MAPS 3 campaign cost more than $2 million | OKG Scene.com (http://www.okgazette.com/p/12776/a/5467/Default.aspx?ReturnUrl=LwBkAGUAZgBhAHUAbAB0AC4AYQB zAHAAeAAslashAHAAPQAxADIANwAyADkA)

who cares. It's a privately funded campaign. $2 mil is pocket change for a campaign in a big league city.

$55 for a yes vote compared to the $2. it cost to get a no vote. Metro's right, who cares? You have to spend money to make money.

and im sure it could have been much cheaper than 2 mill without the idiot police and fire unions and their irrelevant arguments/anti-maps campaigns.
But I agree, 2 mill is nothing considering what should come of MAPS.

This is a non-issue, however, as always, some will try to make it an issue. It's time to forget the election, swallow a little pride and move on to something worthwhile.

2 million was spent to secure approval of a 777 million improvement package for the benefit of the citizens of, and visitors to, OKC.

The article notes 71,000 by NTM, but I thought I recalled 120,000 minimum, 60T each from the FD and PD unions. Memory could be wrong.

So ....

Yes M3! folks invested 2 mil of private funds to see 777 million in improvements that will be shared by all, resident, adjoining non-resident, visitors from in state and out.

NTM folks, invested somewhere between 60,000-140,000, primarily from two union accounts, to say NTM with great dedication. They managed to trim the winning margin by 1-4 % points.

As to who invested more wisely, to each their own opinon.

That's another $2 million to stimulate the OKC economy.

Not This MAPS Coalition just filed (link updated).

AND IT WAS FUNDED BY CAIR WHO WAS FUNDED BY HAMAS! RUN HIDE!!! (joke)

IDIOT police and FIRE unions? YOu do releaize that the IDIOT unions are the police and fire themselves. So if you ever need to call 911 for chest pain and the fd paramedic hooks you up to the monitor and realizes you are having the big one and gives you the early treatment you need and endes up possibly making a difference in your life i want you to remember the IDIOT that did that for you. you may not agree on our position and the reasons we went the rout we did but to say that we are idiots is a sign of ignorance.

Maybe not all of us have PHD or been to high priced universities for 8 years but i can tell you that the People you called IDIOTS are some of the best in the nation at what they do. Do you know impending collapse of a roof? or how much pressure you have to have at the pump to supply 2 hand lines inside a structure with the water they need to do the job and keep them safe? NO so maybe you should watch your name calling because 1 day those IDIOTS will be there to make a difference in your life.

Maybe not all of us have PHD or been to high priced universities for 8 years but i can tell you that

I think you mean "..have a PHD or have been to a high-priced university.."

IDIOT police and FIRE unions? YOu do releaize that the IDIOT unions are the police and fire themselves. So if you ever need to call 911 for chest pain and the fd paramedic hooks you up to the monitor and realizes you are having the big one and gives you the early treatment you need and endes up possibly making a difference in your life i want you to remember the IDIOT that did that for you. you may not agree on our position and the reasons we went the rout we did but to say that we are idiots is a sign of ignorance.

Maybe not all of us have PHD or been to high priced universities for 8 years but i can tell you that the People you called IDIOTS are some of the best in the nation at what they do. Do you know impending collapse of a roof? or how much pressure you have to have at the pump to supply 2 hand lines inside a structure with the water they need to do the job and keep them safe? NO so maybe you should watch your name calling because 1 day those IDIOTS will be there to make a difference in your life.

I appreciate our police and fire and what they do but at the end of the day WE pay them to do what you described above. Through the whole campaign you guys have acted like you volunteer to do this. You don't. You get paid and paid well.

I'm thankful the police and fire will be there when I need them. However, they will be there because my tax dollars go to paying their salaries. I'm not trying to sound harsh but you guys get paid by me (and the rest of the taxpayers of OKC) to be there when we need you.

I don't think the police and fireman of our cities are idiots and I don't agree with calling them that. However, their union leadership is another thing entirely.

You and I both pay those salaries. We work to protect the citizens of this city. We are well aware of who we work for, but thanks for the reminder.

As far as what we are paid, we are paid at a rate at which is average to above average for this region of the country, but not the top.

Lets switch gears, since the topic of this thread is the MAPS 3 campaign.
Did you happen to catch the FOX25 news a few nights ago? The story at 9PM was that the City of OKC budgeting office had been advising the mayor, the city council and the city manager at monthly intervals over the last year that sales tax collections have been down. They chose to ignore that information. They chose to mislead the citizens during the MAPS 3 campaign by painting a much better economic picture than we were/are actually in.
They also mislead the citizens by making campaign promises that they had no intention of keeping, ex. increases in public safety and not layoffs.

