25 years later, Norman citizens are still taking their case to the City Council, again
NORMAN, OK. Of all the citizens in all the cities of Oklahoma, none have gone toe-to-toe with the Governor and the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority like the citizens of Norman.
NORMAN SAYS NO IN 1999: THE OUTER LOOP MIS
State laws have been on the books since the 1950's describing turnpikes the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (OTA) can seek to build (69 OK Stat § 1705), but no serious public efforts to build them in the Norman area happened until 1998. At a public meeting held June 16 in Norman, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT), the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG) and the OTA announced they were going to spend $375,000 to study highway routes in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area under the banner of the "Outer Loop Major Investment Study (MIS)."
At that June 16 meeting, the Outer Loop MIS group released a map showing various routes they deemed viable to study, and to eventually construct a massive multi-lane highway that would become the Eastern Outer Loop. Proposed routes began in the vicinity of Norman and traveled east through the city limits of Norman, Moore, Oklahoma City, Midwest City, Harrah, Newalla, Choctaw, Jones, Arcadia and Edmond.
One route began in Purcell and traversed Noble before reaching Norman; another went east of Lake Thunderbird, and then abruptly north, adding Little Axe and Luther to the list of potentially affected cities. The routes also traversed Absentee Shawnee, Citizen Potawatomi and Kickapoo tribal lands.
Government officials and study engineers spoke of how the Outer Loop highway would affect 500,000 people, and of the need to "preserve the corridor," which meant buying or taking by eminent domain force up to 20,000 acres of private property. Terry McFall of ODOT said the Outer Loop study would meld into an I-35 Trade Corridor study, and officials stressed the importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and I-35 becoming a NAFTA Trade Corridor as key reasons for building the Outer Loop.
No one would say for sure if the routes would be toll roads, but with no forthcoming financing, the Outer Loop as a toll road (also known as a "turnpike"), combined with OTA's historical freedom from government interference and easy bond financing, seemed a sure bet.
To say the map did not sit well with the citizens of central Oklahoma would be making a huge understatement. As the Outer Loop MIS group held "advisory" and "steering" committee meetings, numerous citizen-led groups were formed in the targeted areas. Large, standing-room only informational and protest meetings were held. Thousands of letters were written to government agencies. News media coverage was heavy. Members of the National Congress of American Indians came to visit, concerned about the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
On January 12, 1999, the Norman City Council passed a resolution opposing the Outer Loop highway, and suddenly, a month later, with the cities of Jones, Choctaw, Arcadia and the Kickapoo Tribe passing similar resolutions, it stopped. The ordeal that had started less than eight months before was over.
On February 13, 1999, then Secretary of Transportation Neal McCaleb, who also happened to be the head of both ODOT and the OTA, issued a joint statement with ACOG stating, "The people of central Oklahoma have spoken and we have listened." McCaleb announced indefinite discontinuation of consideration of the eastern portion of the Outer Loop.
An April 6, 1999 article by the Journal Record quotes McCaleb as reinforcing his previous statements by saying, "The eastern portion of the outer loop is dead. The alignment is no longer a viable option…"
An archive of newspaper articles covering Norman's Eastern Outer Loop saga may be found here , and a compilation of TV news stories on the subject may be found here .
An archive of newspaper articles covering Norman's Eastern Outer Loop saga may be found here , and a compilation of TV news stories on the subject may be found here .
NORMAN SAYS NO IN 2022: THE ACCESS OKLAHOMA TOLL ROADS
On February 22, 2022, Governor Kevin Stitt, in a rare surprise appearance at the monthly OTA Board meeting, and acting in his capacity as "Member Ex-Officio," hijacked the meeting to announce his latest brainchild: a new $5 billion turnpike expansion plan called "ACCESS Oklahoma."
The plan includes three new toll roads, all of them invading Norman's city limits, as well as Purcell, Slaughterville, Noble and southeast Oklahoma City. Also affected are Absentee Shawnee and Citizen Potawatomi lands.
Claiming the proposed turnpikes would cause minimal disruption by affecting only farmland and pastures, the Governor, along with Tim Gatz, Oklahoma's latest version of a "Transportation Czar (Secretary of Transportation, plus head of both ODOT and OTA)," went on the offense.
Launching a hard-core media blitz designed to convince the world that all roads should be toll roads, they insisted that people should be happy to give up their homes, dreams and private property for the "greater good." Ironically, comparisons between the "new" ACCESS Oklahoma routes and the Outer Loop MIS maps from the 1990's revealed them to be virtually identical, with too many similarities to be called mere coincidence.
