By John Dobberstein, Editor
A group of prominent Republican boosters are calling a meeting next week to discuss the proposed mosque and retail center in Broken Arrow and how they will position their arguments against the development.
David Oldham, founder of the political group Constitutional Grounds and a former officer at the Tulsa Area Republican Assembly and Tulsa County Republican Party, announced the meeting on the group’s Facebook page.
“In order to defeat this, we need to organize,” Oldham said in a video message on the group’s page.
State Sen. Christi Gillespie, a former Broken Arrow City Council member and vice mayor, is expected to speak at the meeting to discuss the city’s zoning processes, “and discuss the most appropriate arguments to oppose the mosque before the council,” Oldham said in the announcement. “We will discuss the ‘elephants in the room,’ and what should be argued and what should be avoided in this council session.”
The meeting is slated for 6 p.m. Jan. 6 at The Property Event Center at the Creek Turnpike and Olive Avenue.
Oldham also promised the group would be “organizing speakers for the council meeting so that our complete message is delivered,” including objections to the land use and others “adding their sentiments and their own points.”
The Broken Arrow City Council will hold its public hearing over the project at 6 p.m. on Jan. 12 at Northeastern State University’s Broken Arrow campus.
According to its Facebook page, Constitutional Grounds was established “for the purpose of educating, empowering, and activating We the People to understand and apply the principles of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. Our ultimate goal is to restore Constitutional governance in America.”
Earlier this month, the Broken Arrow Planning Commission presided over a public hearing on the project that lasted more than 4 hours, with a majority of the dozens of people speaking being opposed to the project on the east side of Olive, just south of the turnpike.
The project includes a mosque with a worship center, classrooms and meeting space and a gym, all of which would be built in phases as money becomes available, as is typical for such centers in Muslim culture. The retail project would be a small strip-center facing the turnpike, but the timetable for that being built is not clear.
The Planning Commission voted 4-1 to approve the Islamic Society of Tulsa’s request to rezone the 15 acres from agricultural to commercial, and the Commission approved a general use permit for a place of assembly on a 3-2 vote.
The ISOT told the Planning Commission at the Dec. 18 hearing that the organization had outgrown its mosque in Tulsa, which only has about 325 parking spaces, and a large portion of the membership lives in Broken Arrow but are forced to drive several miles to worship.
Gillespie, the last speaker of the night at the Planning Commission meeting, objected to the project due to the land uses and also because it apparently blocks a frontage road along the turnpike that is part of the city’s comprehensive plan.
There are other objections to the proposed project at that site, which has been owned by the North American Islamic Trust since 2014 — including limited ingress and egress from Olive, the septic sewer system’s proximity to waterways and potentially inadequate space for 700 planned parking spaces.
Many others at the meeting objected to the project due to cultural or political reasons, although the Planning Commission said it could not base its decision on those factors.
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