Forget The Mall, Lawton Should Fix Our Flood Prone Roads

Over the years, I don't think I've ever let a conversation pass with an elected official without mentioning the need for road repair here in Lawton. Didn't matter who I was talking to, city councilor or the mayor, the answer was always the same... "We don't have the money to fix roads." One sitting city councilor even had the audacity to say "It's because we so many renters. If more people owned homes, we'd have more money." I skipped right over the fact that cities in Oklahoma don't get property taxes and hit him with the obvious... I wish you could have seen the look on his face when I brought up that someone actually owns every rent home in town. It was the same look my father had on his face when I walked in from school wearing my first pair of JNCO's... Pure confusion.

To be fair, every politician in city hall talked up the CIP Tax and how it would lead to new roads and streets throughout the city... then a day or two after it passed, they tried to spend it on buying the old creamery building for some cronie-capitalistic reason. After some hefty push back, that idea has (hopefully) passed. Then they had the brilliant idea to buy the mall and make it a City of Lawton Asset Property for FISTA. (government contract jobs and such) As if we didn't already have a converted Gibsons building already set up for just that. It's not a popular opinion and the whole thing stinks of back-door deals and big ticket kick-backs...

Here's a great idea for our elected officials, since they don't have money for roads, but have $14+million for a big nearly-empty temple of failing commerce, why don't they put that money towards fixing our roads? Every time it rains, our streets flood. Cache Road gets cut down to one lane each way, because nobody wants to ford a river just to get to work. Sheridan road floods really bad. Lee Boulevard floods really bad. 11th Street floods really bad, as does Ft. Sill Blvd. D Avenue in front of the studios becomes a raging torrent when heavy rains occur. Even the roads in my residential neighborhood flood really bad.

They've had decades to fix the problem and every politician campaigns on "I'll fix roads," why are we still subjected to this mismanagement of elected civic duties in this new decade? Maybe every sitting politician is the problem. Maybe it's time for a clean slate, replace them all type of thing. Even better, political party and affiliation doesn't matter because we'll just keep replacing each and every one of them until the citizens of this city actually see real change. When we find that rare "keeper" politician, we'll allow them to serve us as long as they serve us before themselves. It's just about the only option we have since the recall petitions have fallen on deaf ears.

Replace them all. Every last one... and before you say "Well so-and-so is trying." realize that while their heart might be in the right place, they're obviously not the right person for the job. If they don't carry the political influence to affect positive change now, they never will.