We’ve finally cracked the code on how to get OU students to attend basketball games – pay them!
Yesterday afternoon, the student-run OU Daily reported that OU students were paid to attend recent Norman City Council meetings and pose as supporters of the controversial plan to use TIF funding to help pay for the University North Park entertainment district.
If you haven’t been keeping up with Norman news, the crown jewel of the $1.1-billion district is a new arena for OU’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, along with their other non-revenue producing sports that few, if any, OU fans care about.
Like any taxpayer-funded arena proposal, it faced staunch opposition from vocal locals who flooded city council meetings to voice their concerns and heckle the council members who were fast-tracking it with as little public input as possible.
I guess to counteract that, and make it look like students cared, someone had the bright idea to work with a powerful Oklahoma lawmaker’s son to pay OU brosephs $15 an hour to fill the room and act like they cared.
A Snapchat message obtained by the OU Daily that was sent to a private group chat reveals OU students were offered money to fill the Norman City Council chamber during the vote to approve the University North Park entertainment district Sept. 17.
“Sorry it’s so last minute but If any of y’all want to make some money today I have a guy that will pay 15/hour to sit at the Norman city council meeting from 4:30-9:30 you can bring your laptop and do hw or whatever but you can’t say why you’re there if any of y’all are interested pm me,” said the message sent by a user with the screen name David Echols in the private group chat...
In case you care, David Echols is the son of Oklahoma lawmaker Jon Echols—the majority floor leader of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. We know this because we were able to compare a pic of David Echols that OU Daily published with this pic of Jon Echols and his family that we acquired via the Ogle Mole Network:
I’m not sure why or if it matters that an Oklahoma lawmaker’s son was paying his buddies to attend city council meetings and pretend to support an arena plan that they likely care nothing about, but it’s an interesting thing to point out and share, especially if someone, somewhere can point us to any sort of professional or financial connection between Echols and the developers of the project.
Here’s more about the hysterical scandal from OU Daily:
OU Daily reporters at the meeting confirmed around 5:10 p.m. that about 65 OU students were present in the chamber, which has 150 seats. By the time the meeting began at 6:30 p.m., every seat was taken and community members stood around the room’s edges and spilled into an overflow space.
Before the meeting began, OU Daily reporters asked some students why they attended. Among the answers students said a variety of the following:
“We were told by our friend about it and wanted to come and sit in support.”
“We were interested.”
“I heard about it from a friend.”
“Just wanted to come and listen.”
Throughout the meeting, Daily reporters observed various students doing homework, wearing earbuds and sleeping during the public comment session. During the second break, around 9:30 p.m., which coincided with the ending time noted in the Snapchat message, students slowly began to leave the meeting.
More than three hours later, at 1:10 a.m., the council voted to approve the plan.
Let’s be honest: in the grand scheme of things, did the sudden appearance of a bunch of bored frat boys change or shape the city council’s opinion on this stuff? I doubt it. Minds on this topic were already made up. Plus, the only person in Norman who can be influenced by the sudden appearance of 60 OU frat boys is David Boren, and he left the university years ago!
That being said, the optics of this stunt look bad, especially when you have video of OU President Joe Harroz honoring and praising the students, and saying and doing things like this during city council meetings:
Yep, that’s right.
Nothing teaches college students about democracy more than paying them $15 an hour to attend city council meetings to pretend to support the use of taxpayer money to subsidize private development.
In a twisted way, I guess that is American Democracy 101.
Anyway, I have no clue if OU and / or Harroz knew the students were being paid. Even though he curiously knew how many students were in attendance, I bet Harroz – just like with most other things involving the school – was clueless.
Either way, the people who oppose publicly subsidized arenas have latched onto the scandal, and I can see why.
They’re fighting hard to turn the proposal into a public vote where it could possibly be defeated, and this scandal may ignite enough public outrage to help them get the signatures they need:
On Sept. 20, Oklahomans for Responsible Economic Development filed a referendum petition with the city to turn the Rock Creek Entertainment District in University North Park over to a public vote. According to Tiffany Vrska, Norman chief communications officer, petitioners have until Oct. 18 to collect the 6,098 signatures necessary for the petition to make it to a citywide vote on Feb. 11.
Tuesday afternoon, the Daily called OU economics professor Cynthia Rogers, a founding member of ORED, to discuss its discovery of the Snapchat message.
“It's wonderful to have students show up and take an interest,” said Rogers, who holds a doctorate in economics and has taught at OU since 2015. “It's not so wonderful to have 50, 60 students show up and take up seats from people who actually want to engage in the conversation.”
Rogers said allegedly paying students to attend was distasteful.
I’m neutral on the whole new OU arena thing. I have no problem with publicly funded arenas, but think building it off-campus is stupid and dumb.
Either way, even I’ll admit it would be some fun irony to watch this stunt bring the whole thing down.
If so, it would show that the optics of paying college kids to support a contentious arena proposal look way worse than the optics of having 65 bored and sleepy college students show up to a city council meeting look good.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
