Bypass the Town, Bypass the Party Too
What would cause Democrats and Republicans to band together in Muskogee to back Republican candidates? The local Chamber of Commerce and money of course. We heard about the two party fundraiser for a local D.A. candidate Jack Thorp and wondered why local Democrat kingpin Boswell would team up with Republican Bill Inhofe, brother of Jim Inhofe, for a local fundraiser.
The reason is a long planned highway bypass for Muskogee on State Highway 69, which has had over 600 accidents in five years due to the heavy tractor trailer traffic mixed with ordinary vehicles. The idea began in the 1960's and is now in the actual planning stages with public comment meetings to be held later this year and with an eye toward completion in 2005. Both Thorp and Senator Kim David are being backed by the Democrat/Republicans through the local Chamber of Commerce with the thought of stopping the planned bypass.
Thorp is the D.A. of several counties including Adair, Cherokee,Wagoner, and Sequoyah counties. He faces some hard opposition, a lot of it coming out of my home town in Sequoyah County. The Democrat that is running against Thorp in this deep blue part of the state is all but being ignored by the Democrat business types.
Local businesses know that with the traffic re route a lot of the business brought in by the traffic will bypass local businesses and they also know that political cronies long ago were given the planned route and have bought up the areas where off ramps might be built, which is typical among the donor class in Oklahoma, getting access to information in advance in order to make a killing buying cheap farm land and turning it into much sought after highway off ramp frontage.
Lives will be saved with the route change but local businessmen have built 600 new hotel rooms and other commercial development along the existing Highway 69 route and they are loathe to trade lives saved for dollars in the bank.
After looking into this Thorp candidate a lot of questions and rumors started popping up so he will be the subject of more stories in the weeks to come.
