Vote Tuesday on street, sidewalk sales tax proposition

Registered Ponca City voters are eligible to vote in Tuesday’s special election on the street sales tax proposition.

A yes vote for the proposition would extend the one-half percent street sales and use tax revenues indefinitely. The tax has been in effect since 1987, and has overwhelmingly been renewed every five years since then.

The money from this half-cent sales tax is dedicated to engineering, improvement, repair, construction, reconstruction and lighting of municipal streets, roads, walkways and bridges.

It also allows for the purchase of rights of way for such projects.

Voting for the extension will not raise current taxes. It simply extends this long-time funding tool indefinitely, to provide needed money for street and sidewalk projects.

In the past five years, these major projects have been paid for from this tax money:

• Lake Ponca Bridge
• Waverly Street, from Sykes to Prospect
• Prospect Avenue, from Ash to Union
• The Highland and Seventh Street intersection
• Ash Street from Liberty to Overbrook
• Turkey Creek Bridge on L.A. Cann Drive
• Oak Street, from Grand Avenue to Otoe
• Union Street, from Prospect to Hubbard Road
• Ash Street, from Emporia to Liberty
• Grand Avenue, from Third to Sixth Street (sidewalks and lighting)
• Prospect Avenue, from Fifth Street to Fourteenth Street
• Grand Avenue, From Pine to Seventh Street (new traffic signals and street lighting)
• Fourth Street and South Avenue (new traffic signals and concrete work on corners.)
• War Memorial Park (new trail system)

Future projects are in the planning stages now. They include:

• Greater emphasis on street maintenance (pavement/curbing/sidewalks) project
• Implementation of the city’s Master Trail System
• ADA accessibility along major streets
• Implementation of a railroad Quiet Zone corridor through Ponca City.