Comments by Charlie Meadows on the Bricktown Bass Pro:
About the rally: " . . . a great opportunity to express your refusal to support a business that exists through such unjust means. . . . The Bass Pro deal is a rejection of free enterprise in favor of a blend of socialism and central planning. If you are a person of character and care about economic morality, then make a sign with an appropriate statement and be there."
October 8: "Week before last Bass Pro Shops asked OKC for more money to expand and complete their new store in Bricktown. Councilmen Jerry Foshee and Brent Rienhardt voted no, expressing a moral concern about government getting into this kind of business. Mayor Humphreys and the rest of his council voted for the expansion and were supported by TV 9 news anchor Kelly Ogle during his "My 2 cents worth" commentary segment on the 10 p.m. newscast. Kelly is probably a great guy and someone I agree with much of the time, however not on this issue.
Let me lay out the SITUATION as simply as possible. The Bass Pro deal puts the City of OKC into the property development and property management business. Since they are financing the project they are also in the property financing business and thus competing against those 3 types of businesses in the private sector doing the same thing. The city manager as well as Councilman Larry McAtee said city government would make a nice profit because of the 8% interest they were charging BP for the loan. Of all the people who ran for office and that I have supported through the years, Larry McAtee has probably been the most disappointing. This guy is an accountant and thinks the city is going to make a profit from this loan?
Lets look at the deal. The city is going to spend 18.9 million dollars to build the facility. BP is supposed to pay this back at 8% interest over the next 20 years at $730,000 per year. Problem is, at that annual rate for rent it will take 25 years and 9 months just to pay back the principle which does not include the millions in interest that are supposed to be the profit. Since these numbers don't fit, then how is the deal supposed to work? The city has said the PRESENCE of BP will generate additional sales taxes. I agree new sales tax dollars will be generated, but whether they are enough to repay the loan with interest is HIGHLY SPECULATIVE. Would someone please tell me how the city will make a profit when it pays itself back with its own sales tax dollars???
My question is this: Councilman McAtee are you that incapable of understanding simple math or are you just being deceitful? Please Explain.
I believe BP's presence may will be good for Oklahoma and for OKC. In life, however, there is often a right and wrong way to accomplish a goal. Since when does a good end justify a bad means to that end? Kelly Ogle's whole justification for his support is the good end. He came on air a couple of nights later to announce that a new hotel would be built on the canal, then proceeded to tell of the 60 or so million dollars of private money invested in Bricktown since the original BP decision about 2 years ago. Sorry Kelly, I am not impressed. Several years ago, during the MAPS construction phase, Moshe Tal and investors submitted a $200 million private money project for the area. They spent a half million on a proposal which was the size of a phone book. But they were turned down with the city favoring Randy Hogan who turned in about a 3 page proposal. It looks to me like the amount of private money invested is still way behind where it would have been if Mr. Tal and his investors hadn't been rejected.
BP would have most likely come to central Oklahoma without these incentives. However, if one of BP's major stockholders, being the Gaylord family, had such a strong presence here that the city fathers would want to spend tax dollars to build a magnificent store and rent it to them at 25 cents on the dollar of fair market value, then it really becomes a sweetheart deal for BP.
A deal, by the way, that will give them a real advantage over all the local competition who were already here, already selling the same products. Mayor Humphreys, Councilmen McAtee and Kelly Ogle are all high profile Christians who, in my opinion, are practicing SITUATIONAL ETHICS to the hilt. OKC's development, management, and financing of the store is pure socialism. For the next 20 or so years all the new sales taxes created by BP's presence will have to be used to repay the loan. Therefore none of these monies can be used for the vital functions of government such as police, and fire protection, roads, sewers, and water resources. If the Bass Pro store in Bricktown succeeds as a business, it will have to do so on the backs of others as I have simply made the choice not to support it with my shopping dollars."