Republican chairman on his meeting with Chamber leaders

Don Burdick, chairman of the Tulsa County Republican Party, emailed the following statement to me this morning about his meeting with the President and the Chairman of the Tulsa Metro Chamber, and asked me to post it. Here it is:

I would characterize my meeting with Jay Clemens and Bob Poe as a healthy discussion between business and political leaders. In very strong terms, I expressed my opposition to a recall effort for any City Councilor, or Mayor, simply based on policy disagreements. Mr. Clemens and Mr. Poe stated their primary concern was the business climate in Tulsa, and they believed some of Councilor Medlock's positions were detrimental to promoting regional economic growth. My recommendation was for a meeting between these individuals, hoping for a solution to the existing problems. We all agreed that attempting to resolve these differences through articles in the newspaper, on the radio, or on websites was not working... and that face-to-face discussion was the only way. The chance of success may be low, but for the good of Tulsa, it was worth trying. For the record, no chamber official offered to get Councilor Medlock any job for any reason. I left the meeting hopeful that a solution other than a recall effort could be accomplished, and was very concerned that if the recall effort continued, it's impact would be bad for Tulsa. I still have that hope.

I commend Don for trying to make peace and for his strong stand against recall, and he's right that a recall would hurt Tulsa. I'll save further comments for a later entry.