OKLAHOMA CITY – History, it seems, is repeating itself.
Twenty-three years ago, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority attempted to build a turnpike extension south of Oklahoma City and connect to Interstate 35 near the town of Purcell.
People protested. The Oklahoma Legislature killed the idea.
In February, a new version of that idea resurfaced. And, echoing the past, this proposal generated controversy. Only this time, the plan sparked a lawsuit and new legislation.
Touted by the OTA as its Advancing and Connecting Communities and Economies Safely Statewide – the ACCESS plan – the project would allocate $5 billion over 15 years for turnpike construction.
Outlined in a Feb. 22 media release, the plan calls for widening the Turner Turnpike to six lanes between Oklahoma City and Bristow; construction of ‘reliever routes’ around the state’s two largest metropolitan areas and the creation of new off- and on- ramps on the current turnpike system to “improve traffic safety for additional rural Oklahoma communities.”
The OTA statement said many communities “have offered tremendous positive feedback” on the future of the turnpike system following the completion of recent projects such as the Kickapoo Turnpike in eastern Oklahoma County and the John Kilpatrick extension in southwest Oklahoma City.
Except in the Norman area. There, hundreds of residents have raised questions about the expansion plan. One of the proposals generating political heat is the Southern Expansion of the Kickapoo Turnpike, a 29-mile stretch that would run from I-40 in Oklahoma City to I-35 near Purcell and flows through the eastern part of Norman.
The second expansion is a 28-mile outer loop east to west connector from the I-44 Tri-City area, running east to I-35 and east to I-40, through Moore and Norman. That route, opponents said, would track near Lake Thunderbird along Indian Hills Road just outside of Norman and could threaten close to 600 homes.
Since the announcement, residents in the Norman area created a nonprofit organization, Pike Off, to fight the proposal. In addition, state lawmakers have passed legislation that would subject the plan to additional study and the turnpikes to legislative oversight.
In March, the Norman City Council passed a resolution opposing the expansion.
Not long after the council’s action, state Sen. Mary Boren, a Norman Democrat, issued a media statement announcing her objection to the OTA’s $200 million line of credit application.
Boren said she hoped the Council of Bond Oversight – the agency which would approve the credit application – realizes “the serious legal defects in the OTA’s request for funding.”
“It’s important that we demand that the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority obey statutory authority when asking to spend $5 billion over the next 15 years on projects that would displace thousands of Oklahomans and hundreds of homes and businesses,” Boren said in her statement. “Before we start making plans to build new turnpikes, we need to make sure OTA is obeying the laws that give citizens reasonable notice of projects.”
Boren’s statement came around the same time the Legislature passed a bill that calls for a study of the expansion plan.
House Bill 1610, which was originally written to rename a bridge near Shattuck, was amended to push back – to some extent – against the ACCESS plan. An amendment by Norman Republican Sen. Rob Standridge, called for a study and gave the Legislature the authority to modify the authorization for the construction and location of the turnpike.
Records show the measure passed the Senate on March 24 with a 36 to 6 vote, with another six members of the Senate excused. About a month later, on April 27, the bill cleared the House on a 68-19 vote. In the House 13 members were excused from voting.
Following the House vote, state Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, D-Norman, said the bill was a creative way to “slow things down and make sure we have the transparency and accountability out of our government.”
That bill, now the purview of a legislative conference committee, remains alive.
On May 2, the Pike Off organization turned to court, filing a lawsuit that seeks to block the OTA from accessing a $200 million line of credit which would fund the project’s engineering and property acquisition.
In a letter to the Oklahoma Counsel of Bond Oversight, attorney Elaine Dowling, one of the attorneys in the lawsuit, wrote that the Southern Extension proposal was outside of the OTA’s statutory authority.
“There is currently pending, or in process, litigation challenging the statutory authority for this Southern Extension turnpike in the court system,” Dowling wrote. “If this council allows OTA to access the requested line of credit, and the court system agrees with the arguments in this objection that the Southern Extension Turnpike may not legally be built, then the next question becomes how much of ACCESS Oklahoma can be supported without the roll revenue from the Southern Extension, and will the expected bond refinance of this line of credit materialize?”
There is simply no school of statutory construction, Dowling wrote, that allows for any finding other than that the Southern Extension is simply not authorized by statute.
The group’s lawsuit, filed in Cleveland County District Court, asked the court to declare that the OTA was not authorized by the Legislature to build the Southern Extension Turnpike and other segments of the turnpikes in the ACCESS plan.
“There are 35 authorized turnpike locations specified in the Oklahoma Turnpike Enabling Act; however, the South Extension ACCESS Oklahoma (that) would put through East Norman, Nobel, Slaughterville, Cleveland County and McClain County down to the vicinity of Purcell is not authorized by any of the 35 possibilities,” the group’s petition said.
The OTA has the legal duty – and obligation – to fund, bond and build “only those turnpikes the Legislature has authorized.”
Just as they did before, residents in the Norman area say they are ready and willing to wage a second fight against the turnpike authority.
“The resistance, as it did before, continues to grow,” a March story in The Norman Transcript noted.
And the residents there, say they have vowed to keep history from repeating itself.