Recently in Tulsa::County Category

Pat Campbell interviewed not-ousted Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) member Elizabeth Wright on 1170 KFAQ Wednesday morning. It was an informative interview -- well done to both Pat and Liz. You can listen to the interview on the station's podcast:

TMAPC's Elizabeth Wright interviewed by Pat Campbell, December 2, 2009

County Commissioner Karen Keith's attempt to oust Elizabeth Wright from the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) failed for lack of a second at this morning's Tulsa County Commission meeting. Barring another ouster attempt, Wright will continue to serve on the TMAPC until her term expires on January 18, 2011.

In the course of the ongoing effort by Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith to remove Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) member Elizabeth Wright, I've heard and read the TMAPC described as a "quasi-judicial body." Accordingly, these same sources claim that TMAPC members are like "referees," that they are to remain impartial throughout the process, and that they should only inquire about and consider very narrow criteria in deciding zoning applications.

In the specific case of Liz Wright, this perspective says that she is wrong to ask questions about issues like stormwater runoff (technical matters beyond the TMAPC's purview, it's said), was wrong to "counsel" the Holland Lakes homeowners about arguing their case to the City Council (regarding a zoning application that the TMAPC had already heard; Wright says she presented standard TMAPC material on how to be effective presenting your case), and was wrong to vote on a zoning application involving a parcel adjoining the neighborhood where she served as neighborhood association president (even though the neighborhood association didn't support or oppose the application and thus had no interest in its approval or rejection).

Apart from the specifics of Liz Wright's situation, I'm concerned that a false understanding of the TMAPC's function and nature hamstrings its ability to engage in actual planning and reduces the TMAPC to little more than scorekeepers for the zoning process. This idea of the TMAPC as quasi-judicial referees in all respects doesn't square with state statutes and city ordinances that define the TMAPC's composition and roles, nor does it fit what I've heard and observed in the eighteen years I've observed the TMAPC's proceedings.

Let's look at the law. The TMAPC is one of at least eight types of planning commissions enabled by Oklahoma statute (that I've found so far), each with its own section of either Title 11 (Cities and Towns) or Title 19 (Counties):

(1) Municipal planning commissions (Title 11, Article XLV)

(2) Regional planning commissions (Title 11, Article XLVI) -- covering three miles around the city limits

(3) City planning commissions for cities over 200,000 (Title 11, Article XLVII)

(4) County planning commissions (Title 19, Section 865.1 et seq.)

(5) Joint city-county metropolitan area planning commissions for counties over 180,000 (Title 19, Section 863.1 et seq.)

(6) Joint city-county planning commissions for smaller counties (Title 19, Section 866.1 et seq.)

(7) County planning commissions for counties over 500,000 (Title 19, Section 868.1 et seq.)

(8) Lake area planning commissions (Title 19, Section 869.1 et seq.)

The TMAPC is the only planning commission in Oklahoma of type (5). You can read the enabling legislation beginning here at 19 O. S. 863.1, and clicking "Next Section" to read through the whole thing. Or you can click this link to see an index of the subsections of 19 O. S. 863. Most of the statute has to do with the planning commission's role regarding county zoning.

The planning commission's role regarding City of Tulsa zoning is defined by Title 42 of Tulsa Revised Ordinances. Also known as the City of Tulsa Zoning Code, Title 42 requires that amendments to the zoning map and zoning code be submitted to the TMAPC for a report and recommendation. You can search through the document yourself for references to "Planning Commission."

Since the Wright controversy regards applications for zoning map amendments in the City of Tulsa, specifically planned unit developments (PUDs) and a straight rezoning, let me highlight the applicable paragraphs:

Section 1107: TMAPC reviews PUD applications. The TMAPC is to determine:

1. Whether the PUD is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan; 2. Whether the PUD harmonized with the existing and expected development of surrounding areas; 3. Whether the PUD is a unified treatment of the development possibilities of the project site; and 4. Whether the PUD is consistent with the stated purposes and standards of this chapter. The Planning Commission shall forward its recommendation, the application, and the development plan to the City Council for further hearing as provided in Subsection 1107.E.

That's a pretty broad set of criteria, and it doesn't seem to preclude a TMAPC member from asking about a particular technical subject. The City Council has the final say.

Section 1700 requires TMAPC input on zoning code amendments:

The regulations, restrictions, prohibitions and limitations imposed, and the districts created may from time to time be amended, supplemented, changed, modified or repealed by ordinance, but no change shall be made until the Planning Commission, after notice and public hearing, files with the City a report and recommendation on the proposed change. In addition to the procedural provisions hereinafter set out, the Planning Commission shall adopt procedural rules for the conduct of zoning public hearings.

Section 1701 sets out criteria for zoning map amendments:

It is the policy of the City of Tulsa that in the consideration of proposed amendments to this code that:

Amendments will be adopted to recognize changes in the Comprehensive Plan, to correct error, or to recognize changed or changing conditions in a particular area or in the jurisdictional area generally.

Sections 1702 and 1703 deal with zoning text and zoning map amendments respectively. In both cases, the TMAPC is to report to the City Council, which has the final decision.

Nothing in these sections limits the kind of information the TMAPC can gather or consider in making its recommendation.

Nothing in the Oklahoma statutes or the City of Tulsa ordinances describes the TMAPC as a quasi-judicial body. The only explicit use of the term quasi-judicial with respect to the TMAPC is in the TMAPC Rules of Procedure and Code of Ethics. These rules are adopted by the TMAPC, and the TMAPC has the freedom to modify them within the scope of the enabling state and city legislation.

Section II. C. of the most recent version of the TMAPC rules says:

Although not forbidden, per se, ex parte communication has the potential to influence a Planning Commissioner's decision on quasi-judicial matters before the Commission. The Planning Commissioner who receives ex parte communication may, if he or she feels that it is appropriate, disclose this prior to public discussion of the subject matter.

The wording here suggests that there are matters before the Commission that are not quasi-judicial.

A section of the state statutes applicable to the TMAPC, 19 O. S. 863.23, provides a clue as to what matters would and would not be considered quasi-judicial:

Any person claiming to be aggrieved by any act of the [planning] commission in administering this act, or any regulations promulgated pursuant thereto, may as to any matter concerning plats, subdivisions and lot-splits, both as to land situated in the corporate limits of the municipality and as to land situated in the unincorporated area of the county, appeal directly to the district court of the county and the district courts of said counties are hereby expressly vested with jurisdiction to hear and determine said appeals....

There shall be no right of appeal from any act of the commission in its advisory capacity to the [city] council and board [of county commissioners] or from any of its acts which are subject to review, repeal or modification by said governing bodies.

So the TMAPC has the final say regarding lot splits, subdivisions, and plats, and those matters can only be appealed to district court. But that isn't the case when the TMAPC acts in an advisory capacity to the legislative body, as with zoning map amendments.

All the issues raised against Liz Wright have to do with applications for city zoning map amendments, which are not quasi-judicial, but legislative. The zoning map is a part of the city ordinances, and changing involves adopting an ordinance. A zoning change is a change of the rules.

The complaints against Wright disappear if they're considered in a legislative context. We don't expect members of a legislative committee to be dispassionate, to have no prior opinion, to avoid contact with interested parties, or to limit the questions they ask about a proposed change in the law. We don't expect a unanimous vote from a legislative committee, and it's normal for a legislator on the losing side of a committee vote to debate against the committee's recommendation when it reaches the final stage of approval.

