New tollroad alignments in Oklahoma haven't been about transportation needs since 1947
Watch the uni-party elite fleece the Oklahoma Citizen multiple times with a well orchestrated playbook
On Thursday, May 2nd at 10 am, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (OTA) auctioned off surplus land acquired through eminent domain at the Dakil Auction. The OTA sold approximately 28 surplus properties across 7 counties.
Why is this important and who buys this land, you ask? After attending the first Dakil OTA surplus land auction in June of 2022, we found that much of the surplus land went to developers. This is part of the OTA playbook, which if you don’t know consists of the following particulars:
Hire transportation advisory services to make pre-determined routes look profitable.
Pay out-of-state projection company to show the revenue and development potential.
Use overinflated revenue and investment grade studies to sell idea to developers and investors.
Tell developers, contractors and other interested parties where routes will be for investment opportunities - but don’t tell the public.
Instruct firms to make pre-determined routes seem needed.
Advise firms to conduct traffic and population studies that justify the need for new alignments.
Promise those same firms future design and construction contracts.
Allow firms to be corridor managers, design firms and right-of-way firms without oversight and allow them to charge by percent of construction costs and increase contract costs to repay loyalty.
Wait until the last minute to announce plan to public and move as quickly as possible with design and right-of-way acquisition to get too far to “fail.”
Keep important elected officials and judicial staff in their good graces for favorable treatment when faced with opposition.
Make sure their financiers stay well fed with increasingly frequent trips to the bond market and loan generation machines (banks).
Destroy Oklahoma families, the watershed and quality of life - all without completing one impact study prior to taking property through eminent domain.
No Legislative requirement to consider impacts, so why bother?
If you’d like to know how much the developers paid for the parcels they bought in June 2022, you can check out this link and match the ID #s in the google sheet to the map detailing the southern properties sold on June 9, 2022 and the northern properties sold on June 10, 2022.
But let’s travel from north to south along the unauthorized Kickapoo turnpike that displaced 103 families and a bunch of Girl Scouts….. recognize any of the developer names?
And the Kickapoo Tribe just announced their plans on April 23, 2024 to build a travel stop! They paid $275,000 for their chance at developing 18.14 acres.
They took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum,
And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em.
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you’ve got til its gone.
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.
Gotta love “development” disguised as “transportation solutions.”
Keep heading south…..
I feel like I need to point out that the land shown in the big red rectangle and the property shown in the brown used to be part of the Girl Scout Council of Oklahoma’s 107+ acre Camp Cookieland that got completely destroyed by the turnpike.
Kinda gets you in the feels, right?
The 11.1 acre parcel shown in brown was purchased by a developer for $106,700 ($9,613/acre).
The 62.2 acre parcel shown in red was purchased by another developer for $1,056,000 ($16,975/acre).
The OTA bought the 107 acre parcel of land from the Girl Scouts for $3.2 Million. That’s ~$30,000 per acre. Then they go and sell it off again to their developer friends for almost half price. Why?
Let’s keep moving south along the developer’s highway of cash.
What names kept popping up over and over as you made the 19.6 mile trip south along the Kickapoo (as one of the only vehicles on the roadway?)
Are these folks connected to the OTA in any way shape or form? Did they show up at the May 2024 auction and buy up the remaining surplus along the Kickapoo and other turnpikes? Are these same people buying land BEFORE a turnpike is slated to be built, like with what is happening along the proposed East-West Corridor?
It isn’t hard to see what is going on. We don’t need the new alignments where they placed them and are proposing to place them - in rural Eastern Oklahoma and Cleveland Counties. Please understand that the OTA didn’t propose it because the road was needed. They did it to make the fat cat engineers, contractors, heavy highway construction companies, bond financiers, real estate developers and bought off politicians and judges insane amounts of money - all they know is their playbook. When will it stop?
PIKE OFF OTA (501 c4) and Oklahomans for Responsible Transportation, Foundation (501 c3) are leading the charge in legal injunctive avenues and legislative reform and they could use your help. They are trying to dismantle a corrupt Goliath within our state and are doing a great job. Be part of the solution!
www.pikeoffota.com
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