Dank: Special Session Should Be Considered For Cultural Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 19, 2014

Rep. Dank Urges Last Minute Action on Indian Center
Says Special Session June Should Be Considered

OKLAHOMA CITY – The House author of the bill to fund completion of the American Indian Cultural Center today challenged Gov. Mary Fallin and House and Senate leaders to find funding by the end of the week or recall the Legislature in a special June session to finish that job.

“There are matching dollars just waiting for us to act, and if we don’t they are going to take their money and go home,” state Rep. David Dank (R-Oklahoma City) said. “If we are truly going to end the session this Friday, then we are in an hour-by-hour countdown to finish this job. Failing that, we had better have a special session plan in place, or those donors are likely to give up and tell us to go pound sand. I would not blame them.”

Dank said an original plan to take $40 million from the Unclaimed Property Fund and use those dollars in a one-time manner to finish the center made sense, but the budget proposed this week now diverts those dollars to general spending needs which recur each year – a questionable way to allocate funds from a limited source.

“What we need to do is lock ourselves in a room this week with representatives of the Governor’s Office and the House and Senate and find a way to meet the obligation this Legislature set for itself. Or at least commit to returning in June for a week to finish the job,” Dank said.

Dank said the state is already obligated to 13 years of bond payments at $6 million per year to pay off debt associated with the center. In addition, the state is paying $68,000 a month to keep the partially completed facility mothballed. If the center was completed, revenues from its operations could assume those expenses.

“Donors are ready to match state funding dollar for dollar to finish this project,” he said. “Just about everyone agrees that this museum will be a world-class facility and a major tourism destination, a big economic boost for Oklahoma. Instead it sits there beside the river like a beached whale, and frankly everyone at 23rd and Lincoln should be embarrassed.”

Dank said legislators should be open to any reasonable proposal to allocate the needed funds.

“This facility is about who we are as a people,” Dank said. “The very name of our state is a Choctaw word. What does it say about us to endlessly delay and neglect completion of that could become the number one tourism and historical attraction in Oklahoma?”

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