So how has the impression spread that the TMAPC is a quasi-judicial body? It may be a misunderstanding based on the reality of a few TMAPC functions (approval of lot splits, subdivisions, plats) that are quasi-judicial. But I suspect that there are those interests who want planning commissioners to believe that their discretion on zoning changes is extremely limited, which would make it easier to drive them as a body to the preferred conclusion.

Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith has yet to supply Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) member Elizabeth Wright with a list of specific allegations justifying Keith's call to remove Wright from the TMAPC over a year before her three-year term is due to end, according to an email from Wright earlier today. The County Commission, which appointed Wright in 2008, is slated to vote on her removal tomorrow, November 30, 2009.

Removing a TMAPC member before the end of the term can only be done for cause. Keith's November 2, 2009, petition to remove Wright named two provisions of the TMAPC code of ethics and a general complaint ("conduct which materially and adversely affects the orderly or efficient operation of the TMAPC") which Wright is alleged to have violated but did not provide specifics -- which actions of Wright's on which dates are supposed to have been violations warranting premature removal.

The public hearing on Keith's petition was held at the Tulsa County Commission meeting last Monday, November 23, 2009, but the final vote was delayed a week to allow Keith to present those specifics and to allow Wright time to respond. Even if Wright receives the list today, she will have less than 24 hours to prepare a defense. The public will not have time to provide input to their County Commissioners.

Because public hearings cannot be continued from one meeting to the next, the public hearing on Wright has already concluded, and the public will not be allowed to address the County Commission about Keith's specific accusations.

The third charge was dropped, and the County Commission agreed to use the 2004 ethics rules as the basis for judgment, not the rules adopted on April 22, 2009, after the violations are supposed to have occurred.

The just thing to do would be to kill Keith's campaign to oust Wright because of Keith's failure to present a specific indictment. In fact, the hearing should never have been scheduled without those specifics. Let Keith come back and try again, from scratch, when she is better prepared.

At the very least, Liz Wright and the public deserve at least a week after those specifics are released before a full public hearing is held and a vote is taken.

Via NewsFifty's Oklahoma news page: State Rep. Jason Murphey (R-Guthrie) is considering proposing legislation to reform the structure of county government in Oklahoma. In an Edmond Sun op-ed, Murphey sets forth his concerns. At the heart, the lack of adequate separation of powers when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars:

In the past, I have expressed that I feel it is important for a governing board which approves a budget to not have the ability to specifically direct where that money goes. The chances for politicians to engage in corruption and self-serving political pork appropriations are greatly enhanced when the board's ability to set policy and to specifically direct that spending are combined. In past updates, I have written about how Oklahoma legislators are becoming experts at getting around the constitutional prohibition of this type of conduct.

During the course of my years as a public official, I have observed that county government is a significant area in Oklahoma governance where these two responsibilities are not sufficiently separated. This blurring of the policy and expenditure power results in county governments that are extremely susceptible to "good old boy" politics where county officials can exert strong political influence over employees and vendors in order to create a small political empire funded by taxpayer dollars.

His solution:

County government should operate much like the governance model used in city government. A largely uncompensated board of elected citizen county commissioners should have oversight over a professional county manager who has the same education and qualifications as a city manager. This person would be responsible for hiring the county department heads, thus providing for employees a level of protection from political pressure. Much like a city council, the Board of Commissioners would set policy and budget, but have no ability to direct specific expenditure of funds outside of a competitive bid process.

I approve the idea of limiting the ability of public officials to handpick contractors, but I'll need to be convinced that Murphey's proposal is appropriate for every one of Oklahoma's 77 counties. In fact, the one-size-fits-all structure of Oklahoma county government is a problem that reform should address. In some counties, most of the territory is unincorporated and the few municipalities are small and not in a position to offer a complete slate of basic municipal services. In such places, county government may be the only effective way to deliver those services to residents. In Tulsa and Oklahoma Counties, only a few small areas are unincorporated, and many of those are within the fenceline of a municipality.

During the debates over county home rule in the late '80s and early '90s, there were calls for consolidation of less populous counties. But the relative stability of Oklahoma's county boundaries -- only two new counties since statehood and a handful of boundary adjustments -- is a boon to record keeping and comparisons over time. By contrast, Britain has been tinkering with its local government boundaries for over a century with two major overhauls over the last 35 years. Now there are historic counties and ceremonial counties and administrative counties, which may or may not coincide.

Any county activity that has to do with land records and court records -- county clerk, county assessor, county treasurer, court clerk -- should remain with the 77 counties. But we may want to consider another, more flexible approach to providing municipal services.

One possibility: Create a special class of municipalities incorporating the remaining unincorporated territory in each county. These new entities would be responsible for law enforcement, roads, parks, and other municipal services. They would be governed by some adaptation of the existing "statutory charter" -- the default form of government established by state statute for cities and towns that have yet to adopt a charter of their own. For some services, they may wish to enter into compacts with incorporated cities and towns. Some thought would need to be given to unincorporated areas within an existing municipality's fenceline. i suspect we would want to make it easy for areas within these special county-municipalities to attach themselves to a city or town or to form a new town.

Oklahoma's laws makes it difficult to create new municipalities, particularly anywhere near an existing city or town. Perhaps we should make it easier, so that rural residents could incorporate to protect themselves against annexation, so they can protect their ability to raise livestock, shoot off fireworks, and generally live without the constraints of city ordinances. Berryhill residents might jump at the opportunity.

Whatever the solution, the discussion is worth having, and Rep. Murphey is to be commended afor raising the issue.

I can't attend Monday morning's Tulsa County Commission meeting, so I sent the following letter to County Commissioners John Smaligo and Fred Perry urging them to vote against removing Liz Wright from the TMAPC. (I didn't figure there was any point in sending it to Commissioner Karen Keith, the lead prosecutor and persecutor.)

EARLIER RELATED ENTRIES:

Karen Keith's ex post facto crusade for unfair zoning
Karen Keith trying to bully neighborhood leader off planning commission

Dear Commissioners Smaligo and Perry,

I regret that, due to business meetings, I won't be able to attend Monday's hearing regarding TMAPC member Elizabeth Wright. In lieu of speaking at the meeting, I'm writing to urge you to vote against Commissioner Keith's attempt to have Wright removed from the TMAPC. Removing any board or commission member before his or her term has expired is a drastic action, only justified in cases of corruption or gross negligence. Whatever Commissioner Keith's motivation -- and her stated reasons keep changing -- her prosecution of Liz Wright is completely unjustified.

The "causes" for removal specified by Commissioner Keith involve violations of ethics code provisions that didn't exist when the "violations" reportedly occurred. Retroactive enforcement of laws is not only unfair, it's specifically banned by the U. S. Constitution in Article I, Section 10, one of the few explicit limits placed by the Federal Constitution on state government. It's unconstitutional to be punished for doing something that wasn't against the rules when you did it.

Here's an illustration: Imagine if your former colleagues in the legislature, in this upcoming 2010 session, cut the maximum campaign contribution from $5000 to $500. Then imagine that the State Ethics Commission started proceedings against you because, back in 2006 or 2007, you each accepted $750 contributions from Kirby Crowe, in excess of the new limit but well within the limit that existed at the time. I think you'll agree that this would be unfair to you, but this is exactly what Commissioner Keith is attempting to do to Liz Wright.

