Chris Medlock has his ear to the ground regarding Mayor Kathy Taylor's plan to sell 18 holes out of 36 at city-owned Page Belcher golf course for private development. His latest blog entry has an aerial view showing the area in question, which extends north and south of 71st Street west of Union, very convenient to the newly improved 71st Street and US 75 interchange and the Tulsa Hills retail "power center."
Whether or not you think the city should be involved in the golf business, this is why you ought to be concerned:
Regardless of your position on whether or not the golf courses should be shut down to save money, it is quite troubling to hear that Mayor Kathy Taylor may be planning to offer the highly valuable land to only one, highly connected, developer.If sold, the city should ask for Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from the entire development sector. How else will we ever know if the citizens are getting the best deal possible on their tax dollar investment? How else will we know that special favors haven’t been granted for future favors?
If there is only one developer involved, it's likely that this plan didn't just happen, but has been in the works for some time and has nothing at all to do with solving the city's tight finances.
Comments (2)
It is absolutely insane to sell a viable golf course after spending over $4 million to improve it in just the past few years.
If this course is sold to a private developer in a sole-sourcing deal, then this will close the circle of a Round-Trip rip-off of the tax-payer:
First, spending $4 million to improve the course, then nexst turning right around and selling it without competitive bidding, so that we'll NEVER know just how bad of deal we really got from the connected buyer?
I agree this deal deserves a strong response from the public, with the exact phrasing that our Mayor used back in her Mayoral election, when accused of voting 2X in the 2004 Presidential Election:
That is INSANE.
Posted by Bob | May 16, 2007 9:30 AM
Posted on May 16, 2007 09:30
not to mention tearing up 4 mill of improvements to put homes on the same land.
either taylor lied about her business approach or she is impotent in office. meaning being rolled over or agreeing to something the prior boob set up.
Posted by sbtulsa | May 17, 2007 9:39 AM
Posted on May 17, 2007 09:39