Recently in Tulsa::CityHall Category
According to the World's story about water usage, the average annual use for single-family homes is about 83,000 gallons.
The Tulsa World has provided a way to search the water use database, and I've been having a little fun with it. Our usage, for the record, about 10% higher than the average and higher than I'd like, but not bad with five people in the house, a large yard to water (occasionally) and a small fishpond to top off in summer.
Here's how our city elected officials measure up for annual water use in gallons, based on the address on their filing form:
| Dewey Bartlett Jr. | Mayor | 138,000 |
| Preston Doerflinger |
Auditor | 327,000 |
| Jack Henderson |
Council District 1 |
54,000 |
| Rick Westcott |
Council District 2 |
124,000 |
| Roscoe Turner |
Council District 3 |
90,000 |
| Maria Barnes |
Council District 4 |
97,000 |
| Chris Trail |
Council District 5 |
57,000 |
| Jim Mautino |
Council District 6 |
148,000 |
| John Eagleton |
Council District 7 |
116,000 |
| Bill Christiansen | Council District 8 | 87,000 |
| G. T. Bynum |
Council District 9 |
178,000 |
Our current mayor looks pretty conservative compared to previous incumbents, especially his immediate predecessor.
| J. M. Hewgley Jr. |
298,000 |
| Bob LaFortune |
504,000 |
| Jim Inhofe | 188,000 |
| Rodger Randle |
212,000 |
| Bill LaFortune |
281,000 |
| Kathy Taylor |
1,635,000 |
| Dewey Bartlett Jr |
138,000 |
Former Mayors Richard C. Crawford and M. Susan Savage no longer live in Tulsa. I couldn't find former Mayor Terry Young in the database.
Bartlett's annual usage pales compared to his main mayoral rival (Tom Adelson, 412,000 gals/yr) but is about four times as much as independents Mark Perkins (32,000) and Lawrence Kirkpatrick (33,000).
What about big institutional users? A search for Southern Hills turned up four accounts that seemed connected to the country club: 26,813,000 gallons per year. But the Southern Hills Marriott Hotel uses 30,067,000. Philbrook and its beautiful gardens use 11,089,000.
St. Francis Hospital? 219,766,000 gallons. That's a lot of handwashing.
Walmarts are big users. Interestingly, the Woodland Hills Walmart (6.9 million) uses almost twice as much water as the Admiral and Memorial Walmart (3.5 million). Irritated Tulsan would not be surprised.
The thirstiest Quik Trip in Tulsa is the truck stop at Admiral and 165th East Ave -- 2,552,000. The least thirsty -- about a tenth of the water -- is at Gilcrease Museum Road and the Sand Springs Expressway.
Lortondale Pool, a privately-owned pool (but the public can join as members), used 376,000 gallons last year. That's a lot, but not bad when divided out among the number of families that belong. It's certainly more reasonable than the consumption involved if each of those families had a private pool, however small.
Big Splash? 13,983,000.
Hmmm: On average, the six board members of Sustainable Tulsa use 173,167 gals/yr, a bit more than twice the average for a single-family home.
Our municipal customers: Owasso, 886 million gallons; Bixby, 1 billion; Jenks, 989 million; Glenpool, 298 million; Catoosa, 126 million; Sperry, 61 million; Skiatook, 62 million.
Rural water districts: Sapulpa Rural, 147 million; Osage County #15, 40 million; Wagoner County #4, 60 million.
What about Charles Hardt, our longtime city director of Public Works? Not in the database; he lives in Bixby, near 121st and Mingo.
The World story mentions that there are 140 single-family residential water customers that used over one million gallons in 2009. It doesn't mention that its own publisher and its publisher emeritus are among that number, using (according to their database) 2,258,000 and 2,763,000 gallons respectively. Thanks to both of them for giving us the chance to explore this data on their website.
Listening to last week's radio reports of slick roads brought to mind a commercial parody from back when Michael DelGiorno hosted the morning show on 1170 KFAQ, back during Tulsa's last budget crisis, early in the Bill LaFortune administration. A 911 caller with a police emergency was told by the dispatcher that because the city was on "Operation Slick Budget," an officer couldn't respond to the call.
It's not quite that bad, but police response to certain calls will decrease as a result of Tulsa Police Department layoffs, according to a TPD press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For More Information Contact
Officer Jason Willingham
February 4, 2010
918.596.1336Due to the recent reductions in staffing, the Tulsa Police Department has been forced to evaluate ways to maintain the staffing levels in order to respond to priority 911 calls. As a result, the department has temporarily suspended responding to certain property crimes and report calls.
Officers will not respond to non-injury collisions, fraud and forgery reports, burglary from vehicle reports, larceny reports and other minor property crime reports. The exception to this new policy will be a non-injury collision involving an intoxicated driver, or a non-injury collision involving a disturbance or other crime. Officers will respond to calls for service if the crime is in progress or if a suspect is still at the location.
While we understand that this may not be a popular decision, it is important to continue to have adequate manpower to respond to higher priority calls and crimes against a person. This change will be revisited as the department recovers form these difficult times.
Crime Reports can be filed electronically at the Tulsa Police Department website www.tulsapolice.org or call the Non-emergency number at 596- 9222 for other reporting options.
I've been negligent in reminding you about an excellent source for information about current issues at Tulsa's City Hall. Tulsa District 7 City Councilor John Eagleton has a personal website, johneagleton.com, where he posts some of the data and analysis that inform his decisions as a councilor.
The latest article on the site features graphs comparing the growth of Tulsa's general fund spending compared to inflation. One graph reveals how increases in costs per person have driven overall growth of the budget. Between 2002 and 2010, police personal services budget per employee grew by 35%, compared to an increase in the cost of living of 19% over the same period. (The fire department personal services budget per employee grew by 23% over those years.)
Other recent articles feature a comparison of the cost of providing ambulance service through EMSA vs. through the Tulsa Fire Department, emails from Tulsans about the budget crisis, and a graph showing how Tulsa police ticket writing has dropped dramatically over the last three years, even more dramatically since last October.
For most entries, there's a PDF or spreadsheet you can download for more details.
There's also a blog, with links to articles (often from the Wall Street Journal) that Eagleton finds interesting.
Mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr sent an email on Thursday to city employees regarding the poll of AFSCME members, preferring layoffs to salary and benefit cuts, and regarding the state of negotiations with the police and fire unions. Click over to Roemerman on Record for the full text of Bartlett's statement.
Late yesterday afternoon, I received an interesting e-mail from Fox 23 investigative reporter Emily Sinovic:
This youtube clip has been getting passed around quite a bit recently. Do you have anything you'd like to say about what's happened since you raised these concerns about the unnecessary decision to move into the new city hall and its effect on the budget?
The clip was my statement to the City Council on July 12, 2007, prior to their vote to purchase One Technology Center as the new City Hall.
My reply:
It's interesting to know that this is still being discussed.
The new City Hall is a beautiful building, but, as I said in my remarks to the City Council, the decision to move was made without a clear understanding of the impact on the city budget. Like so many other decisions made during the Kathy Taylor administration, the City Hall move was approved without regard to the bottom line for the taxpayers. Taylor was skilled politically at getting a majority on the City Council to follow her lead, but she wasn't leading the city in the right direction.
In addition to the City Hall deal, a decision biased by advice from a consultant with a financial interest in the deal going through, Taylor pushed for budget increases above the rate of inflation in good economic times, causing us to cut deeper now that times are bad. Taylor hurt the city by orchestrating the lawsuit settlement that forced taxpayers to pay $7.1 million that they didn't owe to cover the default of Great Plains Airlines. Taylor's ballpark assessment deal may ultimately be rejected by the courts, which would once again stick city taxpayers with millions of extra dollars to pay for the ballpark. And in the budget process for this fiscal year, Taylor used unreasonably rosy revenue projections to avoid making difficult decisions about pay cuts and layoffs. Those projections have had to be revised downward repeatedly, but Taylor managed to push the hard decisions onto her successor's plate.
Only Councilor John Eagleton was consistently opposed to these fiscally irresponsible moves, joined occasionally by former Councilor Bill Martinson and Councilor Rick Westcott.
Some people believe that Taylor's motives in all these cases were to solve problems for her political allies, regardless of the cost to the taxpayers. Whatever the motivation, Taylor's poor fiscal stewardship has forced today's mayor and council to make harder choices and deeper cuts.
A few minutes later I received a follow-up from Ms. Sinovic:
Thank you for your response. How much money do you think this move ultimately cost the city? Do you think staying in the old city hall building would have prevented, at least to some degree, the serious budget crisis we are now experiencing? Again, thank you for your comments.
My response:
I don't have the numbers handy, but we know that the operating expenses were $1.4 million greater than expected for the first year. There was also a substantial cost involved in relocating employees and in making alterations to the new building to meet the city's requirements.
By itself, the extra expenses for the new City Hall wouldn't make up this year's shortfall, but it has made the job of cutting the budget much harder.
I didn't see Emily Sinovic's televised report, but here's a link to the web version of the story City Warned: OTC May Cause Budget Problems. Attached to the story is an e-mail from the City of Tulsa -- doesn't say who sent it -- defending the decision to buy OTC.
(By the way, if you're wondering why Michael Bates in 2007 had more to say about the city budget than Michael Bates in 2010, it's a simple matter of time. The job that actually pays the bills is demanding more time and energy. At home, I want to be available to my kids while they're awake. There are homework problems to solve, laundry to be sorted, dishes to be put away, stories to be read, baths to be run. When the kids are finally in bed, there's still housework to be done and bills to be paid. That still used to leave me time to write, but I'm finding it harder than it used to be to get by on 5 hours of sleep a night. This past week has been a particular challenge, with two back-to-back trips, both of which involved graveyard-shift hours.)
MORE: Back in August, when news broke of the $1.4 million in unexpected maintenance expenses, I posted this summary of my coverage of the One Technology Center / Tulsa City Hall story from 2007.
I went to the new ballroom at the Tulsa Convention Center for today's swearing-in of our new mayor, auditor, and city councilors.
Events like this bring together the diverse cast of characters that take an interest in local politics. There were federal, state, and local politicians, both current and former, neighborhood activists, politicos, developers, small business owners. It's like a dysfunctional family reunion for political nerds, complete with a few implacable feuds.
It was a happy privilege to greet some of my friends who were sworn in today, particularly those coming back to the City Council after a few years away. (I missed saying hello to a few of them -- had to leave to go back to work before I made the rounds.) Two of those friends, Rick Westcott and Maria Barnes, were elected as chairman and vice chairman of the Council for the coming year. It was wonderful, too, to see many friends who had volunteered to get these good people in office. Carol Barrow, for example -- Carol and her husband, Jim, Dave and Donna Beekman, Nancy Turner, and I spent a Saturday knocking doors for Nancy's husband Roscoe.
Bartlett's speech was short and to the point. If he does indeed focus on the basics and bring real fiscal conservatism back to City Hall, he'll have plenty of support from the council. Tulsa will be well served If he governs in accordance with the conservative Republican principles he espoused in his general election campaign, rather than following the lead of the predecessor he endorsed for re-election.
Rick Brinkley served as emcee. He did an excellent job and was a welcome change from 2006, when John Erling presided over Kathy Taylor's swearing-in.
One thing that struck me as odd about the ceremony. Marlin Lavanhar, pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church, gave the invocation and Bill Scheer, pastor of Guts Church, gave the benediction. Given that the new mayor is a Roman Catholic, I'm surprised we didn't see Bishop Slattery or a priest involved in the service in some way.
It's ironic: During the primary campaign, Bartlett pooh-poohed Chris Medlock's proposal to use one of the mayor's at-will appointments to hire an experienced city manager to oversee all city operations. Now Bartlett has hired Jim Twombly, recently the city manager of Broken Arrow, and Bartlett has only one person reporting directly to him -- Terry Simonson, who will... oversee all city operations.
"I haven't been involved in city management, so [Twombly's] input will be highly regarded," Bartlett said.
It's interesting, too, that two of the four chiefs atop Bartlett's org chart, Jim Twombly and Jeff Mulder, are Broken Arrow residents.
Personnel is policy, as they said back in the Reagan administration, and you can tell more about the future course of an official's term by the people he hires than by the promises he made during the campaign. These are the people who will have the mayor's ear as the input is sifted and the decision is made. From that perspective, I'm very sorry to see that Bartlett is keeping on several members of the Taylor administration.
I'm particularly sorry to see that Susan Neal is staying on to oversee city planning and neighborhood issues. Neal was elected to the District 9 City Council seat in 2002 after winning the Republican primary by a narrow margin, thanks to a last-minute smear campaign targeting civic leader and neighborhood activist Bonnie Henke. I'm concerned that, under Neal's influence, PLANiTULSA's carefully crafted win-win balance between development and preservation will be tilted entirely to the development side.
(We saw something similar happen with the 1999 Infill Task Force, which I hoped at the time would address the concerns of developers seeking to build in already developed areas as well as the concerns of property owners about infill that would erode the character of their neighborhoods. Instead, after revisions by then-Mayor Susan Savage, the resulting document was almost entirely one-sided. A proposal for neighborhood conservation districts was watered down to infill studies -- full of good recommendations, but lacking any enforcement mechanism.)
On another note: Standing in Oklahoma's largest ballroom, I felt a certain amount of vindication. Back in 2003, I said that a vote on a tax for a new arena didn't need to be coupled to a vote on expanding and improving the convention center. I said we could use the block southeast of 3rd and Houston for a new ballroom and additional meeting space. We could give voters the ability to choose improved convention facilities without having to subsidize an expensive sports facility. The proponents insisted that the two had to be coupled, that the only way to accommodate this giant ballroom we desperately needed was to eliminate the old arena. In the end, they kept the old arena and built the additional convention facilities where I had suggested.
Congratulations to our new city leaders. You have our prayers and best wishes.
MORE: Irritated Tulsan says farewell to Kathy Taylor with a list of her top ten un-greatest moments. And Steven Roemerman offers a video tribute to Kathy Taylor's 44 months in office.
It's been a long wait, but TGOV, the City of Tulsa's government channel, is streaming video and offering archived video of city government meetings at tgovonline.org. You can read the city press release at Councilor John Eagleton's blog.
This will make it easier for people interested in city government to cut the cable. Until now TGOV was only available on Cox Cable channel 24, offered as part of its franchise agreement with the city (if I recall correctly). It's one of a small number of reasons we've continued to be cable subscribers.
What many of us suspected was confirmed by the post-primary ethics filing from Tulsa District 5 City Councilor-elect Chris Trail: Trail was Mayor Kathy Taylor's instrument of revenge against City Councilor Bill Martinson, who opposed her on the ballpark improvement district, raised concerns about the overly rosy revenue projections in her budget (and the actual numbers have vindicated his concerns), and provoked her to walk out of a meeting simply by insisting on a straight answer to his question about city financing of downtown services in the Tulsa Stadium Improvement District.
Councilor John Eagleton's website has an entry with copies of Trail's pre-primary and post-primary contribution reports. Trail raised $51,505. At least $24,100 of that money came from Bill Lobeck (Mr. Kathy Taylor) and associates connected with Vanguard Car Rental. Except for $500 from Lobeck, all of these contributions were made after the filing deadline for the pre-primary report, allowing Trail to avoid disclosing contributions that clearly marked him out as Taylor's tool.
A report on Edgar Online (a repository of SEC filings) from 2006 shows several names found on Chris Trail's contribution report. Below are the names, city of residence according to Trail's report, amount of contribution to Trail, and title according to the 8/2/2006 SEC report for Vanguard Car Rental Group or according to linked web documents:
- Bill Lobeck, Tulsa, $5,000, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
- Jeff Parell, Edina, Mn., $5,000, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
- Thomas Kennedy, Plantation, Fl., $5,000, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
- Thomas J. Santorelli, Highland Beach, Fl., $500, Senior Vice President, Risk Management
- Tyler Best, Plymouth, Mi., $2,500, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
- Dan Lynch, Owasso, Ok., $300, VP of FP&A
- Barry Benoit, Tulsa, Ok, $800, VP of Fleet
In addition, Alvin Swanner of Kenner, La., gave $5,000 to Trail. Swanner shows up as a partner with Lobeck in several investments and acquisitions.
Trail also benefited from funds from public employee unions, angry at Martinson's scrutiny of the dramatic growth of public safety spending as a proportion of city revenues. The PACs of AFSCME, the firefighter's local, and the FOP lodge contributed a total of $7,140.23 to the campaign.
Trail received funds from several people connected with the downtown ballpark assessment. Frederic Dorwart, attorney for Bank of Oklahoma, spearheaded the scheme. He gave Trail $1,000. Dorwart firm associates John D. Clayman and H. Steven Walton gave Trail $250 and $1,000 respectively. Trail received $1,500 from BOK Financial PAC. Peter Boylan contributed $500. Francis Rooney, who lists an address on N. Elgin, although he isn't registered to vote in Oklahoma, gave $1,000.
I have to wonder: What compelled Lobeck's associates to contribute funds to a city council race in Tulsa? Did Lobeck call them? If so, what did he tell them about Trail and Martinson that would be compelling enough to convince them to give maximum contributions.
Parell, Kennedy, and Benoit all gave money to David Patrick's 2008 campaign to unseat Roscoe Turner.
The voters ought to be able to know about these sorts of contributions BEFORE the election.
I spent the last half of last week and all weekend at home dealing with a particularly nasty virus, and in the process missed a family gathering in Arkansas and what must have been an interesting political discussion. To compensate for the abnormal quiet in the house, I had the TV going all night, with the History Channel running endless repeats of an interesting two-hour documentary on the JFK assassination. I caught bits and pieces of it every time a coughing fit woke me up.
So nothing new from me, but here are some recent Tulsa blog entries of interest:
Tulsa City Councilor John Eagleton has the memo from Mayor Kathy Taylor announcing that September sales tax revenue is $1.2 million below her budget projections with this comment:
The numbers vindicate Councilor Bill Martinson's prediction that the Mayor's numbers were overly optimistic and would leave the incoming mayor and council with difficult budget choices.
Eagleton also was quoted in a story on the city's budget problems in the current issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly, reminding of his spurned efforts in earlier years to rein in spending increases to core inflation:
In 2006, he said, the economy was good, and sales tax receipts were high.
"And we spent every penny we earned," he said. "We gave raises all around that are now baked into the cake. So, it becomes harder and harder every time, with each budget cycle downturn, to meet our budget."Eagleton favors a budget process based on the core inflation rate that sets aside revenue for the inevitable downturns of the future. Some smaller sacrifices today can help the city avoid having to make what he calls the "Draconian cuts" required in the current budget.
"If we had done that in 2007 and 2008, yes, we would still have to trim the edges, but we wouldn't have the eight furlough days we did have," he said.
Despite Tulsa's budget crisis, Meeciteewurkor reports that some city workers in the Human Resources Department may have received $2500 bonuses for "superb" participation in a city-run training program. The head of the local municipal employees' union says the interim HR director verbally confirmed that the "stipends" were paid and has submitted an open records request seeking written confirmation.
Fear an Iarthair offers some thoughts on Bible translations and reminds that the original preface to the King James Version "advised the reader to read the Scriptures in several translations."
Historic Tulsa has an entry on the Dawson schoolhouse, built in 1908, one of the few (perhaps only) Romanesque structures remaining in Tulsa.
PR consultant Mandy Vavrinak is now blogging on public relations for the Journal Record. According to a press release announcing the blog:
Vavrinak will anchor the newly-launched PR blog, dubbed "Public Relations > Beyond The Press Release" and will focus on the reality of good public relations."I want to share solid how-to info for businesses as well as stories from the trenches, good examples and bad examples, and also be a resource for PR information," Vavrinak said. The PR blog will feature contributions from other area PR pros as well, including Kristen Turley, an active member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). New posts will be appearing weekly, and comments are encouraged.
Finally, please keep Brandon Dutcher's newborn daughter Anne Marie in your prayers (and her parents, siblings, and doctors, too).
The City of Tulsa's website presents the City Charter in PDF format, which makes it hard to link to a specific provision and hard to cut and paste text. Beau McElhattan has posted the Tulsa City Charter and the City of Tulsa Policies and Procedures online in HTML format, with one page for each section. Check it out!
It's rare that I say this, but I agree with the Tulsa Whirled editorial board. In a Wednesday editorial, they urged the defeat of a proposed charter amendment to have the City Council elected to staggered three-year terms, so that only a third of the council is up for re-election in any given year. The amendment will be on the November general election ballot.
Here are their objections:
First, it would perpetuate the current silliness of holding some municipal elections in odd-numbered years, when voter turnout will be low.Further, it would shotgun the races over three years, meaning there will be less publicity about elections. Councilors will be able to run for re-election below the radar of public scrutiny.
And it would give councilors three-year terms instead of the current two years, making them less responsive to voters.
Finally, it would mean it would take three election cycles for voters to flush out a corrupt or inept council.
On the whole, it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that the change is designed to make the council more powerful and less accountable to voters.
I disagree with their disdain for municipal elections in odd-numbered years. Municipal issues deserve attention that they are unlikely to get in the midst of a presidential or gubernatorial campaign. Nevertheless, they are correct to point out that staggered terms make it harder to clean house and make it more difficult for voters and potential candidates to plan for the next opportunity to replace their councilor.
By the way, those very same factors are at work in our school board election process, but worse. In Tulsa, school board members serve four year terms, with two seats up each year, except for one year out of four when only one seat is on the ballot. In the suburbs, terms are five years, with only one seat open to change each year. The filing period, right after Thanksgiving, is in the midst of the Christmas season and always catches people unawares, a fact that likely explains the small number of candidates who file each year. Worse still, school board elections are non-partisan, which further depresses turnout; the lack of labels of any sort on the ballot is a deterrent to many voters. I look forward to the editorial board's endorsement of two-year terms for school board members, with all board members on the ballot at each election.
There's a theory that school administrators and bureaucrats like the staggered terms, because if a firebrand reformer should sneak through the defenses and get elected, the other members, having already been tamed and enculturated to The Way Things Have Always Been Done Around Here, will throw a wet blanket on his zeal. Staggered terms seem to have the same effect on authorities, boards, and commissions.
The same dynamic would be at work with staggered terms on the council. Far from making the council more powerful, it would make them less likely to challenge the Way Things Have Always Been Done at City Hall. From that perspective, it's surprising that the Whirled editorial writers would object to the idea.
The editorial goes on to note the legal problems with holding a September election in an even-numbered year, at a time when, it says, state law says "that during even-numbered years cities can't use the state voting system for elections in September." (Actually, state law -- 26 O.S. 13-101.1 -- says the county election board isn't required to run an election on a date other than those specified in 26 O. S. 3-101.) If the county election board wouldn't cooperate, as they probably wouldn't, given the expense, the city would have to staff polling places and either buy machines or else conduct a hand count of ballots.
On a related issue, a number of people have complained about this year's primary being the day after Labor Day. The city charter amendment that moved elections to the fall tied the primary and general election date to "the day specified by the laws of Oklahoma" in the months of September and November respectively. The relevant section of state law is 26 O.S. 3-101. This situation will occur two years out of every 28, when September begins on a Tuesday in an odd-numbered year. The next time is 2015, at which council and auditor are up for election, but not the mayor. After that, it won't happen until 2037, a mayoral election.
But to eliminate even those few occasions It would be a simple amendment to state law to change the September date from the second Tuesday to the Tuesday after the second Monday, thus avoiding the Labor Day problem altogether. The change would not only help Tulsa, but would benefit the whole state. No jurisdiction should be holding a special election the day after Labor Day.
From Rocky Frisco's Tulsa Metro Chamber questionnaire. Nail, meet hammerhead.
The more the city government has tried to "develop" the downtown, the worse it has become. I firmly believe that if had been allowed to develop naturally, without all the wild ideas for "development," it would still be an exciting, successful part of the city. I would like to see the city government stop meddling with the downtown area, re-synchronize the traffic lights and stop killing the area with excessive revenue generation based on parking tickets, fees and fines. The first fatal blow was the loss of the Ritz, Orpheum, Majestic and Rialto Theaters; the second was the ill-advised "Downtown Mall." It has gone downhill from there. The time to stop "fixing" a thing, even when it's broken, is when every attempt to fix it breaks it worse.
See my May 13, 2009, column for the 53-year-long list of attempted fixes and Downtown Tulsa Unlimited's role in promoting same.
RELATED: I have received a tip that the Tulsa Metro Chamber is seeking to take over DTU's former role handling downtown marketing in exchange for a share of the cash from the Tulsa Stadium Improvement District assessment. I was unable to find an RFP online, but if this treated as a personal services contract the City may be able to award the contract without a bid process. It should still, however, come through the City Council. The tipster speculated that the Chamber is trying to push this through quietly, before the advent of a new Mayor and City Council that may not be as friendly.
I grew up in far east Tulsa (and beyond, in Rolling Hills in what was then unincorporated Wagoner County). My parents still live out there in District 6, and they've got a Mautino sign in their yard.
In the 19 years we've had a Tulsa City Council, for only two years has far east Tulsa had a representative at City Hall who was devoted to the district's best interests. During his 2004 to 2006 term, Jim Mautino worked for improved infrastructure to make attractive new development possible. He fought against those who wanted to treat east Tulsa as a dumping ground, who refused to respect our zoning laws and stormwater regulations. His service on the council was a natural extension of his many years of volunteer service as a neighborhood advocate.
He also worked closely with councilors from north and west Tulsa to ensure that city government paid attention to the needs of these long-neglected areas. This too was an extension of his pre-council work in organizing a coalition of neighborhood associations from around the city. Cooperating with councilors from different parties, socioeconomic backgrounds, and parts of the city, he worked for more considerate treatment of homeowners in the zoning and planning process, for stronger ethics standards, and for identifying and developing major new retail centers -- trying to capture more suburban retail dollars within city boundaries.
Long before the bribery scandal in the Public Works Department came to light, Mautino pushed for a top-to-bottom audit of the department.
For his devotion to his job, his district, and his city, Mautino was vilified by the mainstream media and officials of the metro-wide chamber and homebuilders association, and he was the target of a recall effort in 2005. He beat the recall overwhelmingly and in 2006, won renomination, despite a primary challenge well-funded by the Money Belt establishment. But he fell short of re-election, as his Transport Workers Union brothers betrayed him and campaigned instead for Dennis Troyer.
Troyer, who considers Crocs to be appropriate footwear for City Council meetings, has been a cipher on the council -- a reliable vote for Mayor Kathy Taylor and the Money Belt establishment, a reliable vote for zoning changes to permit more haphazard, ugly industrial development along our city's eastern gateway.
While Mautino is a conservative Republican, his honesty and integrity have won him fans across the political spectrum. Here's what Greg Bledsoe wrote about Jim back in 2006:
A little over a year ago I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know your City Councilor Jim Mautino. Since that time, it has become clear to me that Jim is the most hardworking, dedicated and selfless public servant I have ever known. He is the salt of the earth. His tireless commitment to the improvement of District 6 and the whole City of Tulsa is without limitation. He has worked long hours for better sewers and streets (including a dramatic increase in funding for District 6), balanced economic development and transparent government at City Hall.
Here's what I wrote about Jim Mautino back during his first run in 2004:
Jim Mautino... is by far the best choice for the District 6 seat. Jim has been a tireless advocate for his part of town, working on zoning and planning issues to protect property values and the quality of life. Jim has persisted and more often than not prevailed because he knows the rules and does his homework, and he won't give up without a fight.
Here's what Steven Roemerman wrote about Jim Mautino during his 2006 re-election campaign:
If you spend 5 minutes with Jim you'll hear a lot of sewer talk. Not foul language but talk of sanitary sewer lines, then you'll hear a lot of talk about water lines, followed by a lot of talk about improving streets. He is passionate about improving the infrastructure in East Tulsa because Jim knows that infrastructure spurs development, and development spurs economic growth. Despite stiff opposition Mautino's hard work has paid off. Jim has brought sewer lines to East Tulsa businesses that were threatening to leave because they were still operating on sewage lagoons. When Jim is not working on acquiring water or sewer he is working on our streets. Jim drives all over District 6 taking pictures of poor road conditions, dangerous intersections, and car wrecks.All that hard work has paid off. It is Jim Mautino's tenacity that has brought 28 million dollars of new project dollars through the 2006 Third Penny Sales Tax.
There were several close votes where Jim's voice and vote would have been decisive in favor of good government and careful management of taxpayer dollars. There were several close votes where Jim's voice and vote would have been decisive in favor of good government and careful management of taxpayer dollars. East Tulsa and the city at large need Jim Mautino back on the Council. To make that possible, Jim Mautino first needs your vote in the Tuesday, September 8, 2009, Republican primary, and again in the November general election.
MORE: After the jump, a video (by David Schuttler) of a 2006 council speech by Jim Mautino on problems in the Public Works Department, and a second video about BOK's efforts to get the City of Tulsa to pay off the Great Plains Airlines loan. And here's my column from January 28, 2009, about his proposal for a SCARE audit of the city's largest department -- he learned this kind of wide-ranging, independent, well-funded, top-to-bottom audit during his years working for American Airlines.
The Whirled editorial board says, regarding the news that the new Tulsa City Hall at One Technology Center will cost $1.4 million more to operate than projected this year, draining Tulsa's general fund budget, that "the old I-told-you-so refrain isn't going to help anything."
On the contrary, a healthy dose of IToldYouSo Political Purgative is exactly what Tulsa politics needs. It might stimulate some needful skepticism in our city leaders. It might encourage councilors to ask more questions and to dig in their heels when the answers aren't forthcoming. It might act as a vaccine against the establishment's PR machine.
