Oklahoma City voters are deciding on a ballot measure Tuesday to fund parks.
The eighth-cent sales tax created through an initiative petition would raise about $13 million for the city’s 169 municipal parks not privately-funded.
Former Councilman Pete White says unlike past MAPS projects this would be a boost to all the people in Oklahoma City no matter where they live.
“The people in south Oklahoma City always say, ‘we don’t get our share’. And, the people in northeast Oklahoma City, ‘we don’t get our share’. The people in far southwest Oklahoma City, ‘we don’t get our share’. Everybody gets a share of this. Every section of town, everybody gets to play.”
The 50-percent increase in funding would come even as the city manager is calling on the Parks and Recreation Department to cut next year’s budget nearly $400,000.
Opponents have spent tens of thousands of dollars in ads saying this proposal is too secretive, but White says it’s only because grass-roots backers don’t have the funding to promote it.
He says it has been supported by current and former city council members, the south Chamber of Commerce, the neighborhood alliance, the Sierra Club and the Realtors Association.