As you can see from the TMAPC minutes, the two ethics code provisions cited by Commissioner Keith in her petition against Commissioner Wright were only added to the code on April 22, 2009. (Click the link to view those minutes.)

The subparagraphs of II. E. which Wright is said to have violated did not exist prior to that date. And yet Keith's petition says that Wright should be removed because her appearance at an August 2008 City Council committee meeting violated this April 2009 ethics rule.

II.B.1.b did not exist at all prior to April 2009. Keith's petition doesn't specify when Wright's alleged violation of II.B.1.b. occurred. There are hints that it has to do with a 2008 zoning case on property bordering the neighborhood association which Wright served as president. Here again, the alleged offense occurred before the specified rule existed.

There is one other charge -- "Conduct which materially and adversely affects the orderly or efficient operation of the TMAPC." Commissioner Keith does not specify what this conduct was or when it occurred. I have reviewed the minutes over Commissioner Wright's tenure, and I see no evidence that she was ever disruptive to the proceedings.

Ordinarily, the accused is presented in advance with specific charges -- on what the offense was committed and what actions constituted the offense -- and has the opportunity to prepare a point-by-point rebuttal. In this case however, Commissioner Wright may not even learn about the specifics of the charges until after the public hearing has ended and the County Commissioners discussion commences, too late to prepare a defense.

Commissioner Keith's petition states that the cause is "includes, but is not limited to," the three points discussed above. This opens the door to more charges that may be sprung at the last minute, depriving Wright and the public of the opportunity to prepare a response to the new charges.

It would have been best if you had refused to approve a public hearing until Commissioner Keith provided a complete and specific indictment. In all fairness, you owe the public and Commissioner Wright the time to study and prepare a response to whatever charges Commissioner Keith presents; you should continue the hearing and delay the vote until a later meeting.

Liz Wright's intelligence and her perspective as a small businesswoman and former neighborhood leader are assets to Tulsa and to the TMAPC. I hope the County Commission will see fit to appoint her to a new term in January 2011. But even if you disagree with my evaluation of her performance, I hope you will emphatically reject Commissioner Keith's imprudent and unjust attempt to end her term prematurely.

When I endorsed each of you in the 2006 elections, I had high hopes that you would bring a new spirit to county government, a spirit of openness and fairness that did not previously exist. There have been positive steps in that regard, but how this public hearing is conducted and the decision you make about Commissioner Wright will put those hopes to the test and will weigh heavily as the public evaluates your first term.

Sincerely,

Michael Bates

Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith's bizarre and unprecedented campaign to remove Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission member Elizabeth Wright (for bogus reasons, a year before her term expires) reaches its climax on Monday, November 23, 2009, at 9:30 a.m., at a public hearing to be held as part of the weekly County Commission meeting. The venue is Room 119 of the County Courthouse, near the 6th Street entrance west of Denver Ave.

As a candidate for County Commission in 2008, Keith received significant campaign contributions from a number of donors connected to the development industry, including a $1,000 contribution from John Bumgarner. The Bumgarner contribution was received one day after the pre-election reporting deadline, so that it didn't have to be made public, via the State Ethics Commission, until after the election. (Here is Karen Keith's post-general-election contribution report.)

Bumgarner is the developer of the now vacant site southwest of Utica and the Broken Arrow Expressway. His extraordinary deal with the TMAPC -- a straight zoning change plus a deed covenant, rather than the usual planned unit development (PUD) with development standards -- prompted Wright's September 16, 2008, appearance before the City Council's committee discussion of the rezoning. She did not speak in opposition but spoke to advise the Council of the unusual nature of the proposal. While PUD development standards are enforceable administratively, through the city's building permits, certificates of occupancy, and code enforcement, a deed covenant is only enforceable by means of litigation. Here is the summary of Wright's statement in the committee meeting's minutes:

Ms. Wright stated there was no input by public. No terms of covenant were given to citizens. The vote may have turned out differently had there been. The procedure, not the development that is in question.

(Here are the TMAPC minutes on the 14th and Utica zoning case, Z-7102. The contrast is striking between, on the one hand, the concerns expressed by Wright and Commissioner Michelle Cantrell about the precedent being set and, on the other hand, the callous disregard of precedent and the Comprehensive Plan by INCOG development staff and the other TMAPC members. The rezoning was approved with only Wright and Cantrell in opposition.)

(UPDATE: Here is archive.org's copy of the December 1, 2004, version of the TMAPC code of ethics. I will continue to look for a more recent version, but in all likelihood, this was the version governing the TMAPC at the time of the alleged offenses. This version was captured by the Internet Archive on September 30, 2006.)

The time of day for the hearing to remove Wright makes it difficult for ordinary homeowners, concerned about fair application of zoning laws and protecting their property values and quality of life, to come downtown to defend one of a tiny number of TMAPC commissioners not tied to the development industry. By contrast, it will be easy for zoning attorneys and development lobbyists to show up en masse to speak in favor of what might be called "viewpoint purity" on the planning commission.

Never mind that Wright's point of view has seldom if ever prevailed in controversial issues; more often she has been the lone vote or one of a few in opposition. Those behind the effort to oust Wright appear to have this goal in mind: The TMAPC must be purged of any member with the intelligence, independence, and courage to contradict the claims of a developer or his attorney. It would seem that winning by a vote of 10-1 or 9-2 isn't enough for the vengeful, scorched-earth branch of the development lobby. Evidently they want to marginalize anyone who might articulate an alternative point of view in the TMAPC's deliberations.

I have been provided with a copy of the petition filed by Karen Keith for the removal of Elizabeth Wright from the TMAPC (1.8 MB PDF). Minus the header and signature, this is the petition in its entirety:

COMES NOW Karen Keith, duly elected Tulsa County Commissioner for District No.2 Tulsa County, Oklahoma and brings this Petition For Removal of Elizabeth Wright as a member of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission ( TMAPC ).

The specific and general cause and basis for this removal includes, but is not limited to, the following:

1. Violation of the Policies and Procedures and Code of Ethics of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, as Amended April 22, 2009, specifically section II: Code of Ethics -8. Conflict of Interest 1. b.

2. Conduct which materially and adversely affects the orderly or efficient operation of the TMAPC

3. Violation of the Policies and Procedures and Code of Ethics of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, specifically section II: Code of Ethics - E. Appearance at City Council in August of 2008.

Believing that these grounds constitute "cause" for removal, Petitioner respectfully request that the Tulsa Board of County Commissioners set a public hearing to consider this Petition For Removal.

No specific charges are attached, nothing to specify the date or substance of any alleged violation. There was, attached to copy of the petition provided to me, a

UPDATE 11:40 a.m. 2009/11/02: Liz Wright called earlier this morning to tell me that the County Commission voted to approve the November 23 public hearing. Karen Keith based her call for a hearing on the need for geographical balance and her desire to make her own appointment, neither of which is cause for removing a planning commissioner under state law.

Liz Wright also told me that she was never notified by the county that an issue concerning her would be on this morning's agenda.

At Monday's Tulsa County Commission meeting, District 2 Commissioner Karen Keith will seek a public hearing for the November 23, 2009, meeting to remove Elizabeth Wright as a member of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission 14 months before her term is due to end. Wright was nominated for the TMAPC by then-Commissioner Randi Miller and approved by the County Commission in April 2008. The Tulsa World's Kevin Canfield had a story on Keith's ouster attempt in the Sunday, November 1, 2009, edition.

