Florence Park residents upset about a street project

A Tulsa neighborhood is crying foul over a street project. They say the city is tearing up and replacing perfectly good streets and sidewalks and they can't imagine why, especially during a budget

Monday, September 8th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A Tulsa neighborhood is crying foul over a street project. They say the city is tearing up and replacing perfectly good streets and sidewalks and they can't imagine why, especially during a budget crisis.

News on 6 anchor Lori Fullbright has more.

Jack Welsh says he's watched the goings-on in his Florence Park neighborhood for a few months and can't for the life of him figure out what's going on with the street project. "My biggest complaint is they're tearing up perfectly good sidewalks and driveways and replacing them. It's like the projects from the Roosevelt days, dig a hole, fill it up."

We heard the same thing from several neighbors. They say they've called Tulsa City Hall, but received no response. They say it seems like the city is flushing taxpayer money down the drain. Peggy Gravitt, "They say the city is so poor that we can't operate our schools or teach, but, we can waste all this money." Liz White: "They've wasted a tremendous amount of money.â€

They say the contract work crews simply say they're doing what they were told. One neighbor was told this is work financed by a past penny sales tax. Workers cut at least three neighbors' gas or water lines cut; two of them were told they had to pay the bill themselves, nearly two grand.

Dan Lins heard the work outside his house and could only shake his head in confusion. "I've got children in college and in high school. Their activites are being cut, the class sizes are bigger and yet we can waste millions of dollars tearing up a good street. I just wonder where the mentality is on it.â€ These neighbors say they would like some explanation, because to their way of thinking, Tulsa has other streets in much more need of repair.

Lori Fullbright's calls to city hall also went unanswered, but one neighbor said she heard the reason for all the work is to replace water and sewer lines.

Weâ€™ll keep looking into it and tell you what we find.