Vision 2 is a proposed $748.8 million Tulsa County tax package that would extend the current Vision 2025 sales tax rate of 0.6 cents for another 13 years starting in 2016. Before voters vote on vision 2 in November, citizens from all over Tulsa County are providing their input for Vision 2 to their local elected officials.
Friday night saw the final of five forums held for the citizens of Tulsa to give their input on Vision 2
The top 5 topics of conversation with the numer of speakers were:
Opposition to Vision 2 - 22.
Water in the river or some sort of river development - 13.
The Tulsa Zoo - 4
The Thornton Y's wellness program - 3
A children's museum - 3
Other ideas of note included improvments to the Central libarary, parks improvements and improvements to the Botanical garden.
For a forum that was suppsoed to be about what people wanted to see in the Vision2 package to have nearly a third of the speakrs voice oposisiton to the proposal entereily was fairly impressive.
I was one of the speakers in opposition to Vision2. Generally, although not always, I'm opposed to county wide sales taxes. Local municipalities like Tulsa are largely restricted in the manner in which they fund themselves. Sale taxes are their life blood. Every tenth of a cent that the county levees represents a loss of flexibility for a city in that county.
More specifically, I don't support extending a tax 4 years before it expires and I don't support the short amount of time we have to evaluate, debate, and discuss this issue before voters are asked to vote on it. I don't like the "We have to do something now" mentality. If something is a good idea now, it will be a good idea later after sober thought and debate.
I would be more amenable to putting this off for a couple of years and to then bring this back as a possible city tax with a shorter length, and a smaller scope.
Michael Bates has done quite a bit of analysis on Vision2 over on his blog batesline.com
here
here
here
here
Below are some pictures I took at the Friday night Vision2 meeting.
For a forum that was suppsoed to be about what people wanted to see in the Vision2 package to have nearly a third of the speakrs voice oposisiton to the proposal entereily was fairly impressive.
I was one of the speakers in opposition to Vision2. Generally, although not always, I'm opposed to county wide sales taxes. Local municipalities like Tulsa are largely restricted in the manner in which they fund themselves. Sale taxes are their life blood. Every tenth of a cent that the county levees represents a loss of flexibility for a city in that county.
More specifically, I don't support extending a tax 4 years before it expires and I don't support the short amount of time we have to evaluate, debate, and discuss this issue before voters are asked to vote on it. I don't like the "We have to do something now" mentality. If something is a good idea now, it will be a good idea later after sober thought and debate.
I would be more amenable to putting this off for a couple of years and to then bring this back as a possible city tax with a shorter length, and a smaller scope.
Michael Bates has done quite a bit of analysis on Vision2 over on his blog batesline.com
here
here
here
here
Below are some pictures I took at the Friday night Vision2 meeting.
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