A grassroots organization in opposition of the ACCESS Oklahoma Kickapoo Turnpike extension held a press conference to discuss the group’s purpose and future actions against the turnpike before the Norman City Council meeting Tuesday evening.
Pike Off OTA was founded by former Ward 5 Councilmember Michael Nash, the organization’s president, who formally created the group following a large amount of opposition from Norman residents in the Facebook group “NO MORE TURNPIKES, Oklahoma!”
Nash began the conference by saying the turnpike will affect more than 1,000 people through Norman, Noble, Slaughterville, Purcell and other areas, calling the proposal “unprecedented” in the history of road projects.
He added that the proposed toll road would take about 100 years to pay off by OTA’s estimates.
“The OTA will lead us to believe they have absolute authority and that people who live here are just mere paths for a circumventing legislature,” Nash said. “They abandoned fiscal responsibility.”
Nash said that Pike Off OTA would hold leaders accountable for their actions “from the bottom to the top,” beginning Wednesday with a rally at the State Capitol starting at noon. Nash encouraged people to get to the rally early to give legislators “a piece of our mind” and make sure they know that people will lose their homes and nature will be destroyed in building the turnpike.
Dave Moore, who fought against a proposed turnpike in 1999 and won against OTA, was in attendance at the conference. Moore previously took part in a Facebook Live chat on March 17 with Ward 5 Councilmember Rarchar Tortorello, where he discussed the currently proposed turnpike.
Nash went on to say that the turnpike will displace nearly 5 percent of Noble’s population. Members of the audience added that those affected do not stop at homes destroyed but include people who use Lake Thunderbird as their watershed, including Norman, Del City and Midwest City.
To utilize each available avenue, Nash said that the group was currently writing to legislators and Gov. Kevin Stitt and digging through past meeting minutes and other documents about OTA.
Nash added that on top of stopping the turnpike plan, the organization aims to strip OTA of the ability to present something like this again and their ability to use eminent domain — the right of the government to take property for public use with proper compensation.
“If (OTA) can do this here, nobody is safe, and they already have approval for projects that affect 600,000 Oklahomans,” Nash said. “That means that at any time, all (Oklahomans) have to do is open the newspaper one day and see that the OTA plans to put a turnpike over their home, which will throw their entire lives in chaos and strip everything that they worked hard for away.”
One resident spoke up to thank Nash for his work, a move that was met with applause from other audience members.
Another resident asked why Norman leaders and officials weren’t notified of the proposed turnpike, as Norman is the third-largest city in the state. Nash replied that it would’ve made more sense for Norman to be bypassed altogether, but OTA was never held accountable.
Nash said that Pike Off OTA aims to expand statewide to succeed, adding that volunteers from any city in the state are wanted to spread its cause further.
Nash then introduced Dr. Amy Cerato, a licensed civil engineer and member of Pike Off OTA’s Board of Directors, who voiced concerns about possible disturbances to rose rocks. The official state rock of Oklahoma, rose rocks are geologically rare and nearly unique to the state, with only a few minor occurrences in Kansas, Morocco and Australia.
Cerato said that she is working with the Oklahoma Geologic Survey to make east Norman a geo-heritage site, which would prevent infrastructure from being built in that area. She added that she is working with the federal government using the National Environmental Policy Act to bring attention to the effects on Lake Thunderbird in hopes of stopping the turnpike.
“We need our legislators to get involved,” said Cerato. “You can make phone calls to every legislator, to the governor. You can be a very firm citizen that’s concerned about this problem.”
The conference ended before the Norman City Council meeting, with many attendants staying to support the council in passing a resolution that expressed opposition to the proposed turnpike.
