High-Speed Rail Answers from District 6

A few weeks ago I sent an email to each member of the Tulsa City Council asking them some questions regarding possible subsidies paid by Tulsa tax payers to fund the operation of a high-speed rail line between OKC and Tulsa. Councilor Westcott was the first to respond, Councilor Bynum the second, and now Councilor Troyer has responded

Before we get to his reply I'd like to provide a disclaimer. Troyer sent me a very rough, down and dirty response. I think it was his intention to send me an email as fast has he could with out spending to much time on in. As such it is full of errors and incomplete sentences. He has since told me that he did not know it was my intention to post his reply on my blog or he would have spent more time on it, "I had no idea you have a blog...had you said that you were posting it on a blog, i would have spent more time with and corrected some of my errors."

As any reader of my blog must know by now, Roemerman On Record is FULL OF ERRORS. So rather than just post his reply, I felt impressed to ask for a response from the councilor that did not have so many errors. My intention was to not embarrass him, but to follow Mat 7:12, "...in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you".

I think the tone in my note to him must have been wrong, because he replied with a note that must have taken about as much effort as it would have to correct his first email.  He told me that he was not going to fix his first email.  In one of our exchanges I said, " I appreciate the courtesy of your response and I did not want to repay that courtesy with disregard, However, it is my intention to post your response, and I'd prefer not to post the one you sent me if there is a chance that you could send me a another one."  His response, "I no intention right now to respond to your ?'s as much as and deeply as i would want to."

So I made a good faith effort to let the councilor go on record in a manner that would not embarrass him. I truly wanted to do the right thing, but I did promise to post the responses I received from every councilor.In lieu of a better response from Troyer, here is what I have to work with.

• Would you favor subsidizing the operational costs of the high-speed rail line?
• Would this money come from Tulsa’s operational budget which is funded by the first 2 pennies of sales tax?
• Would you favor a new sales tax?
• Would you favor some other funding mechanism? Might we require some help from the state legislature in order to provide us with the tools necessary to exploit some other untapped funding source?
• Could refusal from Tulsa or Oklahoma City to help fund the operational costs of the proposed high-speed train de-rail the project?

Steve
Thanks for your ?'s.....light rail is great idea, should already have it.  With it we can devel the river as we have been talking for years. Seems like  that's what we do best talk and is is not just today. We have been doing it  for years. We would for sure need help from feds/state and they have agreed to do that. BUT we need to come up w/$$$ too. Get rid of 3rd penny or come up w/new tx for streets/sewer/safety. I am in middle of getting reelected and would spend more time on this I make it and would like to talk to anyone about it.Mr Westcott has a pretty good grip on it for now and like amtrack it is a long process.
Ask again after the nov 10 vote where I can spend more time w/it.
Thanks;
Dennis...sorry to be short w/you..just not nuff time now...and sorry it took this long to reply