Oklahoma Politics: July 2005 Archives

Terry, blogging at Wild Ramblings, has a good summary of the pros and cons for the August 9 vote in Collinsville, a small town / suburb north of Tulsa. The city, which provides water and electricity to its citizens, wants to buy the natural gas franchise back from Oklahoma Natural Gas. Terry's still undecided. (Hat tip: Roemerman on Record.)

I have heard that the City of Collinsville hopes that the revenues from running the gas franchise will provide the revenue needed to provide city services. Most Collinsville residents do their shopping in Owasso, just a few miles to the south, taking their sales tax dollars with them. Eventually Owasso will reach its growth limits and Collinsville will grow enough to support retail within its boundaries, but until then, someone still has to pay the policemen and fire fighters.

Which reminds me: Matt Galloway of The Basement has more from his dad, Bethany City Manager Dan Galloway, about the inequities of Oklahoma's sales-tax-dependent municipal finance system and a proposal for fixing the problem with numbers estimating the impact of the change on 17 cities, including Tulsa.