Tulsa District 8: For George Gibbs

District 8, Tulsa's southernmost City Council district, is an open seat this year, as long-time incumbent Bill Christiansen opted not to run for re-election. I'm pleased to endorse George Gibbs for the District 8 seat.

George Gibbs has his south Tulsa neighbors' interests at heart. A few years ago, when a an illegal toll bridge scheme threatened to dump heavy traffic on the two-lane country roads that serve as arterials in south Tulsa, George Gibbs volunteered his time and his skills as an attorney and blocked the scheme. His focus as a candidate is on the basic services that citizens reasonably expect from their city government, like streets that aren't crumbling and which don't back up for a half-mile just because someone wants to turn left. Gibbs will make the needs and concerns of south Tulsans a priority, and he won't have to recuse himself because of conflicts of interest.

Here's a brief video message from George Gibbs:

Gibbs's opponent, Phil Lakin, draws most of his financial support from outside District 8. He lost in 2009 because south Tulsa voters wanted their councilor to represent their interests, not the interests of the Midtown Money Belt types. Given Lakin's roles as CEO of the Tulsa Community Foundation and trustee of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, major players in local civic issues, it's reasonable to wonder whom Lakin will be representing if he is elected to the City Council. As I wrote in July, District 8 voters may well feel that the massive resources of TCF and GKFF give Lakin enough of a seat at the city's policy-making table without a seat on the City Council. (Lakin's boss, a major fundraising bundler for Barack Obama, certainly seems to have had a seat at the White House table in the run-up to now-bankrupt Solyndra's $535 million Federal loan guarantee.)