(Funny how the Whirled makes excuses for and warns against holding officials accountable for the bad decisions that they editorially encouraged. I seem to recall a similar editorial when the Great Plains deal came unraveled. Heaven forfend that those who encourage us to make expensively bad decisions should lose credibility when their folly comes to fruition.)
So here, in chronological order, is what I said about the City Hall move.
In my March 28, 2007, column, I praised the idea of relocating to One Technology Center as a planning concept, but with a big IF:
But as appealing as the move is, aesthetics and urban design aren't sufficient reasons to spend millions of public dollars. There has to be a net cost savings in the near term. City officials need a business plan that will give them a realistic picture of how much the current City Hall block and other city buildings would be worth.(A business plan for the cost of operating the BOk Center might be a good idea, too. Before we go buying new buildings, we need to know if one we're already building is going to blow a massive hole in the city budget.)
They also need a conservative estimate of energy and maintenance cost savings. They shouldn't underestimate the monetary cost and lost productivity involved in a move, along with the need to support duplicate facilities for a time.
There ought to be a look at alternatives, too. A group of two or three of the historic buildings in Maurice Kanbar's inventory might serve well as a new City Hall.
Tulsans have already committed all our special projects money for the next six years; it's tied up in the Third Penny, Four to Fix the County and Vision 2025. Redirecting Third Penny funds away from existing projects to pay for a new City Hall would be possible, but politically hazardous. (The City might get away with diverting money for other downtown projects.)
It would be a good thing to do, but only if the move could be done without straining the already-constrained city budget. At the very least, it's worth the due diligence that city officials are now pursuing.
After some of that due diligence had been done -- from my June 20, 2007, column:
There are plenty of subjective reasons to like the idea of moving City Hall. The old building is ugly and sits in the middle of an ugly plaza. It was constructed in view of the projected needs of the City of Tulsa in 1985. The new location puts City Hall at the crossroads of streets that tie directly to the expressway system. It also puts City Hall closer to the center of new development activity on the east side of downtown. The newer building ought to be more energy-efficient.None of that changes the fact that the move will cost $67.1 million, of which (according to the daily paper) $52.25 million is the purchase price of the building. That money has to come from somewhere, and we've already been told that the City budget won't allow for a net increase in the number of police officers, repairing and opening more pools than last summer, or operating the golf courses, even with an increase in utility rates....
In all the material that has been publicly released, there doesn't seem to be anything that says how the City will pay for the new building. It's one thing to claim, as the Staubauch report does, that moving to OTC will save the City $15.2 million over the first 10 years. That claim assumes operating costs to go up at a certain rate and that the City would have to fund $12 million in deferred maintenance costs that are currently unfunded.
(One of the charts that illustrates the asserted savings is a year-by-year graph comparing the costs of different scenarios. The first year estimate that the OTC option will cost less than $2 million vs. about $5 million for the status quo is clearly erroneous. The move to OTC has to be more expensive in year 1 than staying put because the City will be paying duplicate operating costs and additional one-time moving costs. One also has to wonder about the straight line on the graph estimating the cost of the status quo. Surely a thorough accounting of projected capital costs would show some variation from year to year.)
From Brian Ervin's story in the same issue:
Following the conclusion of the feasibility study, [Mayoral economic adviser Don] Himelfarb said operating out of OTC would save the city $15.2 million over the first 10 years by consuming 30 percent less energy and allowing for more efficient use of space."This is basically $15 million that is freed up that the city would not otherwise have to spend on police, roads and other services," he said.
The move would also get the city out from under $24 million in deferred maintenance costs to existing facilities, $12 million of which is unfunded.
Here on BatesLine, on the night of the vote, July 12, 2007 (emphasis added):
This deal should be measured by one standard: Will it leave the City with more money or less money available to fund the basic functions of city government?Based on the numbers in the Staubach Company's report and the analysis of those numbers by Councilor Bill Martinson, there is a high risk that the move will leave the City of Tulsa with less money for police and parks and streets. If one of the current tenants leaves or even reduces its presence, if we are unable to find a replacement tenant who will pay the same price, if rental revenue is less than debt service on the loan, the City will have to make up the difference out of its operating budget. This deal would make the City of Tulsa a competitor in the commercial real estate industry, rolling the dice in a risky business, and using our mortgage money to place the bet.
To shift metaphors, this deal is a house of cards, and if any one of several contingencies fails to occur, the whole thing collapses.
The only facts that matter are these numbers -- how much it costs to operate our current facilities, how much it will cost to operate One Technology Center, how much it will cost to repay the loan on OTC, and how much we are likely to be paid in rent from third-party tenants.
The Council has not been given a full and detailed accounting of the cost of operating our current facilities. This information is surely available in our accounting system -- how much we pay custodial staff, how much we spend on utilities, the cost of repair projects -- based on actual expenditures over the last few fiscal years. Instead, Staubach prepared a sheet estimating cost per square foot for broad categories -- utilities, repairs, security, etc. -- and then multiplied by the sum of those per square feet numbers by the size of our buildings. The $24 million claimed as deferred maintenance costs are buried somewhere in Staubach's per-square-foot figures.
The Council has not been provided with a list of deferred maintenance items, the cost of each one, and the likelihood of needing to fund those items in the near future. Each such item should have a basis of estimate, explaining the work to be done and the manpower and material required. Instead, in response for their request for a detailed list, the Council was given the names of the items and a single number covering the cost of all of them.
With this lack of detail, it would be easy for Staubach to pick numbers for estimates that would make staying in the existing facilities seem to be more expensive than moving. And don't forget that Staubach gets paid more if the deal goes through, so they'd have an incentive to make the existing facilities look as expensive as possible.
The Council should not approve this deal without an accurate apples-to-apples comparison of costs showing that the move will be less expensive in the near term.
That night, here's what I told the City Council (thanks to David Schuttler for the video):
The morning after the eight-to-Eagleton vote, July 13, 2007:
Needless to say, I'm disappointed with last night's results, but I'm going to save most of my commentary for my column, and I've got some family-related entries I want to post. I'm not so much disappointed in the vote to buy OTC as in the reasons the councilors gave for voting yes. In the end, costs only mattered to one councilor: John Eagleton. In this vote, and in previous votes on the budget, he seems to be the only one who thinks through the full financial implications of his decisions. Councilor Cason Carter's solution only protects the City on the income side, and that not completely, as a master leaseholder could very well go bankrupt, leaving the City holding the bag. Councilor Bill Martinson's worse-case (not worst-case) estimate still uses Staubach's S.W.A.G. for the cost of current operations, not the City's actual expenditures, which would be a findable number that would have given them a firm basis for knowing the bottom-line impact on the City's general fund. It is disturbing that they would go ahead without those numbers.
From my column the following week -- Believe in the Cube:
Prior to the 8-1 vote to allow the Tulsa Public Facilities Authority (TPFA) to incur $79 million in debt to buy the shiny symbol of Tulsa's fall from high-tech glory, Taylor read a speech that appealed to anything but hard financial facts. Councilor John Eagleton was the only one able to resist the Mayor's siren song.I'm not so disappointed that the eight councilors voted for the purchase (it may turn out to be a good deal) as I am in the reasons they gave for their decision. They switched off their B. S. detectors, set aside logic and any concern about cost, and set the City up for a repeat of the Great Plains Airlines debacle.
Although the Council made a show of reducing the risk involved in finding tenants to fill the Borg Cube's excess space, they proceeded to a vote without using the best available information to determine whether the move would leave the city with more money or less money for police, streets, and parks over the near term....
The decision to go into debt to buy OTC for a new City Hall should have come down to this question: Will this deal leave us with more money or less money to spend on government basics?
One would hope that that question would be uppermost in the minds of our city councilors, who had just been through a grueling budget process, unable to open more pools, unable to fund enough new police officers to outpace attrition.
What did the Whirled have to say? A commenter called TCB wrote this comment under their "don't say 'I told you so'" editorial (hyperlinks added):
Based on their recent track records, maybe editorial board and the Chamber of Commerce shouldn't be so quick to hurl insults at city councilors for asking questions about large, complex transactions involving taxpayer assets.Editorial quotes:
Great Plains:
"There is no taxpayer money involved . . . ." (2-27-00) [actually 7-22-2000]
New City Hall:
Ballpark:
Over on TulsaNow's Public Forum, there's a link to this front page feature story in the June 7, 2007 Whirled, which used big bold red type to call attention to the projected financial benefits. I think they would have made the ink on the page blink if it were possible. (The print version is even more dramatic.)
CITY COULD SAVE MONEY WITH NEW HOMERelocating to downtown tower projected to cut costs by $15 million over 10 years
In other news, for possibly the first time ever, I laughed at a Bruce Plante cartoon. Queen Kathy's crown is a lovely touch. Bruce had better update his resume, maybe check into adult education classes for a career change. Wasn't he instructed always to draw Mayor Taylor in a serious and deferential manner?
ONE MORE THING: A friend phoned to wonder if the Whirled is playing up this issue now to try to hurt three councilors -- Westcott, Martinson, and Christiansen -- who voted the Whirled's way in 2007 but have since defied them and Mayor Taylor and now have well-funded (albeit, in two cases, troubled) opponents. The one councilor who voted the right way -- Eagleton -- is safely back in office whether they like it or not.
The petition, circulated in 2008 by the group Tulsans for Better Government, was challenged by City Councilor John Eagleton on two grounds: That the petitions lacked a warning against false signatures that is required by state law to be on all initiative petitions, and that the number of signatures submitted fell short of the requirement of 25% of the vote in the last general election.
34 O.S. 3 requires (emphasis added):
Each initiative petition and each referendum petition shall be duplicated for the securing of signatures, and each sheet for signatures shall be attached to a copy of the petition. Each copy of the petition and sheets for signatures is hereinafter termed a pamphlet. On the outer page of each pamphlet shall be printed the word "Warning", and underneath this in ten-point type the words, "It is a felony for anyone to sign an initiative or referendum petition with any name other than his own, or knowingly to sign his name more than once for the measure, or to sign such petition when he is not a legal voter". A simple statement of the gist of the proposition shall be printed on the top margin of each signature sheet. Not more than twenty (20) signatures on one sheet on lines provided for the signatures shall be counted. Any signature sheet not in substantial compliance with this act shall be disqualified by the Secretary of State.
Only one of the signature sheets submitted to the Tulsa City Clerk had the copy of the petition attached and that copy lacked the required statutory language. There was no evidence that any of the other pamphlets had a copy of the petition with the required language. Eagleton, in his filing, cited Community Gas and Service Company v. Walbaum, 1965 OK 118 (case citations omitted):
The warning clause is just as essential to guard against and prevent fraud, deception or corruption of the initiative and referendum process as are such other indispensable requirements of the statute as (1) the pre-circulation filing of a copy of the petition required by 34 O.S. 1961 § 8 ; (2) timely post-circulation filing of the petition in compliance with 34 O.S. 1961 § 8 ; and (3) the execution of a circulator's verification prescribed by 34 O.S. 1961 § 6 .
Eagleton's second point, involving the number of signatures, is a bit complicated: City Clerk Mike Kier used the April 1, 2008, voter turnout as the basis for the required number of signatures, which he determined to be 3,427. 12,985 votes were cast for Prop. 1. 13,065 votes were cast for Prop. 2.
Eagleton argued that the last general election at which every voter in the city was allowed to vote was on April 4, 2006. 77,341 votes were cast in the mayor's race, so that an initiative petition would require 19,336 signatures to make it onto the ballot. Only 6,675 valid signatures were submitted by Tulsans for Better Government.
While voters in every precinct could vote on two charter change proposals in 2008, that was a special election; only the voters in five city council districts had a general election. The distinction is backed up by the ballots distributed to voters: If you lived in council districts 1, 2, 5 or 7, your ballot was headed "SPECIAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION" and had only the two propositions. If you lived in districts 3, 4, 6, 8, or 9, your ballot was headed "GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION" and had the city council race followed by the two propositions. (Click on the images above to see a full photographs of the ballots for districts with no council race and for District 3. These photos were taken of the ballots that are stored along with the certified results in the files of the Tulsa County Election Board. Many thanks to Patty Bryant and her great team at the Election Board for their assistance in accessing records of past elections.)
By contrast, on April 4, 2006, every voter in the city received a "GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION" ballot. (Click the image below to see the ballot that was used for voters in council districts 1, 2, 7, and 8, where there was no council general election. There was a general election for mayor and auditor, as well as a special election to decide six charter change propositions.)
Eagleton's arguments won the day. Eagleton's filing in the case cited Neidy v. City of Chickasha, a 2008 Oklahoma Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that special elections could not be used to determine the number of required signatures. (Emphasis in the original.)
The use of a special election to determine the sufficiency of signatures on a referendum petition offends the Oklahoma Constitution.
What constitutes a qualifying general municipal election was addressed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in Belisle v. Crist, according to Eagleton's petition:
The Court also determined that a preceding general municipal election in which all voters were not eligible to participate should not be considered, only the last general municipal election where all qualified municipal voters could vote and only qualified municipal voters could vote. (Emphasis added.)
Tulsa District 2 City Councilor Rick Westcott is using his blog to provide detailed rationales for his positions on some controversial issues, one of which resulted in him and other councilors being denounced by Mayor Kathy Taylor on a live CNN interview.
The latest entry addresses the concern that Westcott and other councilors have that accepting Federal money to hire police officers will cost the city money it can't afford. Taylor has accused these councilors of acting out of a desire for partisan advantage. Taylor claimed on the CNN interview that the City wouldn't be out any money by having to continue to fund the 18 positions in the fourth year, following the federal three year grant, because it would have to hire that many officers to replace retiring officers anyway.
Westcott has read through the Federal government's documentation for cities seeking the grant and finds that Kathy Taylor is wrong and gives chapter and verse to back up his finding:
One of the arguments in favor of accepting the grant money is that the City of Tulsa loses about 36 officers per year through normal attrition. Over the next three years, if we don't fill all of those positions, we will save enough money to pay the fourth year for the grant-funded officers.But, the federal government's "Owner's Manual" says that we can't do that. If we do, we'd be in violation of the terms of the grant.
Section 5 of the "Owner's Manual" is called "Retention." The first paragraph says:
"At the time of grant application, your agency committed to retaining all sworn officer positions awarded under the CHRP grant with state and/or local funds for a minimum of 12 months following the conclusion of 36 months of federal funding for each position, over and above the number of locally-funded sworn officer positions that would have existed in the absence of the grant. Your agency cannot satisfy the retention requirement by using CHRP-funded positions to fill locally-funded vacancies resulting from attrition."
In earlier entries, Westcott has discussed his vote on the downtown ballpark assessment and his vote to delay the final vote on the city budget. (It wasn't a vote to layoff dozens of police officers and firefighters.)
To help you keep up with his latest entries, I've added Westcott's blog to my BatesLine Oklahoma headlines page.
If you missed it, CNN interviewed Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor live regarding the $3.5 million in federal stimulus money granted to the city to fund 18 police positions for three years.
The catch: Tulsa would have to provide funding for a fourth year and would also have to find $840,000 to provide equipment for the officers. Taylor is proposing to take the money from the Tulsa Authority for the Recovery of Energy, the trash trust that ran the now-defunct trash-to-energy plant. Taylor told CNN that "we" (the City, evidently) gave TARE $10 million "about 20 years ago."
Off the top of my head, I'd guess the City has given hundreds of millions, via the Third Penny, to fund capital projects for the Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority. Maybe some of those funds now for general fund purposes.
Taylor says the fourth year of funding isn't an issues, as we'd have to fund replacements for retiring officers anyway. On the face of it, that doesn't seem like that would meet federal conditions. Wouldn't Tulsa need to maintain the current number of positions through the fourth year? She seems to be saying that it doesn't matter how many officers retire or are let go, as long as we hire 18 more and keep those 18 on staff through the fourth year.
When asked about City Council concerns over whether Tulsa could afford the strings attached to this money, Taylor replied, "I think a few councilors are playing politics with this money." This is Taylor's standard answer when a councilor doesn't bend to her will. But what political gain would come from refusing federal funds for police officers? Why would you risk the political hit from opposing the money unless you felt it was important? Anyway, didn't Taylor eliminate politics from the budget process when she decided not to run for re-election?
(Video posted at My Tulsa World.)
Kathy Taylor's decision to denounce city councilors on a national news network is just one more example of her contempt for the legislative branch of city government. It certainly would be welcome to have a mayor that treated the City Council with due respect, as partners instead of pests.
MORE: Here's Councilor Rick Westcott's interview from last Thursday's Pat Campbell show on why accepting the stimulus money is a bad idea for Tulsa.
Still too swamped for a detailed analytical post, but I must at least point out the misstatements at the end of last Friday's story in the daily about the initiative petition filed by Tulsans for Better Government in support of a charter change for non-partisan elections. The original web story was more accurate than the version published on July 31. Tulsans for Better Government existed before the Citizens' Commission on City Government was formed, and the City Council did not ignore all of the commission's recommendations -- one of the three recommendations (fall elections) has already been approved by the voters and a second (appointed city auditor) will be on November's ballot. The third -- non-partisan elections -- did not have the unanimous support of the commission.
Tulsans for Better Government was actually formed in 2005 to promote the idea of at-large councilors -- reducing the number of districts from nine to six and adding three at-large seats. The effort was a reaction to a City Council with a majority of councilors who actually sought to represent the interests of their districts. It was seen as an attempt to boost representation for the wealthier sections of Tulsa -- under the old at-large commission system, nearly all city officials came from the Money Belt -- and to strip political power from the north, east, and west Tulsa. Dewey Bartlett Jr. and Mayor Kathy Taylor lent their names to the cause as members of the advisory board. The group circulated an initiative petition in support of their proposal.
Tulsans for Better Government suspended its petition effort when Mayor Bill LaFortune announced the formation of a "Citizens' Commission on City Government," assigned to study the City Charter, including terms and number of councilors, partisanship, etc. In their final report, the commission strongly rejected Tulsans for Badder Government's at-large councilor idea. The report made three recommendations, two of which have already been sent to the voters by the City Council, as noted above.
The third recommendation, non-partisan elections, did not enjoy as strong a level of support:
It should be noted that this recommendation is not made unanimously. Some suggested that no change should be made while others embraced an idea advanced by local commentator Michael Bates, known as multi-partisan elections. Still others recommended that the system simply needed technical changes to enable higher participation levels. For example, one thoughtful suggestion was a response to the situation where candidates of only one party file for a council race in a particular district. In those situations, a few task force members recommended that such an election be converted from a primary election to a general election.
More info at the following links:
- Final report of the Citizens' Commission on City Government (PDF)
- My June 21, 2006, column on the recommendations of the Citizens' Commission on City Government
- A descriptive list of the members of Tulsans for Better Government.
- The list of Tulsans for Better Government contributors from February 2006.
Tulsa City Councilor Bill Martinson has issued a response to Saturday's press release from Tulsa FOP president Philip Evans. Evans attacked Martinson's budget presentation from last Thursday night, a presentation that highlighted the growth and size of the Police and Fire departments' portion of the city's general fund revenues, characterizing Martinson's proposal as an "attempted coup."
(You can now view the Martinson presentation online on Councilor John Eagleton's website, without needing a copy of PowerPoint. You will need the free Adobe Flash player installed.)
Some highlights of Martinson's response:
As I stated to both Chief LaCroix and Chief Palmer on Thursday night, my intent was not to attack, but rather to prepare both departments for a drastic decline in funding dictated by economic reality. Since Police and Fire have managed to consume 100% of our sales tax operating revenue, I feel they must be prepared to adjust their operating structure to keep expenses in line with those revenues. My proposal Thursday night accomplished just that. The choices were theirs to make and, despite the budget approved by the Council and their hopes to the contrary, they may still face those choices and sooner than they think....The public safety unions have done a masterful job of dictating policy. This needs to stop and elected officials must assume responsibility for the Citizens....
The unions, Administration, and certain City Councilors argue that the only option in reduced funding is to reduce staffing. This is true only if they wish it to be.... For example, it is not unusual for the City to re-negotiate contract terms, and while I have not been a party to any of the pending contract negotiations, prudent business practice would be to include language allowing for a revision in compensation structure, including perks, should conditions so dictate. If a relief provision is not incorporated in the agreements, one must wonder why, or one must ask why protecting certain union paychecks is more important than protecting the City....
Contrary to their persistent cries for more manpower, the Police and Fire unions have parlayed this unabated 35% increase in funding into fewer positions rather than more. Not only have the unions successfully negotiated with the Administration to utilize the additional funding to enrich their members rather than increase staffing to serve the City, but the Mayor, Chief Palmer, and the FOP have all ignored Tulsa's ordinance pertaining to take home vehicles....
Click the link to read the whole thing.
On Saturday, I received the following press release from Philip Evans, president of the Tulsa Lodge #93 of Fraternal Order of Police, in response to Tulsa City Councilor Bill Martinson's presentation during the Council's debate on Thursday, June 18, 2009, about the budget. Here is Evans's statement, verbatim:
The Fraternal Order of Police does not normally take an active roll in public theatrical politic, but in light of the attempted coup of Thursday evening's City Council meeting there is actually no choice. When four elected leaders, Counselors:
Westcott, Gomez, Eagleton, and Martinson, actively attempt to get rid of 20% of public safety officers from both the Police and Fire service, the public needs to take notice. There are two main misconceptions that need to be addressed.
The public generally has no idea of how police officers are paid, however, city counselors are not the general public and should be well versed on our system.
Many years ago the City established a "universe of comparable cities", ten cities much like Tulsa in size and population. The goal was to make our wage system comparable to
that of similar cities. The Fraternal Order of Police Negotiations Team struggles to bring Tulsa up to the average wage; but Tulsa currently remains near the bottom of the list. And even remaining low on the list requires spending over $100,000 a year on arbitration, lawyers and forensic accountants. The FOP has been contemplating changing the tactics to just comparing Oklahoma cities instead of a nation wide group. If such happens, Tulsa, being the second largest city in the state, would rank about fifth in wages.
As a result of the last city council meeting, the FOP dissected Mr. Martinson's presentation slide by slide in light of the most currently available data. The FOP believes that the data presented by Martinson was out of date and to the direct benefit of his budget proposal. The below link to the original budget proposal is: http://www.johneagleton.com/documents/20090618-C5-Budget-Presentation-v.2.ppt
There are some interesting points of data that were available, yet were "hidden" from his presentation. Most 2008 crime data was available, but Martinson chose not to present it since the outcomes were antithetical to his point.
For example, slide 48:
Violent crime, 1997: 4,596
Violent crime, 2007: 4,552
But in 2008, there were 4,992 violent crimes--from the data in Martinson's own presentation. That's an 8% INCREASE IN CRIME. Also, Martinson cites a "73% explainable variation" co-relation of unemployment and crimes on slide 30. Crime peaked when unemployment hit 6.5 in 2003.
The Tulsa World just reported that Tulsa's crime rate is now 6.3%.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090
620_11_A1_Oklaho643816
If Martinson's historical perspective is true, then we should prepare for increased crime according to the same variation. On Martinson's own terms, the "historical variation" suggests about 31,500 crimes will occur--versus the 28,500 he portrayed in 2007.
So, that would portend a 10% CRIME INCREASE. According to Martinson's proposal we would have to fight 10% more crime--with 149 fewer officers. There are many issues with the actions of Thursday's night City Council Meeting. The Fraternal Order of Police believes the public needs to be aware of the course the four councilors were attempting to chart. If the Mr. Martinson would have received one more vote, the Citizens would have woken up July 1, 2009 with 149 fewer police officers, and approximately 120 fewer fire fighters.
Councilor G. T. Bynum, who voted for the Mayor's budget, wrote previously that "under our contracts [with police officers and firefighters] we can't reduce salaries/benefits so the result of [Martinson's] proposal would have been to lay off 20% of our police and firefighting forces.
Tonight the Tulsa City Council approved Mayor Kathy Taylor's budget by a vote of 5-4. The budget reflects deep cuts due to falling revenues and includes mandatory unpaid furloughs for city employees.
The four councilors who voted against Taylor's budget supported an alternative by Councilor Bill Martinson. Before your knee jerks and you assume Martinson was motivated by sheer partisanship, head over to Councilor John Eagleton's website and download Martinson's budget presentation. It's an 8 MB PowerPoint file, but it's eye-opening and worth the trouble. (For number crunchers, the raw numbers behind the charts and graphs are embedded in the PowerPoint file.)
The presentation highlights the growth of Police and Fire Departments' share of the budget over the last 40 years, during which time the police and fire budget has more than tripled in constant dollars, while land area and population have grown by 13% and 17% respectively. So even if you had expected the police and fire budget to grow proportionately to population and land area and in line with inflation, the current budget is two-and-a-half times bigger than you would expect based on those factors.
Over the same 40 year period, police and fire personnel have only grown from 1,151 to 1,612, only about a 50% increase, despite the inflation-adjusted tripling of the budget.
In 1968-9, police and fire (including capital equipment) made up 32% of the General Fund. In 2008-9, police and fire (excluding capital equipment, which is now paid for from the Third Penny fund) makes up 57% of the General Fund.
Here's another way to look at it: In the current fiscal year (2008-9), the first two cents of the sales tax, which goes to the General Fund, were budgeted to bring in $142.8 million in revenue. The Police and Fire Departments budget for 2008-9: $142.8 million.
The problem isn't payroll, evidently: From 1999-2000 to the budget for 2009-2010, the police and fire budget grew by 35% (not adjusted for inflation) while the number of employees shrank from 1660 to 1597.
What about the City's many other areas of responsibility -- neighborhood inspections, parks and recreation, internal auditing, the legal department, human resources? Martinson provides several examples where a department has increased its revenues while cutting expenses, effectively, as Martinson puts it, "donat[ing] revenue to the Police and Fire Departments."
According to Martinson, Taylor's budget, revised for new, lower revenue forecasts, would put the combined police and fire budget at 105.23% of the projected General Fund sales tax revenue. Martinson proposes cutting that number and restoring $3.9 million in funding for materials for keeping our roads drivable (salt, sand, concrete, and aggregate), nuisance abatement, animal welfare, mowing, security and recreation programs for public housing, and other basic purposes.
Go read the whole thing, and let me know what you think.
UPDATE: Via e-mail, Councilor G. T. Bynum provides some perspective on Martinson's presentation and his vote in favor of Taylor's budget:
I thought Bill's analysis was pretty powerful when it came to the increase in funding not equating to an increase in manpower. At the same time, under our contracts we can't reduce salaries/benefits so the result of his proposal would have been to lay off 20% of our police and firefighting forces. That was too much for me.
In a later e-mail, Bynum wrote, "Whomever negotiates our next round of contracts needs to do a better job of protecting the City's flexibility."
Tulsa City Councilor G. T. Bynum sent out an email today announcing his decision to run for re-election to his District 9 post, rather than running for the mayor's seat left open by Kathy Taylor's decision not to run for re-election.
Bynum's decision leaves five councilors who have not officially announced their intentions regarding the mayor's race. Rick Westcott (District 2) and Bill Christiansen (District 8) have both said they're considering the race.
Here is Bynum's announcement, posted with his permission.
Family, Friends & Neighbors:In the week since Mayor Taylor's surprise announcement that she would not seek a second term, many of you have emailed and called me with your encouragement to run for mayor. I can not convey how much it means to me that, based on my work in a brief time on the Council, you would enthusiastically entrust me with what I honestly believe is a sacred duty: managing the day-to-day affairs of the city in which we live with the people we love.
That is what drew me to run for the Council: the people I love live here, and I want the place where they live to be the best it can be. That has guided all of my decisions on the Council.
But with a rambunctious 2-year-old at home and a baby due in September, the people I love the most - our young and growing family - need me right now as a husband and Dad. Those are more important jobs to me than being mayor. I am also not so full of myself as to think I don't have anything to learn before seeking such an important public office.
I am hopeful that someone with political courage will step forward in this race, because that is what our City needs: performance audits of all departments, utility rates in line with costs, a clearly-defined and strategic partnership with the County, a second streets proposal to finish the work of the first, river development, and a bipartisan approach to governance. All of these will be tough, some of them will be unpopular, but all of them are needed. These are the issues I would have focused on as a mayoral candidate, and these are the ones I will focus on in my re-election campaign for City Council District 9.
The City Council is a tremendous opportunity for citizens to play a part in the life of our City without the taxing impact on family life that comes with the job of mayor. I love my work on the Council, and am eager to seek another term.
For all of you who have encouraged me to run for mayor, I'm honored by your faith in me.
GT
Photo from the Tulsa City Council website.
I'm in the throes of a major effort at work and only have time to throw you a few links to good reading elsewhere:
For your viewing pleasure, Tulsa TV Memories links to the Life archive and photos from February 1952 of KOTV general manager Helen Alvarez. Besides photos of the lovely Mrs. Alvarez, the archive shows the Channel 6 news, weather, and sports sets of the day, plus photos from the Sun Refinery and of a powwow. (Does this qualify as a Rule 5 post?)
Irritated Tulsan discovers that the Boulder Ave. bridge is safe enough -- for the crane that's demolishing it.
Steve Roemerman has posted a new podcast, reacting to Councilor G. T. Bynum's comments during last week's ballpark assessment vote.
Chris Medlock has a new podcast up, reacting to comments about city election "reform" made by former Mayor Susan Savage. And he talks to State Sen. Randy Brogdon about the legislative session and the gubernatorial campaign.
