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Tulsa Route 66 Commission Wants Say in Vision 2025 Projects

Route 66 News

The board tasked with boosting Tulsa’s share of the Mother Road hopes for some influence over Vision 2025–funded projects.

The Tulsa Route 66 Commission would like to help guide certain projects on the master plan list that are yet to be completed, like streetscaping and sign projects. Those projects' total funding is about $1.8 million.

"A lot of projects are sometimes done through the city and through their planning — and they do a great job — but this is city money that belongs to the community," said City Councilor Jeannie Cue, a commission member. "I want their voices to be heard."

Commission members also want to make recommendations to allocate a potential funding surplus. There are five city councilors on the commission, but Cue said they aren’t there to direct money to pet projects.

"That's always been important to me, to represent the people of my district and the City of Tulsa and their concerns," Cue said. "I think the city council being on this commission, we get more contact with the people."

Tulsa Route 66 Commission Chair Ken Busby said if the commission is given any say, decisions related to Vision 2025 projects would be made transparently and balanced by input from all members and a new advisory board.

"We don't want to be just, 'This is my part, and I want something here. I want west Tulsa. I want east Tulsa.' That's what we don't want. It's all of it," Busby said. "It's all of Route 66 or it's none of Route 66, and we're about all of Route 66."

In all, there’s about $4.7 million left to be spent on projects in the list. Most of it, however, is committed to the Route 66 Experience, a museum announced last spring.

The $15 million project list has a reserve fund of about $200,000, which will likely be preserved because savings from some projects cover overruns on others.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.