When they say "it's for the children," grab your wallet!

Got the first mendacious mailing from the yea-sayers. "Vision 2025 puts education first!"

I believe Tulsa County voters are not stupid. I believe they will see right through this kind of manipulation. Vision 2025 puts the arena first by spending more money on it than anything else on the ballot (after the Boeing bribe) and by tying the arena, like a boat anchor, to education.

Prop 3 includes $11.3 million for "instructional materials". This money will be spent in the first two years. It will be enough to buy three or four textbooks for each pupil in Tulsa County's public schools. Then the money will go away, and taxpayers will spend the next 11 years paying back the money we borrowed to buy those textbooks. By the time the tax expires, the textbooks will be long out of date.

This is just a bit more sugarcoating for the poison pill of the arena and convention center, which will bleed at least $1 million a year out of the city treasury, money that should go to pay policemen and firemen, fix the streets, and fill the city swimming pools.