I've got some thoughts about the Council's 5-4 vote to approve the assessment roll of the Tulsa Stadium Improvement District -- the controversial funding mechanism for funding the Tulsa Drillers new downtown baseball stadium -- but no time right now. Watch for something Monday morning.
Steven Roemerman has posted some hard-hitting commentary about the vote. It has extra relevance as the mayoral race looms near. It's a hard thing to say, "wait," or "no," when everyone is shouting that we must act and must act now. It's even harder to do that from inside a baseball mascot costume. Steven's commentary:
- Christiansen's Ball Park Fail Whale Sandwich
- "But I didn't know that would happen..."
- Hornsby votes against the ballpark
An excerpt from the second of the three entries:
Aside from the citizens exercising their right to vote her out of office, the Council is the only check and balance to the Mayor. It is the Council's duty to flush out such things before passing something as weighty as a 64,900% increase on a downtown assessment on the citizens of Tulsa. To complain now is sad and pathetic. Moreover, the very idea that Councilor Christiansen is thinking about running for Mayor now after this fiasco is insulting and scary.Tulsa's Mayor has a lot of power, and the person that sits behind that desk on the top floor of the One Technology Center needs to be a strong leader, one who makes the tough calls, and flushes out all the details before making important decisions. We do not need a follower that stands in the Council chambers complaining that they cannot see past the next action they will take.
I haven't been watching much TV lately, but I'm told that Mayor Kathy Taylor's valedictory ads, trumpeting her record as mayor, have already begun to run on local stations.
I spoke to someone this morning who has some direct, recent experience with advertising on local TV. He says there's no way you could decide on a Thursday not to run for re-election and the next day start running TV ads. It takes at least two weeks to line up air time. It also takes time -- days, not hours -- to write, shoot, and produce a minute-long commercial that is as well-done as Taylor's "I'm not running" ad. This suggests that the decision not to run was made at least two weeks ago.
His speculation is that the ads are intended to create a groundswell of support for her to reverse course and run for re-election. Taylor is benefiting from news stories reviewing her term of office as if she's already gone. Her fans on local message boards are shouting down any criticism of her performance. For the next month, she can pose as someone above the fray of politics, as her potential successors jockey for funding and support. Then she can file at the last minute for re-election, reluctantly submitting to a draft.
What's the benefit of such a scenario? Here's one possibility: Before Taylor announced her withdrawal, the question among Republicans was who would "draw the short straw," "take one for the team," and run an almost certainly futile campaign against someone able to spend a million dollars on her own re-election. You can't run for mayor and run at the same time for re-election as councilor, so it would be hard to convince more than one councilor to abandon easy re-election for a doomed effort.
But if she's out of the picture, it suddenly becomes conceivable that you could raise the funds for a successful race for an open seat. Two, maybe three Republican councilors throw their hats in the ring, thinking the odds are worth the risk. In this scenario, Taylor lines up her allies to run for those now-open council seats, then jumps back into the mayor's race at the last minute, after the councilors have already filed to run for mayor, too late to back out and run for re-election. Taylor gets back in for another term with a more compliant council that won't challenge her decisions.
Even if Taylor doesn't re-enter the race, it's almost certain that there is an anointed successor waiting in the wings, possibly someone capable of self-funding to the same degree as Taylor. This scenario could still serve as a trap, luring councilors away from seeking re-election to safe seats, putting together last minute citywide campaign teams, and finding themselves up against an experienced campaign organization ready to do battle.
In 2002, when J. C. Watts announced at the last minute that he wouldn't run for re-election to Congress, only one potential replacement wasn't caught flat-footed: His longtime political adviser Tom Cole, who went on to win the seat. Cole drew some primary opposition from Marc Nuttle, and with several months to raise money Nuttle, with his connections to national conservative organizations, could have been a formidable candidate. Instead, Nuttle had only six weeks from Watts' announcement to election day in which to decide to run, organize a campaign, raise money, and meet voters. On primary night, Cole had 60% to Nuttle's 33%.
The scenario presented by my friend was intriguing, but I'm still inclined to believe that Taylor is setting herself up to run against Congressman John Sullivan next year. It would look crass if she said anything now, while he's still in rehab, but if she waited until he returns -- beginning of July at the earliest -- it wouldn't leave much time before the city filing period for someone else to get ready to run. The "I'm rising above politics to take care of the city" approach would get her out of the mayor's race, make room for someone else to get in, without seeming insensitive.
You may wonder why I'm not taking her at face value. She can very easily run the city and run for mayor at the same time. It's not like a statewide race where you have to travel incessantly to campaign. And it's not as though she has to knock doors, call voters, and lick envelopes herself. As mayor, campaigning or not, she'll be out in the community. She could do her job and then pay her PR people and campaign advisers to spin her record and get her message to the voters. There's something else going on here, and the decision to run slickly-produced campaign ads after officially "ending" her campaign only solidifies that suspicion.
UPDATE: Rusty at the OKDemocrat forum notes media interest in the story.
Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor has issued a press release saying she will not be running for re-election. She will hold a press conference at 5:30 at the Tulsa Press Club.
More as it develops.
UPDATE 6:15 pm: Taylor spoke very briefly and did not answer questions. She spent a minute or two greeting well-wishers like Tulsa Metro Chamber head Mike Neal, Convention and Visitors Bureau head Suzanne Stewart, and Sharon King Davis.
Taylor began her remarks with a list of accomplishments: A hangar for American Airlines to keep maintenance jobs here, completing the BOK Center, coping with the ice storm of 2007, "amazing progress" on the river, the entrepreneurial spirit awards, finding mentors for 400 students, and finalizing plans for the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park before Franklin's death.
Taylor decried a focus on personalities and partisan politics and expressed hope that stepping down would help the Council do the right thing with regard to the ballpark. (Tonight is the final vote on the assessment roll for the Tulsa Stadium Improvement District.)
Taylor said the primary reason for not running was to ensure the economic viability of Tulsa. She claimed that "we've turned this city around." She said she needed to be running the city, not running a political campaign. As she makes tough budget decisions, she doesn't want a partisan political cloud over decision making.
Taylor said she had no plans for the future but would continue to pursue her passions: education, small business, and greening Tulsa.
MORE: Taylor's letter to city employees at 5:30 this evening:
Together, we have opened a world-class arena, moved city hall to a modern and high-tech new space, seen amazing progress on the revitalization of downtown, made a significant commitment to our streets infrastructure, created new education opportunities for our children and recruited hundreds of mentors for at-risk kids. We have promoted health programs, had success with our "biggest loser" wellness program and worked side by side with community leaders with the shared goal of making our neighborhoods safer.We have launched new initiatives in the areas of energy efficiency and we have pulled resources together to honor the many veterans and military families in Tulsa. We have made city government more efficient because of your participation in High Performance Government and our green initiatives are saving energy costs in departments throughout the city. We have supported emerging businesses with our Entrepreneurship Week and Spirit Awards and thousands of Tulsans have given us their input through our city's comprehensive planning process.
All of these initiatives and many many more have culminated in a record of amazing progress for the city we love. It is a record you can be proud of and I want to personally thank you for all you have done to make it possible!
Because of the serious budget and economic challenges we are facing, the next 6 months are going to be pivotal and frankly, very difficult for our City. Tough decisions will have to be made that may not be popular, but they will be fiscally responsible- and they will help secure Tulsa's future.
I have been in public service now for 6 years -- first as Secretary of Commerce and Tourism for the State and these last years as your Mayor. Amazing things can be accomplished when private citizens get engaged in their community.
Thank you again for your hard work and for allowing me to be a part of this great team of city employees.
It is an honor I will value forever.
Sincerely,
Kathy Taylor,
Mayor
Tulsa City Councilor Rick Westcott emailed me a short time ago to point out the bind into which downtown property owners have been put by Mayor Kathy Taylor's administration's insistence that owners had only limited rights to protest the assessment for the new Tulsa Stadium Improvement District, which will finance a new ballpark for the Tulsa Drillers. Now that the Oklahoma Attorney General has contradicted the Taylor administration, it's too late for property owners to file a protest, according to Taylor's timetable for getting the assessment roll approved.
There are a couple of points that no one seems to be making about the ballpark assessment and the Attorney General's advisory letter.Since last July, the Mayor and the City Attorney have repeatedly said that the assessment on a piece of property does not need to have a relationship to the benefit which the property will receive from the ballpark. They have said that all downtown property can be assessed at the same rate, no matter how near or far it is from the ballpark. I have disagreed with the Mayor and the City Attorney on that issue since last July. I believed that state law was clear, that there must be a relationship between the assessment rate and the benefit which a piece of property will receive. The less the benefit, the less the assessment rate.
Now, the AG's letter says the Mayor and the City Attorney are wrong. The AG says that the assessment rate for a piece of property must bear a relationship to the benefit which the property will receive. The further away a piece of property is from the ballpark, the less the benefit and the less the assessment rate. Or, if the County believes that the jail will not receive any benefit from the ballpark, then the jail should be assessed as a lesser rate.
In April, the City Council was preparing to conduct a hearing on the assessment roll and approve the assessment for all downtown property. The Mayor and the City Attorney told property owners that, if they had not objected last July at the formation of the assessment district, then they could not object at the hearing on the assessment on their property. In fact, the City Attorney provided a lengthy, written legal opinion justifying her position on that issue.
The AG's letter says they are wrong. The AG says that a property owner could object to the amount of the assessment on his or her property, even if they hadn't objected to the formation of the assessment district.
But, based upon the assurances by the Mayor and the legal opinions by the City Attorney, most property owners did not file objections in April. They were told that they couldn't object, so they relied on that advice and they didn't object.
Now, the AG says that the Mayor and the City Attorney were wrong. The AG says that the property owners could have objected at the April hearing. But, since they relied on the Mayor's statements and the City Attorney's opinion, they didn't object. Now, the deadline has passed and they can't object.
And, now, the assessment roll may proceed.
The Mayor and the City Attorney misinformed people as to what the law was and what their rights were. The property owners relied on that advice. Now, the time to file an objection has expired.
But, the Mayor is spinning this as, "The AG says there's nothing wrong and the assessment can go forward."
I am not against the ballpark. I have never been against the ballpark. But, I have a duty to protect the citizens of Tulsa and make sure that all aspects of it are done legally and properly.
The City of Tulsa has been scolded once more over its management of federal Community Development Block Grant funds. On April 30, the director of HUD's local Office of Community Planning and Development notified the City's grant administrator that Tulsa is not spending its federal grant in a timely manner. (Last August, the City of Tulsa was dinged by HUD for being unable to support $1.4 million in CDBG allocations for FY 2006 and FY 2007 and for another $115,215 spent on ineligible activities.)
April 30, 2009
Department of Grants Administration
City of Tulsa
175 East 2nd Street
Suite 15-051
Tulsa, OK 74103Subject: CDBG Program Timeliness Notice
Dear Ms. Pharis:The purpose of this letter is to remind you that as required by 24 CFR 570.902 of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) regulations, this office will review the City of Tulsa for compliance with the requirements for carrying out a CDBG program in a timely manner. A grantee is considered to be in compliance, if 60 days prior to the end of its program year, there is no more than 1.5 times its annual grant remaining in the line-of-credit. Tulsa has an October 1 program year start date. Pursuant to our letter to the city dated October 10, 2008, the last 60-day test was conducted on August 2, 2008, and it was then calculated that your community had a balance in its line-of-credit of 1.65 times its annual grant. Accordingly, the city was in non-compliance with the timeliness performance provision at 24 CFR 570.902. As of April 21, 2009, the city had a ratio of 3.13 times its annual grant plus program income.
As discussed in our monitoring letter dated August 29, 2008, it is apparent that the City will not be able to move forward with its $1.5M acquisition, relocation, and disposition project until it has developed its relocation plan pursuant to the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act (URA). This delay has further hindered the City's ability to reduce its 1.65 ratio by the end of September 2008 as initially discussed with the office. Additionally, as a result of HUD returning the city's repayment of $1.49 Million in ineligible costs to the city's line of credit and Tulsa's apparent inability to thus far commit and disburse these and FY 2009 CDBG Program funds in a more timely manner, the city's drawdown ratio has further deteriorated.
The City of Tulsa should take all appropriate actions to improve the drawdown rate, including, but not limited to the development of a workout plan, timetables and schedules in order to comply with the timeliness standard. The workout plan should be submitted to HUD for review and approval within 30 days from the date of this letter.
For your information, you may download from HUD's web site a copy of the CDBG timeliness guidebook entitled, "Developing and Implementing a CDBG Workout Plan: Guidelines for Putting Your Community Devleopment Block Grant Program on the Road to Timeliness." The guidebook provides a detailed description of each element required to be included in the workout plan. The 14-page document can be downloaded from the following site:
(www.HUD.gov/offices/cpd/communitydevelopment/library/workoutplans.pdf)
Please submit your workout plan and any additional informatoin concerning the failure to comply with 570.902 to this office within 30 days from the date of this letter. My staff and I remain available to assist you in any way possible in your goal to reach the 1.5 threshold. Should you have any questions regarding thisletter or th eDepartment's timely performance policy, please feel free to contact Mr. Hillard Berry, CPD Representative at (405) 609-8568, Ms. Trina Tollett, Financial Analyst, at (405) 609-8426, or me at (405) 609-8569.
Sincerely,
David H. Long, Director
Office of Community Planning and Developmentcc: Honorable Kathryn Taylor, Mayor, City of Tulsa
Mr. Ronald Miles, HUD, Tulsa Area Field Office Director
Amy Polenchek, Chief of Staff, City of Tulsa
Mike Bunny, Economic Development Officer, City of Tulsa
Two notes and some questions:
- The whole point of the Feds giving you money is so that you'll spend it.
- Evidently this problem is common enough that HUD made a booklet about it.
- Why did HUD give Tulsa back the money Tulsa repaid for ineligible CDBG spending?
- If they give us money back unexpectedly, why should we be scolded for not having spent it yet? Or is HUD giving it back to us with the command to spend it on eligible programs?
- What is the "$1.5M acquisition, relocation, and disposition project" that the letter mentions? And is it just a coincidence that it's nearly the same amount that Tulsa paid back to HUD?
Last fall, Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor asked the International Downtown Association to send a team to study our downtown, and in particular to look at the city's arrangement with Tul-Center, Inc., the arm of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited (DTU) that has handled downtown services since the current business improvement district was established in 1981. (The DTU executive committee serves as the board of directors for Tul-Center, Inc.)
Here's what the City asked the IDA team to do:
The City of Tulsa seeks to create an organization that can coordinate, plan, direct and manage a wide range of downtown revitalization functions, including the integration and implementation of downtown plans, management of downtown public/private partnerships, support for downtown business groups, and support and management of programs as designated by the City. Possible functions include parking management, management of downtown business improvement district programs, event functions, and other downtown operations.The IDA Advisory Panel will examine and assess the current organizations, agencies and programs focused on the revitalization of downtown Tulsa, including the relationship between the City of Tulsa, Downtown Tulsa Unlimited and various stakeholders; discuss and compare best practices and successful strategies employed by other similar business districts in terms of organizational structure, functions, and programs, particularly with regard to functions within the scope of a downtown management organization; review and make recommendations regarding any appropriate organizational development strategies; examine advantages and disadvantages of collaborative planning and funding strategies, especially in business improvement districts; and recommend ways that programs, if initiated, can be sustained.
The team of four, including Oklahoma City planning director Russell Claus, came to Tulsa, Nov. 15 to 18, 2008, right before the Tulsa Run. A 27-page report was released in February 2009. (Click here to read the IDA Advisory Panel Report on Tulsa (PDF format).
The IDA team's report begins:
A first-time visitor to downtown Tulsa may be somewhat mystified. Streets and sidewalks are clean and well-lighted. A collection of handsome, even extraordinary art deco buildings adorn the office core. A strikingly designed arena stands dramatically on the edge of downtown, complemented by perhaps the most attractive new City Hall in America. Here and there, a café or coffee house lights the street. And yet...where are the people?As a visitor spends more time in downtown Tulsa, other impressions emerge. There are few street level establishments of a retail nature. Windows facing the street are far too often dark. The hustle and bustle that today characterizes many downtowns across North America is simply absent. It feels like a time warp - as if it's 1988 in downtown Tulsa, not 2008.
Here's the IDA report's description of the current arrangement:
According to the DTID (Downtown Tulsa Improvement District) Summary Sheet, the downtown Tulsa district "was created to provide public improvements and maintenance beyond normal City services to help sustain, increase, and re-attract businesses as well as entertainment activities to downtown." According to the Summary Sheet, the City is the governing body and Tul-Center, Inc., a non-profit organization of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited, manages the daily services provided by several subcontractors."The 2008-2009 contract of approximately $952,000 between the City of Tulsa and Tul-Center, Inc. comes from two roughly equal sources: assessments on property owners in downtown and the City of Tulsa itself. The current contract, approved by the Tulsa City Council in 1999, is in effect through June 30, 2009.
Part of the report deals with criticisms of DTU:
With more than 50 years of history, DTU is one of the oldest downtown organizations in the US. It has a track record of accomplishments during its existence. It has a board of directors composed of some of Tulsa's most prominent corporate citizens. And, through Tul-Center Inc., it has managed the business improvement district since it was established.Like many downtown organizations today, DTU relies on the BID assessment for its very existence. BID revenues constitute about 9 out every 11 dollars passing through DTU each year. With the BID assessment, DTU manages a fairly standard menu of "clean and safe" services, and also promotes downtown with events like Mayfest and by installing , removing and storing holiday decorations.
The recommendations and observations are well worth reading. One highlight is the strong interest among young people in downtown and their desire to protect buildings that may not be "architecturally or historically significant, [but they] represent adaptive re-use possibilities for residential development, office space for small companies, and street level space for restaurants, clubs, and retail shops."
DTU President Jim Norton responded to the team's visit in DTU's December 1, 2008 newsletter:
One of their first recommendations was that the current custodial responsibilities, which DTU performs, are done as good as or better than anyone in the country. That's very encouraging news for us, and it tells us that what we've been doing for the last 30 years has been a tremendous success. They were very impressed with the cleanliness of Downtown and with the efficiency of our operations. They made suggestions that DTU needs to reach out to the surrounding neighborhoods and to other interest groups to include them in creating a vision for Downtown that everyone buys into. They also made other recommendations regarding the marketing of our Central Business District in creating lively activities throughout the year. These are items which we have totally embraced and look forward to making the future better for everyone.
The Downtown Tulsa Improvement District expires on June 30 and is being replaced with the Tulsa Stadium Improvement District. The City of Tulsa has issued an invitation to bid (TAC 843) on providing the public property maintenance services (Microsoft Word document) currently being provided by DTU/Tul-Center. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. on May 20, 2009. The base bid includes maintaining 215 miles of sidewalk (daily), 18 miles of alleys, 1320 trees, and 80 trash containers. Bidders also have to quote a price for sidewalk cleaning per square yard, sidewalk snow and ice removal per mile, special event sidewalk sweeping per foot, brick sidewalk paver replacement per square foot, general labor per man hour, mowing/landscaping per square yard, and additional trash service per can per month.
The specification is precise in requiring particular fertilizers and lawn treatments, and there are some other interesting provisions:
Personnel must be fluent in English, as they will be expected to provide information, directions and help to the public.All paved sidewalk and plaza surfaces must be swept daily (with a complete cycle each week) using mechanical sweepers and/or manually. Mechanical sweepers, blowers, or power vacuum equipment will not be operated during the lunch period or at other times when large crowds of people are present. The paved sidewalk surfaces shall be inspected weekly and specific trouble spots, INCLUDING CHEWING GUM, cleaned with a power scrubber, high pressure sprayer or other means as needed. The standard of maintenance for this service shall be to provide litter free, clean sidewalks and alleys.
Water usage specifically for this area will be metered and recorded by a portable water meter obtained by the landscape contractor from the City of Tulsa Water and Sewer Department. CONTRACTOR shall pay the required deposit and all other costs associated with obtaining such metering device.
UPDATE 2:00 p.m.: Mayor's office has delayed Rodolf nomination to next week.
UPDATE 5/1/2009: Council declined to approve postponement, then turned down the Rodolf nomination, 3-6 -- Patrick, Troyer, Bynum voting yes; Henderson, Westcott, Gomez, Martinson, Eagleton, Christiansen voting no.
Tonight (April 30, 2009) at the Tulsa City Council's regular meeting, the Council will consider Mayor Kathy Taylor's nomination of a replacement for Michael Slankard on the City's Ethics Advisory Committee (EAC). The Council should vote against the replacement nominee, which will leave Slankard in place, continuing his honorable and independent service on that committee.
Despite the urging of the chairman of the EAC and the desire of a majority on the Council, Taylor refused to reappoint Slankard. As the Council's resistance to a replacement solidified, suddenly some anonymous person brought an ethics complaint against Slankard, claiming a conflict of interest because he suggested and then participated in the investigation (and dismissal) of ethical issues surrounding Taylor giving Councilor David Patrick a ride back from Colorado on her Lear 31A, just in time to vote on Taylor's financing plan for the downtown. Slankard voted with the rest of the committee, finding no ethical violation by either Patrick or Taylor.
The complaint against Slankard was passed through City Attorney Dierdre Dexter, who is an at-will employee of Taylor. The complaint was investigated and rejected by the other members of the EAC, despite their long-standing policy against hearing anonymous complaints at all.
You can read a more detailed account of the tug of war between Taylor and the Council over Michael Slankard's reappointment in my April 15, 2009, UTW column.
This apparent attempt to use the ethics process for leverage in a political battle between the executive and legislative branches ought to make Slankard's supporters on the City Council even more determined to keep him on the EAC.
Taylor's proposed replacement for Slankard, Sandra Rodolf, was back before the Council at the Tuesday, April 28, Urban and Economic Development committee meeting. According to a couple of independent reports, Jack Henderson, Rick Westcott, Bill Martinson, and John Eagleton all indicated that they support Slankard and would be voting against Rodolf's appointment; David Patrick, Dennis Troyer, and G. T. Bynum expressed support for Rodolf; Bill Christiansen and Eric Gomez didn't say either way, but have expressed support for keeping Slankard on the committee.
Here is the summary of the discussion from the April 28, 2009, Urban and Economic Development Committee meeting. The summary appears to have been truncated by the database software:
Sandra Rodolf present. Westcott felt her qualifications were stellar; however, he feels the Mayor is using her as an attempt to get back at Micahel Slankard, and for that, he apologizes. Councilor Westcott gave the background history of the case involving Michael Slankard. Councilor Troyer commented that all the Council does is approve or disapprove the Mayor's recommendations. Councilor Eagleton echoed Westcott's comments. Councilor Patrick commented that Mrs. Rodolf was not involved with Michael Slankard and should be approved based on her qualifications only. Councilor Bynum thanked Ms. Rodolf for going through this appointment process. The Charter states what the role of the Council is during the appointment process. We should vote on her qualifications only. Councilor Henderson expressed concerned of having 3 members from District 9 on one committee. Nancy Siegel - don't believe everything you think. She was recommended solely based her background and qualifications. Mr. Slankard is being replaced due to his tenure on the board. Ethics will be highly called upon due to PW issues. This is speculation only. Henderson does not understand why the appointees have to have a legal background. Also, the City's position has been to keep the experienced appointees on the board. Councilor Martinson
Henderson raised an important point about diversity on the committee. Taylor's change would be a step backwards in terms of geographic diversity. Replacing Slankard with Rodolf would swap a resident of north Tulsa's District 3, which has few members of city authorities, boards, and commissions (known as ABCs for short) with a resident of the Midtown Money Belt, which historically is where most mayoral appointees live -- this is a long-term trend, not specific to Taylor). As last summer's PLANiTULSA survey showed, midtowners and north Tulsans have very different views about how fair city government is. Loading the EAC up with Midtown Money Belt residents would send the wrong signal to the rest of the city. There needs to be a balance.
With due respect to Councilor Bynum, he's reading something into the City Charter that isn't there. Article III, Section 1.4, paragraph G says regarding mayoral appointments to ABCs:
Appoint, subject to confirmation by a majority vote of the entire membership of the Council, the members of all boards, commissions, authorities, and agencies created by this amended Charter, ordinance, agreement, or pursuant to law, and exercise general control and supervision thereof, provided, all appointees shall, as a condition of their appointment and continued service, be qualified electors and maintain their principal residence within the city limits of the City of Tulsa
Nothing in the charter specifies the criteria a councilor must apply when voting on a mayoral ABC appointee. The councilors can apply whatever standards they deem prudent. The confirmation power is an important check on mayoral power. ABCs have significant power -- some more than others -- and in some cases, the vote on the appointment is the only input the councilors have into the way a given ABC sets policy.
When Mayor Bill LaFortune reappointed Jim Cameron and Lou Reynolds to the Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority, a majority of the councilors objected, concerned about the TMUA's policies on water rates to the suburbs and whether the authority was putting the growth desires of the suburbs ahead of those of undeveloped parts of the City of Tulsa. I supported the "Gang of Five" in their effort to block the reappointment. (The effort failed when Sam Roop switched sides on the issue, shortly before LaFortune hired him to work in the Mayor's office.)
In August 2001, during the Susan Savage administration, the City Council voted against reappointing Kim Holland to the EMSA board. They were raked over the coals by the daily paper for doing so, but there was no question that they had the discretion and authority to say no to Savage's pick.
More recently, Taylor has quietly withdrawn the names of at least two of her appointees after it became clear that the Council would reject. There was speculation that the same thing would happen with the Rodolf nomination.
Once in a while the Council takes a vote that I regard as a key test of character, an indication of whether someone is willing to do the right thing in the face of pressure. These are the votes I remember and weigh when a city councilor seeks higher office. (If the persistent rumors that Taylor may be leaving for a position in the Obama administration are true, several of these councilors may be running for mayor sooner than they planned.)
The vote tonight on replacing Michael Slankard is such a test. The City Council should emphatically reject Kathy Taylor's efforts to kick an honorable, scrupulous man off of the Ethics Advisory Committee.
DOCUMENTS:
Last fall Novus Homes LLC, W3 Development LLC, and principals of the two companies filed suit against Tulsa Development Authority for breach of contract involving TDA's termination of the exclusive negotiating period with Novus Homes LLC for redevelopment of the vacant the half-block west of Elgin Avenue between Archer and Brady Streets. Novus Homes planned a lofts and retail development on the site, which is now part of the land the stadium donors plan to redevelop in connection with the new downtown stadium for the Tulsa Drillers. On Tuesday, the suit has been expanded to include the City of Tulsa as a defendant, citing actions by Mayor Kathy Taylor which, the plaintiffs allege, resulted in the early termination of the exclusive negotiating period for the land.
According to a story in today's Journal Record, "Through the discovery process, the developers said they learned of Taylor's alleged interference in TDA business and procedures, leading to termination of their exclusive deal in her quest to complete the ballpark deal."
Here's a link to the OSCN page on the suit, CJ-2008-5713. Here is the amended petition for the lawsuit (PDF). It includes the following allegation:
30. Beginning in late May, 2008, City of Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor began inserting herself into TDA operations related to this downtown Tulsa location, without TDA approval. The TDA viewed Mayor Taylor's interference as "irregular," and TDA Commissioners were "concerned" and "surprised" by her "irregular" interference in their operations. See, e.g., Transcript of Deposition of TDA Commissioner John Clayman, Tulsa County District Court Case No. CJ-2008-5713, at pp. 40-48 (November 11, 2008).31. Mayor Taylor was, without consulting or obtaining approval from the TDA, personally renegotiating and amending existing TDA contracts, conveying TDA-owned properties in exchange for properties the City of Tulsa and the eventual Tulsa Stadium Trust desired, and influencing existing TDA relationships, all to enable the City of Tulsa and the Tulsa Stadium Trust to procure the real property necessary for the proposed new downtown baseball stadium and surrounding development.
32. Mayor Taylor's actions were in violation of O.S. §11 38-107, whereby powers of the Urban Renewal Authority (TDA) "shall be exercised by the commissioners thereof."
Here's the press release from Novus Homes:
DOWNTOWN DEVELOPERS SUE CITY OF TULSA
FOR MAYOR'S OBSTRUCTION WITH PROJECTTwo Tulsa development companies and their principals have filed a lawsuit against the City of Tulsa alleging that the City, and specifically Mayor Kathy Taylor, unlawfully interfered with their exclusive contractual rights to develop a downtown property. The developers allege that the City's interference was part of the Mayor's effort to relocate the Tulsa Drillers baseball stadium to the downtown Brady District.
On April 14, 2009, Novus Homes, LLC, W3 Development, LLC, Will Wilkins and Cecilia Wilkins added the City as a second defendant to their lawsuit originally brought against the Tulsa Development Authority (TDA). The developers sued the TDA on August 14, 2008, one week after the TDA prematurely terminated the developers' exclusive negotiating right on this property, situated on the half block west of Elgin between Archer and Brady, known as 120 Brady Village.
Since filing the original lawsuit, the developers learned through the discovery process that the City of Tulsa, and specifically Mayor Kathy Taylor, had irregularly interfered with TDA business and procedures in violation of Oklahoma statutes, which led to the TDA's unlawful termination of its exclusive deal with the developers. The developers allege Mayor Taylor unlawfully inserted herself into TDA operations in her quest to relocate the Drillers stadium to a site directly across the street from the property on which the developers had an exclusive right to negotiate.
