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URGENT MESSAGE & Weekly Update

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🛑🛑🛑 VENUE CHANGE FOR SUMMIT TOMORROW!  🛑🛑🛑 

⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

CLEVELAND COUNTY TURNPIKE SUMMIT VENUE CHANGE
We apologize for the late venue change. We received the notice at 4pm via email that the National Weather Center could no longer host our event, citing rising COVID numbers and associated protocols. We are incredibly thankful for The Mercury Event Center graciously hosting us on such short notice! They have been incredibly accommodating. 

NEW LOCATION:
426 E. Main St
Norman, OK 73026
Registration at 6pm, Speakers start at 6:30pm. 


Event will be live-streamed by Rarchar Tortorello, Ward 5 City Council Member and long-time Pike Off OTA, Inc. supporter. Links will be shared in No More Turnpikes facebook group, Rarchar's page, and Pike Off OTA. You will be able to view the recording on our website in the next few days. 
The Mercury will have drinks available for $2 and Southern Willow will have charcuterie boxes available for $8. Please consider supporting them and their staff as they have worked so hard to support us. :)
Randy's Monday Update - PLEASE NOTE THAT EVENT VENUE HAS CHANGED SINCE VIDEO WAS RECORDED!
Oklahoma's 2022 legislative session ended Friday, May 27th.  Our efforts will be shifting focus from the Capitol to our legal strategy and public outreach.  Please consider making a monthly contribution or a one time donation to help us STOP the OTA.  Every little bit helps.  Even a small donation, if made by enough people, will make a huge impact.  
I want to contribute to STOPPING OTA monthly!
I'd like to just make a one-time donation.
Article Worth Reading

US VS. THEM

Written By: Whitney Mullica

This Monday the Oklahoma Transportation Commission met despite having a vacant seat for District 3, the area of the state most concerned with whether or not a new turnpike is necessary. Members of Pike Off OTA expected the OTC would unanimously vote to approve ACCESS routes, and were surprised when District Commissioner James L. Grimsley actually stood up to the other old white males sitting on the bench. (More on Grimsley’s speech will follow) Pike Off OTA is all too familiar with the rubber stamping processes of Oklahoma’s transportation authorities. “They” throw around millions of dollars of “our” money with blatant indifference, during times of day that most of “us” are required to be at work.

You can look back in Oklahoma history about a hundred years and find origins of “US” vs. “Them”. The first governor of the State of Oklahoma, Charles Haskell, was quick to fill his cabinet with members of the KKK, including Tulsa’s own Tate Brady and some Okies from Muskogee. Haskell, who among other things, worked for the railroad, had previously laid rail tracks in Ohio, where the people were not willing to give him right-of-way. To get around “those people” Haskell hired extra Irish workers and had them work as fast as possible, and even through the night, so that the next morning “those people” awoke to tracks that had already been laid. This type of maneuvering would later be useful for Haskell when he moved the capital of Oklahoma from Guthrie, to the tent city, Oklahoma City. Haskell and his buddies built the building we now protest on 23rd street, as well as three of the largest universities in our state.

The Klan controlled Oklahoma’s politics for much of the early 20th century. After being blamed for the Tulsa Race Massacre and many other atrocious acts of violence the Klan successfully impeached Governor Walton who had passed anti-mask laws, laws against public meetings, and laws against parades. Since Oklahoma receives such a whitewashed version of history in public education it’s no surprise that we are repeating it. Our legislators accept money from the state for highway construction projects and our politicians are bought and paid for by the industries that are getting rich off of our tax dollars. A hundred years ago the Klan was wise to have many of Oklahoma’s legislators in their very deep pockets. In the primary election leading up to his governorship, Walton beat the Klan’s favored candidate, R. H. Wilson, who was State Superintendent of Public Instruction and controlled the selection of textbooks.

