Opposition to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority’s $5 billion, bond-financed improvement and expansion project is heating up, with a lawsuit seeking to block it filed ahead of a meeting to consider initial financing.
The state’s Council of Bond Oversight is scheduled on Wednesday to take up the OTA’s request for approval of a $200 million revolving line of credit through Wells Fargo to jumpstart funding for ACCESS (Advancing and Connecting Communities and Economies Safely Statewide) Oklahoma.
Governor Kevin Stitt officially unveiled the project in February, calling it “a bold investment in our future that provides needed corridor connections and expansions while making travel easier and leading to more economic development across the state.”
Homeowners and others impacted by the project filed a lawsuit on Monday in Cleveland County District Court asking for an injunction prohibiting the OTA from moving forward.
The lawsuit’s claims mirror objections that attorneys filed with the bond oversight council, contending the OTA lacks legal authority for the project.
Robert Norman, one of the attorneys, cited a 1987 state law authorizing the OTA to fund four turnpikes, including two included in the ACCESS Oklahoma plan, with a single revenue bond issue and under one bond indenture. He said the OTA issued bonds in 1989 for a significant portion of the four turnpikes and now wants “unlawful” new bond issues to fund additional turnpike segments. This argument was not raised when the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2016 approved other OTA bonds and therefore that ruling does not have binding precedent, Norman said.
Those bonds were the target of a lawsuit
Another objection filed by attorney Elaine Dowling stated the plan’s Southern Extension Turnpike is outside of OTA’s statutory authority.
“Until OTA can produce a final order from a court of competent jurisdiction that the Access Oklahoma Turnpikes it intends to use these funds to build, plan and develop are authorized by statute; this council should deny any requests to incur debt — either this line of credit, or any future bond issue,” the objections stated.
The OTA said it has received a copy of the petition and is evaluating it.
Wendy Smith, the OTA’s finance and revenue director told The Bond Buyer in March that the revolving line of credit would be retired with
State Senator Mary Boren, a Democrat from Norman, said she hopes the council “realizes the serious legal defects in the OTA’s request for funding.”
“It’s important that we demand that the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority obey statutory authority when asking to spend $5 billion over the next 15 years on projects that would displace thousands of Oklahomans and hundreds of homes and businesses,” she said in a statement.
Some state lawmakers are also seeking to slow the project and allow the legislature to alter it with a bill requiring a detailed study of the proposed construction of the South Extension Turnpike, Outer Loop-East-West Connector Turnpike or any part of the turnpike passing through any portion of the city of Norman. The bill, which passed the House last week, requires the turnpike authority to submit a report of its findings to the governor and legislative leaders at least one year prior to issuing bonds.
"My constituents affected by this proposed turnpike have hundreds of questions that remain unanswered regarding the turnpike's effect on their homes, neighborhoods, livelihoods, natural resources and way of life," Republican State Rep. Danny Sterling said in a statement. "This bill, if signed into law, would hopefully answer many of these lingering questions and ultimately grant the Legislature power to modify the location of the proposed turnpike as the legislature sees appropriate.”
A petition on Change.org to stop the project, claiming “it will decimate our homes, our land, our clean air and water, our way of living, and our wildlife,” has nearly 3,000 signatures.
