IVI bridge lawsuit hearing today
Judge Rebecca Brett Nightingale will hear arguments today on the County's motion to dismiss the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition's lawsuit against the three County Commissioners. The suit alleges that Commissioners violated state law in approving the contract with Infrastructure Ventures Inc., in which IVI will build a bridge across the Arkansas River and maintain, operate, and collect tolls on it for seventy-five years. The STCC would like supporters present in the courtroom -- Room 708 of the Tulsa County Courthouse, 500 S. Denver Ave., at 1:30 p.m.
I'm sure judges are able to filter this out, but I wonder if it ever crosses a judge's mind in a suit like this that the County Commission is her landlord and controls the funding for courthouse improvements. That may be why STCC wants a crowd there, so she can see that the suit matters to a sizable block of voters, too.
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This would seem a natural conflict of interest. County Judge hearing a motion regarding the County. Seems this would automatically defer to a higher authority.
Of course, we now know the County has absolutely no jurisdiction in the bridge, so any contract they write is the same as if I had executed it. IVI probably has grounds to suggest fraud on the part of the County for shear misrepresentation.
At the very least, County will end up having to default. Maybe a mult-million dollar settlement was all they were after in the first place. Big payoff for Bob's buddies.
Bob should take up residence in his own jail over this one.
And the hits just keep on rolling.....everybody...did you look inside your PikePass statement? James Vinson alleged that the State of Oklahoma ex rel. OK TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY breached the PikePass agreement by failing to accurately records trips for PikePass customers resulting in force match. See how fun this south tulsa bridge project will be and the possibilities for more potential problems? Attorneys get paid nicely in cases like this. The settlement terms are ridiculous! That's the great state of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Transportation Authority for you! If you don't like what is going on, next time a vote comes up be there!
Attorney Chuck Shipley was stunned at what Judge
Rebecca Nightingale ruled in favor of the Tulsa County Commission. The south tulsa citizens coalition challenged a 75 year (now that's getting really stuck!) 75-year franchise agrement between the county and Infrastructure Ventures Inc. WHERE WERE ALL THE BIDDERS ON THIS PROJECT?
Can you post a history of the bridges that go across the Arkansas River in Tulsa County when they were built. You will notice there is quite a DISTANCE between each bridge. The south tulsa citizens coalition challenged the 75-year franchise agreement between the county and Infrastructure Ventures. Is there really a ABSOLUTE NEED for the bridge the Tulsa County
Commission seems to be acting in the same manner
as the deal making involved going back to 1996
when the Great Plains "big business" idea was pitched and SOLD. Now the BOK made a VERY HIGH RISK loan deal with Great Plains. Now we are supposed to be thrilled as Mayor LaFortune appears that BOK now is making another deal to have naming rights on the ARENA. What happens
when another financial mess happens with the south tulsa bridge project. Will we be putting the BANK who is funding that project on the bridge? Instead of the BOK assuming responsibility for their bad decision making on a high risk loan they agreed to and writing it off as a bad debt bank decision, they now want
naming rights on the ARENA? There is something very wrong with that TULSA people.
According to BRIDGE NEWS-- COALITION CLAIMED THE COMMISSIONERS VIOLATED STATE LAW AND SHOULD HAVE SOUGHT COMPETITIVE BIDS -- T.W., the County argued that commissioners did not violate the state Competitive Bidding Act because the bridge agreement was not a public construction contract, as claimed by the south tulsa coalition. "The Public Competitive Bidding Act, construed as whole, works in concert as a limitation on the expenditure of public funds -- tax dollars or revenues, appropriations -- for the purpose of securing for the benefit of the taxpayers the LOWEST AND BEST BARGAIN(LOVE THAT ONE DON'T YOU? I guess we would know which projects were lowest and best bargains on different contracts the City of Tulsa agrees to if there was a FAIR BIDDING PROCESS. KEYSTONE
CONCRETE services receives a lot of city contract work. KEYSTONE did a street renovation Tulsa County bond project and within a year, there were CRACKS in the concrete they poured and supervisors from the city came out looked at the cracks in the concrete and STILL HAS NOT MADE KEYSTONE concrete services fix those cracks from bad work and/or bad concrete poured on this street renovation project. There were other issues where KEYSTONE hit a homeowner's gas line
that knocked out their air/heat unit and KEYSTONE never paid for their employee's error with that either. We need to have competitive bidding and we also need to make sure the City of Tulsa hires supervisors on city projects that will follow through promptly and efficiently to make sure when there are mistakes made by the contractors, the contractors must fix them quickly and make sure the work is to done with
high quality -- not the cheapest materials and/or
labor they can find. Hopefully the contractors the City of Tulsa hires will have the proper liability insurance to pay for errors they make
and will hire labor people that are here legally in the United States.