City of Muskogee delaying multimillion-dollar bond and tax vote

Muskogee city leaders are delaying a multimillion-dollar bond and tax vote.

Those votes were set to happen in August before an audit on City spending would be complete.

The people of Muskogee said they felt like the whole thing was rushed and weren’t comfortable voting on a bond that would cost millions of dollars and increase their taxes.

FOX23 talked one-on-one with the mayor about the decision.

“We’ve decided that it might be a better idea to further consult with certain public groups, our industrial partners and we wanted to make sure that we ran this by everybody. We try to educate everybody fully. So that’s what we are going to be doing for the next six months or next year,” Muskogee Mayor Patrick Cale said.

Cale said delaying the vote was the best decision when it came to the city’s GO bond and the CIP tax vote after hearing the public’s concerns.

“Everybody up here loves the City of Muskogee and I really love the City of Muskogee and we’ve got some things we need to fix here,” Cale said.

He wants everyone to be on the same page and for the City to get things right from the start of any major construction.

Both were to be voted on August 27, but the mayor stated in Monday’s city hall meeting, voters may not be asked to go to the polls on those issues until next year.

“I feel like we can use a few more months to consider the issues. I’m excited about the opportunities for Muskogee through this measure. But I want everyone, all the people in Muskogee, to be informed as much as possible when they go vote,” Cale said.

Cale said the first step is creating a committee with councilors picking people from the citizen groups who’ve raised concerns so they can have a say moving forward.

“The bond could very well change up a little bit from what it currently is. So there might be items that are swapped out there, might be items that are delayed and we’ll have a smaller bond. There’s no telling what will come out of these citizen groups and committees,” Cale said.