'Improve Our Tulsa' campaign officially underway

Political and business leaders gathered in downtown Tulsa Tuesday to officially kick off a campaign designed to convince voters to approve the largest capital improvements package in the city's history.

Called "Improve Our Tulsa," the package focuses largely on two key components that the public has told leaders again and again it wants better roads and public safety.

The package also features something rare in politics: Unanimity at the highest levels of city government.

All nine members of the city council, as well as Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett and his foe in November, former Mayor Kathy Taylor, all support the plan.

Tulsa CityCouncilor G.T. Bynum says more than fifty meetings were held over a two-year period to hammer out the plan.

That included several town hall meetings which were very well attended, Bynum added, drawing a hundred people or more where most such meetings draw perhaps twenty.

Backers point out that the package would not involve an increase in the current sales or property tax rate, although it would extend a sales tax that's due to expire.

It will consist of two propositions on voters' November ballot, a bond proposition of $355 million to fund street and bridge improvements and an 1.1% extension of a current 1.167% sales tax, which would raise $563.7 million for "additional street projects and capital improvements to public safety and facilities that greatly improve the quality of life of Tulsa residents," according to proponents of the plan.

Voters can find more information on the official Improve Our Tulsa website.