As part of the stadium relocation effort, Mayor Taylor recruited a group of private donors which included herself and her husband through the Lobeck Taylor Foundation. These donors funded a significant portion of the project, and in return, were awarded the construction and financing of the ballpark project and the surrounding properties, including the property for which the developers had an exclusive right, under a self described "master plan."
Mayor Taylor's decision to rush this project through during the summer of 2008, bypassing normal process and due diligence, has resulted in multiple lawsuits and threatens to tie the City up in litigation for years to come.
Previous BatesLine entries and Urban Tulsa Weekly columns on this topic:
- August 6, 2008: The Control Freaks' Squeeze Play
- August 6, 2008: How much should a ballpark cost?
- August 7, 2008: TDA breaks its word, dumps Lofts @ 120
- August 11, 2008: Shahadi must go
- August 18, 2008: Downtown Drillers ballpark and the Tulsa Stadium Trust -- quotes of the day
- August 27, 2008: It's All about Trust
- April 15, 2009: Hot Property, All of a Sudden
One of the stories that broke while I was focused on the day job involved Tulsa City Councilor Eric Gomez's threats to sue Julie Hall of Who Owns Tulsa? over her criticism of his actions as a councilor. You may have missed it, too, so here's the KOTV News on 6 video, from March 3, 2009:
In a March 2, 2009, e-mail, Hall wrote:
Attached is a letter from Councilor Gomez' attorney threatening to sue me for defamation and my attorney's response. The threat was prompted by my role in coordinating a recall petition against Councilor Gomez and related criticisms of his actions as a public official.This release is in part a response to the threats against a citizen who reported a possible ethics violation regarding two city councilors. One of my concerns is that the initial response from the City Council included the implied threat of legal action. It would appear that the biggest mistake the citizen made was giving his name rather than reporting his concerns anonymously.
As citizens, we have First Amendment rights. These rights are so important that with respect to public officials and their acts, Oklahoma law protects these communications unless they falsely impute a crime to the officer criticized. Under federal law, speech concerning public officials is actionable only if it is false, defamatory, and made with actual malice.
The Gomez letter was issued after the recall was denied; after I had announced that another petition effort would not be pursued; and after Councilor Gomez stated publicly that he hoped we could put it behind us.
Although I was the direct recipient of the threat, it wasn't limited to me. Councilor Gomez threatened to sue "any and all persons acting in concert with me". This could include the officers of Who Owns Tulsa, anyone who has attended a meeting, or written a check. It could also include every citizen who signed the recall petition.
Lawsuits can financially devastate those involved, and the threat of such lawsuits has a chilling effect on free speech. Lawsuits designed to silence opposition on public issues are known nationally as SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation) suits, and several states have passed legislation to protect their citizens from such threats. You rarely hear of threatened SLAPP suits because they are so effective, but they happen more often than you might think.
Councilor Gomez is gearing up for an election year. In my opinion, any Councilor who would sue or threaten to sue constituents for criticizing his official actions should not be re-elected. I encourage you to ask your Councilor if you too are at risk of a lawsuit if you criticize his official conduct.
No Tulsan should live in fear that the mere expression of an opinion and participation in public forums or processes is grounds for legal action. We will never agree on every issue, but free speech and the First Amendment belong to us all.
After the jump, the letter that Gomez's attorney sent to Hall, and the reply from Hall's attorney.
Steven Roemerman is not only a blogger, he's also a member of the City of Tulsa Sales Tax Overview Committee, which is charged with keeping tabs on how the city spends the "Third Penny" sales tax for capital improvement projects. In that role, he's had opportunity to hear representatives from the Finance Department and the Public Works Department speak about the federal indictments for fraud and bribery involving two now-former Public Works employees and several contractors that do business with the city.
Steven has collected his notes and reflections on the Tulsa Public Works indictments here.
One section raised several questions in my mind:
I sat in a meeting with Paul Zachary from Public Works and he said, "We do not award contracts over here, we advertise them from here." The awarding of contracts happens downtown at City Hall through the City Clerk's office with representatives from Finance, Legal, and the contract administrators.In one allegation, there was money taken to influence the awarding of a contract, but the individual who took the money could not have influenced who won the contract. As previously stated, Public Works does not award construction contracts, they only advertise them.
The second allegation regarding bribes for contracts has to do with the professional services selection committee. In that committee, one of the decisions they make regards who will perform the inspection each project once it is complete. It is preferred that the firm that designs a project also performs the inspection. Money was given to influence the PSSC to award the designer of a particular project the inspection job. I asked what would have happened if no money had been exchanged? Would that firm still have gotten the inspection, would anything different have happened? The answer was no because in the preferred process, the designer does the inspection.
If this particular set of indictments did not make any sense to you that is probably because it does not make any sense. It was really pretty dumb for money to exchange hands because the person who took the money really did not have the power to make anything happen.
First, it surprises me that Public Works would have no involvement in the award decision. At the very least, wouldn't Public Works be involved in evaluating proposals for technical compliance? The City Clerk's office can tell who the low bidder is, but they wouldn't know whether the proposed low-bid solution will accomplish the task and whether the company has the competence to carry it out.
Second, even if a Public Works employee didn't have sole authority to award a contract or hire an inspector, it would be valuable for a contractor to "own" a trusted insider who would have influence over the selection. You wouldn't necessarily need to bribe the entire committee, just one person with a seat at the table where decisions are made and with the credibility to persuade the rest. If Public Works were involved in some way with evaluating proposals for compliance -- and I take it from Steven's report that this is not the case -- then it might be valuable to "own" a PW employee in a position to disqualify competing bids or to ensure that your bid wasn't disqualified.
Another possibility is that the bribes were offered based on a misunderstanding of the process by the bribers. Perhaps the contractors made assumptions on the City of Tulsa process based on the process in other cities. Or perhaps the recipient of the bribes depicted the process in a way that made himself seem more important and influential than he really was.
MORE: I wrote two columns related to the Public Works scandal: The February 4 column, about the value of an independent audit of Public Works, as advocated by former City Councilor Jim Mautino, and the February 11 column, about the role of and constraints on the City Auditor's office in acting as a fiscal watchdog.
Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor has included the controversial proposed bridge across the Arkansas River at Yale Ave. in a laundry list of city infrastructure projects that Taylor says are ready for immediate funding. Taylor's wish list is part of a collection of over 11,000 projects compiled by the U. S. Conference of Mayors in an effort to get a share of federal stimulus money. 1170 KFAQ had the story earlier today.
The USCM report, released on Monday, is called "Ready to Go" Jobs and Infrastructure Projects (click this link to download the report as a 4 MB PDF) From the introduction to the report:
Today The U.S. Conference of Mayors releases the second in its series of reports on infrastructure projects that are "ready to go" in cities across the nation - projects that can be started quickly after funding is received and generate the significant numbers of jobs that are needed to strengthen the economies of our metro areas and our nation as a whole.Today we are reporting that in 427 cities of all sizes in all regions of the country, a total of 11,391 infrastructure projects are "ready to go." These projects represent an infrastructure investment of $73,163,299,303 that would be capable of producing an estimated 847,641 jobs in 2009 and 2010.
The Conference of Mayors MainStreet Economic Recovery plan, developed under the leadership of Miami Mayor Manual A. (Manny) Diaz, the President of the Conference, calls for federal investments in 10 sectors that will quickly create jobs in metro areas, improve the infrastructure that the private sector needs to succeed, help the small businesses of Main Street America, and produce lasting economic and environmental benefits for the nation....
In early November, cities across the nation provided the Conference of Mayors with examples of needed infrastructure projects that could be started quickly and completed in 2009 if additional federal funding were made available for them in any of the 10 MainStreet infrastructure investment sectors. For these projects, the cities gave us their estimates of the amount of funding that would be needed and the number of jobs that would be created.
A report describing more than 4,600 projects in 154 cities capable of creating well over a quarter-million jobs was released by the Conference in Washington on November 13.
A week after the release of this first report, President-elect Obama stated a goal of creating 2.5 million jobs in America by 2011 - a goal strongly supported by the nation's mayors. The President-elect described a two-year initiative to rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure. In response, the Conference invited cities to again submit information on infrastructure projects, this time on projects that could start quickly in 2009 and be completed by
the end of 2010.Many of the cities included in the Conference's first report submitted additional projects, and many other cities submitted their projects, greatly increasing our total estimates of federal infrastructure funding that could be used and jobs that could be created.
This report combines the information on projects included in the first report and projects submitted in response to the Conference's second request.
Here are the two biggest items on Tulsa's list of 50 projects:
South Yale Avenue Bridge‐Construct bridge over Arkansas River at 121st and Yale Ave., $115,000,000; 600 jobs.
Roadway Improvements‐Improve 74 roadway segments thru pavement rehabilitation and lane widening to reduce congestion, and improve public safety; $200,731,000; 1,200 jobs.
Since the quoted cost of the bridge in the past has been far, far below $115 million, I would hope that that number includes the cost of needed improvements to the streets connecting to the bridge. Perhaps some of the $200 million for pavement rehab and widening would cover those areas as well.
The key thing to understand is that projects are on this list because the city believes they can be completed within the next two years if only the money were in hand. The point of this list is to say to the federal government, "give us the money and we can put hundreds of thousands of people to work right away." The list of projects implies that Tulsa could put nearly 4,000 people to work on construction over the next two years.
Other big-ticket items on the list:
Downtown Housing (on‐going stimulus package; Downtown Tulsa Master Plan Update; current C.I.P. funding list); $20,000,000; 200 jobs.
Property Acquisitions ‐ Federal Building and Post Office‐Strategic Property Acquisitions ‐ Federal Building and Post Office ( Downtown Master Plan Update; ongoing program & redevelopment efforts of Convention & BOK Centers; current C.I.P. funding); $54,000,000; 324 jobs.
Regional Training Center‐A regional fire training center to provide fire and homeland security training for Tulsa and surrounding communities. The center will also be used to train Tulsa Community College students in hospitality for hotel, motel operation; $40,000,000; 100 jobs
Facilities Improvement Projects‐Construct and rehabilitate 14 City of Tulsa facilities
improving Public Safety thru the elimination of safety and code voliations and to provide enhanced facilities which would allow for improved service delivery to the public; $34,376,000; 204 jobs.
Public Safety Information Technology Improvements‐Implement 20 information technology projects to improve the City of Tulsa's computer aided dispatch system, provide for backup 911 service, public safety automatic vehicle location, enhanced radio communications; $109,504,200; 318 jobs.
UPDATE 2008/12/11: Mayor says she's pulling the bridge from the list. And here's an easier way to look at the list of Tulsa's requests on the US Conference of Mayors website.
The Mental Health Association in Tulsa, an organization that is being used as a tool by the downtown NIMBYs in their (futile) efforts to clear the chronically homeless and mentally ill out of downtown, is threatening to sic Uncle Sam on homeowners who are protesting MHAT's plans to build a four-story apartment complex for the chronically homeless and mentally ill at Admiral and Yale.
The homeowners' group, Who Owns Tulsa?, attempted to negotiate with MHAT and the Tulsa Housing Authority to reach a compromise that would allow a facility to be built on the site, but on a smaller scale, comparable to similar facilities that already exist in neighborhoods. Negotiations broke down, and in order to keep their legal options open, Who Owns Tulsa? filed an appeal to the building permit for the 10 N. Yale site. The proposed facility has been classified as an apartment building, but if it is in fact an assisted living facility or community group home (as it clearly seems to be), there are limits in the zoning code on floor-area ratio that may render the proposed facility too large for the site.
These homeowners are clearly within their rights under Oklahoma law to seek a reversal of a BOA decision and under the U. S. Constitution's First Amendment to petition the government for redress of grievances. But MHAT is threatening a Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation (SLAPP) -- trying to silence the homeowners by threatening them with prosecution under the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1988. This threat was made in a November 22 press release from MHAT's executive director Michael Brose:
"Past statements of Who Owns Tulsa? and the neighbors who have filed this appeal make clear that this is but one more attempt to block the construction of this building motivated by unreasonable fears of people with mental illness," said Brose. "Such efforts constitute a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act of 1988." In similar cases individuals including neighbors have been found to have violated that federal law when they have sought to exclude the people protected by the Fair Housing Act from their neighborhoods. The Mental Health Association will be contacting the federal authorities who enforce those rights as well as looking at its other options under the law.
This is not an idle threat. During the Clinton Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) went after citizen groups who opposed group homes in their neighborhoods. For example:
In 1994 HUD launched an investigation of the members of the Irving Place Community Coalition, a group of New York City citizens opposed to placing another home for the mentally ill in a neighborhood already saturated with such homes. HUD investigators decided that the residents' civic activism was a crime and demanded membership lists, written messages, and other documents from the members -- and even demanded to see the personal diaries of people involved in the opposition. Arlene Harrison, a member of the Irving Place Coalition, observed: "It was like Big Brother coming to your door with a hammer."In Berkeley, California, HUD officials in late 1993 issued a subpoena to three residents who had complained about plans to convert a ratty-looking motel next to a liquor store into a home for alcoholics and mentally disabled AIDS patients. A federally funded fair-housing activist organization complained to HUD about the group's action, and HUD launched a full-scale investigation of the three. In November 1993, HUD demanded to see any letters they had written to public officials or newspapers, any petitions, names, addresses, and phone numbers of anyone who had indicated support for the group's efforts. John Deringer, who lived next to the soon-to-be shelter complained: "We didn't feel we had done anything wrong, but we were very, very intimidated. The threat was we could be fined $100,000 and jailed if we didn't give them the information they wanted. It was chilling."
With the Clinton Administration coming back to power in January under their community organizer Chief Executive, don't be surprised to see HUD once again ready to use heavy-handed intimidation on behalf of the left-leaning social work community. Ironically, a majority of voters in precinct 37, the neighborhood most prominent in the Who Owns Tulsa? effort, voted for the presidential candidate most likely to cause them trouble over this issue.
If Mr. Brose were serious about fairness and justice for the homeless and mentally ill, he should file a Fair Housing Act complaint against the downtown NIMBYs who are forcibly removing these downtown residents from their familiar surroundings. He could start with John Bolton of the BOK Center and Jim Norton of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited. They both spoke at a BOA hearing to protest the expansion of John 3:16 Mission's downtown facility. There was even a lawsuit to overturn the BOA ruling in favor of John 3:16 Mission.
Shouldn't Mr. Brose go after the real NIMBYs first?
Catching up with links -- I had two pieces in last week's Urban Tulsa Weekly.
My Cityscope column dealt with E-Tickets -- why the Tulsa Police Department needs the electronic citation system advocated by Councilor John Eagleton, and what's the hold up to getting it funded.
Here are some earlier stories about E-Tickets:
- August 1, 2007: Councilor Crusade by Brian Ervin
- September 26, 2007: Safer Streets with E-Tickets? by Brian Ervin
- January 16, 2008: Somebody Should Be Cited by Brian Ervin (on the mysterious cancellation of the bid request for the system
- November 5, 2008: News Updates, which mentions the Council's October 30 decision not to fund E-Tickets from the 2006 Third Penny fund.
Also in last week's issue was a feature story with my post-election analysis, covering the Tulsa County Commission District 2 race, the Republican successes in the State Legislature and Corporation Commission, and the re-election of Sen. Jim Inhofe (while noting the strange undervote in the U. S. Senate race) and Congressman John Sullivan. I took a look at the swath of counties, stretching from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma, that gave more votes to the Republican presidential nominee this year than in 2004, and noted the connection to the lands of Ulster-Americans, aka the Scotch-Irish. I closed by suggesting that Republicans may want to adapt the British Conservative Party's Campaign North, their successful effort to rebuild their party in the north of England, where they had been nearly wiped out by the Labour Party.
A few links related to that last point:
- January 2007 memo from Francis Maude to Conservative MPs describing the creation of Campaign North
- Guardian story on the formation of Campaign North
- Videos about the campaign centers in the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire.
This came in the mail recently, urging a vote for the two City of Tulsa streets propositions on Tuesday's ballot. Click the image to see a bigger version.
An open letter from Tulsa District 5 City Councilor Bill Martinson, explaining his decision to vote against the two streets propositions on Tuesday's ballot:
Dear Tulsa Voter,November 4th is just around the corner, and the citizens of Tulsa will be voting on two street propositions. Councilors Henderson, Christiansen, Bynum, Patrick, and ultimately Troyer, voted to place these propositions on the ballot. I, along with Councilors Gomez, Eagleton and Westcott voted against these proposals because we supported a comprehensive approach that would actually fix the streets. Out of respect for the process, (i.e., respecting a majority vote of the Council) I have kept a low profile. To this point, my comments have been limited to direct responses to direct questions concerning my opinion of the ballot proposals.
However, as Election Day nears, I feel obligated to make my opinions better known. This is for two reasons, both based on the increasing calls, conversations, and e-mails I have been receiving. First, there seems to be a wide spread impression that my relative silence on the propositions is an unspoken endorsement. Not only do I NOT endorse the propositions, I intend to vote NO on both on November 4th. Second, the public has received limited information from those supporting the propositions as to the long-term impact their passage would have on Tulsa and its citizens. I hope that the following will help explain my position and provide a basis for those interested in making a fact-based decision at the polls.
As Chair of the City Council's Streets Sub-Committee, I was intimately involved in studying Tulsa's street deficiencies. We consulted with external experts, former elected officials, and the Public Works department. We found that years and decades of neglect have created a multi-billion dollar problem; the magnitude of which, no one disputes.
The Sub-Committee, working closely with Public Works and other City departments, spent months developing a comprehensive approach to address the problem. That effort led to a proposal that would have ensured the long term commitment necessary to restore and maintain our infrastructure. Unfortunately, that proposal is not on the ballot thanks to some last minute maneuvering by the Mayor and Chamber of Commerce.
In the early 1980's, Tulsa had over 220 employees assigned to street maintenance; today we have 69. Yet, we have doubled the number of lane miles in the City during that time. As a point of reference, there are enough lane miles in Tulsa to take you from New York City to Los Angeles and back to Tulsa with miles to spare (you would also encounter a signalized intersection every 10 miles along the way). Expecting 69 employees, 50 of which are actually in the field, to provide reactive maintenance (e.g., filling pot holes), much less routine and preventive maintenance, on that much pavement is absurd. The proposal that I supported provided restoring 100 of those positions over time. In addition to these positions that would have enabled us to effectively and efficiently extend the life of our streets, we also provided additional funding for right of way maintenance, graffiti abatement, and traffic engineering in order to address dangerous intersections and improve traffic flow. Furthermore, we had included $120 million for street widening in south Tulsa.
The Mayor in a matter of weeks, if not days, developed the propositions on the November 4th ballot. The propositions provide minimal resources for street maintenance, no additional funding for right of way maintenance, graffiti abatement or traffic engineering and have NO funding for widening. While the ballot propositions may hold the pavement condition relatively steady, the backlog of work will increase by $64 million. In addition to increasing the backlog, the limited funding for routine and preventive maintenance will mean that our streets will deteriorate more rapidly than necessary and ensure that our cost will be much higher in the end.
The Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce are promoting the propositions on the ballot as the first step in a master plan. Yet, no one has developed, or is developing, the next step, which means there is no plan. That burden will fall on a future Mayor and future City Councilors. Not only will those officials face a massive street need (even the advocates of the ballot propositions admit this), they will have to fund several years of deferred capital requirements that are being ignored in the current ballot propositions. If these propositions pass, the additional costs to the taxpayers once these ballot propositions expire will be enormous.
Some argue that the comprehensive approach would have tied up our funding sources for too long and that the current ballot proposals would provide Tulsa with flexibility to address future needs. I personally cannot envision a future need that would surpass our immediate need to fix our deteriorating streets (again, no one disputes the financial magnitude of the problem). As to the comprehensive approach tying up future funding sources, I believe the exact opposite is true. In order to reach the same pavement condition in the same timeframe as the longer comprehensive approach, two shorter initiatives will cost hundreds of millions dollars more - hundreds of millions of dollars going to streets that could have been saved and dedicated elsewhere.
Others argue that since Tulsa is updating its Comprehensive Plan and modes of transportation may change, a shorter plan makes sense. Regardless of any changes to the Comprehensive Plan, Tulsa will need adequate streets. People will live in houses and will need to get to work and go to stores. Unless we all begin walking or bicycling where we need to go, and expect visitors to Tulsa to do the same, I cannot see a fundamental shift away from needing a reliable street system, especially over the next twelve years.
Some have said that the comprehensive approach would never pass because it would cost too much money. To put things in perspective, the difference in cost to a taxpayer living in a $100,000 house between the comprehensive plan that I supported and the plan on the November 4 ballot is approximately $8 per year, less than a $1 per month.
I doubt that anyone in Tulsa wants to see our streets fixed more than I do. In my opinion, the street propositions on November 4th ballot will not fix the fundamental problems relating to our streets. Furthermore, they will ultimately cost the taxpayers of Tulsa hundreds of millions of dollars more than necessary. Accordingly, I will be voting NO on both propositions.
Some contend that the current ballot proposals are a start, or at least better than nothing. I disagree. I believe that kind of approach and mentality has put us where we are today. Until Tulsans and their elected officials acquire the courage and discipline to actually solve the problem, the streets in our City will continue to decline. The City Council's Streets Sub-Committee spent many months conducting a complete analysis and developing a comprehensive plan that would fix Tulsa's streets. If the ballot propositions fail, that plan can be placed on the first legally available ballot following November 4th election.
Bill Martinson
Tulsa City Councilor, District 5
There is so much happening and so little time to comment, so here are a few local links of interest:
Bubbaworld has questions about the $135 million in unspent funds from past City of Tulsa sales taxes and bond issues:
In what bank(s) are these surplus funds deposited?Are the taxpayers of Tulsa earning a reasonable interest on these surplus tax revenues, some of which have apparently been "laying around" since the 1970's?
Who has ultimate control of this $135 million "slush fund"?
And most importantly, why when this much surplus tax revenue was available have Tulsans been asked time and again to approve new and additional tax increases for a variety of purposes?
We learn today that Tulsa County Commission candidate Karen Keith is indeed a member, as we suspected, of the JBS. That's the Jim Burdge Society. The campaign consultant is on Keith's payroll, along with former District 6 City Councilor Art Justis. As I wrote in last week's UTW:
Keith's decision to hire Jim Burdge as her campaign consultant further undercuts her squeaky-clean image. Burdge is renowned in political circles for his slimy, underhanded, and often clumsy attacks on his clients' opponents. As the consultant of choice to the development industry lobby, Burdge led the disastrous 2005 recall campaign against Councilors Jim Mautino and Chris Medlock and the even more disastrous opposition to the [zoning protest] petition charter amendment.Keith's selection of Burdge, like her enthusiastic embrace of Bob Dick's endorsement, doesn't speak well of her judgment.
Keith also got two big checks from the development industry: $5,000 from the Realtors PAC and $2,000 from a group associated with the state home builders association.
Jenn at Green Country Values reports that a Gold Star mom named Angelia Phillips is upset at Andrew Rice, Democrat candidate for Senate. Rice has a "tribute" on his website to her son Michael Phillips and other Oklahomans killed in action in Iraq. Mrs. Phillips considers it an insult, not a tribute, because of Rice's stand against the war. She wrote:
My husband and I believe strongly that if you do not support the troops AND their mission then any "tribute" you might make on their behalf is hollow and nothing more than a scoreboard.
She has asked the Rice campaign to remove her son's name from the website, and the campaign has refused. She intended to ask Rice personally today at a scheduled campaign appearance, but he was a no-show.
Steven Roemerman does a fact check on U. S. Rep. John Sullivan's latest ad about his carpetbagging opponent and finds it factual.
As always, Mike McCarville is the go-to guy on Oklahoma politics. His latest stories include an item on all the money trial lawyers are dumping into Nancy Riley's SD 37 re-election campaign. A Riley win is needed for a continued Democratic majority, which in turn would mean no tort reform. McCarville also reports a last minute $100,000 surprise attack by the Democrats on State Sen. Jim Reynolds, who is being challenged by someone named David Boren (not the David Boren).
The Peregrine Falcon has three reports from the first Ice Oilers game at the BOK Center, one about the game, one about Mayor Kathy Taylor getting booed, and one about the frustration of buying tickets. After going downtown to try to avoid a $9 per ticket fee at Homeland:
So, I get downtown, I stand in line; of which there are only two. That's right, two-lines for the single largest venue in Tulsa; TWO LINES!!! While I am waiting the person operating my line, (1 of 2) walks away. Four minutes later, I find that the section that I want is not available for this game; BOK isn't selling cheap seats (cheap at $10.00 per seat - not that cheap). However, they are willing to sell me seats twice the price. Begrudgingly I bought the tickets. Again, a fee was attached. Two dollars per ticket, to have the privilege of paying for a center that I am already paying for.
The Peregrine Falcon also links to a debunking of Barack Obama's alleged middle-class tax cut, showing that Obama's plans include four tax increases for people earning less than $250,000.
Joe Kelley has a picture of the unspeakably cute new resident of the Oklahoma Aquarium.
(I was on air with Joe this morning, about my question, "Are we really about to elect a far-left president?")
Lynn reminds us that Oklahoma's favorite son, the Anti-Bunk Party nominee in 1928, was born on Election Day and his 129th birthday will fall on Election Day 2008.
Down the 'pike, Steve Lackmeyer checks the Bricktown parking situation during the OKC Thunder's first regular season game and finds plenty of spaces.
OCPA gets a salute from Illinois for their work to let the sun shine in on Oklahoma government expenditures.
Today I received via GT Bynum some responses from the Tulsa Public Works Department to the questions I asked in my October 15 column on the street sales tax and bond issue vote. It will take me some time to process all this, but in the meantime I wanted you to have the chance to read it. It's long, so you'll have to click below to read the whole thing. Here are the questions that were answered:
1) Question: Will the City aggressively advertise contracting opportunities to out-of-area firms so we can have a more robust competition for road work?
2) Question: Will the City do a better job of coordinating projects with ODOT, so the City doesn't snarl alternate routes while ODOT is working on a freeway?
3) Question: I see money in the package for rebuilding streets, as we've been doing. But where is the money for paving, crack sealing, milling and overlay? Is there adequate money in this package for the preventative maintenance we haven't been doing?
This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I return to the topic of the November 4 City of Tulsa street sales tax and bond issue vote, raising some questions I hope can be convincingly answered between now and election day.
In an extra op-ed, I explain why voters of all political orientations should choose the eminently qualified Dana Murphy for the two-year term seat on the Corporation Commission over appointed incumbent Jim Roth, whose personal connections and campaign finances indicate a far-too-cozy relationship with Chesapeake Energy, one of the businesses he regulates. For good measure, here's my editorial endorsing Dana Murphy in the Republican primary.
This afternoon at 2, City of Tulsa Finance Director Mike Kier, Assistant Public Works Director Paul Zachary, and City Councilor G. T. Bynum will be on the Chris Medlock show on 1170 KFAQ to talk about the sales tax and bond issue for street funding that will be on November's ballot. Earlier this week, the three were interviewed by KFAQ's Pat Campbell. (Click this link to listen to the podcast.)
Here's where I am: I would like to be able to support this package enthusiastically. I need to be persuaded, however, that this isn't just more money to spend on the same old failed approach to maintaining streets. I need to be convinced that Public Works is changing the way it does business.
Will the City aggressively advertise contracting opportunities to out-of-area firms so we can have a more robust competition for road work?
Will the City do a better job of coordinating projects with ODOT, so the City doesn't snarl alternate routes while ODOT is working on a freeway?
I see money in the package for rebuilding streets, as we've been doing. But where is the money for paving, crack sealing, milling and overlay? Is there adequate money in this package for the preventative maintenance we haven't been doing?
If I'm not persuaded, I'll vote yes on the sales tax proposition and no on the bond issue proposition. The overall sales tax rate doesn't go up if the sales tax proposition passes, and I want the city to call dibs on the 2/12ths tax when the County's Four-to-Fix sales tax expires. Also, allocation of the sales tax could be changed to spend money on paving and sealing, while a bond issue cannot be reallocated and cannot be spent on preventative maintenance.
My latest article in Urban Tulsa Weekly is about the soon-to-expire agreement between the City of Tulsa and Tulsa County regarding jail operations. Under the existing contract, the county's jail system uses several city facilities rent-free -- including the old city jail, which provides holding cells for the adjacent county courthouse, and a property room -- in exchange for the city being allowed to hold up to 116 prisoners, in jail only on municipal charges, at no cost to the city.
The latest volley in the war of words between the two sides comes in a sharply-worded letter from Assistant City Attorney Christine Benediktson to County Commissioner John Smaligo, which accuses county officials of not negotiating in good faith and advises that the city is prepared to go it alone when the contract expires:
Over the last several months I have listened carefully to your issues, spent considerable time in researching issues and solutions and in meeting with City officials and employees in an effort to reach a compromise and, ultimately, to avoid a protracted legal dispute. Your response to these efforts makes a mockery of the negotiation process and constitutes bad faith. As a resident of Tulsa County, I am extremely disappointed in you as a public official. It is most unfortunate that you do not appear to respect or honor your fiduciary duty to the citizens of Tulsa - who comprise one of the largest communities within the County that you serve.I have been authorized to inform you that if the County persists in refusing to negotiate properly, the City is prepared to change the way we conduct municipal court business. We will be prepared to deal with our municipal prisoners independently on October 1st. We will contemporaneously move forward to analyze our legal options against the County. Further, if this occurs, the Sheriff will be required to handle all administrative services previously provided by the City and to vacate all City owned premises, including the municipal court building, the holding cells and the sally port. Additionally, the County will need to make arrangements for the property located in the City Property Room currently held by the City on behalf of the County. Despite your representations to the contrary, approximately 80% of that property is being held in relation to cases currently pending in State Court.
