New Year's resolutions -- from Orange Bowl to traffic lights

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Dec 26, 2000 by D. Mark Singletary

Christmas is over, except for the post-holiday sales that jam the malls and shops this week. So it's time to move on to the next holiday and its significance.

New Year's resolutions and wishes for everyone will be in vogue this week. I'd like to offer a few that I think might make some people happy.

Here goes.

The first is rather obvious, but I hope the boys from OU play as well against Florida State as they did against Texas and Nebraska. If they do, they bring home the national championship and lots of respect.

Their national championship will be great for the rest of us, too. I am a firm believer that the good feelings earned by major sports championships transcend the team or school and drift into most everything we do, including economic development and enthusiasm for business in general.

It's also always fun to see Bobby Bowden lose a big game.

The next wish is compound. It involves Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin and Gov. Frank Keating.

Although you both may be very disappointed that Keating did not get the call from President-elect Bush to become attorney general, it may work out for the best.

Keating has some work left on an agenda that will create a more business-friendly environment for the state and now has a Legislature that seems like it might look more favorably upon his proposals.

Besides, he can continue to get more television time as Oklahoma's outspoken governor than as the attorney general. As AG every word must be measured and vetted for political correctness and lack of obfuscation.

We don't care if he obfuscates and he can do so at his convenience.

As for the lieutenant governor, she definitely has some unfinished business with the state Senate. She now can fully focus on her upcoming confrontation with the Senate majority and her role in next year's agenda.

Handling the problems in the Senate well will go a long way toward her run for governor, should she choose that option in 2002.

My next wish is for newly appointed senior vice president, Lt. Gen. Richard Burpee (Ret.), at the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce.

Burpee, who is now in charge of economic development efforts at the local chamber, started off with a bang. As the interim economic developer, he worked hard and got the chance to announce two major relocations to the city.

By the time the announcements were made, Burpee had been confirmed as permanent vice president for economic development, a fitting move.

I hope his dance card for 2001 gets filled up early. His press conferences are usually good news. He's had a hand in avoiding Base Realignment and Closing (BRAC) attention at Tinker Air Force Base and worked hard to move the logistics work from Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio here after they got the axe.

He's a capable leader, who can pick up the phone and ask for favors that are generally enthusiastically agreed to. I know I've never said no to him and don't plan on it any time soon.

The next wish is rather selfish and some might say silly.

Trust me, this isn't nearly as silly as I can be. Ask my friends or family. I'm sure they would agree.

My selfish wish has to do with the bond package that was passed in the city on Dec. 12.

We voted to allocate nearly $8 million to traffic control, and I hope that means design and implementation of a system to develop some coordination and synchronization of the traffic lights in Oklahoma City.

I wouldn't want the job of writing the software that does it or be in charge of the crews that must maintain it, but I would like to be the czar that oversees the project.

I don't care about potholes or speed traps. I'm even willing to support the notion of the continued super-enforcement at our downtown parking meters.

But I go crazy at these darned stoplights.

Nothing pushes my buttons like having to stop at a red light at midnight on a main road in town, for a random cycle, with no other cars in sight. This happens regularly on our streets.

It's also maddening to have to stop at every block while trying to get through downtown.

I make no assertions that I have any expertise at all to design, develop or install such a system. But I do know how to use the phone and ask questions.

Cities much larger -- and smaller -- than ours have addressed traffic flow problems, and I would assume there are horrible failures and varying successes to look at. We should look at both the failures and the successes.

The failures should point us away from vendors or systems that won't do what we need done. The successes should at least give us a starting point for solutions.

As traffic light czar, it would be cool to leave our printing facility on Western and NW Sixth and drive up to my barber's shop at 63rd and Western without stopping at least at every other light.

It's a small dream, but it's mine.

I'm also pretty sure all those shoppers trying to get in and out of Penn Square Mall last week might agree with me, too.

Happy New Year.

D. Mark Singletary is the editor and publisher of The Journal Record. You may reach him by fax at 278-2890 or by e-mail at msingletary