Keith's stated reason for removing Wright, according to Canfield's story: "I would like the opportunity to make my own appointment, and I want someone who will be responsive to the needs of the western and southern parts of the county." But under state law, a planning commissioner can only be removed for cause.

So Keith has apparently ginned up some pretext for removal for cause, but she's only hinting at the reasons in menacing tones:

But Keith said Saturday that Wright knows why the county is considering her removal.

"It's unfortunate, but all of the details about her service on the Planning Commission will come out," Keith said. "She knows and she understands why this is happening."

And yet the e-mail traffic between Wright and county mouthpiece Terry Simonson, on Keith's behalf, has focused entirely on the geographical balance issue. Wright has provided me with the e-mail traffic between her and Simonson. After several generic messages attempting to set up a meeting between Keith and Wright, Simonson wrote the following on Tuesday, October 8, 2009:

Liz

Karen tells me she has already spoken with you and that the topic was that she wants to replace you as her appointment with a neighborhood representative from a part of her district that has no representation. Apparently most, if not all, of the TMAPC members come from a fairly compact same area of Tulsa, primarily what some would call the midtown area. No representation from West Tulsa, Sand Springs, or Jenks. Since the appointment is designated for the District 2 County Commissioner, she can make a replacement appointment. So, what I need is either a letter or email from you resigning from the board so she can move forward with her appointment. I'm sure you would agree that if it is truly a metropolitan area planning commission that geographic balance on the commission is a good thing.

(Please note that the cities of Jenks and Sand Springs each have their own city planning commissions and are not under the jurisdiction of the TMAPC.)

In her reply, Wright notes that the geographical imbalance is the result of city appointments. She also states that she is the only small business owner on the commission and represents women-owned businesses.

Simonson's October 12, 2009, reply:

Dear Liz

There is a reason why the county commissioners are allowed to make appointments to the TMAPC. Since it's a metropolitan planning commission, all parts of the county should be represented. The city councilors of course can and will only appoint people from within the city which they have historically done. Same with the Mayor. That leaves the commissioners to appoint people either outside of the city of Tulsa or from parts of the city not represented on the commission.

I think there is a difference between a property owner or business owner who resides or owns property in another part of the county and one who doesn't. I think there can be a different perspective from a visitor to the area versus someone who has roots and a history. Certainly Jenks and Sand Springs and Glenpool deserve some form of representation. I think your points of being a women business owner is important and this demographic could likewise be represented from a selection outside of the city of Tulsa.

So, if one were to compose a profile of a well rounded planning commissioner and take into account a diverse set of criteria ( geography, demographic, business experience, neighborhood and planning knowledge, etc ) I believe a commissioner like that can be found outside of the city of Tulsa.

Terry

Nothing in the correspondence indicates that there is any cause for Wright's removal, but now Keith is trying to move forward with a hearing that only makes sense if some cause will be presented.

Behind the scenes, word is that developers are upset with Wright for raising questions that they would rather not have to answer, and that's the reason they are working through Karen Keith to push for Wright's removal.

It's true that there are too many planning commissioners and too many members of boards and commissions in general that come from what I've labeled the "Money Belt" -- the wealthiest neighborhoods of Tulsa which are clustered along a line from Maple Ridge to Southern Hills and then fans out into the gated communities of south Tulsa. The Money Belt, particularly the portion between Maple Ridge and Southern Hills, is like a small town where everyone seems to know everyone else. My theory is that mayors tend to pick people from this area for boards and commissions because that's where their networks of friends and friends of friends all live.

Florence Park, where Liz Wright lives and where she has served as neighborhood association president, lies outside the Money Belt, even though it is in midtown. And midtown Tulsa is the most populous portion of District 2 that is under the jurisdiction of the TMAPC, which only handles zoning cases for the City of Tulsa and unincorporated portions of Tulsa County. Every other Tulsa County municipality has its own planning commission. (Tulsa should too, with all commissioners appointed by city elected officials, but that's a topic for another day.)

More important than geographic balance on the TMAPC is professional balance. Too many of its members have ties to the real estate and development industry. People in that position would be understandably reluctant to recommend against zoning changes sought by firms that may be their partners or customers in future projects or to recommend against zoning changes that would set a useful precedent for their own projects. Balance will help to ensure that the land use regulation system serves all Tulsans and is administered fairly, even-handedly, and consistently.

Not only do we need neighborhood leaders on the TMAPC for balance, we need those leaders to be intelligent and confident in their own judgment. I've seen it happen in the past that neighborhood and community leaders are appointed to a board or commission, and rather than bringing a new perspective to the body, they are indoctrinated and assimilated into its culture.

Imagine the outcry and editorializing if a county commissioner were trying to force a real estate broker or a homebuilder off of the commission to replace him with a neighborhood association president.

Geographic balance is important, but I would hate to lose a planning commissioner like Liz Wright, who brings a neighborhood perspective to the table, understands zoning, and is able to stand up under pressure. If you believe we need that kind of perspective, particularly as we embark upon adoption and implementation of a new comprehensive plan for Tulsa, please contact your county commissioners and urge them to allow Liz Wright to serve out her full term on the TMAPC.

District 1: John Smaligo, jsmaligo@tulsacounty.org, (918) 596-5020
District 2: Karen Keith, kkeith@tulsacounty.org, (918) 596-5016
District 3: Fred Perry, fperry@tulsacounty.org, (918) 596-5010

Karen Keith received significant campaign contributions from the real estate and development lobby. Keith's campaign consultants included Jim Burdge, who ran the development lobby's ugly recall campaign against neighborhood-friendly city councilors Jim Mautino and Chris Medlock, and Art Justis, who as a city councilor was a reliable vote for whatever a developer wanted to do and who was defeated by neighborhood leader Jim Mautino.

It's a shame that the development lobby is so insecure that they feel it necessary to eliminate someone with a neighborhood association background, just because she is intelligent, articulate, and independent. It's a shame that Karen Keith, who once upon a time was a supporter of neighborhood associations and an opponent of incompatible redevelopment, has apparently decided to carry the development lobby's water on this issue.

The PLANiTULSA draft vision document, which will serve as the foundation for a fully-elaborated comprehensive plan for the City of Tulsa, is online. You can read it online as separate web pages, or download the "Our Vision for Tulsa" PDF. It's only 50 pages long (with lots of photos), so please take time to read it, and then go online to provide your feedback.

Tulsa County Commissioners would like to know what should be done with Driller Stadium or the stadium site after the Tulsa Drillers move downtown. There's an online survey where you can rank possible options for using the existing stadium or for replacing it with some other kind of development.

NOTE: I was able to get to the Journal Record stories below earlier today through links posted in the paper's Twitter feed. As I get ready to publish this, the stories now appear to be accessible to subscribers only.

NOTE 2: Articles are still inaccessible to non-subscribers, but an entry on the Journal Record's blog has summaries of the articles.

In a strongly-worded editorial in the March 18, 2009, Journal Record, Ted Streuli, the paper's managing editor, writes that Tulsa County's "exorbitant, unconscionable fees to view and print public records clearly violate state law, and [Tulsa County Clerk Earlene] Wilson gets away with it because the law doesn't have any teeth."

