Property owners take issue with Oklahoma Turnpike assertions

Property owners fighting Oklahoma Turnpike Authority extension plans blasted the agency in filings this week with the state supreme court, which is nearing a decision on the validity of initial bonds for the $5 billion project.

The briefs took issue with OTA’s response last month to questions from the high court concerning the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s denial in January of the turnpike’s application to have the South Extension cross two sections of the federal agency’s property and the expiration in February of conditional  approval by the Oklahoma Council of Bond Oversight for $500 million of bonds. 

OTA contended it can alter routes of statutorily authorized toll road projects and that it planned to return to the oversight council for bond approval pending the court’s decision on the debt’s validity. 

Pike Off OTA, which has argued the Turnpike Enabling Act does not allow OTA to build the South Extension, the East-West Connector or the Tri-City Connector, said the agency lacks carte blanche to do “whatever it wants and however it wants.”

“The OTA is literally asking this court to validate bonds for a route that, even if it were statutorily authorized, would have to be materially changed from that route corridor,” the group’s filing stated, adding that bond validation would endanger the rights of other property owners who end up in the path of yet-to-be altered routes.

The filing also stated OTA “is headed down a road of violating due process and evading mandatory oversight, and these are good enough reasons for denying the OTA’s bond validation petition.” 

Attorneys for the city of Norman argued that unless the legislature adopts a statute expressly authorizing construction of a toll road from Purcell to Norman, “all of OTA’s plans, concepts, and desires cannot serve as a basis for the funding authorization OTA seeks from this court.”

The state agency sought the court’s approval last August for $500 million of revenue bonds for the ACCESS (Advancing and Connecting Communities and Economies Safely Statewide) Oklahoma program, which has been the target of litigation brought by Pike Off OTA and other property owners.

A team of underwriters for the bond sale has been in place since last summer, although Wells Fargo resigned as lead underwriter in May in the wake of its placement on the Oklahoma Treasurer’s list of companies banned from government contracts for “boycotting” the oil and gas industry. RBC Capital Markets was tapped as its replacement.

OTA halted construction work on projects in April over concerns about its access to the municipal bond market in the wake of ongoing litigation and an investigative audit of the agency ordered by the state attorney general.

In May, the high court ruled in the turnpike’s favor in two lawsuits challenging the ACCESS program.