Miller at the Republican Assembly

On Tuesday the 11th, I attended the Republican Assembly’s monthly meeting where the guest speaker, Tulsa County Commissioner Randi Miller, spoke about the proposed River Tax. Randi Miller made several comments that I think need to be scrutinized.

One of the things I’ve heard her say on this and other occasions is “I wanted to do the river during Vision 2025, but we did not have a plan in place.” She is admitting that she knew, in 2003, that development of the river is what was needed to spur Tulsa’s growth. She knew that our real vision for Tulsa was the river, but she decided to support 2025 anyway. It was said that something had to be done, and that this was our opportunity to help Tulsa grow, and this was the tax package to do it. But now she is trying to sell us on the idea that 2025 was some how deficient and the river is the real opportunity for growth? I now hear the same rhetoric as before: something has to be done..this is our one opportunity and if we don’t pass this tax Tulsa wont grow. Well excuse me if I don’t buy it. If Randi knew this needed to be done in 2003, she should have shown real leadership and fought Vision 2025. I have to say it would be a much easier sell if we were not already over-burdened with the 2025 sales tax.

Speaking of 2025, one of the points she keeps bringing up is the argument that the money in 2025 for two low water dams was never intended to fully fund their construction. I heard her say at one meeting that it was always just seed money and that any rational person should have known that we weren’t really going build those dams for that amount. On Tuesday she kept saying, “go back and look at the public record”, we never said that this money would build these dams, it was always intended that we would need to augment these funds in order to build the dams. Well I’m sorry Randi, but that is not how it was sold. Perhaps this fact was clear if you really studied the issue or if you went to all the meetings but don’t act like we all should have known that 2025 wouldn’t build these dams. This is revisionism at its best, at is worst it’s just dishonest.

She also made mention of the need for Tulsa to invest in its infrastructure. In the midst of talking about how important it was to lay the groundwork for private enterprise to grow, and how we needed to invest in the River, she made a rather peculiar statement about how we lost the Bass Pro shop, and how we lost the Aquarium. My first thought, was yeah and we lost Bell’s, thanks so much for that! Then I thought, well what are you trying to say Randi? Are you saying that we lost these opportunities because we didn’t develop the river or because we haven’t invested in Tulsa’s infrastructure? Because nether is really true. In both cases the blame rests not with a lack of interest in Tulsa by investors or Tulsa's inferior infrastructure, but rather poor leadership by our elected officials, or because of back-door deals made to pass 2025 (I tend to think it is really a bit of both). So again, don’t point to bad leadership and ask us for more money, it really isn’t very inspiring.

But the last and most disturbing of her points has to do with Tulsa’s roads. As you well know, the roads in Tulsa are less than stellar. This is one of the major arguments against this River Tax. If we raise our sales tax now, then we are not really in a position to raise the money necessary to fix our streets in the future. Therefore, if investing in public infrastructure is the argument behind the river proposal then it seems that the more glaring infrastructure need, our roads, should be addressed first. In an attempt to address this, she made a rather bizarre and confusing diatribe about how Tulsa has the money to fix the streets, how it’s just a matter of efficiency and prioritization. At least I think that is what she was saying she really didn’t make any sense. It was when she made mention about all kinds of money laying around in our sales tax funds I challenged her a little. She looked at me and said “Do you know how much money is left in the 2001 sales tax fund?” I mumbled something and she said with great assuredness “$90 million” and then continued her nonsensical ramblings about some cryptic way Tulsa was going to fund our streets with out raising our taxes I guess. “So, you’ll get your streets”

Ok where to start on that last one? 90 million? Where did she get that number? If you will remember the 2001 third penny sales tax was 70 million short. If you actually look at the numbers, which I have access to being on the sales tax overview committee, $90 million is no where to be found. According to my last report, “To date, $264.6 million has been spent on projects in this (the 2001 third penny sales tax) fund and another $25.0 million is currently under contract. Appropriations to date total $319.4 million with a balance of $29.9 million.” So there really isn’t any money left in this fund that isn’t already spoken for, certainly not $90 million. But even if there were some kind of magical surplus it couldn’t easily be touched because of limitations placed on the money by the Brown Ordinance. So Randi really doesn’t know what she is talking about here. She had made mention of her opposition’s tactic of “confuse and conquer”, but it seems that she is really more guilty of that than anyone.

Randi did really say anything to sway me to her side, if any thing she mostly made comments that confused and angered me. Now that I’m no longer ignoring this issue on my blog, you can expect more posts on this topic in the future.


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