A welcome ruling on MAPS 4

It appears Oklahoma City voters will get to decide in December whether to approve another MAPS proposal, after the Oklahoma Supreme Court wasted no time rejecting a legal challenge by former councilman and chief scold Ed Shadid.

The court ruled unanimously Monday that the MAPS 4 ordinance doesn't violate the state constitution's single-subject rule, nor does it violate state statute or the city's charter.

The city council voted in August to send MAPS 4 to voters.

The plan would extend the 1-cent MAPS sales tax for eight years and raise an estimated $978 million, to be used to fund 16 municipal projects. If approved, MAPS 4 would continue the transformation of the city that's resulted from the previous MAPS initiatives.

Shadid, who left office in April after eight years representing Ward 2, called the proposed ballot language a “fraud” and argued that the city needed to allow a vote on each project separately. His attorney has referred to MAPS 4 as a “billion-dollar slush fund.”

What the council approved was an ordinance to levy a general sales tax akin to the quarter-cent sales tax increase voters approved in 2017 to hire more police and firefighters.

The council adopted a nonbinding “resolution of intent” that listed the 16 projects and promised that proceeds from the sales tax would be spent on MAPS 4. Attorneys for the city argued that approach met the single-subject guidelines, and said justices should confine their review to the ordinance.

Shadid's attorney said the court should look broadly at MAPS 4, including the resolution of intent, comments by the mayor and a city “marketing campaign.”

In writing for the court, Justice Douglas Combs said the resolution of intent “is an altogether separate document from the ordinance and is not something put to a vote of the people.”

Combs noted that the ordinance calls for formation of an advisory board to review projects and make recommendations as assigned to it by the city council, and that the advisory board will only be created and projects will only be assigned if the ordinance passes.

“We need not analyze the germaneness of the projects listed in the resolution of intent because the ordinance itself, the actual proposed law which will be put to a vote, does not list any of these projects,” Combs wrote.

He added, “The petitioner's argument that the ordinance violates the single subject rule relies upon the contents of the resolution of intent and not upon the contents of the ordinance. The subject matter contained in the ordinance is clearly germane to the 1% excise tax.”

Shadid has until Friday to seek a rehearing before the state's high court. He should let it go. If Oklahoma City voters don't like MAPS 4, they can join him in saying so in December.