I encourage you to read the entire editorial as well as two related news stories in the same edition:

Assessor, clerk upgrade to incompatible systems
Tulsa County policies lead to debate on Open Records Act

There are three different sets of public records under consideration:

The County Clerk keeps track of how land is subdivided into parcels (plat maps), who owns which piece of land, and what encumbrances exist -- liens, mortgages, easements, covenants on a given parcel. Records are kept of each transaction affecting the state of a parcel.

The County Assessor estimates the value of each parcel based on fair market value, based on the physical characteristics of the property and factors like zoning.

The County Treasurer collects property (ad valorem) taxes based on the assessed value and then disburses the collected money to school districts, municipalities, the county and other taxing authorities according to law.

In Tulsa County, none of these records are freely available online. You can go to the offices in question to look at the physical records, or you can pay a monthly fee to have access. As Streuli notes, you not only have to pay to access the information, you have to pay $1 a page to print a copy with your own printer, paper, and ink. Streuli says this is a violation of the Oklahoma Open Records Act:

Until recently, you could find all of this information at Tulsa Library branches, using a special IBM terminal emulator that runs on selected library computers. You can still find out who owns a piece of property, what its assessed value is (along with the physical characteristics that determine the value), and the current taxes (including whether those taxes have been paid).

It used to be possible, when looking at the combined display for a parcel, to push a button and see a list of transactions on that parcel over the last decade or so. But the last time I used the system those features weren't available. The options for viewing these County Clerk records had vanished from the main menu as well.

Many smaller Oklahoma counties make their county clerk records available freely online. For many counties you can even view and print images of records for free.

Oklahoma County Assessor Leonard Sullivan (a former Republican state representative) has one of the best public records websites in the country. On his homepage, he writes:

With more than 6 million property searches so far this year we've been recognized as one of the most advanced records search websites in the country where anyone with internet access can spend a few minutes or longer looking up property records in Oklahoma County.

Using the Public Access System you can find information about any property in Oklahoma County. Including the sale price, market value, assessed value, and legal description. Using the interactive Geographic Information System (GIS) Map, you can see a digital aerial color image of your home, find out which school district the property is located within, who represents you in the state legislature or congress, even see if your home or another property could be subject to flooding....

The Oklahoma County Assessor's Office has embraced technology and works hard to make access to public records and information a priority.

I'm happy to read that Sullivan's counterpart, Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel, has the same goal in mind:

Former title company operator Yazel spent $953,467 to upgrade the assessor's 262,000-parcel database with RealWare by Colorado Customware, the software behind the award-winning Oklahoma County assessor's Web site.

Seeking to emulate Oklahoma County and promote the economic benefit of free and open records access, Yazel said he hopes to unveil a new Tulsa County assessor's site this year.

If you're gasping at the cost of the software, keep in mind that the Assessor's office has to have it regardless of whether the information is made available over the web. The Assessor needs to keep records of every parcel in the county, with details like square footage and outbuildings and quality of materials and number of bathrooms and with the capability to translate recent sales of comparable properties into fair market value. The marginal cost of making the information available to the general public online is negligible. Same thing is true for the County Clerk's records.

Not only is the marginal cost negligible, it actually saves the county money to make the information available online, as more people can get the information they need without taking the time of a county employee.

Oklahoma County Assessor Chief Deputy Larry Stein said his office achieved those results with its Web site upgrades.

"It saves us from having to have a whole bunch of people streaming into our office every day when they can get that off the Web," said Stein.

Wilson and Tulsa County Treasurer Dennis Semler have both cited privacy concerns along with cost recovery as a justification for limiting access to paying customers and library computer terminals. The cost issue is bogus: The county offices have a legal duty to maintain the records and a responsibility to the taxpayers to tap into the productivity benefits of computerization. The County Clerk even collects fees on each document processed.

The privacy issue is bogus, too: The records are public and are already available. If you have a way to make money off of the information -- whether it's as a lender, an appraiser, or a real estate investor -- you'll spring for the cost of using the online system, or you'll pay an employee to go down to the County Courthouse and collect information. A homeowner who needs to track developments that could potentially threaten his property value or a journalist who is researching a story has to get to the library when it's open, tie up a library computer, and stop when his daily allotment of computer time is used up.

Tulsa County officials aren't protecting privacy if property records are easily accessible for a small number of people and hard to get for the rest of us.

But don't look for anything to change in the near future:

As long as Tulsa County citizens express satisfaction with the service, Semler expects the county budget board to stand pat.

So if you've ever been frustrated by having to drive to the library to look up land records, if you don't think you should have to pay twice for easy access -- once through your taxes and again through special fees -- if you want the County to obey the Open Records Act, contact your County Commissioner, the County Clerk, and the County Treasurer and let them know you want them to work with Ken Yazel to provide free online access to land records. You'll find all the contact information you need at the Tulsa County website.

The Karen Keith campaign submitted a lengthy rebuttal in UTW to my column endorsing Sally Bell for Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner. Here's my reply:

(1) Karen Keith doesn't seem to get the difference between one's philosophy of government and one's conduct as an elected official. I wrote:

"Although Randi Miller is gone, her philosophy of county government is still in the race. The Karen Keith platform is nothing more than the Randi Miller approach to county government with a more appealing façade."

To those who think this is unfair, please give an example of a policy decision that Randi Miller made as a county commissioner that Karen Keith would have made differently. It's noteworthy that nowhere in her response does Keith note any policy differences with Miller.

Keith sets up a straw man with her subpoints, all of which have to do with conduct, not philosophy or policy.

(2) She says that she was "part of the team working for the passage of Vision 2025." Her part was to serve as a spokesperson during the campaign. She debated on behalf of the vote yes campaign at the TulsaNow debate at Harwelden and on KWHB 47. I know because I was there debating on the other side. She also made speeches to civic groups and neighborhoods on behalf of the tax. She debated against Jack Gordon and Jim Hewgley on Fox 23. She may have also been doing work behind the scenes, but her visible role was as someone who spoke on behalf of passing the tax.

Keith is on the record as supporting more local tax dollars for river development, which I consider an amenity, not a necessity. She supported the failed river tax increase last year. She has stated at least by implication that she'd support sending another river tax to the voters:

Keith also said she would not oppose using more public funds for infrastructure projects along the Arkansas River.

[snip]

"We've already made significant public investment in engineering for the river," Keith said, "but more may be needed to make it possible for the private sector to come in and create housing, entertainment and retail that is sensitive to the natural habitat."

After her speech, Keith clarified her remarks by saying residents would have the final say on any tax-increase proposal.

Keith protests at being called a "pro-tax" candidate, but I can't think of any local tax initiative that she's opposed. Someone let me know if I've overlooked one.

Furthermore, would Karen Keith unequivocally commit that she would not send a tax for amenities to the voters? Sally Bell has.

She has danced around this issue, by saying that the final decision belongs to the voters. But the voters can only give a thumbs up or thumbs down on whatever package the County Commissioners choose to send to them. Tax votes are expensive: Expensive for the county election board, expensive for the proponents, and expensive and time consuming for the opponents. Putting a tax on the ballot is not a neutral act. Surely Keith understands that.

At the All Souls debate Keith said that her most important platform plank is "economic development for this region," citing Vision 2025 and Four to Fix the County. Keith appears to believe that government-funded amenities are the key to economic growth.

At the Red Fork debate, Keith blamed the failure of the river tax in part on the delay in announcing that Celine Dion would be performing at the BOK Center.

