DALLAS — A citizens' initiative in Oklahoma City seeks to curtail a voter-approved sales tax two years earlier than planned and prevent the use of $252 million for construction of a new convention center, according to news reports.
Opponents of the convention center are circulating two petitions, one calling for the end of the sales tax in July 2015 instead of December 2017, and another forbidding the use of $250 million of sales tax revenue for the convention center.
The 1-cent sales tax, originally approved in 1993 for the Metropolitan Area Projects Plan (MAPS), was extended as MAPS-For-Kids in 2001 and as MAPS3 in 2009. The 2009 vote called for outlays of $777 million for several projects, including the convention center, and authorized the 1-cent sales tax to continue as of April 2010.
The citizens group opposing the convention center maintains that voters were not informed that the convention center plan would also require the addition of a convention center hotel to make the center competitive.
Adding a hotel to the convention center would require subsidies of $50 million to $200 million, according to Oklahoma City Councilman Ed Shadid, who told the Daily Oklahoman newspaper that he was joining the opposition group.
MAPS 3 is a pay-as-you-go public improvements program designed to avoid public debt and to leverage private investment.
The city's Cox Business Services Convention Center was completed in 1972 at a cost of $23 million or $128 million in 2014 dollars. Current plans call for construction of the new convention center to begin in 2016.