If the citizens had a factual and true account of the city status prior to the MAPS 3 vote, I think the outcome of the election would have been drastically different. I am glad it passed, so dont get me wrong here. But make no mistake, we are going to hold the city leaders accountable for their campaign promises whether they intended on keeping them or not, or whether they were authorized to make them or not. There were some of the YES votes that voted YES solely for the promised increase in PUBLIC SAFETY. Some voters were on the fence and the promised increase in public safety swayed their vote to a YES. For some voters the campaign promises didnt effect their votes at all.

Oh by the way, the idiot union leaders advised the public of the things that are just now coming to light. The things the city didnt want the public to know about, such as the steadily declining tax revenues and budget woes, public safety layoffs, etc. I cant wait for this to play out. There may be some city leaders looking for different employment after the house of cards comes crashing down.

Side note: The YES FOR MAPS campaign victory party, probably cost more than the whole NTM campaign. Its amazing what a little money will do. lol

Sales tax revenues over the next 7 years will almost assuredly increase over what they are now. We don't even start collecting for MAPS 3 until April, and, if we're lucky, we will start to see improvement by then. It's lucky the practice center is costing so much less than originally intended, and hopefully we will get benefit from lower costs in finished the Ford Center this summer.

With respect, hanging hats on some form of NTM may have lost, but there's payback coming, may not be the best approach available to the folks in the PS unions as they go forward.

Sales tax revenues over the next 7 years will almost assuredly increase over what they are now. We don't even start collecting for MAPS 3 until April, and, if we're lucky, we will start to see improvement by then. It's lucky the practice center is costing so much less than originally intended, and hopefully we will get benefit from lower costs in finished the Ford Center this summer.

I agree and had expressed my doubts about the $100M/year projections but even with the terrible current Ford tax as the base point and presuming the growth rate (4.3%?) will be what it has been over the past 10 years, when all of the math is done it comes out to almost exactly the $100M/year projected.

The MAPS for Kids came within $2M of the total projections over the 7 year tax so that is a good sign. Something amazingly close, like less than half a percent. (Math may be off, am doing from memory and haven't rechecked)

Timing is everything and we lucked out on the Practice Facility cost (bid less than half of what voters were told...hopefully the bid stands). Don't know how much we will be able to take advantage of construction of MAPS 3 as they are going to be spread out over the next 10 years or so. Would be great if we ended up with 8 practice facilities (budgetwise) and not a repeat of MAPS where everything cost 47.75% more than what we were told. Will probably be a mix. Hope they were correct and it only goes 2.2% (the $17M for cost over runs) and not the City's admitted 8% average for those things.

... the City of OKC budgeting office had been advising the mayor, the city council and the city manager at monthly intervals over the last year that sales tax collections have been down. They chose to ignore that information. They chose to mislead the citizens during the MAPS 3 campaign by painting a much better economic picture than we were/are actually in....If the citizens had a factual and true account of the city status prior to the MAPS 3 vote, I think the outcome of the election would have been drastically different....

Agree it hadn't received heavy media attention but it hasn't been a secret either. I don't catch the TV news often but every month the Oklahoman prints a sales tax collection report for the Metro area and the nearly double digit decline for the past year was reported. Budget cuts and layoffs were talked about in other articles in the paper (pre-vote).

Maybe the past 10 year growth rate was being optimistic but by going back that far it does include ups and downs and even recessions. In this case we can only base it on what was happened in the past and go from there. 10 years seems reasonable, but maybe need to go back 20 or 30 years and do the tax rate from there. Although in this case I don't know if going that far back would be helpful because different variables.

Funnier than a comic strip.



Sales tax revenues over the next 7 years will almost assuredly increase over what they are now. We don't even start collecting for MAPS 3 until April, and, if we're lucky, we will start to see improvement by then. It's lucky the practice center is costing so much less than originally intended, and hopefully we will get benefit from lower costs in finished the Ford Center this summer.

Can we get beyond this stupid bickering? The election is over. The police and firemen may be smarting over the fact they overplayed their hand and don't have the public "over a barrel" as they think. We all appreciate the critical job done by them, but don't believe they should dictate what the future of this city looks like. The public spoke...get over it.

Who is bickering here?

I was merely stating some facts that a local news channel decided to air. Lucky for us, there is still a new channel out there that wants the public to be informed and not just puppets.

You are correct, the public has spoken and the MAPS 3 election is over and it passed. I am absolutely thrilled that it did pass and we should have many good things to look forward too. I hope that all of the projects get built as proposed and none get omitted due to revenue shortfalls.

The last thing that Public Safety thinks is that they have the citizens over a barrel. Public Safety just wants to remain a high priority in the eyes of the city and its citizens, and not get put on the back burner for other pet peeve projects.

Just like any other job. If the fire dept. and police depts. don't pay enough, FIND ANOTHER JOB!! There are plenty of people out there who will do the job without bitching. and some of you people think the police and firemen are linked arm in arm.. They really don;t like each other. I have police friends and fireman friends, Each love to tell jokes about the other. They fight over who has the most rights..