She also blamed the state of Tulsa's streets on failed tax initiatives. Tulsa has passed every tax initiative for streets since 1980. The only taxes we've turned down have been for amenities. Karen Keith seems to believe money for amenities brings prosperity which brings revenues to pay for streets. In reality, you'd make much more progress on streets if you put the funds directly to that purpose, instead of investing it in amenities and hoping for a marginal improvement in revenues over time.

At the same debate, she said that if the river tax were put back on the ballot, it would be a different package, and it would pass. Who is going to put that tax back on the ballot, if not her?

Over and over again, Keith has cited the Vision 2025 tax package as the model for progress, as the source of our economic growth.

(3) Regarding the Bob Dick endorsement, Keith is either disingenuous or staggeringly unaware of Dick's legacy as a county commissioner. Again, I would challenge her to specify any major decision made by Bob Dick as Commissioner which she would have made differently.

If I were blindly partisan, I would not have been as critical as I have of Dick's record, nor would I have called for someone to step up to challenge Dick for his 2006 re-election bid.

(4) Here Keith contradicts the point she made in item (1)(d). Having the County take over municipal park maintenance is an example of "having the county government act as some sort of metropolitan government service provider."

(5) I stand by my statement. Keith did attack Bell's business record at the Kiwanis debate, and if you listen to what she said (I think you can still find it on the KRMG website), I think you'll agree it was awkward. She stumbled and stammered through it. It was a stark contrast to the smooth way she reads prepared text.

(6) I've written many times about the "Money Belt" phenomenon, for example, in my July 30 column on the Collective Strength survey of 1,000 Tulsans. I was writing about the regional differences on agreement with statements like "City leaders in Tulsa understand my community's needs" and "I do not feel included in the planning process. People like me are always left out."

The gap between Midtown and south Tulsa on the one hand and north, west and east Tulsa is not surprising. Maps of election results showing support for various tax increases, of where appointees to city boards and commissions live, and of those selected to the PLANiTULSA Advisers and Partners reveal a common pattern.

I've labeled it the "Money Belt"--a band of Tulsa's wealthiest neighborhoods running south-southeast from downtown through Maple Ridge, Utica Square, and Southern Hills then fanning out into the gated communities of south Tulsa.

Regarding Keith, I wrote:

Keith and her midtown money belt allies appear to think it was a foolproof recipe for passing funding packages, but as we saw last October, in the failed attempt to pass a countywide sales tax for river projects, its time has come and gone.

That statement doesn't preclude the possibility that she has non-Money Belt allies, but by reason of her geography, mindset, and major contributors, Keith clearly belongs to the Money Belt.

By the way, the Urban Tulsa staff requested copies of both candidates' ethics reports. The Bell campaign supplied her report. The Keith campaign did not even reply to the request.

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.

Steve Roemerman has a detailed report from Tuesday night's debate between Tulsa County Commission District 2 candidates Sally Bell (R) and Karen Keith (D).

Steve reports that Keith claimed the sad state of Tulsa streets was because of "failed tax initiatives." I challenge Karen Keith to name one street-related tax initiative (general obligation bond issue or sales tax) that has failed in the last quarter-century in Tulsa.

My column in this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly further explores the contrasting political philosophies of Karen Keith and Sally Bell.

The County Commission race was also a topic of conversation in my debate with former Tulsa County Democratic Party chairman Elaine Dodd, the cover story in this week's UTW. We also chatted about the presidential, U. S. Senate, and U. S. House races, and the State Senate District 37 race between incumbent Republican-turned-Democrat Nancy Riley and Republican challenger Dan Newberry.

Monday evening I attended a debate at All Souls Unitarian Church, hosted by the League of Women Voters. I suspect most of the people in the room were supporters either of the Republican nominee, Sally Bell, or the Democratic nominee, Karen Keith. Although I had expected the venue to be a friendlier environment for Keith, judging by the applause about two-thirds of the audience seemed to be there to support Bell, and I thought Keith seemed a bit rattled as a consequence.

Both candidates hit their core themes: Bell focused on basic infrastructure, public safety, and limited government; Keith kept going back to Vision 2025 and Four to Fix the County and the county's role in economic development.

I will be uploading audio, although it will take a while. Watch this space.

UPDATE: Had some Internet problems at home tonight, but here is the MP3 file for the debate It is a 9 MB MP3 file and runs about 75 minutes. I had to hold the recorder, so you'll hear some periodic rustling, but it's better than nothing. There is also a break about 64 minutes in, where I stopped and restarted the recorder out of fear that the battery was about to go.

MORE: There's a rumble in Red Fork tonight, Tuesday, October 21, at 7 p.m. Bell and Keith will debate at the Red Fork Church of God, 3319 W. 41st St.

The downtown Tulsa Kiwanis Club is hosting a debate between the candidates for District 2 Tulsa County Commissioner today beginning at 12:15. Republican Sally Bell will face Democrat Karen Keith. KRMG's Joe Kelley will moderate the debate, and it will be cybercast live online at krmg.com. It will also be broadcast over the airwaves tonight at 6:00 on 740 KRMG.

(Post time tweaked to keep this at the top of the blog until this evening.)

UPDATE: KRMG has posted audio of the debate in four segments.

We spent most of Saturday at the Tulsa State Fair.

Despite my disgust at many of the decisions of of the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority (aka the Fair Board), as I mentioned last year, going to the fair is a family tradition that predates my existence. The fair was here long before Randi Miller and Bob Dick and Rick Bjorklund, and it has already survived their involvement. Within a few months, every member of the Fair Board and Expo Square exec that was around when Bell's was expelled, when Murphy Bros. was granted their exclusive contract, when checks from Murphy's Big Splash were left uncashed for over a year, will be gone.

My grandmother entered crafts in the fair back in the '40s and '50s. Starting in 2004, my wife encouraged our kids to enter some of their artwork. My son has won ribbons for paintings and a Lego car. This year the 12-year-old boy and the eight-year-old girl won ribbons in the pumpkin decorating competition. The girl won a blue ribbon in the creative category for a very cute two-pumpkin snowman, and the boy took third place in the "unusual" category for his volcano pumpkin. (I'll try to get pictures posted soon.) My son submitted several of his photographs, and my daughter entered a pastel drawing.

The kids area was relocated to Central Park Hall, and that was our first stop, after we'd walked the half-mile from home. After seeing how they did in the contests, they wanted to build with Kapla planks while the toddler wanted to drive the Li'l' Tikes police car.

Next stop was the Oklahoma Fiddle Championship. My son had decided not to enter, but we still wanted to watch. We were there in time to see the end of the junior competition and to see Marina Pendleton win first prize and the belt buckle.

My wife stayed to watch the open and senior competition; she says she heard some amazing fiddling. The rest of us headed down to the Coke stage to watch the illusionists (Ridgeway and Johnson) and the hypnotist (Steve Bayner) -- both very impressive. In between, we wandered around the Sugar Art Show and marveled at the beautifully decorated cakes. We stopped by the Republican booth -- located as always at the eastern end of the IPE Building QuikTrip Center -- and signed up for McCain/Palin and Inhofe yard signs.

Just north of the Sugar Art Show, we came across the Fruitfull booth. Fruitfull makes these delicious and nutritious frozen treats. We tried the mango and cream, strawberries and cream, and peaches and cream flavors. The treats are made with no refined sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. They use real fruit and fruit juice. Everyone in the family enjoyed them. They're available in Shell convenience stores in the Tulsa area, and they hope to get them into supermarkets soon.