The letter also advises that some misdemeanors that are both municipal offenses and state offenses -- assault and battery and DUI are specifically named -- will be booked as state violations, rather than municipal, as they routinely are booked today. This would allow Tulsa to avoid being billed for these prisoners, but it would move the case from Municipal to District Court, adding to the workload of the District Attorney and the District Court.
The jail sharing contract between the City of Tulsa and Tulsa County is due to expire in less than two weeks, and negotiations are stalled. Mayor Kathy Taylor issued a memo to the City Council last Friday reviewing the origins of the current contract, created in 1995, and the county promises that persuaded city officials to work with the county to pass the jail tax.
(Here is the memo from Mayor Taylor to the City Council and
the attachment to the memo, including documents and statements made when the original city/county jail contract was signed in 1995 (5 MB PDF).)
In a nutshell, Tulsa County had failed to pass a bond issue to replace the overcrowded jail on the top floor of the County Courthouse. One attempt to pass a sales tax for a new jail was blocked by District Judge Jane Wiseman, who said the proposal, which bundled funding for crime prevention programs with the cost of building and operating the jail, was unconstitutional logrolling. (Eight years later, Wiseman turned a blind eye to far more blatant logrolling on the Vision 2025 ballot. She now sits on the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals.)
In an effort to win the City of Tulsa's support for a new, properly divided sales tax vote, county officials agreed to house up to 116 purely municipal offenders -- people in jail on a city charge, but with no state charges pending -- in exchange for county's use of the city's municipal jail and booking area for housing prisoners appearing at the courthouse and the county's use of the city's adult detention center near Newblock Park. The county's argument to the city was that combining operations would save the city more than $2 million annually that it was spending to run its municipal jail. The city would reimburse the county at a rate of $16.44 per prisoner per day for any municipal prisoners in excess of 116.
The county's proposal for the new jail contract redefines what constitutes a municipal prisoner and triples the cost per municipal prisoner per day. Previously, prisoners counted against the city's allowance of 116 only if they were in jail solely on municipal charges. If they were in jail on state charges, they were the county's responsibility under state law, even if municipal charges were also pending. The county's new proposal would eliminate any allowance to the city -- charges would begin with the first municipal prisoner -- and the city would be billed for every prisoner with a municipal charge pending, even if the prisoner would have to be in jail anyway on state charges.
Taylor's memo includes the assertion that Sheriff Stanley Glanz has been able to operate the jail for $2 million a year less than the money generated by the 1/4-cent jail operation sales tax.
City officials are right to resist this contract and to explore alternatives, such as letting the agreement lapse using the adult detention center as the city lockup. It would be better if the county reconsidered its position and worked with the city on continuing combined operations. The county should agree to the old, sensible definition of municipal prisoner and should grant the city an allowance of purely municipal misdemeanor prisoners in consideration for the sheriff's use of city detention facilities.
Bill Kumpe, an attorney who lives near the site of the planned homeless facility at Admiral and Yale, has posted a long and eloquent exposition of the point of view of homeowners in the nearby neighborhoods.
(It's worth reminding: The White City neighborhood gets its name from the White City Dairy farm that preceded the subdivision on that site.)
The older, usually well built and well maintained homes in White City are one of the few places in Tulsa where blue collar, gray collar, white collar and professionals can live in an economically diverse neighborhood and all still stay within the economic goal of paying no more than a third of their total household income for housing including maintenance, utilities, necessary upgrades, etc. It is an old fashioned mixed class, mixed income neighborhood that should be the model for future developments instead of the dumping ground for city problems....At its most basic, the proposed Admiral and Yale homeless shelter appears to be a giant rip off to the average White City resident. Joe Sixpack, Susan Secretary and Ernie Engineer see nothing more than an attempt to handle a downtown problem by exporting it to their neighborhood. Combine that with the fact that the proposed downtown "baseball" trust is aggressively trying to control the property values and development around THEIR investment and the whole deal appears profoundly hypocritical. The downtown elites are using all of their political and legal power to prevent the very type of development risk that THEY THEMSELVES are forcing down the throats of the White City residents. Taken at its most basic they are saying that their for-profit investment in a ball park deserves the city's protection while the White City residents investment in their homes does not....
Taking the homeless from a place where they were within walking distance of all their needed services and placing them in another where they are miles away on an infrequently served bus route doesn't make much sense at all. As a matter of fact, to Joe and Susan and Ernie it seems like a formula for having a lot of people walking through their neighborhoods and hanging around the neighborhood bus stops and parks....
We've been told that this facility is intended to help mainstream the mentally ill into normal society. Bill's neighborhood, bordering White City, has seen the impact of "mainstreaming" firsthand:
After several years, the "mainstreamed" neighbor is still there. But, the previously occupied homes on both sides of his are boarded up as is the previously occupied home one house down on one side. The home next to the boarded up home on the other side sold at one point on a contract for deed but the buyer cancelled after a few weeks because of the problems with the "mainstreamed" neighbor. It became a Section 8 rental unit. One of the houses across the street went vacant after the young couple who lived there couldn't take it anymore. They tried for months to sell their home with no luck. It is now a rental unit. That's five homes whose values have been severely degraded due to one property. The character of the whole neighborhood changed. And, it's not as though the homeowners were passive. Far from it. Over the years, there were at least fifty calls to the police. Many of them went unanswered. There were petitions to the police department and DA which resulted in no determinative action. The fire department answered dozens of calls about trash fires and made arrests for illegal burning more than once....
Unless their aim is to drive everyone who can afford it to move to the suburbs, our city leaders need to understand the perspective of residents of neighborhoods like those around Admiral and Yale.
I've been seeing e-mail traffic urging people to show up at tonight's City Council meeting in support of the Tulsa Stadium Trust. I understand that Bank of Oklahoma and other downtown employers are trying to pack the council chambers tonight. Those who show up should remember that the vote isn't about building a ballpark, it's about authorizing a public trust. I support putting the ballpark downtown, but I'm concerned what powers and scope of action this trust will have.
While the trust indenture has been improved significantly, there are still objectionable features, and there still appears to be some confusion, even among the trust's promoters, about what this trust will be authorized to do.
I am happy to see the the trust limited in its acquisitions to a geographical area, but the area (Detroit Ave., BNSF right of way, I-244) is too broad, and there is still the possibility of pressuring the City Council to allow them to make acquisitions outside that area. As I wrote previously:
Any stadium trust should be limited in the indenture to improvements to blocks 23, 24, and 45, and lots 4, 5, and 6 of block 46 of Tulsa's Original Townsite -- the area between I-244 and Archer, Elgin and the buildings on the west side of Greenwood which survived urban renewal.
There shouldn't be an escape clause. There should also be explicit language in the indenture forbidding the use of eminent domain to acquire property for the trust.
Here's the version of the Tulsa Stadium Trust indenture showing markups made following Tuesday's Council committee meeting:
2008-08-21 Trust Indenture (v39) (Marked).pdfHere's the same version, but without the markups visible:
2008-08-21 Trust Indenture (v39).pdfAt Tuesday's council committee meeting, trust promoter Fred Dorwart claimed that the trust wouldn't just be building a ballpark:
Fred Dorwart, an attorney for the donors, said the trust also is charged with providing services within the Inner Dispersal Loop such as street cleaning. A portion of the downtown assessment fee helps fund the ballpark, and the rest pays for downtown services, he said.
(You can hear audio of an exchange between Bill Martinson and Fred Dorwart on Chris Medlock's Tuesday afternoon show, within the first 20 minutes of the first hour.)
I've looked through the trust indenture, and I can't find any reference to that in Article III -- Purpose and Powers of the Trust (or anywhere else). If that's true, it opens the door to replace the city's year-to-year contract with Downtown Tulsa Unlimited for downtown services -- which seems on the verge of being opened to competition -- with a trust's multiyear contract with Downtown Tulsa Unlimited.
No, TGOV hasn't figured out how to do this, but David Schuttler has. If you're away from a Cox Cable equipped TV and want to watch tonight's City Council debate over the Papa Bear ($2 billion) and Mama Bear ($451 million) street plans, tune into his live video feed page.
City administration officials declined to accept the recommendation of the City Auditor's office to use a process to select an economic development contractor, rather than continuing to renew the Tulsa Metro Chamber (officially the Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce -- MTCC) automatically each year. The auditor's recommendation was one of six findings in this audit of the Chamber's compliance with their economic development contract with the city for Fiscal Year 2007.
It's unclear who wrote the administration's response to the audit, but the response sets up a vicious circle. First, here is audit finding 1:
SUMMARY:It has been a long tradition, dating back to the early 1900's that the City has contracted with MTCC for economic development purposes. City management generally uses a contract awarding methodology prescribed by executive order for selected consultants. However, this type of methodology is not applied when awarding the economic development contract. Without exploring available options for the economic development contract or using the established contract methodology, there is less assurance the value of the services provided is equivalent to the amount of funding expended.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Stakeholders should use an established contract methodology or contract selection criteria for selecting future economic development contractor(s). Continued funding of MTCC may be the best option available, but without exploring other options, stakeholders cannot be sure.
The administration's response:
Decline. While the processes outlined in the recommendation are sound, until potential alternate providers are identified the use of those processes will be ineffective.
The auditor points out the obvious in a response to the response:
AUDITOR COMMENT:Decline of the recommendation accepts risk that alternative providers may not be identified and funding expended may not maximize service provided.
In other words, until the city sets criteria, issues a request for proposals, and indicates a willingness to look at other providers, it's unlikely that other providers would emerge to compete with the Chamber.
The auditor, in finding 2, also recommended adding quantifiable performance standards for the economic development contract -- to have a way to measure the outcomes achieved by the contractor.
In finding 3, we learn that the Chamber isn't reporting expenditures on a quarterly basis as required by its contract:
The MTCC contract requires performance reports be submitted 30 days after each calendar quarter and 60 days after the end of the fiscal year. MTCC submits performance reports and marketing plans timely and includes all of the required information, with the exception of budgetary versus actual expenditures data. MTCC senior management stated they did not include the actual expenditures versus budget because it was never required in prior contracts.
Finding 4 reveals that when the Chamber can't find private sponsors for a marketing activity, they just hit up the city for the difference:
MTCC prepares a marketing plan of City funding for proposed activities during the contract period. Some of the proposed activities also involve private funding obtained by MTCC. The marketing plan is provided to the City contract administrator who uses the marketing plan for review of reimbursement requests from MTCC. If MTCC is not successful in securing enough private funding for an activity, they may use funds from other projects to fund the activity. When these changes occur, the City's contract administrator only learns of the change when reimbursement requests for an event are received. For example, in the FY07 marketing plan, $10,000 was earmarked as the City's portion for the LPGA Tournament and $15,000 from private partners. MTCC was unsuccessful in securing sufficient funding from private partners, so the City paid $25,000.Internal Auditing reviewed the marketing plan and discovered several mathematical errors and some activities listed twice. The contract administrator does not review or verify the plan for accuracy. The contract administrator uses the marketing plan for review of reimbursement requests from MTCC.
Finding 5: The Chamber didn't meet its goal of 300 new sales, contacts, and leads. They only made it to 260. (How hard is it to generate leads?)
Finding 6: The City needs someone with a background in economic development and convention and visitors services to oversee this contract. The auditor notes: "Although MTCC submits performance reports they are not reviewed to ensure performance measures are being met."
If we insist on making economic development a tax-funded activity, the City ought to follow the auditor's recommendations: objective performance measures, ongoing monitoring of performance throughout the year, and a process to allow competition for the economic development contract.
Some wise words in a letter from retired architect Bob Sober to the members of the Tulsa City Council, regarding the proposed Tulsa Stadium Improvement Trust indenture, on the Council's agenda for Thursday night:
Councilors,
The Mayor has asked you to approve the Trust Indenture in this Thursday's Council meeting in one more artificial self-created emergency. Once more you have been set up to overlook the obstacle, this time possibly depriving the public of a new ballpark, stalling the revitalization of downtown and possibly causing the Drillers to move to Jenks. Please, don't fall for it this time.
Take the time necessary to assure that the Tulsa Stadium Trust is really a Public Trust, designed to fairly represent the people. At this point, the Trust has the appearance of a private business disguised (in name only) to look like a Public Trust. The representation of the members and the length of the terms assure tight control of a small group of donors for the first twelve years of its life. This is very important when you consider that all of the decisions concerning the development of the property surrounding the ballpark will be made and committed to bricks and mortar during this period.
Please consider that the following scenario built on both fact and personal opinion:
Faced with the possibility of the Drillers moving to Jenks, the Mayor attempted to find a location in Downtown to keep the Drillers in Tulsa and use the ballpark in conjunction with the Arena to revitalize downtown and stimulate housing and retail growth. The City picked-up the options for the failed attempt to develop a Wal-Mart in the East Village and began negotiations with the Drillers to locate the ballpark in Downtown Tulsa. Frustrated by the sellers inability to establish a purchase price (due to internal lawsuits), the Mayor looked for alternative locations. Turning to her planning consultant for advice, the Mayor selected the current proposed site in the Brady/Greenwood districts. This location is well suited to support the aggressive Brady "Arts" District revitalization effort already underway by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) and the conceptual plan to use light rail to solve transportation problems and stimulate high density growth nodes. Like any development deal there are a myriad of problems to solve. First is how do you assemble enough land to construct the ballpark and provide parking (assuming that a ballpark surrounded by parking is appropriate in a downtown location). The solution is to connect the ballpark to the proposed light rail (only one block south) so that existing parking around the city can be used to serve the ballpark. This allows the ballpark to be surrounded by mixed use development, instead of pavement, and furthers the revitalization of the area. This is a beautiful solution and a wonderful service to the citizens of Tulsa. Disappointed by the pace of redevelopment around the new Arena, the Mayor decides that the City should take responsibility for the development of the property around the Ballpark. Creating a special zoning district was inadequate for her vision, the City needed to own the property to assure that the development is family oriented and provides a proper connection to the proposed light rail. This creates two additional problems. First, it doubles the cost of the project from $30M to $60M, second, the property must be assembled (this was already accomplished at the East Village site).
My issues with the Trust Indenture begin here.
Evidence that the City and the donors took the task of assembling the property very seriously is the July 7 meeting of the Brady District Property owners where in the presence of high ranking members of the administration Mr. Boylan stated the eminent domain would be used to acquire property from owners not willing to sell. Possible additional evidence is the termination of the exclusive negotiation agreement between the Tulsa Development Authority (TDA) and Novus Homes, LLC (Novus) an action resulting in a lawsuit and allegations of violations of the City's Ethics Ordinance. Both of these acts are aggressive unfriendly acts of the City threatening the use of its authority to overpower the individual in "the best interest of the City" to assemble the property necessary to support the Mayor's vision. None of this heavy-handedness was required at the East Village location because the land was assemble by a private developer without the threatening power of the City. This property was assembled the "old fashioned way" with and interested buyer and a willing seller. Is it fair to assume that the ballpark in the East Village was to be a private development, the way it was in Jenks, since no trust proposal was considered and no public money was requested? If so, the authority to threaten property owners unwilling to sell came with the discussion of establishing a Public Trust. I don't believe a Public Trust, with 50% of its members not from the donors group, would endorse these actions.
Creating an assessment district including all property owners in the Inner Dispersal Loop (IDL) became necessary to fund acquisition of the property surrounding the ballpark and improving this property in preparation for family oriented mixed-use development. Leasing this property to developers is a very creative method of maintaining the ballpark and surrounding area and assure the vitality of the area for the next 30 years. My hat is off to the Mayor and donors.
Who will develop this property? Obviously, this will be determined by the Trust. Why should these decisions be limited to the Mayor, five donors committing at least $2M to the project and one IDL property owner? Why do the donors have 12 year terms? This has the appearance of a private business using the authority of a Public Trust to threaten and tax property owners. What is to prevent the donor controlled Trust from using Public money to purchase and enhance the value of the property surrounding the ballpark, then lease it back to them selves to develop projects to recover their donations (making the donations an investment not a gift)? This is an appropriate strategy for a private business not a Public Trust. If this is what the City and donors wish to accomplish then they should raise an additional $30M, assemble the property without the authority if City government and run this business as they wish. If the donors are truly making a gift to the City, then create a trust that is dominated by IDL property owners that are not donors nor at businesses dependent on members of the donors group. Please consider a Trust with 15 members (mayor, 7 donors and 7 IDL property owners that are not donors nor at businesses dependent on members of the donors group) with 3 year terms. This is very consistent with existing City Trusts, Commissions, Authorities, etc.
In the recent survey of Tulsa citizens conducted by Collective Strength as part of PLANiTULSA it was discovered that people in Tulsa are worried:
"That those with money have too much influence."
"That city leaders don't understand their needs."
and the key themes from in depth interviews were:
"Well intentioned 'oligarchy' is out of touch."
"Fatalism about lack of zoning and code enforcement and special favors for the wealthy".
The current Trust Indenture supports and perpetuates these concerns. Please reject this agreement and construct in its place one that fairly represents in word and spirit the intention of a PUBLIC Trust.
Thank you,
Bob Sober
Sober was appointed by Mayor Kathy Taylor to chair the PLANiTULSA Advisers and Partners, the steering and community outreach committees for the effort to create a new comprehensive plan for Tulsa. Public confidence in fairness and openness is crucial to the success of that effort. The manner of putting together the ballpark deal undermines that confidence.
Any stadium trust should be limited in the indenture to improvements to blocks 23, 24, and 45, and lots 4, 5, and 6 of block 46 of Tulsa's Original Townsite -- the area between I-244 and Archer, Elgin and the buildings on the west side of Greenwood which survived urban renewal.
It would be simpler just to put the downtown ballpark under the aegis of the existing Tulsa Public Facilities Authority, which manages the Maxwell Convention Center, build it with the assessment and lease funds, and let the donors do their own thing with their own money in the open real estate market.
From the Tulsa Preservation Commission blog:
Please join us Wednesday, August 27th for a Community Workshop to shape and evaluate Tulsa's Historic Preservation Strategy.This public workshop will be from 5:30 - 7:30pm in the new City Hall, 175 E. 2nd Street, 10th Floor South conference room (map it). On-street parking at meters is free after business hours. Please use the 2nd Street entrance.
Your insights and vision for preserving and enhancing the historic character of Tulsa would be appreciated. We hope to see you there!
For more information, call 918-576-5669. Please feel free to share this invitation with your friends and colleagues.
With the comprehensive plan update underway and national attention on Tulsa's historic assets, thanks to the upcoming National Preservation Conference being held here in October, this may be the moment to make preservation a priority in Tulsa.
RELATED:
Steve Patterson reports that a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation is joining the City of St. Louis and the State of Missouri in a SLAPP suit against two preservation activists who filed lawsuits in an effort to save a 100-year-old building in downtown St. Louis.
From "Floyd," on TulsaNow's public forum, regarding the Trust Indenture for the Tulsa Stadium Trust:
Sigh.If they had just decided to build a stadium and then created a set of special design codes for the stadium district, they could be moving dirt soon. But they can't help themselves from overreaching, can they. And it always ends badly.
I want to know who drafted this thing and why they thought it would fly. I wonder if this was even a unique document or if it came from some kind of template that wasn't tailored to this kind of purpose. 12 yr terms? For the donors? Really?
After Mayor Taylor's confused, tearful performance in front of the TDA, I'm convinced she's not the one actually orchestrating this whole deal. Can anyone tell us who, ostensibly even, is the public face of the ballpark master plan?
I had the impression that BOK President Stan Lybarger was heading this up, but he hasn't really been a public face on the issue. It is interesting that no one showed up at that TDA meeting to speak on behalf of the ballpark donors (other than Mayor Taylor, of course -- and the three board members who didn't recuse themselves but should have).
Another example of the overreach is the TDA's premature termination of their exclusive negotiating period with Will Wilkins and Novus Homes, to which Floyd alluded. Late last week, carltonplace had this to say on TulsaNow's public forum about the frustration many downtown boosters and ballpark backers feel about the Novus Homes situation (reformatted slightly for readability):
The ballpark is not a done deal, the Novus project could have been had the TDA not changed their mind and pulled the offer to Novus in favor of reserving that property for the ball park donors. This action by the TDA whose members are comprised of volunteers that work for companies on the donor list rubs people the wrong way for the following reasons:1. Frustrated Development: We are begging for downtown development but there is a perception that building in downtown (and dealing with the TDA) is too difficult. That perception now is now reality in many people's minds.
2. Ethical Concerns: Choosing one's employer over this developer whether real or imagined feels wrong.
3. Transparency: Why can't the ballpark and the development work together? Why won't anyone give a valid reason why they can't. Feels like back room politics
4. Treatment:Why did they leave Novus hanging so long and let them continue to spend money and jump through hoops if this final action was what they've intended since the ballpark announcement?
5. History:This isn't the first time that the TDA has acted this way toward a potential buyer. Its no wonder they can't sell and develop a downtown property. What are they holding onto them for? Why did they start empire building? What happened to Jones Lang Lassalle?
This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly is an expansion upon my blog entry from last weekend about the efforts by "not-in-my-back-yard" downtown interests to relocate the homeless and indigent away from downtown.
Coincidentally, in this same issue there's Brian Ervin's profile of Steve Whitaker, head of John 3:16 Mission. Here's how he describes the work of John 3:16 Mission.
"The people that I take care of live by the law of the streets, and the law of the streets is very much Darwinian in that it is the strongest that survive," said Whitaker. "But, the John 3:16 Mission is part of God's peaceful kingdom. We're here to love those people back to wellness--to create a loving, caring, nurturing environment for people that are addicted or mentally ill or homeless just by bad luck, to get back on their feet and find their life again."
John 3:16 Mission has had its own encounter with the downtown NIMBYs (emphasis added):
A pervasive attitude of "Not In My Back Yard" is behind efforts to derail his planned expansion of the 56-year-old Mission, he told UTW.The city's Board of Adjustment granted permission for the expansion in February, but a group of downtown businesses and residents have appealed the decision in the courts.
Their position is that the Mission and other services in the area are attracting the homeless and drug-addicted and threatening the safety and success of ongoing downtown revitalization efforts.
But, Whitaker said it's downtown itself that's attracting them, and that without the Mission and other services to the needy, they would have nowhere else to go, and would be a much more visible problem than they are now (See "No Rest for the Weary" in our Jan. 24-30, 2008, issue at www.urbantulsa.com for some of the early details).
"There is an assumption that this clustering of services in downtown Tulsa is harmful, but people have forgotten history. They've forgotten what happened almost 20 years ago when there was a move afoot to put John 3:16 and the Day Center and the Salvation Army and the jail all in the same area," he said. Whitaker said downtown urban settings, and not services for the homeless, are what attract homeless people: the alleys provide places to sleep and hide and dumpsters to dig through for food or other salvageable items.
"A walkthrough of every city's downtown in America will prove that they are homes for homeless, and if this city's not proactive about treating its homeless population, then all of our dreams for an entertainment district are going to be spoiled, and homelessness will be a true blight then," he said.
(The profile is well worth reading -- covering Whitaker's background in North Tulsa, his martial arts training, how he came to be involved at John 3:16, and his thoughts on homelessness in Tulsa, racism, and the north/south divide.)
In my op-ed, I call attention to a New York City organization called Common Ground which helped reduce the homeless population in Times Square by 87% in two years, not by shipping them out to suburban subdivisions in Queens or Bergen County, but by providing "supportive housing" for them in a renovated hotel in the heart of the Theater District, where they have access to jobs and transportation:
Acquired by Common Ground in 1991, the Times Square is the largest permanent supportive housing project in the nation. A once-stately neighborhood fixture that had fallen into serious disrepair, Common Ground carefully preserved the building's historic character while redeveloping it into housing for 652 low-income and formerly homeless individuals and persons living with HIV/AIDS.The Times Square combines permanent affordable housing with a range of on-site social services provided by Common Ground's social service partner, the Center for Urban Community Services. Individualized support services are designed to help tenants maintain their housing, address health issues, and pursue education and employment. On-site assistance with physical and mental health issues and substance abuse is available to all tenants, six days a week. Property management services, including 24-hour security, are provided by Common Ground's affiliated not-for-profit property management company, Common Ground Community.
Common Ground's Tenant Services staff offers programs and activities to enhance a sense of community, e.g., a six-week financial literacy workshop, a community health fair, and workshops covering topics such as portrait drawing and cooking. Common areas include a garden roof deck (available for rent to the public); a computer laboratory; a library; an art studio; a medical clinic; 24-hour laundry facilities; a rehearsal space featuring floor-to-ceiling dance mirrors and a piano; and an exercise room.
Richard L. Jones has posted a lengthy comment on my article from his perspective as a pastor who works with the homeless downtown. It's worth reading in its entirety. It includes this funny, pointed analogy:
And to the "powers that be" in Tulsa, when are you going to follow the lead of successful cities that have centralized services for the homeless, and begin to provide real solutions to the problem instead of trying to shuffle them around the city like spreading the peas out on your plate that you didn't want to eat so it that looks like you did?...Instead of kicking the homeless when they are down, let's all work together to help bring them some dignity and assistance in getting the help they need to break free from the cycle of despair. Basic human services and health care in a more centralized environment would be a good place to start.
I had been planning on writing a column about the various streets proposals -- Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear -- but each week a bigger and more urgent issue cropped up.
I've got worries about all the packages, but especially about the big one -- a 12 year, $2 billion commitment. Supporters of the big package say that the other plans won't get the job done and won't bring our street conditions up as far and as fast as the big package.
I finally sat down tonight and looked at the project list and allocations for the $2 billion package. I'm bothered when I see a nine-digit dollar figure with no explanation for how that number was derived. For example: $221,500,000 for "street maintenance" to include "vegetation / mowing; snow and ice removal; graffiti abatement; pavement crack and joint sealing; permanent pavement patching (6 crews); special projects; street milling; street paving crews." There's another $128,100,000 for traffic engineering, $32.2 million for street-related administration, and $8.8 million for engineering services and inspection. That's just the operational part of the package -- a mere 20% of the total.
That's as far as the numbers are broken down -- the draft I have doesn't tell how much of that $221.5 million is for graffiti and how much is for "special projects" or what those special projects might be. Somewhere there must be a spreadsheet that has an estimate for each line item and a basis or formula that explains how each estimate was derived. How much of each number is for manpower and how much is for material? What inflation factors have been included? How many miles of street milling do we get for whatever share of $221.5 million is allocated to that purpose? Are general and administrative costs factored in?
Over the years in my day job, I've been involved from time to time in putting together proposals, including some for the DOD. Some of these have been "unsolicited" proposals, where the customer has expressed some need but hasn't laid out detailed requirements. It's similar to what city officials have done in response to the expressed concern about the condition of our streets. You develop a recommended solution and provide a price for that solution.
A big project will be split into major line items and sub-items, and each item is split out into many small tasks. You estimate man-hours for each of those small tasks as well as cost of the materials you'll need to do the job and any work you'll need to contract out to someone else. For each estimate of hours or other costs, there is usually some amount of backup material, a basis for the bid, such as a quote from a vendor or actual hours for a similar task on another project. All those little numbers are rolled up, weighted for projected inflation if the project is likely to stretch out over several years, and the project's fair share of the overhead costs for running the company (e.g., paying the salaries of the payroll clerk and the HR director and paying the electric bill).
Something like that kind of cost estimation must have been done for this package, and if it wasn't it should have been. If it exists, it ought to be made available for the public to see. Those are awfully big numbers for big tasks that are hard to estimate. It would be reassuring to see the little numbers for the little tasks that were rolled up into those big nine-figure numbers.
Bill Kumpe was at the THA meeting today regarding the proposed facility at I-244 and Yale to replace the Downtown YMCA residence and has an eyewitness report. Here's an excerpt:
The class distinction between the people supporting the project and the people was striking. Almost all of the people supporting the project are professionals or wealthy donors. There are no such facilities located in THEIR neighborhoods. When was planned at 10th and Utica, the homeowners there killed it. On the other hand, most of the people opposing the project don't have a lot of options. Everything they have is tied up in their home and any reduction in its value will simply mean that they have to live with the consequences or let it be foreclosed since nobody in his right mind is going to buy a home near a homeless shelter. In effect, the people with money to live in a neighborhood without this type of facility are telling them that they will live with this problem and take the resulting financial hit as well.The sheer arrogance of these people is stunning. They may actually succeed in getting the facility built. But, it will not be the wealthy donors running for election next time around. There was recall talk all over the room. Every city councilman who supported this project will hear about it again. There are about twenty thousand people in the affected neighborhoods and given the turnout at today's meeting, I would estimate that about ten thousand of them are hopping mad at Mayor Kathy Taylor, Ruth Kaiser Nelson, the City Council and anyone else remotely associated with this project. This is the type of political affront that does not go away and somebody, probably the elected officials and city employees who made it possible, will pay the price since they are the only people the voters can access.
The agenda for tomorrow's Tulsa City Council Urban and Economic Development committee includes a discussion of a draft of the Tulsa Stadium Trust indenture, the Title 60 Trust that will get to spend the money raised by the downtown assessment district the Council approved last month. The proposal creates a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees, five members of which will be major donors to the ballpark. Trustees will serve 12 year terms and can only be removed by court action for malfeasance. (Three years is a standard term for members of public trusts.)
