Tulsans have invested billions

I can't let one appalling claim, made in yesterday's Whirled editorial, go unrebutted:

Meanwhile, Tulsa falls further behind cities like Oklahoma City, whose citizens have voted more than $1 billion to build their city and watched a return of that much or more.

Over the last 10 years, since Oklahoma City passed MAPS, Tulsans have approved over $700 million in capital improvements for the city, financed by sales taxes and bond issues. Tulsa Public School patrons voted for bond issues in 1996 ($94 million), 1999 ($109 million) and 2001 ($140 million). Add to that the sales taxes and bond issues approved by voters in Broken Arrow, Jenks, Union, and the rest of Tulsa County for civic and educational improvements. Tulsa County raised $27 million to get the Whirlpool plant, $66 million for a new jail, and $50 million in capital improvements in 2000's "4 to Fix the County" package. Plus $22 million for the library system (1998). And on and on.

All this is just from memory and a bit of Googling around the Internet. I wonder if anyone has a list of all the sales tax and bond issues passed in Tulsa County since 1993. And I'm not even counting previous capital improvements measures (1980, 1985, 1991 "third penny", 1980 convention center expansion, etc.) that we undertook while Oklahoma City was sitting on its hands.

I know the Whirled bunch is upset that we haven't given them their downtown sports arena yet, but that doesn't give the right to insult Tulsans by trying to tell us we haven't been investing in our community.