Belle Isle View

Oklahoma City a “one-horse town”? By Russell Perry

Feb 04, 2002

From a ?“one-horse town?” to a modern metropolis? Maybe. But never, if my Grandfather was to be right. ?“This is a one-horse town, and it will always be a one-horse town?”, he used to say. Basically he meant that Oklahoma City lacked progress in many areas. I don?’t think he meant culture as much as infrastructure and development and the like. I know he?’d have included city government in that mix, as he distrusted ALL politicians. This distrust was born of his personal experiences with politicians involved in kickbacks and other corruption he saw, as an Engineer with the Corps of Engineers from Tinker, all the way back to the WPA. We would like to think that happens much less nowadays, and I hope that?’s the case. Grandfather was a much wiser man than myself. I have many times placed a trust in those politicians with whom I had an ideological agreement, only to have my hopes and dreams dashed and smashed. But certainly NOT all politicians. Maybe we have built a better society. Maybe not.
I can remember only five or six years ago there were only nine murders a year or less in OKC and now we have over FIFTY. The ?“solved?” murder rate was over NINETY percent and now the ?“unsolved?” murder rate is approaching FIFTY percent! The voters approved a large increase in the number of police officers many years ago but has that helped our crime rate? Citizen involvement in crime prevention has had the most dramatic effect on reducing crime in our neighborhoods. To quote a famous American character from the 1960?’s, we must, ?“nip it, in the bud?”!
With the increase of ?“big city?” problems, and they are many. this writer sometimes prefers the one-horse town.