All Souls Unitarian Church river tax forum
Here's the audio from Sunday's forum at All Souls Unitarian Church on the Tulsa County river sales tax. The panelists were, from your left, Michael Bates of Urban Tulsa Weekly, Ken Neal of the Tulsa World, Kevin Stubbs of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Jenks Mayor Vic Vreeland. Former KOTV moderator Clayton Vaughn was the moderator. The MP3 file is about 50 minutes long, about 5 MB in size.
DW_S0100-20071007-AllSoulsRiverTaxForum.mp3
I'll try to summarize it later. The audience, estimated at around 100, asked good questions, and the debate was substantive. A friend in the audience judged the crowd's reaction as indicative of a 50-50 split, which, if true, is amazing considering All Souls' location (in Maple Ridge near the river). I received some nice compliments afterwards from some of the members, including one lady who said I swayed her vote, had a constructive conversation about TIF districts, and was urged by a psychologist to modulate my self-assurance -- being too confident about the answers could make people push back. I agreed with him that I was a bit too aggressive at the beginning, but managed to tone it down, I think.
(Any suggestions for a way to embed an MP3 so that you could listen without downloading the whole thing first?)
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Lileks has used box.net to host .mp3 files, and I've thought about trying it out myself but never got around to it.
Maybe it would fit your needs here--at least until you hit the maximum bandwidth.
I went and thought you did a good job.
The questions were good and most of the answers stayed on point. I thought that Jenks Mayor and you were the best.
My favorite part of the debate was when Tulsa World editor Ken Neal was asked about how one-sided the coverage has been in the local paper. He tried to say something about how the paper had tried to cover the other side.
This audience stays very informed and knew better.
Boy, I sure could use a constructive conversation about TIF districts...
You know my favorite thing about you, Michael? When your name is mentioned in a roomful of people who know half-a-something about what's going on in Tulsa, there is always a "reaction." Scoffs and gasps from some, and fervent nods from others, and a raucous discussion of your blog/Urban articles always follows.
Just thought you'd like to know. =)
I grew up near Philbrook. Beautiful homes in that area and the inside of those homes even more amazing.
On Channel 6 Broken Arrow leaders are saying the Yes campaign has false advertising.
Thanks, See-Dubya, I'll give that a try. If there's YouTube for video and Flickr for photos, there has to be a similar service for audio.
RM, thanks for the kind words, and nice to see your smiling face in the audience. That was my favorite moment of the event as well. When Clayton Vaughn read the question about the paper's objectivity, it got the biggest reaction of the hour.
Natasha -- first of all congratulations on your Okie Blog Award! Thanks for your kind words as well. As Oscar Wilde said, "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." (Very witty, Wilde, very witty.) Maybe we can sit down over a cup of whatever you're allowed to drink these days, and I'll do what I can to explain TIFs.
s, the area is not only near the river, but also very well-to-do, and that precinct typically has very high yes percentages on issues like this. Of course, members of ASUC come from all over Tulsa, not just the surrounding neighborhoods.
You can try podOmatic.com for mp3's
My grandparents were part of the Tulsa spotlight in the 30's, 40's and 50's.
My grandmother was one of the founder's of Tulsa Opera and other organizations in the arts of Tulsa. She was instrumental in helping bring opera singers from New York to sing. The singers from New York actually practiced many times in my grandparent's home since my grandmother already had a grand Steinway piano. They were extremely well known and well respected when they were living for all the good they did in helping Tulsa's culture.
My grandfather was Supt. of Tulsa Public Schools. He was so popular that one of New York's best photographers came and took loads of photographs of him in his work he did. At that time Tulsa during his time as Supt. of Tulsa Public Schools it was one of the top run public schools in the United States during very tough financial days in the United States.
My father was also extremely popular and even at Central High School's 50th reunion remained voted most popular. His gift in music and friends such as Hollywood producer and Oklahoma Hall of Fame winner Jimmy Baker flew from California to Tulsa to visit with my parents over and over again until Baker's passing. My dad also a gifted musician played in one of Baker's fundraiser events Night of the Stars which I think brought Cary Grant and other Hollywood actors to Tulsa.
At one time Central High School used to be the only high school in Tulsa and because of that it was extremely overcrowded.