What a great editorial! Just read it. I spend a lot of time downtown, and these are the same things I try to articulate to others. We have such a undervalued and underused downtown area dotted with empty single level parking lots. Its unusual in my mind that a "traditional downtown development" viewpoint is so foreign to the powers that be. These are not new ideas, but they are ideas that have proven results.

More news about downtown Tulsa. As a result of a wind tunnel study, officials learned according to the T.W.news today that it would cost an EXTRA $3 MILLION to make the arena safe to withstand 100 mph wind gusts.

As expected the T.W. and P.J.Lassek to say, "the arena is one of the crowning????? projects of the $535 million vision 2025 initiative that's funded by county sales tax.

As we read Michael Bates terrific lonely stroll
around downtown, are Tulsa county tax-payers really thinking the arena put in downtown Tulsa County when the arena could look much more appropriate in other sections of Tulsa County and citizens would feel safer about parking and driving in that area at night when arena events will take place.......
should Tulsa taxpayers really support the "4 to Fix the County"?

Street renovation projects from a bond project where residents get cracks in the new concrete within a year as well as other problems and the City passes the buck so much that it can take more than 12 months for them to contact KEYSTONE who poured the concrete to replace the cheap concrete that was put down on this taxpayer funded project. If KEYSTONE gets most of the street contract work, maybe that's why we have so many potholes around Tulsa!

Commissioners plan to call for a Dec. 13 election to renew the "4 to Fix the County" SALES
TAX. MORE...SALES TAX....."continued"

The "front" of tulsa World that you refer to is what they like to call the back. Fairly symbolic that they have the back of the building facing Main Street Tulsa. Makes you wonder what else they have their backs turned to.

On the tax payer funded bond project the supervisors that supervise all the workers on the street construction project also allowed CHAT. They dug and hauled away the rich black dirt from property of residents and instead of filling it in with the same quality that was PROMISED that was washed away or dug out on the street renovation project from the workers put lots of chat on the resident's property. CHAT is a waste material. Blamed for causing lead poisoning and other health problems, chat has become one of the biggest
environmental quagmires in the country. CHAT was also put along side the WATER lines on this TULSA bond project where cracks appeared within a year of the concrete poured by KEYSTONE. A KEYSTONE employee hit a gas line on this project and ONG had to come out and fix the gas line repair (more expense from careless KEYSTONE workers). The gas line hit was documented on ONG records. Just think if they hit the water line and chat is slowly getting into the water system what could happen. The Chat needs to be taken out and the black dirt needs to be put back
before they start any new street reconstruction projects with bond money. Before the street reconstruction project happened, the trees also were fine. Now we can see lots of dead leaves with the trees depending on chat for the fill in.
Nope this project needs to go through all complaints and fix them.