Oklahoma City voters overwhelmingly approved a 1% sales tax hike for the next eight years to fund $978 million worth of parks, social service centers, a new soccer stadium for the USL’s OKC Energy, and upgrades to the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s arena. The MAPS 4 plan — the fourth (duh) in a series of sales-tax hikes that have funded downtown development, school renovations, streetcars, and building the basketball arena in the first place — passed by a 72-28% margin.
As with any of these grab-bag proposals, it’s tough to judge from the results exactly what the public is supporting here: Do they think the city needs $140 million worth of new parks, or the Thunder need $115 million worth of arena renovations, or both? Do they think sales taxes — which are considered regressive because low-income residents pay a higher percentage of their income than high-income residents do — are the best way to do it, or is this just the only plan they’ve been presented with? We’ll never know, unless someone does way more detailed polling. (A guy on Facebook says residents should be allowed to vote on each element separately, but Mayor David Holt says that “something for everyone” is exactly how MAPS was designed, which you can see why it would be.)
Regardless, the latest iteration of MAPS means the public price tag of building and upgrading the Thunder arena now reaches a total of $325 million after its third installment of MAPS cash, and OKC Energy will be getting a new 10,000-seat $37 million stadium (expandable if the city wins an MLS expansion franchise, no doubt with MAPS 5 money) at taxpayer expense. Good thing private stadium funding is the trend, or we might be talking about some real money!