Oklahoma City Baits the Hook
Mar 5th, 2008 by John Stodder
By a 62-38 margin, voters in Oklahoma City today approved a sales tax increase to pay for remodeling of the Ford Center, where city leaders hope the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics will move. The Journal Record has been all over this story, especially via its new blog, The Journal Record’s Hot Topic. Turnout, blogger Ted Streuli reports, was impressively high:
It’s interesting that when we had a bond election worth eight times this much in December about 21,000 people voted. Tonight, with $120 million at stake rather than December’s $835 million, we’re going to have about 62,500 votes cast.
It’s been my experience that the word “bonds” induces an almost Zen-like state of apathy among voters. On the other hand, the words “professional basketball” seem to have the opposite effect, especially in a city lacking the validation of a big-league franchise. In fact, that was the name of the pro-tax campaign: “Citizens for a Big League City.”
The margin of victory looks impressive to someone like me, living in a city (Los Angeles) where we’d rather do without an NFL team than open the public treasury to build a new ballyard.
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