To say the dystopian "ACCESS Oklahoma" plans did not sit well with the citizens of Norman would be making a huge understatement. Governor Stitt had taken the gauntlet of the "dead" Outer Loop tollroads from the 1990's and cast it at the feet of the citizens of Norman. He had poked the bear.
Norman citizens immediately went into action and formed a group called "Pike Off OTA." They started a Facebook page called "No More Turnpikes;" thousands flocked to join.
The bear roared.
Then Norman Ward 5 Councilperson Rarchar Tortorello organized a public meeting held March 3, 2022, at Crosspointe Church and invited turnpike officials to explain what was going on. Attendance was substantial. The church's sanctuary was packed, with the overflow crowd spilling into adjacent rooms, hallways and out the door.
After 23 years of peace since being promised in 1999 that the Outer Loop was "dead," and with Norman's 2020 and 2025 Land Use & Transportation Plans assuring citizens they could build their dream homes free of anything like turnpike encroachment, citizens were shocked to learn the same old Outer Loop ideas were back.
This time, though, Outer Loop 2022 was not shrouded in 1999 terms like "studies," "options," "public input," and "alternatives." There were no options or alternatives. There would be no public input. The lines on the maps had been drawn, all with no studies done. There was only one plan in place, the Governor's plan; it was called ACCESS Oklahoma, and it included nothing but full-on toll roads.
The Crosspointe Church meeting proved to be a defining moment for Norman's nascent "no more turnpikes" movement, as the OTA made a huge blunder by offering to send actual OTA officials and decision makers to answer questions from the public. Instead, they backed out at the last minute and sent, not OTA decision makers, but engineers, led by Poe Engineering President David Streb.
This was an insult to the citizens who had invested time, money and effort to attend a meeting where they expected real answers as to why OTA thought their homes, dreams and private property should be sacrificed on the altar of "the greater good." "The greater good" sounds wonderful until you learn it is enforced by the police-power threat of "eminent domain," carried out at the point of a gun.
No studies had been done to prove a "public need" that justified a governmental exercise of eminent domain, and indeed, to this day (October 20, 2024), over 2-1\2 years later, not a single study has been attempted to justify Governor Kevin Stitt's heavy-handed approach to obey his bosses and use the OTA to satisfy their toll road ambitions.
The Crosspointe Church meeting was an utter public relations failure. What was supposed to be a session where experts explained to ignorant peasants the realities of modern governmental thinking turned out to be an exercise in confrontational democracy.
The attendees were not pleased to know that the OTA couldn't be bothered to send actual decision-makers to answer their questions. It might have gone better had not the Poe engineers treated the attendees with such condescension and disdain, but that's what happened. Bad feelings and hurt hearts were the result, with many pledging they would never trust any government agency again.
The Crosspointe Church meeting set the tone for all other meetings held and attended by the OTA. People became accustomed to deception. The more they examined what was going on, and the history behind it, the scarier it got.
People who had never thought about their government lying to them were suddenly confronted by government officials lying to them, in easily documented ways. Folks who didn't even know the definition of eminent domain were suddenly confronted with the reality of it happening to them, to their homes, and their families, forcing the reality of moving to somewhere they did not choose.
The Norman bear had been poked one too many times. Numerous "public" meetings held by the OTA turned out, as expected, to be nothing more than public distraction and brainwashing sessions; there were no answers to be had.
Lawsuits were filed, excellent lawsuits that clearly demonstrated something was horribly wrong. Lawsuits were won, and lawsuits were lost, due to a mind-boggling amount of collusion and corruption that seems to exist at the highest levels of State government. There were lawsuit successes that were swatted down by the Supreme Court. The giant toll road-making machine was merciless in its treatment of citizens who had dared to challenge the powers that be, yet, in the face of overwhelming odds, people carried on.
Public rallies, demonstrations, protests, fundraisers and "Town Hall" meetings flew by, one after another. Countless volunteers gave up their personal time, and even their work time to work for the "no more turnpikes" cause.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond was also staying busy dealing with OTA-related legal issues. In addition to appearing at an Oklahomans for Responsible Transportation rally at the State Capitol, in March of 2023 Drummond requested Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd to conduct an investigative audit of the OTA.
Drummond's request titled "Allegations of Wrongdoing Regarding the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, Request for Investigative Audit," reads, "Dear Auditor Byrd: I have had many conversations over the past few months with legislators, community leaders, private citizens and state employees who have expressed a wide array of concerns with the financial conduct of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (“OTA”). These concerns include but are not limited to improper transfers between the OTA and the Department of Transportation; improper contracting and purchasing practices; and inadequate internal financial controls."
