Del City Ward 4 Council Member Scott Tatom wants Oklahoma County commissioners to sell the land and improvements planned for a new jail site. The ask comes after voters refused the sales tax that was supposed to pay for the rest of the project.
Tatom's call, reported Wednesday by The Oklahoman, is aimed at the Board of County Commissioners. On Nov. 3, a 0.4% sales tax — two-fifths of a cent, meant to fund the remainder of the jail project near Del City — failed with 37.6% support, NonDoc reported. KOCO described the same proposal as the money for whatever was left to build.
A Smaller Ask, a Much Bigger Bill
The rate was never the startling number. Voters had already approved $260 million for a new Oklahoma County jail, OKC FOX reported, and later cost figures have been put as high as $800 million. The sales tax was a request to cover the gap, not a fresh start.
District 2 Commissioner Brian Maughan is the one who put the 0.4% question on the ballot. District 1 Commissioner Jason Lowe had tried a 0.625% version in January. It did not even get a second, NonDoc reported. A property-tax extension for the jail passed with 59% support in 2022. This year the cheaper sales-tax version made the ballot and still lost.
Five Million for the Site, Not the Building
The land in Tatom's pitch has a paper trail. In April 2024, commissioners voted 2-to-1 to adopt Commissioner Myles Davidson's motion offering Garrett & Co. Resources and Willowbrook Investments LLC $5 million for 71 acres at 1901 E. Grand, The Oklahoman reported. An approved offer is not the same thing as a finished jail, and $5 million does not explain an $800 million figure.
Tatom is asking the county to sell the land and the improvements planned for that site. That is a proposal to commissioners, not a sale, and not a finding that the county has decided what the property is worth or whether it can be unloaded.
Fix the Old Jail, or Walk Away
Days after the election, and before Tatom's pitch surfaced, The Oklahoman described plans for a new jail as likely foiled and the county as likely headed toward keeping and rehabilitating the 35-year-old jail downtown. That was the paper's reading of the Nov. 3 result, not a commission vote.
NonDoc reported a separate plan from Jennifer Mayo: “Bring in experienced jail architects to determine what it would take to make the current facility safe.” Architects can price a repair. They cannot, by themselves, replace the tax voters just declined to pass.
The county is left with a defeated sales tax, a $5 million offer in the file, cost estimates that have run far past the $260 million voters approved, and a 35-year-old downtown jail still waiting on a plan that can survive both a commission meeting and another trip to the ballot.
