Tulsa County has been awarded a combined $2,140,671 in funding through Oklahoma’s new Preserving and Advancing County Transportation (PACT) Fund, created by House Bill 2758 during the 2025 Legislative Session. The Association of County Commissioners of Oklahoma (ACCO) announced the awards last week as part of the first statewide distribution under the new program.
It worked for Tulsa County twenty years ago.
The new normal in government is transparent and accountable which is increasingly popular, but maybe it always has been. For the record, Tulsa County set this standard in the early 2000s. President Bill Clinton, even earlier, promoted government efficiency in a National Partnership for Reinventing Government but now Democrats claim the effort unconstitutional – screaming like toddlers deprived of their blankie.
Steve Lackmeyer writing for the Oklahoman reports that in just a few short years, a series of improvements along the Oklahoma River in Oklahoma City have transformed the one time flood control channel into one of Oklahoma City’s top attractions. Tulsa’s natural Arkansas River continues to be abused and ignored. This story is much more about Oklahoma City’s success.
Lackmeyer writes:
It’s more a happy accident of design rather than intentional civic promotion that has thousands of cross-country travelers wondering about the “amusement park” they see rising up along the Oklahoma River.
The sight of dozens of kids crawling all over the 80-foot-high SandRidge Sky Trail alone is proving to be a draw for some of the 111,500 motorists who travel the new highway daily. Mike Knopp, director of the Oklahoma Boathouse Foundation, can only imagine what the response might be once the master plan for the area is fully realized over the next few years.
“People see the Sky Trail, and they come here thinking it is an amusement park,” Knopp said. “And in some ways, you can say it is. We like to call it an adventure park.”
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