Recently in Tulsa suburbs Category

Jenks and Owasso voters turned down property tax increases (general obligation bond issues) by overwhelming margins on Tuesday, while Broken Arrow school district voters approved a reallocation of an existing bond issue that involved no tax increase at all.

According to KRMG News, the Owasso tax increase would have amounted to about $170 annually on a $100,000 home, while the Jenks increase would have been about $25 per $100,000.

Complete but unofficial results from the Tulsa County Election Board:

City of Jenks

Fire equipment, police headquarters
Yes 288 32.99%
No 585 67.01%
   
City of Owasso

Proposition 1: Youth sports facilities
Yes 676 14.02%
No 4146 85.98%

Proposition 2: Streets
Yes 1,088 22.53%
No 3,742 77.47%

Proposition 3: Parks and aquatic center
Yes 779 16.21%
No 4,026 83.79%

ISD-3 (Broken Arrow)

Yes 2,671 78.19%
No 745 21.81%

It appears that voters want their elected officials to focus on the basics and even then they want to see good stewardship of existing revenue streams rather than higher rates.

This is the make-do era. We are paying down debt, delaying major purchases, taking few risks, making the most of what we already have. In the current environment, transferring money from homeowners to heavy construction companies for the sake of some nice-to-haves doesn't make much sense.

Tulsa's establishment and elected officials will probably take the wrong lesson from the result and assume a marketing failure. Hire the right PR firm, the right political consultants, and any tax hike will pass. It worked in 2003. It almost worked in 2007.

But not now, not for a long time to come.

Oklahoma towns and cities with a statutory charter (which is to say, no charter at all; they are governed by the default provisions of Oklahoma Statutes Title 11) and some charter cities have elections today, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Some school board seats will have a runoff, if none of the candidates received 50% of the vote back on February 8.

Here in Tulsa County, Broken Arrow, Glenpool, Jenks, Sand Springs, and Skiatook each have city council or town trustee races on the ballot. It's encouraging to see that nearly every seat up for re-election has been contested.

Broken Arrow and Bixby electorates will each decide four municipal bond issues. Broken Arrow's bond issues cover streets, public safety, parks, and stormwater. Bixby votes on streets, public safety, and parks, and an amendment to a street project approved in a 2006 tax vote.

Tulsa Technology District (vo-tech) Zone 2 has a runoff between former Tulsa Police Chief Drew Diamond and Catoosa school superintended Rick Kibbe (both registered Democrats). The two candidates each received less than 100 votes in the snowbound February primary. Skiatook has a runoff between Linda Loftis (registered as a Republican) and Mike Mullins (registered as a Democrat) to fill an unexpired term for seat 3.

Oklahoma City has a high-profile council runoff, too, between a candidate backed by the shadowy Momentum committee and physician Ed Shadid. Shadid seems to be drawing support from a wide range of Oklahoma City bloggers; the list of endorsers includes Charles G. Hill of Dustbury, Oklahoma City historian Doug Loudenback, young urbanist Nick Roberts, and slightly older urbanist Blair Humphreys.