"Additionally, I am aware of a District Court’s finding that the OTA “willfully” violated the Open Meeting Act. Such a blatant disregard for openness and transparency suggests to me a willingness to engage in any manner of unlawful conduct. I am resolved to have all relevant information that will help me determine whether the OTA is in full compliance with the law. Therefore, pursuant to 74 O.S. § 18f, I am requesting an investigative audit of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority."
The audit is still pending.
Drummond also caused much consternation in the Governor's office when his February 28, 2024 reply to questions from Senator Mary Boren prompted some state officials to resign, including none other than the head of the OTA, Tim Gatz. Drummond had concluded that state officers are barred by Oklahoma law from holding more than one office at a time, which meant that Tim Gatz, who had been appointed by Governor Stitt to serve, not only as Secretary of Transportation, but also as head of both the ODOT and the OTA, was acting illegally.
Tim Gatz resigned immediately upon the decisions release, and Governor Stitt threw a fit, angrily denouncing Drummond in media interviews and accusing him of, not only picking on Gatz unfairly, but of "weaponizing" the office of Attorney General. After re-appointing Gatz as head of ODOT (and only of ODOT), Stitt and three of his Cabinet secretaries (after resigning their multiple offices and retaining only one) sued the Attorney General in Oklahoma County District Court, alleging Drummond misapplied the law. The matter is still pending.
Those seeking to stop Norman's tollroads through legislative reforms have been busy under the auspices of Oklahomans for Responsible Transportation, lobbying legislators at the State capitol for reforms in eminent domain, the Oklahoma Open Records Act and other areas.
Two measures, HB 2263 and HB 3159, saw success in 2023 and 2024. HB 2263 was a bill changing the way Board members are appointed to the OTA. The previous law had all six OTA Board Directors appointed by the Governor. HB 2263 changes the appointments to two appointments each by the Governor, the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tem.
HB 2263 was vetoed by Governor Stitt, with a vote to override his veto succeeding May 25, 2023, and the measure becoming law November 1, 2023. Even so, The OTA Board of Directors announced in January, 2024, they were filing a lawsuit against Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall and Oklahoma Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat seeking a judicial review of HB 2263. Even though Attorney General Drummond issued a ruling declaring HB 2263 to be constitutional, the matter is still pending in court.
On a happier note, The Landowner’s Bill of Rights, or HB 3159, was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 1, 2024. The bill gives landowners the right of first refusal if the land is ever sold by the state or anyone who received the land through the use of eminent domain authority.
Two of the more significant legal victories in 2022 were resolutions passed by the Norman City Council and the Cleveland County Board of County Commissioners. The City resolution, passed March 22, 2022, addressed the proposed toll roads and instructed the OTA to "conduct an extensive study of its proposed construction and its impact on the Lake Thunderbird watershed prior to moving forward…" The Council stated, "Without this information, the City of Norman opposes the construction of all aspects of Access Oklahoma that are proposed to occur within Norman…"
The County Commissioner's resolution echoes the City's in imploring the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority to exercise and exemplify transparency by relaying to them and the public any and all studies, including environmental impact studies, relating to the proposed toll roads, and that without that information, "the Cleveland County Board of County Commissioners cannot, in good faith, on behalf of the public trust, condone the construction of the ACCESS Oklahoma project that is currently proposed to occur within Cleveland County."
Of course, none of the things requested by the City and County of OTA have come to pass. Here we are over two years later, and not a single item has been observed. None. No studies, no reporting, nothing. I say, "of course," because that's how the OTA rolls: in bad faith. They operate with impunity, doing whatever they want, anytime they want, anywhere they want. City councils and county commissioners are nothing more than obstacles to be moved out of the way of "progress."
NORMAN SAYS NO IN 2024: A RESOLUTION TO PROTECT NORMAN AND STOP THE TOLL ROADS
Next came Norman Ward 5 City Councilperson Michael Nash with what could have been be a true turnpike stopper. His "RESOLUTION TO PROTECT AND PRESERVE THE LAKE THUNDERBIRD WATERSHED, THE CANADIAN RIVER CORRIDOR, THE CITY’S DRINKING WATER SUPPLY, AND THE CITY’S FLOOD HAZARD AREAS" left few stones unturned, and was set for a vote on August 13.
After much stonewalling and hand-wringing by the OTA’s supporters at City Hall, the vote on “The Nash Resolution” was postponed.
Somehow, with no explanation (that how Norman’s City Hall rolls) The Nash Resolution was killed in favor of coming up with a “hybrid,” something that would make everyone, including the OTA and their developer pals, happy.
Backroom meetings between the OTA and Norman’s Mayor and City Manager produced what came to be called “The Frankenstein Resolution.” It was worse than could have been anticipated, as it pretty much abandoned all the good stuff that was there before, and instead proposed Norman enter into a “partnership” with the OTA.
