We have good news for the world's few remaining Sooner hoops fans!
In case you missed it, the Oklahoma Supreme Court recently said "To Hell with Democracy" and denied a citizen-led petition to put the controversial Norman Rock Creek Arena Development TIF up to a citywide vote, effectively clearing the way for the project – which will include a $330 million OU hoops arena – to proceed.
The OU Daily has a pretty thorough write-up about it.
Basically, the Supreme Court ruled by an 8–1 margin that the gist of the proposal summarizing the tax package was misleading – even though it really wasn't – and therefore the roughly 11,000 citizens who signed it apparently didn't understand what they were doing.
Via the OU Daily:
"The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday the gist of Oklahomans for Responsible Economic Development's petition to turn the Rock Creek Entertainment District to a public vote is insufficient…
The majority opinion states that the gist 'does not provide a potential signatory with sufficient information to make an informed decision about the true nature' of the ordinance and the Rock Creek Entertainment District plan."
Before I write anything else, I want to state that I'm not against the Rock Creek Development. In fact, if I was a Norman resident, I'd probably be all for it!
You see, although I can't name you one player on the current roster, I'm an OU hoops fan in that I can recite almost every starting lineup from the Tubbs–Sampson era, and I think it would be really cool for the program to have a new home that isn't a dated, inaccessible, multipurpose cavern.
I don't know if that will pump any new life into the OU men's basketball program and make them watchable again, but it sure won't hurt. Who knows? Maybe the new arena will even motivate me and all other former OU hoops fans to do something we haven't done in a long time – hit up a game.
All that being said, in addition to being pro–Rock Creek Development, I'm also "Pro Democracy" and think there's no reason this shouldn't go to a vote of the people.
As I wrote when the gist was challenged, I thought it did a decent job distilling the complicated measure down to a paragraph and had more than enough detail for the 11,000+ petition signers – which is more people than the OU men's basketball team has drawn to a game in the Porter Moser era – to make an informed decision about what they were signing.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Dustin Rowe – the lone dissenting vote – kind of agrees with me.
In his argument, he outlined the hallowed importance of people's right to petition. He also argued that a gist is exactly what it is – a gist – and doesn't have to comb over every exact detail to be valid:
The dissenting opinion, written by Chief Justice Dustin P. Rowe, states that the gist is not inaccurate, misleading, or fraudulent, but it "synthesizes the technically complex governing documents that — in themselves — are difficult to decipher."
According to the dissenting opinion, the gist is not required to paraphrase all governing documents but needs to provide enough context to be easily understood by signatories.
If you're bored, you can read Rowe's full dissent here.
I have to admit, it was genuinely strange to see a Federalist Society member side with a broader reading of citizens' democratic rights — while the rest of the court took a narrow, technical view that effectively says thousands of Oklahomans can't be trusted to understand a paragraph because it's missing a couple of details.
When that guy is waving the democracy flag, maybe it's time to rethink your position.
On the topic of rethinking, the people with Oklahomans for Responsible Economic Development – the group who organized the petition drive – have to be rethinking the gist they put together.
Instead of taking responsibility for putting one out that was just vague enough to give the Oklahoma ruling class an excuse to deny it, they quoted the West Wing.
Paul Arcaroli, an ORED member, told OU Daily Tuesday, shortly after the decision, he was disappointed by the ruling.
"The process of direct democracy is difficult in the country, it's in the state, and that's just proved how impossible direct democracy really is, so I think that's very sad for Norman and sad for our community," Arcaroli said.
"There are some things we can look at and we will keep you in the loop. We are disappointed but as President Bartlett says on 'The West Wing,' 'What's next?'".
What's next?
Well, thanks to a shitty gist, shitty court ruling, and shitty basketball program, probably a men's college hoops game in front of a few thousand fans at a new arena. Who knows, maybe I'll be one of them.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We'll keep you advised.