In the early 1920s the Klan went around the state of Oklahoma on a “law enforcement campaign” gaining more followers, who would pay dues to be a member, and solidifying their benevolence. Inside of the legislature William McBee, a friend of the Klan, controlled the appointments of men who would create the fewest problems for the Klan. White men were not the only members of the Klan, there was a women’s branch as well, The Cherokee Women’s Klan. Early members of the KKK believed that membership was a good thing, the Klan had people convinced they would be the solution to the lawlessness of the present time.

After the Tulsa Race Massacre and with the changing attitudes of fundamentalist religious folks about people in other religions, the message of the Klan could not hold the same fascination as it had in the past. Membership dues began to deteriorate and once the money was no longer pumping into their coffers, many of the profiteers addicted to graft, replaced their fascination of the Klan with the growing economy’s need for good roads and highways. Like everyone else, the former Klan members wanted to share in the prosperity of Oklahoma’s expanding economy.

Watching the OTC meeting Monday, and the men making our state’s transportation decisions, felt dehumanizing. People like Jessica Brown and Gene McKown are probably nice outside of the Department Of Transportation building, but inside the DOT walls they are Supremacists. They don’t seem to see the people, the protesters, or the damage that their decisions are inflicting on our environment, our ecosystems, or our budgets. This all started, for many of US, back in February, and our relationship with the state of Oklahoma will probably never be the same. But, that doesn’t mean we lose hope. Members of Pike Off OTA were surprised when one member of the OTC, James L. Grimsley, chose to be a Commission outcast, and voiced his disapproval of the wasteful ACCESS plan.

He said to the OTC board, “Dr. Cerato is a respected academic and she is also a licensed professional civil engineer so her opinions carry a lot of weight and she would be recognized in a court of law as a very credible expert witness. So a lot of what she said resonated with me. I did some of my own research. If you have ever heard me talk publicly, I’m not a big fan of building new highways. I think it destroys ecosystems and divides and destroys communities, I’m not a fan of that. I believe in Oklahoma we have historically had an aversion to traffic engineering. And that is something that Dr. Cerato and I agree on. This weekend I looked up some stats, in terms of raw numbers of miles of highway, we rank number 14 in the nation. In terms of population we rank number 28. We have a lot of highways. What we don’t have is traffic engineering. I think we need to a spend a whole lot more time looking at interchange problems. We had the graph last month exploring the interchanges, I think there’s more than enough opportunity to fix those interchanges. And also just thinking more holistically about traffic engineering. Her opinions and comments resonate with me very much because it matches my own observations. I don’t think it's a tenable future where we continue to build highways with no limitations because we're running into 50 to 60 million dollars a mile. That’s not sustainable. And then we have to turn around and maintain those. But, the most important thing is, as a member of this commission we represent the public, we do not represent ODOT. We are supposed to be here to protect the interests of the public. One of the strong values I brought here with me is property rights. I believe in the sanctity of property rights. Something like eminent domain should be exceedingly difficult for the government, it's not something we should speed up, we should put a lot of restraints on that and tap on the brakes a lot. So this resonates with me. This issue has weighed more on me than any issue since I’ve been on this commission. I don’t like the position I’m in right now but I’m not going to abandon my own personal views and the principles that are important to carry on this commission.”

While the outlook for many Norman residents trying to save their community may appear grim, please do not give up hope. It’s taken us nearly five months for one person to really hear us and show compassion. It will take time, persistence, resilience, and teamwork to get the rest of them to hear us. Fortunately, Oklahoma’s power players are not the violent brutes they were in the past. We can’t give up on them.

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"Rooftop" of the Week: Tanner Naeher & Family

The Naeher Family

My wife and I purchased our land in the spring of 2019. I know that doesn’t seem that long ago, but in that short amount of time we have made a lot of memories on our acreage.  

The land has some pretty unique features, one of which is particularly of interest. In the back of the property there is a bluff  that overlooks the lowest spot of the land. 

