OKC takes step forward

Although not really surprising, Tuesday’s election results were encouraging on one hand and perplexing and frustrating on the other hand. This morning, I’ll focus on the positive local results and later I’ll pontificate on the less encouraging national results.

Oklahoma City voted decisively in favor “of becoming a Big League City,” as the proponents declared. By a 62 to 38 margin, voters approved the proposal to extend a 1-cent sales tax through June 2010 to fund major improvements to the Ford Center to bring it up to “NBA standards” as well as to build a new NBA practice facility.

The hope is that such improvements will lure an NBA franchise here, the most likely of which is the Seattle Supersonics who are currently owned by an Oklahoma City-based investor group and who are presently locked in a bitter battle with the city of Seattle to abandon their current lease and move to Oklahoma City.

I’m not an NBA fan and I generally don’t like taxpayer-subsidized, lopsided deals that typically benefit big-money investors, developers and corporations substantially more than the cities or taxpayers making the “investment” to lure them here. However, I sincerely see this referendum as a real, meaningful investment in our city’s future. This is an important milestone for Oklahoma City. As cliché as it might sound, bringing a major league franchise to our city would move us up to the next level into becoming a “big league city” in terms of making us more attractive for investment, development and relocation of prospective companies as well as for bringing in more convention business and bigger entertainment events.

When the Ford Center was originally completed several years ago with the original M.A.P.S. project, there was an immediate, significant and tangible enhancement of the type of entertainment over what we had previously. Much bigger acts who had bypassed Oklahoma City in the past came to the Ford Center, including the Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil that typically tour bigger cities.

The overall success of the M.A.P.S. projects — including the revitalization and redevelopment of Bricktown (east side of downtown) as well as major improvements our arts, entertainment and convention venues downtown — has improved our city’s image regionally and nationally, spurned economic development back into the inner part of the city (instead of solely expanding farther and farther outward), and boosted this community’s confidence in its potential. Tuesday’s vote and victory are a vote of confidence in its success and an endorsement to continue to dream, to progress and to grow into a first-rate, big league city.