The City Council should demand full public disclosure of the entire ballpark development deal -- pledged revenues, planned expenditures, who has been promised what piece of land -- prior to taking any action on the trust, and the trust indenture should require shorter terms, nomination of all trustees by the Mayor, and a provision to remove trustees by action of the City Council.
I'm beginning to think the better way to handle the ballpark is to make it fully private. Let the ballpark donors come to the TDA with a development proposal for the proposed ballpark site and put the proposal through the standard process. They wouldn't get the downtown assessment district money, but they don't really need it. They have enough donations lined up to pay for a quality 6000-seat ballpark. Then they can own it and run it as they see fit.
When a mayoral appointee to a city authority, board, or commission behaves badly, it's rare that our elected officials have an immediate opportunity for corrective action.
Tulsa Development Authority (TDA) board member George Shahadi has been nominated by Mayor Kathy Taylor for another term. His renomination comes before the City Council Urban and Economic Development Committee tomorrow (August 12) at 10 a.m., in Room 201 of old City Hall. (Here is a link to Shahadi's resume.)
Last Thursday, Shahadi voted to prematurely terminate the TDA's exclusive negotiating period with Novus Homes LLC concerning the half-block west of Elgin Ave. between Archer and Brady Streets. The exclusive negotiating period was set to expire on September 4. Instead, when the TDA tract across the street began being discussed as a ballpark location, TDA and city officials began stonewalling Novus Homes' attempts to move their negotiations forward.
Shahadi should have recused himself as soon as the agenda item. He is the director of real estate for the Williams Companies, and his employer is in the group of donors seeking to gain control of the land surrounding the proposed location of a new Drillers Stadium. Shahadi stated at the meeting that he had no obligation to recuse, since his employer was seeking this control for the public good and not for its own profit.
Nevertheless, there's a clear conflict of interest because Shahadi's employer has an interest in the same property about which TDA had promised good-faith negotiations with Novus Homes. Under the circumstances, Shahadi can't be expected to be impartial in weighing the TDA's interests and the public interest in fair dealing versus his employer's interest. The fact that he can't perceive an obvious conflict is reason enough for the City Council to deny his reappoinment.
There are more conflicts coming, because the biggest piece of property in the ballpark puzzle is also owned by the TDA. Employees of Williams and Bank of Oklahoma shouldn't be sitting on the TDA when decisions are made as to the contract terms for the land.
The City Council has an excellent opportunity to take a stand for fairness and openness in government. They have an immediate chance to redress the injustice done to Will Wilkins and Novus Homes at last Thursday's TDA meeting. They need to thank Mr. Shahadi for his service to date and ask Mayor Taylor to send them a replacement nominee.
MORE: Retired architect Bob Sober sent this letter to the City Council:
City Councilors,On Tuesday morning you will consider the re-appointment of George Shahadi to the Tulsa Development Authority (TDA), please consider the following:
During the TDA meeting last Thursday the 120 Lofts project was discussed extensively. Mr. Shahadi was asked to recuse himself from the discussions and vote, to which he refused. Mr. Shahadi is the Director of Corporate Real Estate for Williams Companies. Williams is one of the listed donors to the ballpark stadium and the eventual public Trust. As you know, the George Kaiser Foundation is attempting to purchase the properties surrounding the ballpark for the yet to be formed "ballpark" trust. The property planned for the 120 Lofts development was identified as one of those desired by the trust. Since Mr. Shahadi's employer has an interest in the disposition in this property, Mr. Shahadi had a clear conflict of interest. Voting members of the TDA should recuse themselves when presented with a real or perceived conflict of interest.
It would be a disservice to the citizens of Tulsa to re-appoint an individual unwilling to take seriously the trust of this council and refrain from influencing the decisions of the TDA when he can not possibly be objective. With direct ties to a donor that will have significant impact on one of the largest public investments in downtown Tulsa and the disposition of surrounding lands for future development Mr. Shahadi can not possibly serve the TDA without impacting his employer. Furthermore, any redevelopment in this area will have a direct impact on the value of the surrounding property. The Williams Companies, being one of the largest property owners in the vicinity to the proposed ballpark, could gain significantly by influencing the decisions of the TDA through their Director of Corporate Real Estate, Mr. Shahadi. Please, do not re-appoint Mr. Shahadi.
Thank you,
Bob Sober
Ruth Kaiser Nelson was, for all practical purposes, my first Latin teacher. When I was an eighth-grader, our scheduled teacher, Bill Bippus, took a semester's leave of absence, and Mrs. Nelson taught us instead. Because the class occurred during the girls' PE period, it was an all-boy class, and Mrs. Nelson, the mother of three boys and a girl, did a fine job of keeping us in line, but also keeping us amused, and giving us a good start in the language.
I'm sure Mrs. Nelson is familiar with this sententia sapiens: Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi. Literally, it means, "What is permitted to Jupiter is not permitted to the ox." It is a justification for double standards for the wealthy and connected versus the hoi polloi. The standards which apply to the commoner should not bind the plutocrat.
At Thursday night's City Council meeting, homeowners from the neighborhoods near Admiral and Yale came to protest the location of a 76-unit home for the chronically homeless, some of whom are currently housed at the downtown YMCA, some of whom are mentally ill. The large apartment building is part of the Building Tulsa Building Lives (BTBL) initiative. The Ruth K. Nelson Revocable Trust is listed as one of the initiative's principal partners, along with the George Kaiser Family Foundation (Mr. Kaiser and Mrs. Nelson are siblings), and the Tulsa Housing Authority, a public trust of which Mrs. Nelson is the chairman.
According to the Tulsa World report, Mrs. Nelson characterized the concerns of neighboring homeowners as typical NIMBYism:
Neighbors typically have a "not in my backyard" response, she said."If we were to move all of these facilities to places where no one would protest, they would be in the middle of nowhere," she said.
"Isolated people would not have the opportunity to rebuild their lives and become productive members of society."
The site was selected because it is relatively close to downtown, where many social service agencies are located, is next to a bus route and has stores nearby that residents can walk to, Nelson said.
The concern for isolation is touching, but she is making these people more isolated than they already are. At the Y, they are downtown, "where many social service agencies are located." She's moving them four miles from those services on the west side of downtown.
At the Y, they live a block away from a bus station that gives them access to 20 bus lines which will take them directly to shopping, jobs, doctors, parks, and services without needing to transfer. Four of those lines provide night time service to hospitals and schools for shift work and night classes. She wants them to live where they'll have only a single bus line, and they'll have to wait around and transfer at the downtown bus station to get anywhere else in the city. They won't have any access to nighttime service.
At the Downtown Y, they have the library and the County Courthouse across the street and the State Office Building and a hospital just a few blocks further west. Riverparks is about a mile to the south. There are a half dozen churches downtown. Social service agencies are just a few blocks north. There aren't any groceries nearby, but there are a few convenience stores not too far away, there are many nearby places to eat, at least at breakfast and lunchtime, and the bus can take them to their choice of grocery stores. They won't even have to walk far to see the Eagles or Celine Dion at the BOK Center. walkscore.com gives the location a rating of 89 -- "very walkable."
At Yale and Admiral, there is a Sonic across the street, a nearby QuikTrip, and it's about three-quarters of a mile to the Piggly Wiggly. The nearest library is in Maxwell Park, about a mile away, and it's only a small branch in the middle of a neighborhood. There's a bar just two blocks away, right across the street from a plasma center. Dong's Gun Store is about six blocks away -- handy for those who are hearing voices in their heads.There are a few churches down Yale. 10 S. Yale has a walkscore.com rating of 45 -- "car dependent."
Moving residents of the Downtown Y to Admiral and Yale will make them more isolated than they are now, not less. So why are these mentally ill, semi-homeless people really being moved out of downtown? Because downtown property owners and the BOK Center management and Downtown Tulsa Unlimited are NIMBYs. They don't want these people in their backyard. They even say so on their "Building Tulsa, Building Lives" website:
The opening of the BOK Center and other Vision 2025 projects are important components in securing the economic future of downtown Tulsa. But before downtown can become the vibrant destination it has the potential to be, developers and investors must be assured of its inviting and family-friendly environment.Eliminating homelessness will attract further development and investment to downtown.
But it's OK for George Kaiser and Jim Norton and Kathy Taylor and Twenty-First Properties and SMG to be NIMBYs. If your place cost $200 million, you're allowed to say, "There goes the neighborhood," even if that $200 million came mostly from the taxpayers. If you have a nice little 1,000 sq. ft., $60,000 house, that you paid for yourself you're not allowed to say that. You know: Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi.
(What's funny is that the neighbors that seem to be a problem for the BOK Center were there before the site was selected for the BOK Center. A number of us pointed out that between the jail, the bail bondsmen, the homeless shelters, the Y, the Sheriff's Office, and the Courthouse wasn't the smartest location for the arena -- maybe they should put it closer to existing entertainment districts on the other side of downtown -- but someone with influence has land along Denver just north of the south leg of the IDL, so that's where the arena went. Is it fair to be a NIMBY about neighbors who were there before you moved in?
According to the World, "After listening to the protests, Councilor John Eagleton said people can try to push such a project out of their neighborhood out of fear, but that doesn't make it right." Shouldn't he have been saying that to the downtown interests who want to clear the homeless out of downtown?)
The residents who spoke at the meeting were treated with a great deal of condescension. They were told that their fears were unfounded, abhorrent even, a sign of moral inferiority. The residents of this new facility will not pose a threat to their safety or their property values, thanks to new programs and new methods for helping these people become productive citizens again.
But if these new programs and methods are so effective, wouldn't they work just as well in a remodeled facility downtown, with the added bonus of keeping these people in familiar surroundings and connected to job opportunities and services and transportation? The fact that Mrs. Nelson and her brother and DTU and Mayor Taylor and SMG are so anxious to get these people away from downtown suggests that they don't really believe in the efficacy of their methods.
And the argument about having to demolish the Y residence doesn't hold any water. I suspect they could add sprinklers and remodel the building to meet fire code for much less than the $17 million in private pledges and state grants that they're spending on the Admiral and Yale facility.
But BTBL backers don't have to be consistent or logical or reasonable to get their way with city government, and they can be NIMBYs if they want to: Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi.
Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi works with exclusive negotiating periods, too.
If you're Kathy Taylor, of course you should expect Tulsa Drillers owner Chuck Lamson to honor his exclusive negotiating period with the city, and even to extend it if need be. I'm sure she'd be teary and outraged if Lamson had terminated the exclusive negotiations a month early to go flirt with Jenks Mayor Vic Vreeland again. But how dare lowly entrepreneur Will Wilkins expect the Tulsa Development Authority to honor their commitment to an exclusive negotiating period! How dare he rally public support to try to prevent the TDA from breaking their word! Only wealthy and connected and powerful people have a right to expect such commitments to be honored.
(From the World: "Exclusive negotiations preclude the team from entertaining other offers...." Not if you're the TDA, they don't.)
Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi.
But that's an ancient pagan thought. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob insists on a single standard for all:
You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.
MORE: David Schuttler says that Councilor Eric Gomez's comparison of the Treepoint Apartments in his neighborhood to the proposed I-244 and Yale facility is apples and oranges.
What a day. We learned a lot.
We learned that when the Tulsa Development Authority approves an exclusive negotiating period, it's not necessarily exclusive -- they'll shove you aside if a more powerful suitor comes along -- they may not negotiate in good faith, and the period may be terminated at any time. (The TDA's exclusive negotiating periods are neither exclusive, nor negotiating, nor a period. Discuss.)
We learned that Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor is on the verge of a crackup, perhaps because of the pressure of holding together a crumbling behind-the-scenes ballpark financing deal by publicly screwing over a small businessman who is offering the very kind of creative, urban residential and retail development everyone says we want downtown. She knows full well how bad this looks, but I'm guessing that if she were to stand up for what's right, she'd have to renege on some secret promise that was made concerning the Lofts @ 120 parcel of land. One thing was clear from Taylor's teary appearance: Whoever's in charge of city government, it isn't her.
Taylor said she didn't have a vote, but she did have a voice. She used that voice to belittle Will Wilkins's attempt to rally public support as "bickering." She used it to justify booting the Wilkinses out of their exclusive negotiating petition in the name of "a beautifully woven fabric" of new development around the new ballpark.
They say they want lofts, restaurants, and off-street parking, and that's exactly what the Wilkinses had proposed for that corner long before the ballpark was announced for the other side of the street. The Wilkinses were willing to adjust their plans as necessary to be compatible with the design and use aims for the ballpark's environs. But I suspect their chief deficiency is that they aren't named Jay Helm, and their company isn't called American Residential Group.
We learned today that the TDA board isn't fond of public scrutiny, and they're a little fuzzy on what constitutes a conflict of interest and how to handle recusal. If you're a TDA board member and your employer is part of a group that wants control of the same piece of property that is the subject of this premature termination of an exclusive negotiating period, you have a conflict of interest. Saying that your employer doesn't stand to gain financially and is only acting in what it perceives to be the public interest isn't the point. It's still a conflict because your employer's aims don't necessarily line up with the TDA's best interest or the interest of fairness to all.
Also, if you do feel the need to recuse yourself, you're supposed to absent yourself from the entire discussion. Instead, board member John Clayman, employed by Frederic Dorwart Lawyers and someone who has often represented Bank of Oklahoma in court, not only sat through and participated in discussion (shaking his head rapidly during much of Will Wilkins' remarks -- I thought we were about to see the reenactment of a scene from Scanners), he seconded the motion to abort the exclusive negotiating period. Then after Wilkins reminded him that he recused himself during the April 17 vote to extend the contract, Klayman abstained when his name was called. Paula Bryant-Ellis, a BOK executive and the newest board member, recused herself right before the vote. George Shahadi, director of real estate for Williams, another company that is part of the group trying to control all the land around the ballpark, should have recused himself, but didn't.
Here are some links to help fill in the blanks. I thought the Tulsa World's Brian Barber did a fine job of capturing the mood and the substance of the meeting. (Don't be surprised if his piece is severely edited for the print version to make the Mayor look better.) I was pleased to see KOTV and KTUL there. KTUL's Bert Mummolo has followed the story closely -- here's his coverage from today and here's the video. But today I thought KOTV did a better job of telling the story of today's meeting with words and video, including some video from Mayor Taylor's speech. I'm just happy to see a couple of TV stations show such interest in covering an issue which is not very telegenic.
1170 KFAQ's Chris Medlock was at the meeting today and had audio from the meeting plus Will Wilkins as a guest in studio. (Here's hour 1; here's hour 2.) Also, Pat Campbell was asking questions about a secret meeting involving Councilor Eric Gomez and the ballpark donors. (His podcast from Thursday morning hasn't been posted yet for some reason.)
There's more to be said about this meeting, which architect Bob Sober, who counts himself a friend to both Mayor Taylor and the Wilkinses, said was like watching a "slow-motion train wreck." For now, check out those links.
And here are a few comments from around the web.
On TulsaNow's public forum, Floyd responds to Taylor's comments about wanting a "beautifully woven fabric" around the ballpark:
Wow.Honestly? Get it together. How tone deaf can she be? It's not hard to see how this narrative has developed. At least counter the narrative with a prepared statement regarding the specific plans/intentions of this "trust" and perhaps an offer of inclusion. Don't cry about destruction and beautiful fabrics--give the entrepreneurs some credit for their vision. How about a multicolored quilt, instead of a "beautiful fabric?"
Me, later in the same thread, responding to Taylor's complaints about the environs of the BOK Center:
I recall a lengthy thread on this forum right after the Vision 2025 vote about the best location for the arena. Many people remarked about the drawbacks of the site that was chosen. I think someone even suggested the site now being discussed as the ballpark site, because it was close to existing entertainment areas and OSU-Tulsa.The way to address the concern about nearby future development is first to pick a site that is already near the kind of development you want -- they've done that by picking the Archer/Elgin site -- and, second, to establish a special zoning district around the ballpark with design and development standards and a means for enforcement. Oklahoma City established such a district in and around Bricktown.
Design standards for downtown were part of the Downtown Tulsa CORE Recommendations:
District One of the City of Tulsa's Comprehensive Plan, the Central Business District (CBD), is a district that deserves special consideration; as such, we should develop District Standards for design review to ensure compatible, high-quality development and redevelopment. Recommendations of the existing Comprehensive Plan for District One (downtown) such as district design standards and review should be revisited for present use and coordinated with the Comprehensive Plan Update.When the CORE Recommendations came under attack from a major downtown property owner and from DTU, Mayor Taylor might have supported the idea and helped to move it forward. Instead, her aide, Susan Neal, encouraged the recommendations to be shelved.
I still dont get what they apparently expect is going to happen around the ballpark? What is it that the TDA thinks is going to be better that the Wilkinsons couldnt improve their development to be like or that could go in those other spaces nearby? This finely woven fabric, is that to be one huge developer? Many small ones? If its the former I can understand wanting a lot of land because thats one of the reasons previous developments have fallen through because they couldnt get all the property they needed. But here they are saying they will use eminent domain and there is other property by the 120 lofts site that can be used. If its small developments.... what are the criteria such that the 120 lofts are not a good fit anywhere in the development area? Cause surely the 120 loft people would have traded for another spot if it was deemed that the spot they have now is "needed" to make everything work.Nothing the TDA or the Mayor is saying makes any sense. Sounds like they are grasping at straws or are just completely oblivious.
They are giving us this "Why cant we all get along and do whats best for everyone and the city." plea. But its been them who have shoved aside the hand the Wilkinsons had been extending in order to try to find a fair, sporting, "gentlemanly" solution. Someone should have said to the Wilkinsons... "Hey, we really feel like we need that spot in order for this project to work. Here is why.... We know you have done a lot of work so far, can we work together and (find another spot in the development, or make design changes, or collaborate on making it better to fit what we think is needed, etc. etc.) There are all kinds of possibilities that would have been the proper way to go.
I was brought up that if you make an agreement, say your going to do something. You abide by that, even if it becomes difficult to do so, even if you become hurt by doing so. You keep your word! Even if its not written, you do the right thing by people. These developers were there first, were doing the right things, and whether anyone else likes it or not, whether its convenient or not. You do the right thing by them, and for yourself. Not to mention in this case there are plenty of opportunities to work this out for the benefit of everyone. Not just blow them off and treat them like dirt.
"Stick61" in a couple of comments on the Tulsa World story:
One of the problems here is that TDA risks losing credibility with the modest-scale element of the development community by treating one of its members shabbily. Mr. Bracy lacks credibility when he says that he is not "bound by politics." Of course, he is bound by politics. This ballpark proposal is a political freight train and he's trying to clear a path for it. In the process, he's asking Mr. Wilkins to shut up and be happy about losing $15,000. If I were in Mr. Wilkins' shoes (I don't know him), I would never do business with TDA again because I would consider its behavior in this matter dishonorable.I believe that the Mayor does very badly want to see positive development downtown. And she is correct to lend the energy of her office to constructive proposals, including a proposal to build a new ballpark to keep the Drillers in Tulsa. However, she should spare us the tears and make a commitment to treating people with more consideration than Mr. Wilkins has been treated. The gentleman may not have worded his inflammatory email as artfully as he should have, but that doesn't excuse the fact that he appears to have been given the bum's rush. Bickering ceases, or at least decreases, when people are shown due respect. The mayor must do a better job of building consensus.
Tonight (Thursday, August 7) the Tulsa City Council will reconsider a resolution it passed last week. The resolution, jointly issued with the Tulsa Housing Authority dealt with four lots on the west side of Yale between Admiral Place and I-244, declaring it to be "in the public interest" for TDA to develop the property as part of the "Building Tulsa Building Lives" initiative. Here's the text:
JOINT RESOLUTIONA JOINT RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF TULSA AND THE HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF TULSA (THA), DECLARING THE DEVELOPMENT OF 10 SOUTH YALE, TULSA, OKLAHOMA, BY THA AS PART OF THE "BUILDING TULSA BUILDING LIVES" INITIATIVE TO BE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST.
WHEREAS, pursuant to 63 O.S., § 1061(b), a joint public hearing was held on July 31, 2008, by the Housing Authority of the City of Tulsa (THA) and the City Council of the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, to consider new development on the collective properties known as 10 South Yale, Tulsa, Oklahoma; and
WHEREAS, at such public hearing it was determined by a majority of the members of both THA and the City Council that such development is in the public interest.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Housing Authority of the City of Tulsa that it is in the public interest for the Housing Authority of the City of Tulsa, as part of the "Building Tulsa Building Lives" initiative, to develop the collective properties known as 10 South Yale, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Building Tulsa, Building Lives is an initiative to address homelessness. The website's home page says this:
When homelessness became an issue in the late '70s, the accepted treatments were shelters and meals. And Tulsa provided. But new research points to a new approach - one that manages the symptoms of homelessness more effectively and may be the answer to virtually ending chronic homelessness altogether.
Note the word "chronic" -- this isn't about people who are temporarily in straitened circumstances, but troubled people -- mostly men -- who by reason of mental illness or addiction can't function in a society that requires a degree of personal responsibility. Some of these people want to be helped, and organizations like John 3:16 Mission work to rebuild their lives. Other organizations simply provide food and shelter without no strings attached. Some homeless people aren't allowed in the shelters because they won't follow rules or because they may be a danger to others.
Some of the people we're talking about aren't really homeless. They're what an earlier time called transients. They have a home, but they don't need or want something that they have to take care of. They just need an inexpensive place to sleep and keep their things. There used to be accommodations that catered to them -- bedsits, single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels -- a cheap place to sleep, maybe a sink in the room, and a bathroom down the hall. Such places used to be plentiful in downtown. The Downtown YMCA is about the only place left like that, and it's inconveniently close to the BOK Center. It's slated to close by 2010, in part because of new fire regulations that would require expensive renovations to the building. Here's what will replace the Y:
The program would provide a basic housing unit to each chronically homeless person and then surround that person with support services to work on personal issues. Housing would be provided with no strings attached.The 52-year-old downtown YMCA, 515 S. Denver Ave., has 168 housing units. About 140 men, many of whom have been homeless or trapped in a cycle of chronic homelessness, now live there.
The Zarrow Families Foundation has provided funding for a full-time caseworker at the YMCA to locate housing options for the residents.
The Mental Health Association in Tulsa has been leasing a floor at the YMCA building to provide 25 units in its Safe Haven housing program.
Executive Director Mike Brose said the association is looking for other housing options, adding that "the closing provides the community an opportunity.
"That opportunity means finding ways to replace those units with housing that is not overly congregated -- more scattered sites and that will work much better and be more appropriate for individuals who stay there," he said.
The "Building Tulsa" page reveals a key piece of the agenda:
The opening of the BOK Center and other Vision 2025 projects are important components in securing the economic future of downtown Tulsa. But before downtown can become the vibrant destination it has the potential to be, developers and investors must be assured of its inviting and family-friendly environment.Eliminating homelessness will attract further development and investment to downtown.
In other words, get the aggressive panhandlers and other unsightly vagrants out of sight, so that people won't be deterred from coming downtown.
I'm not sure what Tulsa Housing Authority plans for I-244 and Yale, except that it's intended to serve the "chronic homeless." I'm not sure the City Council knew what they were being asked to vote on last week.
Because there was no zoning change, there was no public notice to surrounding property owners. I understand the desire to clear vagrants out of downtown, but putting them next to three residential neighborhoods isn't good for the surrounding neighborhoods or for the vagrants, who need access to social services and the bus network. It also seems to be a non-strategic use of one of the interstate gateways to Expo Square -- visitors coming to Expo Square from east and north of Tulsa or from the airport take I-244 to Yale.
We need to support those who are providing help to those who can't cope with daily life, but when a public body like THA is involved, we need to have full public disclosure and debate of what help is provided and where.
This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly is about developers Will Wilkins and Cecilia Wilkins and how they're being squeezed out of their their exclusive deal with the Tulsa Development Authority to develop a parcel at Archer and Elgin. All was well when no one wanted the land back in January, but now it's across the street from the site of the new ballpark for the Tulsa Drillers. The ballpark donors want to control all of the land around the ballpark site, and the Wilkinses' deal with TDA gets in the way of that.
At City Councilor Rick Westcott's invitation, Wilkins appeared at yesterday's Urban and Economic Development committee meeting. KTUL's Burt Mummolo has the story, which will give you a brief overview of the situation:
[KTUL's embed code wasn't working, so I removed it. Click here to watch the video.]
Here's a link to the story transcript.
I was surprised to see Mayor Kathy Taylor tell KTUL, "I have not seen anything that leads me to believe the TDA is opposed to the Wilkins development."
Hey, Mayor Taylor, have you seen this letter from the TDA chairman? I know you have because you issued a response to it last week:
July 29, 2008Stephen A. Schuller, Esq.
GABLE & GOTWALS
1100 ONEOK Plaza
One West Fifth Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74103-4217Re: Tulsa Development Authority Resolution 5423
Dear Mr. Schuller:
We are in receipt of your correspondence dated July 18, 2008. As you know, the City of Tulsa, and several private donors contributing more than $30 million to a public trust, are developing a master plan for a national class Double A baseball park and associated amenities in the Greenwood and Brady Districts. This master plan incorporates the property in which your clients have expressed an interest. The city believes that the development of a coordinated high-quality, arts, entertainment, educational, and mixed-use development surrounding the ballpark is vital.
At the present time, the land under contract with the Greenwood Community Development Corporation has been set aside as a prospective site of the ball park. We have not seen any plans yet that specify the precise limits and any data concerning the proposals comprising the Master Plan. We therefore have no knowledge of what other properties may be affected or included in the Plan. The ball park may require a larger site or a complete change of land use may be recommended.
After further review and conferring with our attorney, Darven Brown, it is my personal feeling that the Tulsa Development Authority should proceed no further in connection with the marketing activities of any of the property in the vicinity of the baseball site location until we have full information concerning the finalized plans adopted by the city. While the Tulsa Development Authority is a separate entity from the city we have always conducted our business in a manner that we consider to be in the city's best interest. That being the case, it would seem to be unwise for the Tulsa Development Authority to proceed further with any negotiations with your client at this time. After all, the city has the right of eminent domain and can take whatever properties become necessary for its municipal purposes.
Because of the foregoing, I feel that it would be in the best interest of the public and the City of Tulsa to terminate any negotiations and cancel the Resolution now in place. I have asked that this item be placed on the agenda for the regular meeting of the Tulsa Development Authority to be held at 8:30 o'clock a.m., on August 7, at which time you may wish to appear.
Yours truly,
S/Carl Bracy, Chairman
xc: Mr. Leon Davis
Mr. Hurst Swiggart
Mr. George Shahadi
Mr. John D. Clayman
Mr. Melvin R. Gilliam
Ms. Paula Bryant-Ellis
Sounds like opposition to me, and he says he's doing it in the "city's best interest."
(Taylor's discomfort in that interview reminds me of Nathan Thurm, Martin Short's shifty lawyer character.)
Here is Taylor's response to Bracy's memo, issued after the issue hit the airwaves last week:
TULSA (KFAQ) - Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor has released a statement today reacting to a story in the Tulsa World regarding the possible use of eminent domain to acquire property near the future site of a proposed new downtown ballpark.Taylor said, "The land on which the ballpark is to be located is currently owned by the Tulsa Development Authority. I am not aware of any request to use condemnation powers to build the ballpark. The rules upon which those powers may be used are very limited in Oklahoma.
The goal of the ballpark is to continue to facilitate private downtown development and further encourage the development of business owners, like Michael Sager, Mary Beth Babcock, Elliot Nelson and others who continue to expand on Tulsa's unique nature.
I neither reviewed nor was I consulted on the draft letter sent by the Tulsa Development Authority to Mr. Schuller. I understand the property that was the subject of the letter would have no issue regarding condemnation as the property is currently owned by the Tulsa Development Authority."
Taylor's statement neatly danced around the central issue raised by Bracy's letter: Whether she will stand idly by while the TDA shreds the exclusive negotiating agreement they had with Cecilia and Will Wilkins.
If you care about fairness and openness in government, this story will make you angry. Read the whole thing, then tune in to 1170 KFAQ this afternoon at 3, when I'll be on Chris Medlock's show to discuss the Wilkinses' situation.
And if you can, you might show up tomorrow morning at the Tulsa Development Authority board meeting, August 7, 8:30 am, on the 15th Floor of One Technology Center (new City Hall, 2nd & Cincinnati), when the TDA will "discuss" their exclusive negotiating agreement with the Wilkinses.
When city employees have their travel to conferences and meetings covered by a third-party -- e.g., a foundation or the Tulsa Metro Chamber -- there has to be a vote by the council to accept the travel donation. Steve Roemerman wonders why the same wouldn't be true of Mayor Kathy Taylor donating a ride to a City Councilor on N227KT, her Learjet 31A -- the most recent example being Taylor giving a lift to Councilor David Patrick so he could vote for her downtown ballpark assessment district.
Instead of being more open about the use of her personal aircraft to further her political goals, Taylor has made it harder to track where her jet has been. I can't think of any security or safety reason to withhold that information, particularly if it were delayed by, say, a day. Taylor is a public figure. In the interest of transparency in government,Taylor ought to release monthly flight logs -- where her plane has been, who was on it, and what was the purpose of the trip.
