Originally Posted by
Urbanized
I don’t care to wade too deep into this topic, but will remind anyone who would choose to listen that - despite having paid to build the facilities - we don’t see concerts and basketball games for free at Chesapeake Arena, we don’t see baseball games for free at the ballpark, we pay for metered parking on public streets downtown, we pay to raft (and park) at the whitewater facility, we pay to see shows at the Civic Center, there is an admission price for boat rides on the canal, there is a fare box on buses (and apparently there will be one on streetcars), there is a gate admission at the zoo, there’s one at the Crystal Bridge, and on, and on, and on.
My point is that building something isn’t the end of it. Public facilities require upkeep and they require operational expense. How the City manages this is the responsibility of elected and appointed officials, plus hired staff who are (hopefully) experts in their respective fields. In this case those people apparently believed paid parking made the most sense in an effort to cover their costs. I suppose time will tell.
It’s also important to recall that a huge number of fairgrounds visitors - perhaps the majority..? - are from outside of OKC. Getting visitors to help pay for our own facilities is pretty good strategy, if you ask me.
As far as exemption from landscaping standards, not a huge fan of that. The City generally holds itself to its own design standards when building in design districts and overlays downtown; not sure why that shouldn’t extend to elsewhere in the community.
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