Glad to be here.

David is right about OKC going through council in-fighting in the past. I’m old enough to remember the Bishop Block! Southwide councilman Bill Bishop could get a majority for quite sometime to block Mayor Patience Latting’s initiatives and ideas.

Now, this was before the days of the Internet and social networking, so reporting/comments were confined to the news media and face to face conversations. If we had had the technology back then, it could have turned into a quite nasty situation. All you have to do is read the comments posted on the World and Oklahoman sites to see how truly obnoxious and inconsiderate people can be. And it’s there for all to read and react to.

Sigh…

On a side note, it’s quite refreshing to see how civil this particular conversation is going! I doubt that OKC Talk or the Tulsa Now Forum could pull it off. LOL

back when tulsa had the commission form of government, tulsa had a much more unified vision for the city, and was frankly whipping okc as being “the place you wanted to be.” this was changed as the result of a very understandable lawsuit (tulsa’s african-american community was basically disenfranchised and could not get representation on the council under citywide elections), but the result is a fragmented city. the feuding that has followed has been legendary.

meanwhile, okc had been divided (since the very beginning of its existence) by a split between north and south. only when things got so bad, for so long, did the city finally put aside local differences and unite behind MAPS. it is still a delicate balancing act, but okc has shown that a unified council can actually get things done, even the unthinkable improvment of city schools.

i can’t say if there is a better way to run the government, taking into account the local history and need to include all of the city’s citizens. however, i can say that you can get much, MUCH more done when the city is not divided against itself. MAPS alone did not save okc. private investment, by people confident in the unified direction of the city, did. as everyone knows, the private investment in okc has dwarfed the public investment.

i truly hope that tulsa thrives. to achieve its fullest potential, the squabbling between the council and the mayor, and among the council members, must stop. i hope it doesn’t take for tulsa to have to learn this the hard way like okc did before this becomes reality.

Oh, and another development, we may soon have an Art Deco museum, at least a starter one..

OKC has a similar situation with First National Center and Milbank from Los Angeles. They made big promises but then didn’t even bother to pay their local PR firm and other vendors. When asked about this, their president waved it off and complained about undue scrutiny. Even if they hadn’t gone into bankruptcy I had a very bad feeling about them from the outset.

It must be said that a big part of real estate is EGO, which is very obvious to those of us that have been around the business. People like to leave their mark and drive by buildings and proclaim, “I did that!” Or, “I’d love to do something with that.” You don’t get that from those that only fly in a few times a year.

Investors are a different story because typically they are buying finished product. But even so, improvements and maintenance are viewed purely as a financial decision, not as something to be done to better the neighborhood or community.