The “partnership” approved building the detested tollroads. It also obligated the City of Norman to help pay for building and maintaining an onerous set of access roads. The access roads were being demanded by giant real estate developers to serve housing and business projects they wanted to build alongside the proposed turnpikes. A Council vote was set for August 27.
A weeks-long rollercoaster ride of tense, confrontational and often shocking meetings preceded the August 27 event, featuring the Mayor threatening Council members with criminal prosecution if they didn't go along with OTA's plans.
Other highlights included the OTA, by way of City Engineer Scott Sturtz, threatening the City Council with ostracization from negotiations and “amenities” if they didn't sign a "cooperative partnership resolution." Thousands of Citizens were left questioning who the Mayor and Council actually work for; them, or the small minority of tollroad developers who feel entitled to rule over the City.
The Tuesday meeting was packed with a standing-room only crowd, fire marshals on alert and dozens of overflow attendees standing outside the windowed Council chambers listening in via the facilities sound system. Norman's City Hall had not seen this many people there over a single issue in a very long time.
After hours of testimony from Citizens who had signed on early to speak, the Norman City Council voted unanimously to reject the Mayor’s OTA “Frankenstein” partnership resolution. A full report of the event may be found here .
Norman breathed a sigh of relief, that, sadly, turned out to be short-lived. Less than 7 weeks later, at an October 15 Council study session, Norman’s Mayor, City Manager and the OTA raised the defeated resolution from the dead.
Frankenstein is back.
REVEALING WHO NORMAN’S “LEADERS” BOW TO
Norman City Manager Darrel Pyle recently confirmed what many Normanites have feared: Norman’s Mayor, City Manager and City Staff do what Norman’s mega-developers tell them to do. That’s who they really work for.
At the Oct. 15 Council study session, the question was asked, regarding Section 5 of the new Frankenstein resolution , which describes a theoretical turnpike access point to be located at Indian Hills Road and Douglas Blvd. (48th Ave NE), “Why 48th Ave NE? Why not 36th Ave NE?”
Answering the question was City Manager Darrel Pyle: “I received a phone call from the “property owner” up on Sooner Road (12th Ave NE) and Indian Hills, who owns both sides, who said ‘I’ve got development proposals for a medical clinic,’ and they are requesting access via frontage road to make that development work, so that’s simply at the request of property owners that far out.”
The “property owners” happen to be Jalal Farzaneh of Shaz Investment Group, owner of Home Creations. Why they would want a turnpike access point at 48th and Indian Hills is anyone’s guess, but that’s what the City Manager said. One of Norman’s bigtime developers wants something, and City Hall jumps to make it happen.
The meeting started with an explanation by City Manager Pyle as to why the meeting was being held in the first place. Even though Norman’s City Council unanimously rejected the Frankenstein Resolution Version One, Pyle explained the back-pedaling like this:
“Property owners along the Indian Hills Corridor reached out to their elected representatives and [members of] some committees working on the city council's AIM Comprehensive Land Use Plan” called for the Frankenstein Resolution to be brought back to the Council for yet another vote.
It soon became clear that the “property owners” Pyle mentioned were none other than Norman’s minority group of “mega-developers,” who started buying up everything they could along Indian Hills Road in the fall of 2020, long before the proposed tollroad’s official announcement in February of 2022. It is said the group of investors includes top government officials at the State Capitol. Did they know something no one else could have known?
It also became clear the “AIM Committee” members referred to included Richard McKown, who Pyle introduced as “the Housing Subcommittee Chair of the AIM Steering Committee,” and who he invited to speak at length to the group about how wonderful it would be to have up to 23,000 “high-density multifamily housing units” (i.e., giant apartment complexes) built on both sides of an Indian Hills Road toll road.
City Manager Pyle went on to explain who is pushing the City Council to reverse their previous decision, and pass the OTA partnership resolution: “Council members (he refused to say which ones) received phone calls from constituents and said that group of constituents was very much interested in advancing frontage roads along the Indian Hills alignment.”
“Constituents,” indeed.
Look for a full-court press by Norman's toll road cheerleaders leading up to next Tuesday’s October 22 City Council vote. The showdown in Norman is back. And so, it begins: the arm-twisting, cajoling, threatening, blackmailing, extorting and intimidating, all of which I assure you take place in the City of Norman when the New Overlords of our town think they might not get their way.
Who do Norman’s Mayor, City Manager and City Council actually serve? We shall see.
An archive of newspaper articles about events from 2022-24 may be found here .
Compilations of TV news stories are found here and here .
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