Oklahoma Turnpike Authority

[jedicurt]

i mean this is yet another meaningless action occurring until we have the results from the Supreme Court Ruling. that is the one that might actually have a chance to derail these projects. all of these others, are just pushing off start dates.

[David]

A bunch of those "innocent explanation", "mistake", "no big deal", "oops" posts haven't aged very well...

As one of the people who was making those posts, not in my eyes.

“They don’t agree with the ruling. They don’t think they have to fix anything. And what they’re doing right now is rubber stamping the contracts again after a year and adding more money to those contracts and telling their contractors go full steam ahead,” said Amy Cerato, a plaintiff.

This is just "the contracts weren't done right", *OTA redoes the contracts*, "wait, we wanted the contracts to be forever disallowed".

The only thing that might have stopped the Access Oklahoma projects is if Stitt had lost to Joy, and that very much did not happen.

[jn1780]

The ruling never said anything about reapproving contracts. What did the plaintiffs expect a new design or a new set of contractors?

[PaddyShack]

I have a question regarding the OTA's online pay portal. Does anyone know if OTA designed that in-house or are they using a third party developer? The reason I ask, is my coming is wanting to implement a portal for our customers to pay invoices by ACH or Credit Card and I had mentioned designing a website similar to what OTA and many other turnpike authorities have. Any help on this would be great.

[David]

The ruling never said anything about reapproving contracts. What did the plaintiffs expect a new design or a new set of contractors?

Pretty sure it was magical thinking where they expected the previous ruling to be a silver bullet that stops the projects entirely.

[David]

I have a question regarding the OTA's online pay portal. Does anyone know if OTA designed that in-house or are they using a third party developer? The reason I ask, is my coming is wanting to implement a portal for our customers to pay invoices by ACH or Credit Card and I had mentioned designing a website similar to what OTA and many other turnpike authorities have. Any help on this would be great.

Rule number one in web development: never be the person who writes code that handles credit cards. Outsource that and do it to someone who knows what they are doing and has plenty of experience doing so, and is known to be compliant with all the appropriate payment industry standards.

[jedicurt]

Rule number one in web development: never be the person who writes code that handles credit cards. Outsource that and do it to someone who knows what they are doing and has plenty of experience doing so, and is known to be compliant with all the appropriate payment industry standards.

very much this. now ACH payments are much easier to code. have done that at two jobs now. but remember you have to have a bank provider that lets you send through to get them out to the Fed Warehouse so they can go anywhere.

[jedicurt]

Pretty sure it was magical thinking where they expected the previous ruling to be a silver bullet that stops the projects entirely.

very much this. I think i'm the only one on my block here in Norman, that actually wants the expansion. atleast the part from I-44 to I-35, and around the airport. And they were all so happy with the previous ruling and were throwing parties that the Turnpike was dead.... they literally thought that would just make the OTA just stop everything and give up.

[PaddyShack]

very much this. now ACH payments are much easier to code. have done that at two jobs now. but remember you have to have a bank provider that lets you send through to get them out to the Fed Warehouse so they can go anywhere.

Do you have any recommendations on third party providers of this type of service? I am looking at comparing outside provider costs versus bring it in-house, but I am at a loss on how to find a provider that can do something as simple as the plate pay site makes paying bills for the customer.

[Jersey Boss]

https://kfor.com/news/local/ota-expa...ref=nbcnewsapp

Federal government tells OTA the south access route is too close to the Bird.

[Jeremy Martin]

Looks like they may be forced to go east of the lake. The route going west of the lake always seemed an odd choice to me.

[Zuplar]

Can they go east of the lake? For some reason I was thinking that was never an option for some reason, but it's also possible I'm just remembering wrong.

[jedicurt]

i think it's more likely they just shift things a bit further west.

[BG918]

Can they go east of the lake? For some reason I was thinking that was never an option for some reason, but it's also possible I'm just remembering wrong.

Looking at a map that looks like the easiest way to get to Hwy 9. Intersect the new turnpike near Thunderbird Casino and bring Hwy 9 up to divided highway standards through Norman to I-35

[Jersey Boss]

Looking at a map that looks like the easiest way to get to Hwy 9. Intersect the new turnpike near Thunderbird Casino and bring Hwy 9 up to divided highway standards through Norman to I-35

I believe Native American sovereignty precludes going east of the lake.

[BoulderSooner]

Can they go east of the lake? For some reason I was thinking that was never an option for some reason, but it's also possible I'm just remembering wrong.

long ago east of the lake was the long term plan i was surprised when they decided to west of the lake when the plan was unveiled ..

[BoulderSooner]

I believe Native American sovereignty precludes going east of the lake.

in what way ?