At 7:30 we went to see the Disney on Ice version of High School Musical. I was thankful that we had free passes. Not only were the tickets expensive, but everything else was too -- $12 for a bag of cotton candy, which came with an official High School Musical plastic trilby. We passed on all the food and souvenirs. The kids enjoyed the show. The music and plot made it easy to overlook the skating skill that was on display. Only half of the Pavilion was open for seating, and only half of those seats were filled.

During intermission, we chatted with a fellow behind us who was at the fair for the first time in 15 years. His folks ran the Don's Chicken Fried Steak cafe in the old Exchange Building for 15 years -- a very popular place to eat at the fair, until the Fair Board decided not to renew their lease. His grandparents owned Don's Chili Bowl in Boman Acres Shopping Center and an aunt owned Don's Restaurant on north Sheridan. It was fun to hear some of his memories of the fair.

After the show we bought some cotton candy and watched the Boogie Bodies booth, where you put a green drape over your body, and a computer merges dancing figures with your head, making it look like you're singing and dancing in a music video.

My wife and the kids will go back again later in the week to see more of the animals and exhibits.

It was a bit melancholy to note the disappearance of more of the buildings that were part of my childhood visits to the fair. The IPE Building, the Armory, the Pavilion, and the Skyride are all that's left. Over the last year, the cafeteria and the Exchange/Youth Building were demolished. The cafeteria was the last remnant of when the International Petroleum Exposition was held in a campus of individual buildings where the IPE Building (QuikTrip Center) now stands. The Exchange Building was once home to the annual KTUL Talent Show and the location of the local segments of the Jerry Lewis Telethon. One year (1980?) the Republican 1st District Convention was held in that room. The Youth Building was home to the 4-H and FFA exhibits during the fair. Once upon a time, I believe the Youth Building also included dormitories that housed young future farmers who were at the fairgrounds to show their livestock.

I still miss the KELi satellite.

You will note that I said nothing about rides. We did not ride any. We aren't going to ride any Murphy Bros. rides ever again. That decision is in protest at Bell's Amusement Park's eviction and Murphy-owned Big Splash's apparent lack of concern over safety (failure to make required repairs before opening the park for the season) and apparent lack of concern over paying their bills on time (lease checks went uncashed by Expo Square management for years). My kids are sad not to ride rides, but they are in agreement that we don't want to give any money to Murphy Bros.

We did notice that the Murphy Bros. midway is littered with sandwich boards featuring a superhero cartoon character named "Captain Murph." Captain Murph utters slogans, often rhyming:

BE POLITE THATS OUT OF SIGHT!!
Be Alert Accidents Hurt!
THINK GREEN KEEP THE MIDWAY CLEAN
Hey Kids have FUN FUN FUN

These signs are just ripe for photoshopping, and Steve Roemerman has some replacement slogans that had me roaring with laughter. He saved the best for last.

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.

Most elections I'm used to a mixed bag of results -- some encouraging, some discouraging. Once in a great while -- 1980, 1994 come to mind -- everything goes the way I hope.

This comes close to being one of those nights.

82% of Republican voters said yes to Sally Bell and "enough already" to County Commissioner Randi Miller. While I expected a win, my guess was 57%. There's a certain constituency who will vote for the incumbent no matter what. Bell's win is certainly due to disgust with Miller, but the size of the win demonstrates that voters see Bell as a credible prospect for County Commission. That ought to help her raise money and volunteers for the November general election, which will be tough, but it's looking more and more feasible.

We're nearly at 100% of the vote, and it looks like Dana Murphy has won a close Republican primary against State Rep. Rob Johnson for the right to challenge appointed Corporation Commissioner Jim Roth, a Democrat. Dana is a wonderful person, she is extremely qualified for this job, and she has the integrity to do the right thing regardless of the pressure from special interests. A cynic would say that combination is political poison, but it's nice to see a good guy finish first for once. Again, it'll be tough to beat an incumbent, but Murphy is more qualified than Roth for the job (she worked for the OCC for five years, he's been there less than one), and she has been in three statewide elections. Roth has never run statewide.

In District 35, we're headed for a runoff, as expected, between Cason Carter and Gary Stanislawski. There's only a 268 vote gap between the two -- Carter 44%, Stanislawski 40%. It's likely that Jeff Applekamp and Janet Sullivan took more support from Stanislawski than from Carter -- Applekamp comes from the southern end of the district, and Sullivan, like Stanislawski, attends Victory Christian Center.

No surprises in the Republican primaries for U. S. Senate and the First Congressional District: Jim Inhofe and John Sullivan prevailed easily over perennial candidates.

I was surprised that the anointed Democratic challengers to Inhofe and Sullivan won by relatively slim margins over very underfunded opponents. Georgianna Oliver beat Mark Manley by only 55% to 45%, and Democratic turnout in the 1st District was half of the Republican turnout, which reveals a lack of enthusiasm for the recently relocated Mrs. Oliver. State Sen. Andrew Rice managed less than 60% against a perennial candidate.

I was pleased, but not at all surprised, to see Dan Newberry win his Senate District 37 primary by such a large margin. He's been walking the district for a year or more. He's got a good headstart on reclaiming the district for the Republican Party.

John Trebilcock won over his primary challenger by a two-to-one margin. I'm told the over-the-top attacks by his opponent turned off a lot of voters.

Elsewhere in Oklahoma, the Chambers of Commerce and the old Cargill machine attempted to defeat State Reps. Randy Terrill and Mike Reynolds. Terrill won renomination with 75% of the vote. Reynolds's race was closer -- 55-45. Disgraced former Speaker Lance Cargill was a consultant to his opponent's campaign.

In Oklahoma County, District 2 County Commissioner Brent Rinehart got a bigger percentage of the vote than Randi Miller -- all of 21%, and that in the face of financial scandal and national notoriety for his amateurish cartoon campaign piece. But he still lost big, and Brian Maughan came close to winning outright with 47% of the vote. Maughan will face J. D. Johnston in a runoff. I know Brian through state Republican Party events, and I'm happy to see him well on his way to a seat on the County Commission.

My take on the two Northside Democratic House primaries: All of the candidates are pretty far to my left on state issues, none of them are pro-life, and none of them will have a Republican opponent in the fall, so in a sense, it doesn't matter who wins. But Christie Breedlove, running in HD 72, has been a tireless worker for Roscoe Turner, one of the good guys on the City Council, and we're often on the same side of local issues, so I'm happy to see her move forward to a runoff.

I was also happy to see Jabar Shumate prevail in a tough primary against Kevin Matthews in HD 73. Nothing against Matthews, but I appreciated Shumate and Sen. Judy Eason-McIntyre taking the political risk to support the New Hope Scholarship program, which would have given partial tax credits for donations to scholarship funds to pay for at-risk students to attend private schools. It was a modest school choice bill, but one opposed by a core Democrat constituency -- the teacher's union and other elements of the education establishment -- so Shumate and Eason-McIntyre deserve praise for putting their constituents' best interests above political expedience.

It's just really nice to know that I don't have to take down any yard signs tomorrow, because all my candidates made it to the next round.

MORE:

I thought I heard a big flushing sound yesterday.

Irritated Tulsan has a career possibility for the soon to be former commissioner.

