, Mandalay, and they are making changes as detailed in today’s Oklahoman.
Welcome to RedHawks Ballpark. This is a move by owners who may or may not realize the change in name from the Oklahoma City ’89ers to RedHawks back in 1998 itself wasn’t the most popular move. But no matter. The new owners also are closing off the upper deck that gave residents pride in this new stadium – one that may be minor league, but thanks to the seating capacity and the upper deck, just felt major league.
I suspect that if a survey were to go out, neither change would get a ringing endorsement by local baseball fans or the community at large. But maybe I’m wrong. We’ve seen the out-of-towners come into town making such changes before – there are those who would say just look at First National Tower as example of owners who charted new directions based on their own views of the world, locals be damned, and then faced the consequences later on.
What do you think?
Did Ernest Istook Betray OKC?
That’s pretty much the question being asked by Tom Elmore, who brings our attention to a recent story in the Huffington Post. Indeed, it was Istook, as the 5th District Representative for Oklahoma, who single-handledly killed Oklahoma City’s efforts to use $3 million in MAPS money to match up with federal money to establish a light rail or streetcar system in the urban core. Elmore, himself a bit of a controversial figure though undoubtedly passionate about rail transportation, reminds us about another rail system that Istook didn’t try to stop:
Ernest J. Istook?
While he was talking down rail development using a wealth of existing assets in Oklahoma — he was using Oklahoma-derived tax dollars to fund extensive light rail and commuter rail development in the home of his “spiritual brethren,” Salt Lake City, Utah.
Simultaneously, he funded ODOT’s needless destruction of OKC Union Station’s rail yard, last then-unused, grand, capital-city rail passenger hub in the West with all its original train-handling space intact and center of Oklahoma’s 900-mile state-owned railway network.
In Utah the new “Front Runner Commuter Trains” link population centers in Salt Lake / Provo to the south and Ogden to the north to HILL AIR FORCE BASE, blood competitor to OKC’s TINKER AFB — making the Utah base the only USAF Air Logistics Center in the nation with oil-crisis-proof-workforce-mobility.
And you paid for it, Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, in another LDS stronghold, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano had hit static with her Phoenix-Tempe light rail plan. It was being blocked by her state’s own “LDS-conservative-Republicans.” So — she made a pilgrimage to Salt Lake in September, 2004 to visit 93-year-old LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley. Three months later, US House Transportation Subcommittee Chair Ernest Istook and Senate counterpart Richard Shelby appeared in Phoenix with a pledge of $587 million for the project — which by then also included extension to the Mormon Regional Temple in Mesa. (See recent, related story, below this post…)
Check it out for yourself, folks.
Also make sure to see how Salt Lake is performing economically today — among “the first big post-recession jobs producers.” And Oklahoma? Well — if the “New Crosstown” opens in 2012 as promised, we’ll have another four miles of expressway we can’t afford to maintain — and no rail hub. Add that to the state’s existing $40+ billion in “unfunded highway maintenance need.”
And now Ernie is working for the bigshot corporatists at Heritage. They ginned up the “highways-only-monopoly” in this country, the “concrete cross” to which we are all nailed — and they enjoy it. Nor do they mind sending “YOUR children” to war to prop it up.
What do “Republican conservatives” like Istook mean when they say “no public subsidy?” They mean — “none for you.”
It’s all reserved for “their special friends.”
Uh — folks — if you’re not angry, perhaps you just don’t understand the situation.
TOM ELMORE
UPDATE: Some of you are asking – was Istook ever asked or challenged on this issue directly? Yes, in the 1998 congressional race, here is how it was addressed:
Istook Opponent Rails Against Vote Church Behind Transit Choice, Foe Says
By Ron Jenkins
AP
Wednesday, October 21, 1998
Edition: CITY, Section: NEWS, Page 10
U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook was accused by his Democratic challenger Tuesday of voting to benefit his church at the expense of his constituents.
M.C. Smothermon, of Oklahoma City, criticized Istook for voting for an omnibus transportation spending bill that included $35 million for a light rail system in Salt Lake City, headquarters of the Mormon Church.
She said she could find no basis for Istook’s vote, other than favoring narrow interests, since he had voted in 1996 against a bill that included $10 million for a light rail system in Oklahoma City.
“He chose to benefit (the) home of his church,” Smothermon said. “I am a Methodist, and if I were to benefit the Methodist Church at the expense of those who put me in office, that would be wrong. It appears to me that that is exactly what Mr. Istook has done and that is wrong.”
Smothermon is trying to unseat Istook in the race for the 5th Congressional District. The general election is Nov. 3.
Istook, R-Warr Acres, who is a Mormon, said it was outrageous for Smothermon to interject religion into the campaign.
“It’s sad to say that, out of desperation, she has made religious intolerance the centerpiece of her campaign,” Istook said. “I think my fellow Christians and other people of faith in Oklahoma will reject this religious intolerance.”
Smothermon said she had worked for years in interfaith organizations and wanted to be clear that “I have no quarrel with the Mormon Church.
“Also, I fervently support Mr. Istook’s right to practice his religion as he pleases, according to the dictates of faith and conscience. My anger is directed at the use of his elected position to influence and affect public policy to the detriment of those citizens he was elected to serve.”
Istook said his vote was on an omnibus bill and had nothing to do with the Utah project.
But he said he understood the Salt Lake City proposal will be used to transport millions of visitors expected for the Olympics in that City in 2002.
“As for the rail trolley which was proposed for downtown Oklahoma City, it was very high in cost and projected to have very few riders and a great many Oklahomans have thanked me for not wasting taxpayers’ money on it,” he said.
Bricktown Art Festival – Unwelcome Business?
So the Montage Festival folks won at City Council this morning over the Bricktown Association when it comes to closing Mickey Mantle Drive for an entire weekend this summer for a for-profit art festival.
The vote was divided, 6-2, and the Bricktown merchants and property owners made it clear they are not happy with the Montage company closing down a main arterial street for so long.The Bricktown Association indicated today they were willing to go with several different compromises. The Montage company did not at any point in the conversation indicate they were willing to budge from their demand the street be closed all weekend.This having been said, how will this bad blood impact the festival and those who choose to be a part of it? The Bricktown Association could launch its own arts festival that same weekend on the plaza of Mickey Mantle Drive and the ballpark – allowing vendors to set up their tents for free, and thus diluting the business model for Montage. Or they could set up a music festival on the ballpark plaza or Mickey Mantle Plaza or even on the adjoining private property. Or they could simply set their lawn sprinklers on full blast, and if it sprays onto the street where the artists’ booths are, well, it’s summer and the grass does need water.
The Bricktown Association could go a different direction by reviving its Taste of Bricktown to be held in the ballpark plaza at the same time as the art festival and assisting the organizers in keeping the booths open later in the evening – thus making this an event that truly benefits everybody concerned.
In talking with one veteran observer of the entertainment district, one is reminded that any of these responses wouldn’t be shocking. And in Bricktown anything is possible.
After a Week Like This…
You have to question what intellect you have left (hopefully I’ll be back in action on Monday).