[Midtowner]

I believe Native American sovereignty precludes going east of the lake.

This is a very BoulderSooner kind of post.

You have wasted several minutes of my day now as I went off trying to figure out just what the hell you could have possibly meant by that and I have no idea by what authority you believe that any Native entity might be able to halt an eminent domain action by the OTA. I know the Natives are hoping for some sort of jurisdictional mission creep from criminal to civil, but McGirt was just overturned and there are still folks out there wanting to argue for this kind of sovereignty?

And that said, I couldn't imagine any Native nation would turn down the potential gaming and other revenue a turnpike spur wold bring, so even if there were issues of sovereignty, I doubt that'd be enough to stop the road from getting built.

[Bill Robertson]

There was a piece on this on the local news on NPR this morning. It didn't mention Native American involvement but it did say the land is somehow controlled by some Fed Govt agency and can only to be used for "Projects of interest to the Federal Government".

[SEMIweather]

I would imagine they’ll probably try to stay west of the lake if at all possible so that they can maintain the planned interchange with the proposed E/W connector.

[Jersey Boss]

This is a very BoulderSooner kind of post.

You have wasted several minutes of my day now as I went off trying to figure out just what the hell you could have possibly meant by that and I have no idea by what authority you believe that any Native entity might be able to halt an eminent domain action by the OTA. I know the Natives are hoping for some sort of jurisdictional mission creep from criminal to civil, but McGirt was just overturned and there are still folks out there wanting to argue for this kind of sovereignty?

And that said, I couldn't imagine any Native nation would turn down the potential gaming and other revenue a turnpike spur wold bring, so even if there were issues of sovereignty, I doubt that'd be enough to stop the road from getting built.

Sorry to have wasted several minutes of your day. Somebody or somebodies were concerned about that issue. I did not make this observation with no basis of fact.
Is it your opinion that Oklahoma can use E.D over tribal lands?
https://www.normantranscript.com/new...b49fe8b58.html
Oct 31, 2022
Cleveland said in his statement to the court that he recalled Stacy approaching him about the turnpike one day in his office sometime “after Dec. 7 and before Feb. 22.”

“He said he heard the Kickapoo Extension was going to be on the west rather than the east side of Lake Thunderbird because the OTA did not want to deal with Indian land,” Cleveland’s statement reads.

[bombermwc]

That's a long way from saying that sovereignty played a part though. They may just not have wanted the appearances that it would bring. Or maybe they have a history of tribes being able to argue for higher land value. But that's not to say that just having tribe land there, means they can't build.

I think Midtowner's point is, just make sure the facts support the claim clearly before making a statement like that.

[fortpatches]

If you want to read a recent Law Review Note about Tribal Sovereignty and a State's power of Eminent Domain, you can check this out:
Partially Tribal Land:The Case for Limiting State Eminent Domain Power under 25 USC § 357 [PDF]
tl/dr: Federal statute allows state eminent domain for condemnation of tribal lands allotted to individual landowners, but not of lands held by a tribal entity. (Please see the Note for appropriate citations. There are 175, not including the Note Title.)

And @Midtowner, no, McGirt was not overturned.

[Midtowner]

Sorry to have wasted several minutes of your day. Somebody or somebodies were concerned about that issue. I did not make this observation with no basis of fact.
Is it your opinion that Oklahoma can use E.D over tribal lands?

It depends on what you mean by "tribal lands." Do I think Oklahoma can aquire land which has been deeded into trust? No. I think only the federal government could aquire that land--and they could. The trust land is a federal entity and because of principles of federalism, the State can't aquire federally protected/held interests.

Now, if you're talking about the aquisition of land within the bounds of an historic native nation? It definitely again depends on the type of interest. The 10th Circuit has held that a tribe with a fee simple interest in land cannot be subject to E.D. by a State actor. If all we're talking about are the historic bounds of nations, I think first, it depends on which nation. The Kickapoo Reservation was recently found to have been specifically disestablished by Congress in the Oklahoma Criminal Court of Appeals, so I think you have no problem there. There are other indian nations which have specific reservations and territories, and I think you'd have a hard time there. I think with most Oklahoma tribal interests, outside of trust land, I think the State can take through eminent domain, but I think it's going to be a fight the State might avoid if all they have to do is take the road a different direction.

And if the tribal governments are pressuring the State to not build roads through their territory, I really have to wonder what they're thinking... do they just not want economic development and more valuable land? Do they not want to bring jobs and opportunities to indian country? Their loss.

[Bill Robertson]

I'm confused. From the piece I heard on NPR the other day and an article on KFOR's website a couple days ago the land belongs to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Not any tribe. The Bureau works very closely with tribes but if the land belongs to the Bureau then it belongs to the Federal Government.