MORE: Chris Medlock learns that the jet belongs not to Kathy Taylor as an individual, but to a Nevada corporation and considers the ethical implications:
The actual owner of the jet is 1132 Investment Co. As the graphic below shows, this is apparently not an Oklahoma corporation, but rather one from Nevada....Let us further assume that, as the name implies, the company is a for-profit venture. What then makes the use of this jet to fetch loyal councilors any different than if American Airlines had sent a jet up to get Patrick? In both instances, you would have a jet owned and operated by a out-of-state corporation, flying across state lines for the express purpose of bringing a vacationing elected official back home for a key vote.
When I was a city councilor, we were not allowed to accept gifts in excess, if memory serves me right, of $50. By her own admission, Taylor gave Patrick something [a quick and timely trip home] that was far in excess of $50, unless you don't think $4,500 in jet fuel and hours on the road don't rate....
Patrick was not in Colorado on official business. He was there on a semi-vacation tending to private property he owns there. It cost him his own money to get to Colorado, so any expense saved in getting back from private activities is a net benefit to his personal wealth, hence a gift! Or are they telling us that Taylor then spent an additional $4,500 to fly him BACK to Colorado after the meeting?
In a later entry, delving further into this Nevada corporation, Medlock congratulates Taylor on structuring her assets and income to avoid taxes.
Medlock also provides us with the State of Arkansas's policy on a public official accepting a ride on a private jet.
MORE: Steve, a member of the City of Tulsa's Sales Tax Overview Committee, shares the highlights from the July 2008 report.
Tulsa City Councilor Rick Westcott sent his District 2 constituents an explanation of the legal situation in which the councilors found themselves Thursday night, when they voted to appropriate money from the sinking fund to pay the settlement in the Tulsa Industrial Authority / Tulsa Airport Improvements Trust lawsuit (money that will ultimately go to the Bank of Oklahoma):
There's some misunderstanding about the Council's vote regarding the settlement of the Great Plains lawsuit. We probably should have made it more clear at the meeting.The City Council did not vote to approve the settlement. We had no authority to either approve or reject the settlement. It had already been done and it was totally out of our hands. The Mayor had already approved the settlement and, on Thursday, it was submitted to the Judge and he approved it. On Thursday afternoon the settlement was filed as a judgment against the City of Tulsa. All of that was done by the Mayor, under her authority as chief administrative officer of the City. The settlement was approved and entered as a judgment before the Council even met on Thursday evening.
The only thing which we did on Thursday was state whether there is sufficient money in the Sinking Fund to pay the settlement. The Finance Department informed us that there is and, based upon that, we had to vote to say, "yes, there is sufficient money."
Legally, we had no choice but to vote 'yes'.
After the Finance Department informed us that there is sufficient money in the Sinking Fund to pay the judgment, if we had voted 'no', we would have been sued, just for voting 'no'.
We had no vote, no say whatsoever, regarding the settlement. The Mayor entered into the settlement agreement without Council approval and it was approved by the Judge before the Council met last night.
The article in the Tulsa World is a little bit confusing. But, the subject is a little confusing.
It says that the Council voted to "have property taxpayers pay the BOK." That's more or less accurate, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
The City's Sinking Fund is used to pay judgments against the City. Once the settlement was filed as a judgment, then, by law, the Sinking Fund had to be used to pay the judgment Money is paid into the Sinking Fund from the City's portion of property taxes. So, it's true that property taxpayers' money will be used to pay the settlement. But, that's because the settlement was filed as a judgment against the City, and the Sinking Fund has to be used to pay judgments, and property taxes are used to put money into the Sinking Fund.
The article also says that the Council voted on "whether to appropriate the money from the sinking fund." Again, that's more or less accurate, but it doesn't tell the whole story, either. By law, the Council had to vote on whether there is sufficient money in the Sinking Fund to pay the judgment. At the meeting on Thursday, the City Finance Department informed the Council that there is enough money in the Sinking Fund. Once the Finance Department told us that, we had no choice but to vote, "yes" and approve paying the judgment out of the Sinking Fund. We had no choice in whether to 'appropriate money from the sinking fund.'
We didn't vote on whether to use money from the Sinking Fund to pay the judgment. By law, that's where the money has to come from. All we did was say that there is enough money in the Sinking Fund to pay it.
If we had voted "no", then the Bank of Oklahoma, or the Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust, or one of the other parties to the lawsuit, would have filed a separate law suit against the City Council, seeking a Write of Mandamus. That's an Order from the Couettlert which commands a public body or a public officer to do something that they have a legal duty to do. In this case, they would have won and the City would also have had to pay their attorney fees which they incurred in pursuing a Writ of Mandamus.
Last night, I explained my misgivings about the settlement. I am against the settlement at this point in time.
As I said, naming the City of Tulsa as a defendant in the lawsuit was just an expedience to put the City in a position where we could legally settle the lawsuit. Previously, when the City wasn't a defendant, there were attempts to persuade City officials to pay for the settlement. That would have been illegal, because we weren't a defendant. Naming the City as a defendant was just a method to put the City in a position to pay for the settlement.
But setting that aside and just looking at it as a straight-up lawsuit, settlement at this time is far, far premature.
I don't think the lawsuit and the claim of "unjust enrichment" against the City had any merit. I would never advise a client to settle immediately after being named in a lawsuit. I'd have gone through the discovery phase and, hopefully, reduced the settlement amount by showing that my client had the stronger case.
But, we weren't given that opportunity.
I hope this explanation helps. If you still have questions, please give me a call or send me an e-mail.
RDW
I appreciate Councilor Westcott's perspective and am glad to know he opposes the settlement. The question now is whether he and the other councilors will do anything to halt the settlement or, failing that, to impose some penalty on Mayor Kathy Taylor for her rash action against the best interests of Tulsa's taxpayers.
The council should also seek full public disclosure of the decision-making process -- why the rush, who stood to suffer if the June 30 deadline wasn't met, who met with whom? And the financial and contractual arrangements between the parties should be fully disclosed as well. Why was a BOk attorney acting as the attorney for the Tulsa Industrial Authority in this lawsuit? Has TIA already repaid BOk, or will they now repay the bank? Was there legal action by BOk against TIA?
In the long run, we probably need a charter change to require council approval on legal settlements or contracts above a certain dollar value. No one should be committing that much city money unilaterally.
Comments from elsewhere on the web about the City of Tulsa's payment of a $7.1 million Great Plains Airlines debt it did not owe:
KFAQ's Chris Medlock was a City Councilor the last time someone tried to get the City to pay for the Great Plains mess. Here's what he had to say when the news of the bogus lawsuit and settlement emerged on Wednesday:
Word is that Friday morning she will meet with the Tulsa City Council in a special meeting to inform them of the deal. She will be using her full authority to bind the city to a contract, so she can act without the approval of the City Council.
On Thursday Medlock spelled out whythe Council's hands were tied
This surveying of the Sinking Fund is considered to be a "ministerial" action which a previous City Attorney, Alan Jackere told the Council when I was a member, that the council is duty bound to certify the figures, if they are true....The last time the council voted down a "ministerial" action was when it voted not to approve the plat for the F&M Bank that was eventually built at 71st and Harvard. When the Council took that action, F&M filed suit against the councilors individually, threatening their personal assets. Since it took a majority of councilors to deny the plat, a majority of the council were named in the suit. As such, no majority of the council could be mustered to vote to give the councilors [me included] the legal services of City Legal. As such, each councilor was forced to hire their own counsel.
On his Thursday show, Medlock played audio from that morning's TAIT board meeting in which board member Dewey Bartlett credited Mayor Kathy Taylor with working out a settlement with the Bank of Oklahoma. In other words, she wasn't responding to someone suing the City; she was the driving force behind adding the City to the lawsuit.
Steve Roemerman attended Thursday's Council meeting and has photos. He reports that Taylor was unwilling, as she has been throughout her term of office, to face the public or the Council and answer for her decisions:
That leads us to last night's Council meeting. Mayor Taylor showed up for her Mayor's Report, and gave a quick explanation of why Tulsa had to pay this money. She said "This lawsuit has been following Tulsa for years." This is not entirely true because Tulsa was not part of this suit until recently...June 25 recently! Unless 1 day = over a year somehow, "years" is not how I'd put it...The truth is that Tulsa, and the Mayor's office in particular, have been following this suit for years, eager to give BOK money that we don't owe.When she was finished, Taylor abruptly left, basically telling the Council that a lawyer would answer any further questions they had when it came time to vote on the release of the funds. She did not stick around and listen to the gallery of concerned citizens who went to the trouble of coming down to the council, she left!
Taylor, BOK, TAIT, and their lawyers say this is a good deal for Tulsa. I'm not entirely sure I buy that. If it were, this deal would have been made in the light of day, and there would have been no rush to push it through, in just 3...THREE short little days. I call Shenanigans!
Given the rush to get this done right before the end of a quarter and the end of the City's fiscal year, you have to think some executive at the Bank of Oklahoma would have been in legal jeopardy without this settlement.
Dave Schuttler provides a refresher course on Great Plains with video from the last push to settle this in 2005. In one video, Medlock said instead of preemptively bailing things out, we should let it go to court and have people testify under oath. He mentions handwritten notes from then City Attorney Martha Rupp Carter about the lien on the "collateral" -- Air Force Plant No. 3 -- when the VP of BOk asked for the original paperwork, she wrote that all she had was a forgery.
In another video on that same entry, Jim Mautino mentions being called to the office of Stan Lybarger, president of BOk. Mautino took city attorneys Larry Simmons and Drew Rees with him to the meeting. Lybarger told them that he had twice turned down the Great Plains loan, but relented because then Mayor Susan Savage gave him "assurances." This would be the same Savage who gave "assurances" to the City Council at the time that transfering AFP3 to the Tulsa Industrial Authority would not expose the City to any liability in the Great Plains financing deal.
(Related to that, following Thursday's pre-meeting, Councilor Bill Christiansen -- who, as an airport tenant, recused himself -- pointed out to me that we don't know to what degree BOk may be culpable in this loan default.)
In another video from 2005, Medlock talks about then-Mayor Bill LaFortune relenting from his push to pay off BOk. He also talked about the odd legal arrangements in the TIA-TAIT lawsuit.
And here is video from last night, featuring north Tulsa businesswoman Sharla Walker, who speaks about the immorality of give BOk $7.1 million when north Tulsa needs police, pools, groceries; Jack Henderson explaining why he could not with clear conscience vote for this giveaway. Henderson said he was sick and tired of people being afraid to go to court.
There was plenty of upset citizens attending the council meeting and plenty of other worthy statements and I'll get more out into the internet with time. I think the best way for everyone to voice the opinions now is to cancel your Bank of Oklahoma account. Don't worry they can afford it and it won't hurt them much and you might not get that dirty look the next time you pull out your BOK card. Mayor Taylor will hopefully disappear soon now that this deal is done. Then again she might have more deals ahead but Mr. Baker leaving this week might be a sign of something but then again who knows until the day before.I hope Mr Turner was correct about the OIG [FAA Office of Inspector General] coming back with tonights deal. Especially since the city still owes 70 plus homeowners their easements after the FAA decision about the money spent by Cinnabar, after the airport officials told them to stop working on those houses when funding ran out. Time will tell and much more money will be spent.
Schuttler also announced a Mayor Taylor sign contest. Steve Roemerman has Taylor holding a $7 million check made out to BOk. That's XonOFF's entry up above.
Finally, here's an analysis of the situation by
Friendly Bear on TulsaNow's public forum:
The promoters of Great Plains Airlines, who have all left town by now, had pitched their "Direct Flights to the Coasts" deal to 2nd tier cities like Wichita and Tulsa.All the other cities had the sense to turn them down.
Then, the promoters used a network of gifted grifters to garner $30 million in State Tax Credits courtesy of their lobbyist Martha Erling Frette.
Then, got TAIT to pledge 22 acres of land right in the heart of the airport to the bank.
Then, in exchange for $600K in free advertising, they made World Publishing Co. the largest equity owner of GPA, despite today's Tulsa World's repeated Half-Truth that World Publishing only owned 3% of the shares.
PREFERRED shares are not counted the same way as the common stock.
Repeat: The World Publishing company was the single largest equity owner of the airlines. And, that ownership interest bought GPA many, many favorable "news" articles right up to the point when the airline crashed.
WHY didn't anyone exercise some adult leadership over the promoters when the first planes they acquired, they leased two airplanes that were incapable of flying non-stop to either coast.
THAT was a serious RED FLAG.
In a Banana Republic like Tulsa, a few immensely rich families like the Lortons, the Helmerichs, the Kaisers, the Warrens, the Siegfrieds, the Flints, the Rooneys, and the Schusterman's have an influence far, far in excess of what is healthy for what we mistakenly persist in calling our "democracy".
It isn't really a democracy.
It is a Banana Republic.
It only has the edifices of a democracy:
Elections.
Courts.
Judges.
These ruling Oligarch families select our political leaders, the Mayor and a majority of our city councilors.
Their paid paladins like Cameron and Reynolds populate our city boards, commisions and authorities (like TAIT, TMUA, TARE, TIA, TDA, etc.), doing their bidding, and breaking our backs with bad, bad deals like the Trash-to- Energy Plant, clean water piped at cost to subsidize development of our suburbs, Great Plains Airlines, an arena sole-sourced to the Flint-Rooney Oligarchia Familias, etc., etc., etc.
Very scarily, they also select our District and Federal Court judges.
Newly appointed Federal judge Gregory Frizzell is Senator Inhofe's "dear" friend.
Really scary if you are foolish enough or unlucky enough to have a legal tangle with the local Oligarchia Familias.
Their wholly-owned District Judge Jane Wiseman, took all of FIVE minutes to rule that a log-rolled 2003 Vision 2025 ballot, that figuratively sugar-coated voter rat poison, was actually not a log-rolled ballot.
Don't believe your eyes. Believe the judge.
Dear Judge Wiseman's reward:
Shortly thereafter, rewarded with a state Appellant Judgeship.
Welcome to the Banana Republic of Tulsa.
I hope Tulsans will show up at tonight's City Council meetings (at 5 in room 201 of the City Hall tower and 6 in the Council chamber) to voice their objections to Mayor Kathy Taylor's capitulation in the Great Plains Airlines lawsuit and to urge councilors to reject payment of the $7.1 million settlement to Bank of Oklahoma.
You know how think-tanks and political action committees put out report cards? They base their "grades" of legislators on certain key votes, which are usually announced in advance.
I'm announcing today that tonight's vote on authorizing payment of $7.1 million from the sinking fund is a report-card vote. I consider this vote a test of a councilor's integrity and political courage. I will weigh this vote heavily when considering whether to endorse that councilor's ambitions for re-election or higher office. I won't say a "yes" vote is an automatic disqualification, but a councilor who votes "yes" will have to redeem himself in some spectacular and sacrificial way in the future to earn my support. I prefer to support only those candidates who have demonstrated backbone and a willingness to do the right thing in the face of pressure from the wealthy and powerful.
It was illegal three years ago for the City to intervene and pay off the debt which is not owed by the city, but by a bankrupt airline and secured by a trust; the City was not a part of the lawsuit. Adding the City to the lawsuit on a bogus equitable claim of "unjust enrichment," a claim easily defeated because the City of Tulsa was not enriched, unjustly or otherwise, doesn't make paying that $7.1 million any more legal. It only adds conspiracy to misappropriation of funds.
The City of Tulsa doesn't owe this money to BOk, and paying it is against the law. The Mayor and the City Attorney and any councilor that votes in favor of tonight's resolution will be personally exposed to a qui tam action filed by taxpayers under 62 O.S. §372 and §373.
The law provides for a triple penalty. For authorizing the unlawful transfer of $7.1 million, Mayor Taylor would have to pay $21.3 million. She might have to sell her house and park her Bentley at a trailer park for a place to live. Or perhaps she can camp out in her Learjet.
If you're having trouble understanding why this payment is immoral and illegal, follow me in this thought experiment.
Imagine I'm having coffee with Mayor Taylor one day, and she remarks, "You seem sad, Michael. What's wrong?"
"I lent someone $7,000 to help start a new business. The business went broke. I sued the guy, but he doesn't have any money. Another guy cosigned the loan and pledged some collateral, but it turns out he doesn't really own the property, so he can't cover the loan either. I should have known the collateral wasn't his, but I didn't think about it before I lent him the money. Anyway, looks like I'm out seven grand."
"I think I can help you, Michael. Just add the City as a defendant to your lawsuit."
"But the City isn't involved...."
"Doesn't matter. You're my friend, and I can help you. Just file an amended petition against the city, cite any old grounds -- make something up. I'll direct the City Attorney to settle out of court for the full amount. The Council will have to approve taking the money out of the sinking fund, but they're pushovers. They don't like to give the newspaper an excuse to call them bickering obstructionists."
"Won't that raise our property taxes?"
"You know, Michael, it's just pennies per taxpayer, and you're such a valuable asset to our community, you deserve it."
Do you believe that would happen for someone like me? Would it be just? Would it be legal? Of course not. But that's exactly what Kathy Taylor is doing for the Bank of Oklahoma, but for $7,100,000 instead of $7,000.
Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor appears to be colluding in a lawsuit against the financial interests of the citizens of Tulsa. She is probably doing this to cover the posterior of the BOk executives responsible for making this bad loan. (As bond trustees for TAIT, BOk was well aware -- or should have been -- of the covenants and restrictions on TAIT's assets and income.)
Tulsa taxpayers have already suffered financially from Great Plains. The transferable tax credits used to finance the airline were repaid to the state treasury through our gasoline taxes, meaning less money to fix our roads and bridges. BOk purchased $18 million worth of those tax credits from Great Plains for $15 million. $3 million in free money -- sweet.
Most councilors will find it very hard to vote no. That's why I consider this vote a measure of integrity and political courage.
David Patrick, Bill Martinson, Dennis Troyer, Bill Christiansen, and G. T. Bynum all received contributions from BOk officers this cycle. Those who were on the ballot in 2006 (all but Bynum) also received BOk backing then. Jack Henderson received $1,000 support from George Kaiser and BOk Financial Corp. PAC during the 2006 cycle, but BOk VP Dan Ellinor backed Henderson's opponent Emanuel Lewis this time around. Only Rick Westcott, John Eagleton, and Eric Gomez do not appear to have received any BOk-related contributions, and in fact, Kaiser and BOKF PAC backed Eagleton's and Westcott's opponents in 2006, and Kaiser contributed to Gomez's opponent this year.
UPDATE: Mayor Taylor was present at the beginning of the meeting, but scrammed before this item came up. The resolution passed by a 5-2 vote. Eagleton, Westcott, Martinson, Patrick, and Gomez voted yes. Henderson and Troyer voted no. Christiansen, as an airport tenant, recused himself. Bynum recused himself, I presume because his grandfather, Robert J. LaFortune, is on the board of BOk. (A grandfather is within two degrees of consanguinity, the standard for the City of Tulsa ethics ordinance.) The "emergency clause," which would cause the payment to be authorized immediately rather than in 30 days, received a 5-2 vote as well, but needed 6 votes to pass.
Eagleton and Westcott objected to the settlement that the Mayor had reached, but they had been advised by the City Council's attorney, Drew Rees, that authorizing payment of the settlement from the sinking fund was a "ministerial" duty, and they had no discretion in the matter. Voting no could subject them to personal liability. (This two-page document from Pennsylvania has a good, brief explanation of ministerial act.)
Rees told me after the pre-meeting that the councilors were not putting themselves at risk of a qui tam action by voting for this, because they had no discretion. Only the official who had the discretion to agree to a settlement involving an unlawful disbursement of funds would be subject to qui tam.
I still would have voted no, despite the risk, and would have asked my fellow councilors for a resolution to seek an injunction against the Mayor's settlement. I don't know if it is possible to enjoin payment of the settlement at this point, but the Council ought at least to express their disapproval formally, perhaps with a censure resolution.
See below for updates, including audio from my interview on KFAQ today and the request for action and the resolution that the City Council will consider tomorrow night.
You may have thought the Great Plains Airlines fiasco was far behind us. Three years ago, then-Mayor Bill LaFortune tried to convince the City Council to pay the Bank of Oklahoma the $7 million (plus) owed by the Tulsa Airport Improvements Trust as a result of their complicated (and illegal) financing deal for the bankrupt airline. LaFortune backed down because of a City Attorney's opinion that the City was not liable for the money and paying a settlement would expose the City's elected officials to a qui tam suit from taxpayers, making them personally liable for misappropriation of funds and subject to removal from office. (My Urban Tulsa Column from November 17, 2005, goes into all the gory details.)
But BOk is coming after your tax dollars once again. Today in District Court, the Tulsa Industrial Authority filed an amended petition in its lawsuit CJ-2004-6124, adding the City of Tulsa as a defendant on the grounds of "unjust enrichment." This equitable claim, I am told, creates an excuse for Mayor Kathy Taylor to say that the City is at legal risk for this debt and therefore the City could legitimately pay it. Rather than vigorously defend against this claim and see if it will hold up in court, Taylor wants to short-circuit the legal process, wave the white flag, and hand over the money. Our money, to be specific.
In 2005, the request to the City Council to repay the debt was preceded by a PR campaign, including an op-ed by John Brock in the Tulsa World. This time, they're trying to sneak it through. Here's what's on the agenda for tomorrow, at the Thursday, June 26, 5 p.m., pre-meeting of the Tulsa City Council:
1. Resolution authorizing payment in full of a judgment settlement, from surplus monies in the Sinking Fund for Case No. CJ-2004-6124: Tulsa Industrial Authority (TIA) vs. Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust (TAIT), City of Tulsa, et al. (Emergency Clause) 05-916-10
And on the 6 p.m. regular meeting agenda:
3. b. [Mayor's Items] Resolution authorizing payment in full of a judgment settlement, from surplus monies in the Sinking Fund for Case No. CJ-2004-6124: Tulsa Industrial Authority (TIA) vs. Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust (TAIT), City of Tulsa, et al. (Emergency Clause) 05-916-10
There had to have been a lot of coordination between the Mayor, the TIA, and the BOk to make all this happen so quickly. The resolution authorizing payment couldn't go forward until the City was added as a defendant to the lawsuit. Isn't it nice to know our Mayor is assiduously looking for ways to give our tax dollars away to private interests?
"Surplus monies in the Sinking Fund" doesn't mean we have extra cash laying around. It means your property taxes will go up to pay for this, as is the case for all judgments against the City.
Reading the definition of unjust enrichment, it's hard to see how the City could be found liable:
1. Was the defendant enriched?
2. Was the enrichment at the expense of the claimant?
3. Was the enrichment unjust?
4. Does the defendant have a defense?
5. What remedies are available to the claimant?
The City wasn't enriched. That should end the matter right there.
In a nutshell, here's what is happening: BOk made a bad loan to finance Great Plains Airlines. GPA went bankrupt, but BOk still wants to recover its money. On August 7, 2006, BOk sued PriceWaterhouseCoopers, for professional negligence. The case was settled out of court within the month.
TAIT doesn't have to resources to pay back BOk, nor does TIA, so BOk is hunting around for someone with deep pockets to hold liable. That would be the City of Tulsa.
Why won't BOk just write this off as a bad lending decision on their part? It may be because the corporation and its officers would be liable under FIRREA, federal lending regulations put in place following the collapse of the Savings and Loan industry. S&Ls used federally-insured funds to make bad loans to insiders. When the borrowers defaulted and the S&Ls folded, the taxpayer was left holding the bag.
Even though it appears that BOk officials ignored plenty of warning signs, they approved the loan and did not call it when GPA's financial problems surfaced. Nevertheless, they want the taxpayer to wind up holding the bag.
One more thing: Shouldn't the public have time to examine this deal before the Council approves it? And shouldn't we know how much of the loan BOk has recovered through the bankruptcy court, the PriceWaterhouseCoopers lawsuit, or other means?
MORE: I've found some web references to laches as a defense against claims in equity, a category that includes a claim of unjust enrichment. Wouldn't waiting four years after filing the initial lawsuit constitute laches?
More on equitable remedies from Wikipedia:
Equitable principles can also limit the granting of equitable remedies. This includes "he who comes to equity must come with clean hands" (ie the court will not assist a claimant who is himself in the wrong or acting for improper motives), laches (equitable remedies will not be granted if the claimant has delayed unduly in seeking them), "equity will not assist a volunteer" (meaning that a person cannot litigate against a settlor without providing the appropriate consideration e.g Money) and that equitable remedies will not normally be granted where damages would be an adequate remedy.
AUDIO: I was on KFAQ's Chris Medlock Show this afternoon, along with Medlock's fellow former councilors Roscoe Turner and Jim Mautino. All three were on the City Council in 2005 the last time a mayor tried to pay off BOk. Here's Hour 1 and here's Hour 2.
Here is the backup material for the item on the Council's agenda. First, the Request for Action from interim City Attorney Dierdre Dexter to pay $7.1 million from the sinking fund :
REQUEST FOR ACTION: RESOLUTION
DEPARTMENT: LEGAL
CONTACT NAME: Deirdre O. Dexter (ga)
ADDRESS: City Hall, Room 316
TELE: 596-7717[...]
SUMMARY:
Re: Tulsa Industrial Authority v. Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust, City of Tulsa, et al. CJ-2004-6124
The Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust and City have agreed to settle the above case. In the lawsuit, Plaintiff TIA, by and through Bank of Oklahoma as attorney-in-fact, alleged that TAIT breached an obligation to purchase property from TIA and alleged a claim of unjust enrichment against the City of Tulsa. Plaintiff's Second Amended Petition seeks, as of March 31, 2008, the amount of $11,648,294.00 plus additional accrued and accruing interest and costs. It is anticipated that the parties' settlement will be approved and a Journal Entry of Judgment will be filed on Thursday, June 26, 2008. At that time, a copy of the Judgment will be provided. Attached for Council and Mayoral approval is a resolution authorizing payment from the sinking fund. If the Judgment is not entered, no action will be requested.
BUDGET: FINANCE DIRECTOR APPROVAL:
FUNDING SOURCE: $7,100,000.00 Sinking Fund
It is the recommendation of the Legal Department that the Finance Department be directed to make a wire transfer
from funds available in the Sinking Fund in payment of this judgment.REQUEST FOR ACTION: All department items requiring Council approval must be submitted through Mayor's Office.
Council review and approve the Resolution authorizing payment from the sinking fund. Mayor approve and direct that Finance to make a wire transfer in the amount of $7,100,000.00 to the Bank of Oklahoma, attorney-in-fact for Tulsa Industrial Authority.
Dexter was previously employed by Frederic Dorwart Lawyers. The firm is the legal counsel for Bank of Oklahoma Financial Corporation. Dorwart is also the attorney of record for the Tulsa Industrial Authority for this lawsuit.
And here is the
I hear these stories all the time -- stories about minor disasters and expensive mistakes at the City of Tulsa Public Works Department. The stories don't reflect badly on the citeewurkors but on the managers and policy makers further up the hierarchy.
I haven't had time to chase any of these stories down, but I hear them over and over again. At the very least, they are widely believed, and if they are local urban legends, it's probably in the TPWD's interest to provide documentation to debunk them.
The story I heard tonight involved a manhole cover on N. Sheridan near King St. Heavy rains were causing a sanitary sewer backup, actually lifting the cover up and allowing raw sewage to run out. The brilliant solution to this problem was to weld the cover to the manhole. So instead of the overflow pressure lifting the cover above the street, the pressure broke the street.
I have heard about the collapse of a city water storage tank on the hill west of the Port of Catoosa. I have heard about a pump station failing catastrophically because it was pushed beyond its rating to get water up the hill to the storage facility on Turkey Mountain.
I have heard of streets sinking several inches due to subsurface voids; the problem is "corrected" by topping up the resulting sinkhole with paving material.
I've heard about lousy water pressure from many people in the area around the Fairgrounds. The topological divide separating the Arkansas River drainage basin from the Verdigris River basin runs roughly northwest to southeast through the Fairgrounds, making it a logical site for a water tower. The city used to have a big water tower at 21st and Louisville. What tower is serving the higher elevations of midtown these days? Could that explain the lousy water pressure?
I keep hearing rumors that, despite a consent decree to fix our sanitary sewage system in the 1980s, we still have overflows and backups that can contaminate homes, parks, and streams. The people who tell me this think maybe we need the EPA to come back to Tulsa and check into the health of our sewer system.
The common theme seems to be planning and engineering failures. As I said, I haven't confirmed any of these stories, but they're out there, and they raise doubts about trusting the TPWD with a couple billion dollars. This is why we need a top-to-bottom audit of the department, with whistleblower protection, whether Director Charles Hardt wants it or not.
Blogger Steve Roemerman receives regular updates on the city's finances and the state of the local economy in his role as a member of the City of Tulsa Sales Tax Oversight Committee. Today he has posted Tulsa's sales tax stats and economic indicators for the most June 2008, showing sales tax revenues up 3.8% over the previous year. Good news, but the Consumer Price Index has gone up 4% over the last year. Visit Steve's blog for more info.
UPDATE: 5:28 PM: Brian Barber's comments (a second one explained that copy editors write the headlines, not the reporters) have vanished from the website.
The headline read "Public works audit angers councilors".
The headline doesn't seem to fit Brian Barber's story, and in fact, Barber objected to it by posting a comment on the web version of the article:
Tulsa World Staff Writer Brian Barber, (6/5/2008 8:27:36 AM)I disagree with the headline that was placed above my story. While comments at the meeting were direct, no one was angry.