A few weeks after we closed on the land, I told my wife, who was still my girlfriend at the time, that I wanted to go work on the land. We went out there all dressed up ready to cut trails through the dense woods in order to mark the boundaries of the property. 

What my wife didn’t know is that earlier that morning, I had ran out to the land to hide a picture frame with a poem I had written in it on that bluff.  As she read the poem overlooking our land we had bought together, I asked her to marry me. 

She said yes, obviously.  We made plans to get married the following March.  Invites were sent, venue booked, dress was bought. 

As we waited for our day, I continued to work on the land with the help of my dad. We cut a driveway to the spot where we planned to build a shop for my business and a beautiful two story house with a wrap around porch on it. 

Everything was sailing smoothly along. Then suddenly the week of our wedding, the entire nation shutdown due to Covid.  I don’t know if you can understand how emotionally hard it is to call your entire family the week of your wedding, because some people in the government said so, but we did. 

We spent what was supposed to be our wedding day installing a new stove and dishwasher to try and keep our minds off of the pain and the tears from falling. 

After a few months, we began planning our special day once more, and by some miracle we were able to have our wedding in the fall of 2020.  It was much smaller than the original plan, but we were able to get it done. The week after the wedding, everything went back on lockdown. 

During the lockdown, I continued to work on our land and to get it prepared for our dream home.  We had hopes on starting to build our house in the spring of 2021, but life continued to throw us curveballs. 

This one was a blessing though.  That spring we found out we were going to be parents, so we put our plans of building our home on hold for another year.   In the fall of 2021, our little bundle of joy was born.  We named her Emily.  Our family was complete, but now more than ever we needed a bigger house.  We couldn’t wait to move out to the land and raise our daughter out in the country. 

I began designing the shop where my office was going to be located, so I could free up the bedroom from which I run my small business. Once the shop was done I would now have space to hire an employee. 

On Feb 22nd, 2022, we got a gut punch in the form of the ACCESS Oklahoma.  Not only was our land targeted by the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, but they pin pointed the exact spot I proposed to my wife.  

If the turnpike goes through as currently projected, I will not be able to show our daughter the spot, where her mom said, “Yes”, as the road is going right over our bluff.   On top of that, the spot where our dream home was to built, will be only a couple hundred feet from the turnpike. Can’t build there now, as the path may move some, and who wants to build their dream house to look right at a turnpike.  

The spot where we have fruit trees and planned to make a picnic area will be gone.  The low lands where I wanted to build a pond, gone.  Raising our daughter on the land we fell in love with, gone.  

The plans the turnpike authority has robs not only my wife and I of our current memories, but steals the future dreams we had for our daughter and ourselves. 

There are hundreds of stories like these from the people of Cleveland County.  I ask that you please put yourself in our shoes for a moment. 

Think of something you have worked so hard for your entire life, something you put your heart and soul into to build and craft, something that means more than money to you. Maybe it’s a car your dad gave before he passed away, that the two of you worked countless hours in the garage rebuilding.  Maybe it’s a tree fort you built for your children.  Think of how rewarding it is.  How it’s part of who you are and how you wouldn’t want to trade it for anything. 

Now, picture someone taking that away from you without your consent, that thing that no amount of money can compensate you for.   That kind of theft leaves you with a wound that will never heal. 

I implore each and everyone possible to please help us.  Please share our stories so others know the true toll and horrors the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority reaps upon Oklahomans.

See more pictures and videos of the Naeher Family here and see other families or share your story at https://stopthetollok.com

***SHARE YOUR STORY! If you would like to be featured as our "Rooftop" of the Week, please email photos and a bit about your home/family to admin@pikeoffota.com.
Urgent Needs

Pike Off OTA, Inc. is seeking volunteers to help with coordinating fundraisers, graphic design, and social media (specifically TikTok). 

If you know of anyone with these qualifications, please have them email us at admin@pikeoffota.com!
 
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Noble, OK 73068

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