District 2 recall: Some who signed

Some interesting names pop up on the District 2 recall petition:

• Norma Eagleton, Democrat, former member of the Tulsa Airport Authority. She was on the airport authority when the apparently illegal deal to subsidize Great Plains Airlines was put together. Chris Medlock is a member of the Council committee investigating the airport; the committee's report is due out Thursday.
• Darla Dean Hall, Democrat, former Councilor for District 2, and Medlock's opponent in both of his runs for office. She lost the 2004 election to Medlock by a vote of 1464 to 1021 -- Medlock got 59% of the vote, a near landslide. Darla Hall won only five precincts and one fragment of a precinct. Medlock won 13 precincts -- every precinct east of the river, and two large precincts west of the river. A story in the Tulsa County News (a westside paper) three weeks ago names Darla and her neighbor Billie Moseley as circulators of the petition. Darla's involvement in this scheme is disappointing. Once she was an advocate for neighborhoods -- a dependable vote for reason on controversial zoning issues. She opposed the Tulsa Project in 1997 and It's Tulsa Time in 2000 -- for the latter election, she and I appeared together on Channel 8 to speak against the proposed sales tax hike. The Tulsa Whirled regularly denounced her and endorsed her election opponents. Now she is doing the dirty work of the same bunch that tried to drive her from the Council. Is it just a lust to get back on the Council? Remember that she took campaign funds from F&M Bank Board members and a member of the planning commission. It looks like she's gone over to the dark side, sadly.
• John Ogren. Ogren is a retired City employee and was Medlock's opponent in the Republican primary for City Council District 2 this year. He lost the primary by 1134 votes to 328. Another case of sour grapes, apparently.

Keep in mind that we don't know what the petition circulators told people in an effort to get these people to sign. We have heard reports that people were told that Medlock wanted people outside the city to pay lower water rates than Tulsans, when in fact he has asked whether outside customers are paying enough.

I have also heard that westside pride may be involved, that some of the petition circulators were arguing that the westside deserved its own City Councilor, despite the fact that more than half the population of Council District 2 now lives east of the river. In fact, in this year's election, 1,242 votes were cast west of the river, 1,243 were cast east of the river. Darla Hall got only 23% of the vote east of the river. 41% of the voters west of the river, in Darla's home turf, were content to have Chris Medlock, from east of the river, represent them at City Hall.

As soon as I can get my hands on it, I'll do a similar analysis of the District 6 petition.

If the petitioners take the full 60 days to collect signatures on Medlock and Mautino, the recall election would not occur until May. If the recall vote succeeds, it would be too late to hold a special election to fill the seat, and a majority of the remaining councilors would appoint replacements. With Mautino and Medlock gone, the "Bought and Paid Four" would have the majority and they would likely appoint Darla Hall and Art Justis, who are both helping to spearhead the recall effort, to fill the vacancies -- the very candidates who were defeated by Medlock and Mautino back in March. It would also mean that two elected Republicans would be replaced by two defeated Democrats.

If you spot interesting (or bogus) names on the list, drop me a line at blog at batesline dot com. If we find 46 bogus names on the list, the petition fails for a lack of sufficient signatures. There are at least three names with addresses that are outside the district boundaries.