If you’re a non-Oklahoma, please excuse me as I get local.
Today citizens of Oklahoma City will vote to spend $121 million, yes million with an ‘m,’ renovating an already adequate and quite new facility, the Ford Center, in hopes of drawing in a professional basket ball team. The most unfortunate part of all of this is, to me at least, the fact that the majority of those that actually vote today will be the affluent, the middle class persons who can afford to get out and vote on something that they have the luxury of enjoying. Meanwhile, the burden of payment lies not only on those that vote and obviously have money to spare, but on the poor, who don’t really give a damn about professional sports and haven’t and likely never will have the privilege of seeing the inside of the Ford Center. But then again that’s how it goes. The rich and the wealthy draw up extravagant plans and leave the bill to those that won’t reap the benefit.
I’ve heard people say that “those people” shouldn’t be worried because this is an investment in the OKC economy and it won’t increase taxes. I’d like to believe that, but it hasn’t been proven to be true. You can see details about this here and here, for now I would just say that first of all it does increase sales tax. Read the measure, regardless of what the commercials say, taxes will increase. Plus, as the links above mention, even supporters of the plan admit that this as an “expense” not an “investment” because there is no return for the city. The only one who gets a return is the NBA; which is odd, because they don’t pay a dime. The NBA requires public subsidies as part of it’s business model. When the public doesn’t want to pay the team threatens to leave. The only reason this measure exists is because the Sonics failed to extort $500M from Seattle. The NBA is already demanding $121M from OKC. It won’t be long before they come back for more and more public money. The pattern is clear. The public pays and the team profits.
So today I’ll be voting “no,” not that it will make a difference, because most everyone (myself included at times) has been seduced by the consumer-oriented gospel of prosperity that underlies this measure. I’m voting “no” most of all because I believe it is immoral to allow the wealthy few to gain all the benefit at the expense of the masses, including the poor.
But, those of us that can afford to think about such things and have enough money to waste on a ticket to watch our gladiators battle will most certainly have our way. We always do, we make sure we do, kicking and screaming most times. And the poor will continue to pay for our luxuries and they will continue to not vote. If only we would allow them, liberating them and ourselves from the oppressive choke-hold of debt and the seduction of prosperity, then, we would surely have a true revolution.
~bh ><>
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Very well said,I was going to vote NO on this today as well but guess what i am not allowed to vote because of the area i live in which is the village.Its an Oklahoma city item is what i was told when i got to my voting place. So i guess i dont spend a majority of my income in Oklahoma city or in bricktown during the year, think again. I remember wanting to go to see linkin park very badly with some friends at the ford center on the 29th. But when i went to to start looking for tickets for at least two people to go it came out to about 138.00 for two of us. 47.50 per ticket, a ticketmaster fee and then the one i didnt know about was the ford center building use fee(it auctally said that)at i think 9.00 a piece as well.So i decided to skip the linkin park concert just because of that. So shouldnt that 9.00 ford center building use fee be going towards this issue at hand today. I have never really liked the ford center anyway the seats are not very comfortable for large persons such as myself, there is not enough room between them to walk through the isles so i tend to stay away from the ford center as much as i can. Some freinds and i went to a free blazers game a few weeks ago and just had a miserable time because of those issues, then afterwards we went to this very crappy restaurant in bricktown where they wound up giving us all our food for free, yeah it was that bad. Anyway for an out of state team to ask us to raise our taxes to accomadate them is just to much. The ford center is not all that old and should have been equipped with proper facilities in the first place if professional sports was the end goal. At one time on the okc.gov website there was a powerpoint of what all was going to be done to the ford center if the measure passed today, as of noon today i cannot find it on there, interesting it disappers. Please those of you who can vote no on this today it will not benefit the state at all and bricktown will be a whole lot more expensive to enjoy. I have almost completely banned bricktown from my entertainment expenses. The poorest of us all will wind up paying for this if you pass this today.
Philip Brooks
that’s interesting, i didn’t know about the geographical stipulation. that would be another reason why i don’t like this, because as you said people that live in oklahoma city per se are not the only ones the benefit from bricktown, etc.
i agree about the ticket pricing although i’m aware that other factors contribute to that and as inflation happens prices go up.
actually i’m fine with the way the ford center is and i like bricktown by and large. i’ve never had a bad experience at a restaurant and i usually watch movies in harkins so i’m pleased with all of that. and as far as the ford center goes, i think that it is fine for what it does right now, its hard to make everything really comfortable for everyone when you’re trying to accommodate for that many people.
my biggest gripe is the fact that the ford center is not that old and we’re already wanting to “renovate.” why didn’t we build it to those “big league” specifications when it was originally erected? that doesn’t make much sense to me. it seems like we just want to jump on the bandwagon after we got a little taste a few years ago. but if seattle can’t afford to accommodate a team, then why should we expect oklahoma city to? we’re already getting good concerts, tournaments, and conferences with the ford center as is and without having to shell out extra money. it just doesn’t make much sense to me.