Good for Brian. Writers need to speak up when headlines distort the reader's perception of the story. Given the Whirled editorial board's disdain for the City Council, it's easy to suspect a deliberate decision to use the headline to cast the Council in a bad light, when it's Public Works director Charles Hardt who comes across in the story as defensive and shifty.
Barber wrote a solid story that explained to the reader not only what was said, but the dynamics of the discussion between the councilors and Hardt.
Hardt had told the Council that the long-awaited audit of his department would be a self-audit.
The self audit will start in July and last about a year, with the organization's representatives on site to oversee the process.The areas to be examined include service delivery, effectiveness and accountability, management and administration, teamwork, staff pride, interdepartmental coordination and planning for the future.
Several councilors are quoted in the story expressing concern about Hardt's announcement:
"I disagree with us calling this an audit," Councilor G.T. Bynum said during this week's committee meetings. "In my opinion, an audit necessitates some form of independence."I think what's planned will have great benefit, but I do think we need an independent audit of the Public Works Department."
Councilor Jack Henderson said that over the years he's been in office, many people have called for a public works audit.
"But I know this isn't what they had in mind," he said.
There are stories out there about a collapsed and unusable water reservoir tank, about pump stations destroyed because of overpressure required by a poorly planned system, about favoritism toward certain developers in the planning of water and sewer projects, about collusion among local contractors resulting in higher prices. I've been told that Public Works has ways of "hiding" money -- not for personal enrichment, necessarily, but to be able to shunt funds between projects without getting the politicians involved.
Many people have been calling for a full and independent financial audit and a full and independent performance audit of the Public Works department, chief among them former Councilor Jim Mautino. An internal self-audit will not provide the degree of scrutiny needed to find and correct problems and build public confidence in the department.
Hardt's reaction to the councilors' concerns:
Hardt grew somewhat defensive with the talk of an independent audit."If you want an audit that looks at the books and financial transactions, that's not what this is," he said.
"This is more of a performance audit that looks at how we deliver service, whether we're effective and whether there are ways we can improve.
"But if you really want to know whether we did something wrong, I think you need to hire a head hunter or a witch hunter and get on with it."
Bynum said he doesn't think an independent audit should be viewed as something to expose "any perceived wrongdoings."
"I simply think there would be some value in it," he said.
Hardt said he's been through such audits before that were wastes of time.
"I've found that you have auditors who have no knowledge or understanding of what the engineering world does and no clue as to what our objectives are," he said.
"This is a far more meaningful process than having an audit firm that doesn't understand one thing about constructing something but tells us how we should have done it. That's awfully irritating."
A member of the city Auditor's Office stepped forward during the meeting and suggested that the process should be called a quality assurance review, rather than an audit.
Exactly right. A quality assurance review measures performance against the department's own rules, procedures, and goals, but it doesn't examine whether the rules, procedures, and goals are appropriate or effective.
A real audit process needs to create a secure environment for employees to speak out about problems they've observed. A citeewurkor needs to be able to say, "We've always done it that way, but { it's always seemed fishy, it never made sense, it seems wrong } to me," without fear of retribution. PW is a big department, and it would be easy for someone to shape rules and procedures in a self-serving way without being obvious about it. (Self-serving doesn't necessarily mean lining one's own pockets. It could also involve power or personal comfort.)
Over the transom late last week, I received a copy of a scathing letter, dated May 23, written by Tulsa City Councilor Bill Martinson to Stan Lybarger and Mike Neal, Chairman and CEO, respectively, of the Tulsa Metro Chamber. Martinson, who has headed up the Council's effort to develop a financial package for fixing our streets, was responding to a May 22 letter from Lybarger and Neal to the City Council, urging them not to set a streets funding election for July 29, the date of the Oklahoma primary election.
In the extended entry, you'll find the text of the Chamber's letter (the part I have at least -- from Martinson's reply, there seems to be at least one page missing from the copy of the Chamber's letter I received), followed by Martinson's reply.
A few highlights from Martinson's letter:
Setting aside the condescending tone of your letter for a moment, it conveyed a serious lack of understanding as to the development and status of the Council's proposal to fix Tulsa's streets....Your contempt for Tulsa's City Council was apparent in your comments. To assume that the Council and City staff would advance an initiative of this magnitude to the voters and ignore fundamental due diligence and statutory requirements is arrogant and absurd. Several of your other bullet points revealed an appalling level of ignorance....
I must admit that I found your comment about ROI on campaigns rather amusing considering your recent track record. Your temerity to condescend to the Council on voter behavior, when by definition, each City Councilor has a better record with the voters than the Chamber, again demonstrates an incredible level of arrogance. We have scheduled public meetings and will have programs on TGOV and information available on our web site to share the results of our research and present our plan. The process has been, and will remain, transparent. I have great faith in the voters, if they are given the facts and have an opportunity to make an informed decision. You may consider it a novel approach, but I would rather tell the citizens the truth and let them decide rather than attempting to manipulate the outcome.
Congratulations on your success in Oklahoma City to secure $25 million in funding for low water dams on the river. I believe we all support river development and welcome the day when you feel the same passion to convince the Tulsa delegation to support our transportation system....
The Chamber appears fixated on glamour and glitz to enhance economic development....
I had hoped that this initiative to fix our streets would be an opportunity to heal the community. I believe the Council, administration, and citizens are prepared to face the issue and am disappointed that the Chamber feels threatened with that initiative....
It's my understanding that there has been some conciliation between Martinson and the Chamber. Hopefully, the Chamber understands that a well-designed package focused on infrastructure rather than a glitzy, expensive campaign, is what will win over the voters, regardless of when the package is on the ballot.
I admire Martinson for standing up to the Chamber's arrogant attitude. That's the kind of leadership that the Gang of Five demonstrated and that we still need from the City Council.
(UPDATE: I received the missing bits of the Chamber letter and have incorporated them below.)
Friday afternoon, my daughter and I attended a brief reception at City Hall to honor the three departing members of the Tulsa City Council: Roscoe Turner, Maria Barnes, and Cason Carter. They were each presented with a plaque honoring their service. The plaques were read and presented by their colleagues. They were also presented with their nameplates from the Council dais, and Turner, as a former Council Chairman, was presented with a gavel plaque.
Councilor Jack Henderson presented the following plaque to outgoing Chairman and District 3 Councilor Roscoe Turner:
IN SINCERE APPRECIATIONThis very special award is presented to ROSCOE TURNER. Throughout his years of distinguished public service, Roscoe Turner has lived by those insightful words of Martin Luther King, Jr., "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
During his multiple terms on the City Council, Roscoe Turner led the effort to establish a code of ethics for public officials, identify and implement alternative energy sources, explore alternative methods for governmental funding, establish a government access television channel for Tulsa, and support the concerns of neighborhoods bordering the airport. He has always been a staunch advocate of the citizens of Tulsa's north community. Throughout his years of service to the citizens of Council District 3, Roscoe Turner consistently demonstrated an abiding passion for fairness, openness, and candid public disclosure.
The City of Tulsa, Tulsa City Council, City Council Staff and all the citizens of Tulsa deeply appreciate Roscoe Turner for his dedicated and distinguished service. Tulsa will genuinely miss his voice of inquiry on the City Council.
Councilor John Eagleton presented the following plaque to outgoing District 4 Councilor Maria Barnes:
IN SINCERE APPRECIATIONThis very special award is presented to MARIA BARNES. Throughout her years of distinguished community and public service, Maria Barnes has lived by those insightful words of Alan Autry, "The key to truly rebuilding out central city on a vital and sustainable foundation is people."
During her tenure on the City Council, Maria Barnes led the effort to update the community's comprehensive plan, institute the conservation district approach to neighborhood development and rejuvenate mid-town Tulsa. She has always been a staunch advocate of responsible and responsive government. Throughout her years of service to the citizens of Council District 4, Maria Barnes consistently demonstrated an abiding passion for civility, rational thought, and fairness over political convenience.
The City of Tulsa, Tulsa City Council, City Council Staff and all the citizens of Tulsa deeply appreciate Maria Barnes for her dedicated and distinguished service. Tulsa will genuinely miss her voice of compassion on the City Council.
Councilor Rick Westcott presented the following plaque to outgoing District 9 Councilor Cason Carter:
IN SINCERE APPRECIATIONThis very special award is presented to CASON CARTER. Throughout his years of distinguished public service, Cason Carter has lived by those insightful words of Abraham Lincoln, "Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."
During his tenure on the City Council, Cason Carter led the effort to revitalize the Brookside district, was a staunch supporter of Tulsa's Tree Advisory Committee, was instrumental in seeing the Camelot Hotel site readied for redevelopment and the adoption of the Mayo Hotel tax increment financing project. He has always been a devoted advocate of rational and fiscally responsible government. Throughout his years of service to the citizens of Council District 9, Cason Carter consistently took the lead in objectivity, right reason and compassion towards the citizens of Tulsa.
The City of Tulsa, Tulsa City Council, City Council Staff and all the citizens of Tulsa deeply appreciate Cason Carter for his dedicated and distinguished service. Tulsa will genuinely miss his voice of reason on the City Council.
In addition to the aforementioned councilors, Councilor Bill Christiansen was present and said a few words, mentioning how he and Maria Barnes would crack each other up during committee meetings to the point of tears or having to leave the room to compose themselves. New Councilor G. T. Bynum was also in attendance.
The current issue of the O'Collegian, Oklahoma State University's student news paper, has a nice feature story about former State Rep. Mark Liotta's return to college. After 10 years in the Legislature, Liotta is getting a Master's degree in political science.
Mark rLiotta eally ought to be the teacher, rather than the student. After a couple of failed attempts, he beat an incumbent Democrat in a majority Democratic district and held the seat for five terms, fending off several well-funded attempts to defeat him. While in the Legislature, Liotta led the effort to reprioritize spending to double Oklahoma's budget for fixing our roads and bridges, without raising taxes.
Not only does he have experience to draw upon, he has the ability to teach. Liotta has given many lectures on the nuts and bolts of grassroots campaigning to Republican Party classes for candidates and volunteers. I've been in some of those lectures; he's very good at breaking the topic down and getting his points across, often using his experience in the Army, as he does in the following quote from the story:
Liotta gained much of his leadership experience away from the classroom, however, for he served in the military as an infantry officer years before he ran for an office. The two positions, Liotta said, had a lot in common."A lot of what you learn as an infantry officer applies to campaigning. You take limited personnel, limited time, limited funds and target an area."
OSU would do well to bring him on as an adjunct professor.
Liotta lost the race for what would have been his final term in the State House. Since then, County Commissioner Fred Perry (to Perry's great credit) appointed Liotta as superintendent of Tulsa County Highway District 3, responsible for maintaining county roads throughout the south part of the county.
Regarding future political possibilities, Liotta says, "You never say never." I can't help but notice that he lives in a County Commission district which has an election this year, and his experience in the Legislature and at the county highway department would certainly be impressive on a pushcard....
Our local Unitarians at All Souls Church at 30th & Peoria have an interesting approach to Sunday School. In place of Alongside Bible study or theological discussion, they present public forums on issues of civic importance. It might not be the most spiritually profitable way to spend Sunday morning, but it's often the only place that both sides of an issue get aired in an evenhanded town hall atmosphere. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to speak last October before the river sales tax election in a forum moderated by Clayton Vaughn with Kevin Stubbs of U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Jenks Mayor Vic Vreeland, and Ken Neal editorial page editor emeritus of the Tulsa Whirled.
This Sunday, they're featuring the issue of Tulsa's streets and how best to fix them. Two members of Mayor Taylor's blue ribbon tax force, former Councilor Dewey Bartlett, Jr., and former Water and Sewer Commissioner Patty Eaton, will be there to argue for their plan to increase taxes by $1.5 billion. Councilor Bill Martinson has his own plan, reprioritizing existing revenue streams as much as possible. Former Streets Commissioner Jim Hewgley III emphasizes the need for short-term action in the form of a paving program.
The public is invited to attend. Here are the details:
Public Forum: Tulsa RoadsSunday, April 13
10:00-10:50 a.m.All Souls Unitarian Church
2952 South Peoria Ave.This Sunday, All Souls Unitarian Church will host a public forum on the issue of Tulsa's crumbling streets. The Complete Our Streets Advisory Council recently delivered its report, and the public debate now turns to specific proposals for addressing this urgent problem. Come hear a distinguished panel of community leaders discuss the state of our city's streets and how to pay for their rehabilitation.
Our panel:
- Dewey Bartlett, Jr.--Former Tulsa City Councilor and member of the Complete Our Streets Advisory Council
- Patty Eaton, Former Tulsa Waterworks Commissioner and member of the Complete Our Streets Advisory Council
- James Hewgley, III--Former Tulsa Street Commissioner
- Bill Martinson--Tulsa City Councilor, District 5
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Brian Cross, adult religious education coordinator, at 743-2805, ext. 503.
(Modified in response to a comment from RecycleMichael. Modified again -- changed "listen in" to "attend" -- in response to a comment from Don Singleton.)
Isn't it nice to have a few city councilors who will speak the truth without sugarcoating it?
Only an idiot would sign the county's initial contract proposal covering municipal inmates at the Tulsa Jail, City Councilor John Eagleton said Monday.The county has proposed that the city begin paying $54.13 per day for each municipal inmate, as well as certain medical and transportation costs.
"It's insane math," said Eagleton, a member of an informal committee that is charged with reviewing the county's proposal.
The kicker is the new definition of what constitutes a municipal inmate. In the past, a municipal inmate was one who was being held solely for city offenses. Someone who had been charged with or convicted of a state or federal crime wouldn't count against the city's numbers, even if he also had a city charge pending. Under Tulsa County's proposal, someone would count as a municipal inmate as long as a city charge was pending, even if he would have been in jail anyway for state or federal offenses.
Kevin Canfield's story in the Whirled contains a serious inaccuracy about the current jail contract between the City of Tulsa and Tulsa County, which is about to expire. He writes:
Under the terms of the current con tract, the city pays no direct fee to house its inmates at the jail.Instead, the city leases to the county for $1 the former city jail, on the third floor of the Tulsa Police and Municipal Courts Building, and the former Adult Detention Center, 1727 Charles Page Blvd.
At the time the agreement was signed 10 years ago, the two entities agreed that the properties' annual rental value was $349,500.
In addition, the city agreed to equip and maintain, at an annual cost to the city of more than $400,000, a fully staffed evidence property room.
In fact, the City is charged for a daily rate for each municipal prisoner being held in the county jail. But what the City owes is offset by the agreed-upon value of letting Tulsa County use city-owned facilities rent-free. If the cost of housing the City inmates (according to the old contract) ever exceeded the value of the City's properties being used by Tulsa County, the City would pay the excess to Tulsa County.
Tulsa taxpayers ought to be happy that John Eagleton is looking out for the City's financial interests.
This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I review Councilor Bill Martinson's proposal for funding $1.6 billion in street repair, rehabilitation, and reconstruction, and show how it dovetails with former Streets Commissioner Jim Hewgley's proposal for funding an aggressive street repaving program.
Also, UTW has several new, young columnists: Arts writer Nathaniel McKnight made his debut last week. Josh Kline joins G. K. Hizer on the music beat. And Isaac Farley, from Chattanooga by way of Belize, is new to Tulsa and is out to help us see our own city through a newcomer's eyes. Welcome aboard to all three.
Congratulations to City Auditor Phil Wood and City Councilors Rick Westcott, Bill Martinson, and John Eagleton on their re-election. Filing for city office has closed and no opponents filed in those races.
There will be four primaries in three districts -- Democrats in Districts 1, 4, and 8, and Republicans in District 4. The winner of the District 1 primary will be elected. There will be five general elections -- Districts 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9. For your reference, here's a handy-dandy printable tournament bracket in PDF format (73 KB).
Here's the official list from the Tulsa County Election Board website:
CITY AUDITORPhil Wood
3622 South Yorktown Place
Tulsa, OK 74105
12-29-24
DemocratCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT ONE (1)
Jack Ross Henderson
2014 N Rosedale
Tulsa, OK 74127
04-22-50
DemocratEmanuel Bernard Lewis
527 East Seminole Street
Tulsa, OK 74106
07-08-71
DemocratMike McConnell
2455 N. Boston Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74106
10-06-66
DemocratCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT TWO (2)
Rick Dalton Westcott
2508 W 68 Pl
Tulsa, OK 74136
10-15-54
RepublicanCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT THREE (3)
Roscoe Harry Turner Sr.
3415 E Haskell St
Tulsa, OK 74115
02-16-32
DemocratDavid Edward Patrick
5712 E. Tecumseh
Tulsa, OK 74115
04-22-51
IndependentCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT FOUR (4)
Rocky R. Frisco
1332 S. Florence Place.
Tulsa, OK 74104
07-26-37
RepublicanMaria Veliz Barnes
1319 S Terrace Dr
Amended 01/15/08 Tulsa, OK 74104
07-28-60
DemocratJason Eric Gomez
2716 East 13th St
Tulsa, OK 74104
07-18-69
RepublicanJay M. Matlock
1124 S. Columbia Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74104
04-10-78
RepublicanJohn Lee Nidiffer
4731 E. 22nd Pl.
Tulsa, OK 74114
09-01-40
DemocratCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT FIVE (5)
William Edward Martinson, Jr.
3521 S. Darlington Ave
Tulsa, OK 74135
07-08-55
RepublicanCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT SIX (6)
Dennis K. Troyer
12811 E. 13th Place
Tulsa, OK 74128
08-14-40
DemocratKevin Leroy Boggs
1127 S. 157th East Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74108
08-19-58
RepublicanCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT SEVEN (7)
John M. Eagleton
5748 E. 62nd St.
Tulsa, OK 74136
02-09-59
RepublicanCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT EIGHT (8)
William L. Christiansen
5106 E 86th Place
Tulsa, OK 74137
12-23-47
RepublicanAustin Hansen
10081 S. Sheridan Rd. #817
Tulsa, OK 74133
05-04-59
DemocratCOUNCILOR, ELECTION DISTRICT NINE (9)
G. T. Bynum
3607 S. Florence Avenue
Tulsa, OK 74105
08-28-77
RepublicanPaul Tay
4004 S Toledo
Tulsa, OK 74135
09-01-62
IndependentPhilip Morgan Kates
4604 E 32nd ST
Tulsa, OK 74135
05-28-48
DemocratRoger Lowry
4623 S St Louis Ave
Tulsa, OK 74105
07-16-56
Democrat
Former City of Tulsa Street Commissioner Jim Hewgley III was on 1170 KFAQ Thursday morning (MP3) talking about the report issued by Mayor Kathy Taylor's "Complete Our Streets" task force. He has some words of praise but also some reservations, and he provides some historical perspective on how our streets got into the shape they're in.
Tulsa City Councilor John Eagleton got a lot of grief over his proposal to put more police resources toward traffic enforcement. He reasoned that increased enforcement would not divert funds from other police functions, but would pay for itself, with money left over to help other areas of law enforcement, and in the process it would prevent injuries and save lives. Eagleton was right, according to the head of Tulsa's emergency medical service. EMSA chief Steve Williamson compares the first 10.5 months of 2006 (before the change in policy prompted by Eagleton) and the same 10.5 months of 2007 (after the change).
Crashes requiring EMSA's presence dropped by 6.6%. 9.6% fewer motorists involved in a crash required transport to a hospital. That works out to about 435 fewer crashes and about 300 fewer serious injuries. Williamson credits Eagleton's initiative, with follow through by Mayor Kathy Taylor and the Tulsa Police Department, for this dramatic decline, at a time when total EMSA calls have been rising by 10% a year.
November 19, 2007Councilor John Eagleton
Tulsa City Council
200 Civic Center
Tulsa, OK 74103Dear Councilor Eagleton,
Over the past four years, emergency medical call volume in Tulsa has been steadily increasing. EMSA has realized 10% jumps in volume each year for the past four years. Therefore, I was quite surprised to discover that emergency calls and transports related to motor vehicle accidents recently has declined. You, Councilor Eagleton, along with Mayor Kathy Taylor and the Tulsa Police Department, are likely responsible for this phenomenal turnaround.
From January 1 - November 15, 2006, EMSA responded to 6,595 motor vehicle crashes in the Tulsa metropolitan area. Nearly 3,000 individuals suffered crash-related injuries serious enough to require ambulance transport to a hospital. In mid-November 2006, on the heels of your proposal to boost traffic enforcement, Mayor Taylor announced that police officers would beef up patrols along some of Tulsa's most heavily traveled streets. The result has been nothing short of amazing. From January 1 - November 15, 2007, EMSA responded to 6.6% fewer crashes than during the same period of the previous year. The number of motorists suffering injuries serious enough to require hospital care declined by 9.6%. That translates into nearly 300 lives directly, positively impacted.
Thank you for working to make Tulsa a safer place to live and a more attractive place to visit and conduct business. Your advocacy on behalf of law enforcement and emergency medical service initiatives is valued. EMSA's statistics suggest that your work has led to a significant reduction in the number of crash-related injuries suffered by Tulsans. Quite possibly, your efforts have saved lives.
Sincerely,
Stephen Williamson
EMSA President and Chief Executive Officer
This Thursday night the City Charter amendment process comes to its biennial conclusion Thursday as the City Council votes on whether to send seven proposed amendments to the voters at next April's general city election.
Here in a nutshell are the changes -- links will bring up a PDF of the proposed amendment from the Tulsa City Council website:
- Specify state law as the basis for determining whether someone is a "qualified elector" for the purpose of running or voting for city office
- Four-year councilor terms, coinciding with mayoral terms
- Moving city elections to the fall of odd-numbered years
- Three-year staggered terms for city councilors
- Appointive City Auditor
- Non-partisan elections
- Pegging councilor salaries to one-half of the mayor's salary
I've been a supporter of fall elections in odd numbered years for a long time. It puts the vote when people expect an election, it gives candidates longer days and better weather for going door-to-door to meet the voters, and it puts newly elected officials in office with six months to find their feet before a budget is due, rather than one month.
The only other proposal that should be sent to the voters is clarifying the definition of qualified elector to match state law.
Although I like the idea of Minneapolis-style multipartisan elections with instant runoff voting, the current proposal for non-partisan elections creates as many problems as it fixes. It should and probably will be defeated on Thursday.
Council terms should be kept to two years for the sake of accountability to the voters. And while I'm sympathetic to the amount of hours councilors put into their jobs, and I think some of our best councilors have been those who were either retired or self-employed and could devote almost full time to being a councilor, I suspect that something would change for the worse if we paid full-time salaries.
Our city auditor should remain an elective office. Right now, the auditor is independent of all other officials and is directly accountable to the voters. The proposed change would make the auditor unaccountable to the voters and at least indirectly dependent on the mayor, who would appoint all members of the committee that would choose the auditor.
UPDATE 2007/11/30: The City Councilors agreed with me -- or at least a majority did on each issue. They approved the fall elections and the clarification of the definition of qualified elector.
Steve Roemerman has posted a first-hand report from one of the Tulsa City Council's town hall meetings about street maintenance and how to pay for it. (The City Council meetings are not in any way connected to the Sharon King Davis - Dewey Bartlett, Jr., headed committee appointed by Mayor Kathy Taylor.)
Steve is a member of the city's Sales Tax Overview Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the expenditure of the "third penny" fund for capital improvements, including streets. In addition to a summary of the presentation (based on the Powerpoint I linked to a while ago), with a selection of the slides that he found most compelling, Steve relates an exchange between himself and assistant Public Works director Paul Zachary regarding city contracting policies that might cause a scarcity of qualified contractors to complete the needed work.
Steve's report is good perspective and well worth reading if you're concerned about the condition of Tulsa's streets.
Last week, Tulsa City Council researcher Jack Blair gave a presentation on Tulsa's streets and how we could fund their ongoing maintenance. The presentation puts the cost of street maintenance in the context of Tulsa's decline from one of America's most densely populated cities to one of the least densely populated, the fiscal constraints on the city, and the city's historical spending patterns on streets. One of the most interesting sections had to with the $615 million from third-penny and general obligation bond issue funds used to pay for utility projects. The utility projects (water, sewers, stormwater, solid waste) might have been funded with revenue from those utilities instead, freeing up that $615 million for street improvement.
The Tulsa World has Blair's 122-page PowerPoint presentation on Tulsa Streets on its website. It's in PDF format and about 22 MB. If for nothing else, it's worth a download to see the historic and present day photos of what were country crossroads and are now high-traffic intersections.
Whirled editorial board: "We're too dense to understand this idea, much less write a joke about it."
The hive-mind that writes the unsigned editorials from its Totalitarian-Moderne bunker on Main Street had this to say today about a suggestion made Tulsa Councilor John Eagleton regarding a proposal to make city elections non-partisan:
OK, this one is simply too easy so we're going to let you fill in the blanks with the joke of your choice. And we rarely, if ever, pass up the opportunity for a cheap joke.
In the debate over changes to the city charter, in particular making elections nonpartisan, City Councilor John Eagleton, while supporting the nonpartisan issue, also wants each candidate to be able to add a word or phrase to the ballot that would describe each candidate's political philosophy.
Now, this is where you add your joke. We'll wait a second.
There.
At best, whichever drone wrote this editorial on behalf of the Whirled Collective decided to "phone it in," rather than exert the effort to lampoon Eagleton's suggestion effectively.
But I think it's more likely that the AverillDelCourJonesNealPearson doesn't understand the idea well enough to explain why the hive-mind doesn't like it. Otherwise, they would have set out a cogent argument against it.
The Whirled editorial puts me in mind of a type of adolescent ridicule. The ringleader of the popular bunch points at poor, unpopular Poindexter and says, "What a loser! Poindexter is wearing a black belt on a Thursday!" The ringleader begins laughing. All of his toadies have no idea why wearing a black belt on a Thursday is ridiculous, but they know to take their cue from the ringleader, so they point and laugh, too. The Whirled knows there is a certain constituency (declining in number) that will laugh if they say "laugh." (These are the same people that believed the Whirled when it claimed that non-Councilor Randy Sullivan was intelligent.)
Eagleton's suggestion is similar to one I made in my column in the April 6-12, 2006, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly:
Would stripping party labels entirely be helpful to voters? In fact, it gives voters even less information to work with. Labels are helpful aids to memory. You may have trouble remembering the name of the candidates you plan to support, and knowing that you decided to vote with your party in the mayor's race and with the other party in the council race gives you an extra hook to recall your decision....
So how do we change Tulsa's system to expand both choice and information for voters?
Instead of non-partisan city elections, let's have multi-partisan elections. Put all candidates for a city office on the ballot, but instead of stripping away the party labels, let's let candidates apply the label or labels of their choosing. Maybe that would be a major party label, maybe that would be the name of a political action committee (PAC), or even both.
There are a couple of different ways to implement this. In the column I suggested that parties and PACs could register with the city and endorse candidates, and then each candidate could choose which endorsements to note next to his name on the ballot, in place of or alongside national party names. The least complicated method, suggested by Eagleton, would allow each candidate to supply his or her own description, up to some number of lines, words, or characters.
That description wouldn't have to be "liberal" or "conservative" as the Whirled editorial hive-mind seems to believe. It could identify the candidate's position on a current issue or describe the candidate's approach to city government. A citywide group might run a slate of candidates, all using the same ballot description. It might just be a catchy slogan. Councilor Roscoe Turner, for example, might use, "Voted Tulsa's Most Believable Councilor." Since candidates are required by charter to use their full legal names on the ballot, a candidate might use the description to identify his nickname to the voters. Some possibilities, in 40 characters or less (about one line on the ballot):
- Back to Basics: Cops, Streets, Parks
- Conservative Republican
- Progressive Democrat
- Endorsed by Republican Assembly
- Endorsed by Just Progress
- No New Taxes
- Higher Taxes Coalition
- Preserve Midtown
- I love surface parking lots
- Citizens for Responsible Government
- Tulsa Alliance for Neighborhoods
- Homeowners for Fair Zoning
- Tulsa Real Estate Coalition
- Pimp This Town
- By George, It's Nigh Time
- Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Some descriptions would be sensible, some would be frivolous, all would add some color to an otherwise antiseptic non-partisan ballot. (Requiring all candidates to submit a nominating petition, as independent candidates are already required to do, would keep the frivolity within reasonable bounds.)
There's another possible explanation for why the Whirled didn't defend their opposition to Eagleton's idea: They oppose it for selfish reasons which they don't wish to reveal to the reader. A candidate's brief self-description on the ballot constitutes a media bypass. Without depending on the favor of the monopoly daily newspaper, without needing a pile of campaign cash, a candidate would be able to communicate something about himself, albeit very briefly, to every voter, in words of his own choosing.
If the Whirled editorial hive-mind gets its collective way, a city election ballot would comprise lists of bare names, with no other identifying information. As the still-dominant media outlet in Tulsa, the Whirled would define for many voters what emotions and opinions they should hold about each of those names. No wonder they don't care for Councilor Eagleton's suggestion.
One of the proposed Tulsa City Charter amendments on tonight's City Council agenda would eliminate party primaries and put all candidates on a non-partisan ballot. If no one receives 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters in the primary would face off in the general election.
I wrote a column in March 2006 explaining the flaw in a two-candidate runoff, particularly in a non-partisan election or Louisiana-style all-party primary, using historical examples. It's too easy in such a system to wind up with a winner who is unacceptable to the majority of the voters. (That same column explains why Instant Runoff Voting is a better system.)
I've been trying to come up with a simple way to explain the problem, an explanation that doesn't involve real-world political loyalties. Here's my latest effort. I'd appreciate your suggestions for improvement:
In Council District 10, the most important concern among voters is having a city councilor who su