740 KRMG's Joe Kelley has video of the real reason Randi lost in a landslide.

Michelle is OK with low voter turnout, and she has some advice for John Trebilcock's opponent:

John Newhouse found out tonight that you should run on something besides a mistake your opponent made over a year ago, and has asked forgiveness for. Trebilcock won with about 65%.

Click the link to see a scan of Karen Keith's pre-primary contributions and expenditures filing for Tulsa County Commissioner, District 2. Karen Keith, a Democrat, has no opposition in the primary, but will face the winner of Tuesday's Republican primary between challenger Sally Bell and incumbent Randi Miller.

Karen Keith raised $73,392 between Feb. 28 and July 15, 2008, of which $16,574 was in amounts of $200 or less. She has spent $42,471 -- an astonishing amount given the lack of a primary. Most of that has gone to indirect costs: $17,900 was spent on outside consultants, $5,000 on "copyrighting" [sic -- probably means copywriting], $4,365 on staff labor, $850 for logo and artwork, $900 on a website. (Hosting is relatively inexpensive, so I assume most of that cost is for a consultant to design and launch the site.) Facilities cost -- utilities, rent, phone, water cooler, alarm monitoring, moving -- total about $4,300. Only about $5,000 has gone into direct voter contact -- mail pieces, phone calls, and materials for door-to-door campaigning.

That's a very high overhead operation, and it shrinks her fundraising advantage considerably. A grassroots candidate backed by passionate volunteer workers and advisers could match her voter contact effort with only a fraction of the budget.

Here are Keith's top donors. Spelling as on the form, parenthetical remarks are mine. I will add other donors of more than $200 as I have time, later. All donors of any amount are listed, in alphabetical order, on Keith's C-1 filing.

$3,000 - Amos Adetula (Wilson's BBQ),
$2,750 - Sharon King Davis
$2,500 - Gary Burton
$1,500 - Patrick & Peggy Keith (Bixby), Robert & Roxana Lorton (publisher emeritus, Tulsa World), Danny & Betty O'Brian (Randi Miller's biggest donor)
$1,250 - George & Edwynne Krumme
$1,000 - Tom & Sue Bennett, Pat & Margaret Cremin, John & Kelsy Eakin, Jim & Sally Frasier, Greg Gray & Sharon Bell, Clydella & David Hentschel, Just Progress, George Kravis, David Sharp, Sid Shupack

Mr. O'Brian appears to be hedging his bets.

This post is a reminder to me to write a check to the ethics commission and get it mailed.

When the Oklahoma Ethics Commission called me back about my request for scans of the Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner race contributions and expenditures reports, I was told to mail a check for $1 for each page requested, and when they received the check, they would mail me the copies. I pointed out to Merlyn Rios, the clerk who handles these requests, that the purpose of filing these forms was to inform the public of the contributors to a candidate and to do so early enough to provide the media and the voters time to analyze the list and take it into consideration come election day. Waiting on the US Mail would slow the process down considerably and might mean voters wouldn't get the information in time to make use of it.

I asked to speak to Merlyn's boss about a waiver of fees or e-mailing the information to me. She transferred me to Patti Bryant. Patti agreed to authorize Merlyn to fax the information to me on the promise that I would mail a check. The fact that I am in media did not entitle me to a fee waiver. The fee is set by the Ethics Commission.

Given the history of county courthouse corruption in Oklahoma, I understand why the ethics law doesn't make a county official the repository of ethics filings, although it would be easier for voters to access the information if they could see it at the county election board.

But it seems to me that the purpose of the law is defeated by the way the commission is handling these documents. They should simply scan these documents upon receipt and post the resulting PDF on their website. Better yet, they should include county candidates in the same searchable database used for state candidates. I could see charging a fee for dredging out and copying old filings, but not for filings in current races.

So far, BatesLine is the only Tulsa media outlet to publish the contributions and expenditures reports for the District 2 County Commission Republican primary. (Here is Sally Bell's report and my analysis. Here is Randi Miller's report and my analysis. Tomorrow I should be able to scan and post Karen Keith's report.) The daily paper doesn't seem interested, and the report filing deadline comes too late for Urban Tulsa Weekly's last issue before the election.

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Sally Bell raised $13,321.36, of which $3,021.26 was in amounts of $200 or less. Bell reports spending $10,848.99, of which $10,191.56 was spent on "general advertising," $336.93 on printing, and $320.50 on miscellaneous expenses. Here is a scan of Sally Bell's contributions and expenditures report.

Here's the list of contributors. Spelling is as on the form. Parenthetical comments are mine:

$2,500 - Jeff and Kathy Rogers
$1,500 - Sally and Robert K. Bell, Jr. (the candidate and her husband)
$1,000 - Will and Willma (Wilma) Arnold, Jeffrey A. and Kathryn K. Weaver, Sharna P. and Steven (Stephen) Bovasso (realtor and anesthesiologist)
$500 - Gary and Jan Phillips (owners of Fantasy Island Amusement Park, Beach Haven, NJ), Sandra and Stephen Rodolf, Janis Curry, Greg and Carol Owens (KMO Development Group), Lloyd Noble II trust
$300 - APA (Alphonse Pierre) Vorenkamp
$250 - Donald and Laura Lehman, George S. Sharp (Sharp Mortgage Co.)

Other thank the Bells and Lloyd Noble, I didn't instantly recognize any of these names, and my various search efforts aren't turning up much. I'm guessing that most of these people are personal friends of the Bells. None of them appear to have any dealings with county government or the Fairgrounds. If you have more info, drop a note in the comments.

MORE: I spoke to Sally Bell's son Robby Bell this morning, and he confirmed my impression. Jeff and Kathy Rogers' oldest a child is a classmate of Robby's youngest. Jeff has a medical supply business. The Arnolds are old friends of Bob and Sally Bell. The Weavers have a son who was a classmate of Robby's oldest son; they have a business that makes canopies for businesses like gas stations. Stephen Bovasso has been a friend of Robby's since 4th grade. The Phillipses are long-time friends of Bob and Sally Bell, and they were part of a group of couples who went on motorcycling excursions together. I was out of time to go down the whole list, but that covers all the big donors.

Today I received a call from Merlyn Rios at the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, saying they had the pre-primary contribution and expenditure (C-1) reports for Randi Miller and Karen Keith for Tulsa County Commission District 2. I'll post Karen Keith's report later; since she's not a primary candidate (she's the only Democrat to file for the office), it's less urgent.

Here is Randi Miller's pre-primary C-1 form. Miller raised $39,500, of which $2,700 was in contributions of $200 or less. Miller reports spending $33,935.60, of which $25,500 has been spent on radio and television. Note that the report is incomplete, as Miller did not list the date on which each contribution was accepted.

In this morning's debate on 1170 KFAQ, moderated by Pat Campbell, Miller said, "Every person that is mad at me, they have an agenda." And she referred to this group of people who don't like her as "special agenda citizens."

It's interesting: When Campbell asked Miller to name her biggest contributors, she mentioned Danny O'Brian and Joe Robson, but she didn't mention George Kaiser, who gave the same amount as Robson ($2,500) and has an instantly recognizable name. Nearly every voter would associate the name of the wealthiest man in Oklahoma with last fall's river tax package, for which Randi Miller was head cheerleader.

(You can listen to the podcast of the 1170 KFAQ Sally Bell - Randi Miller debate here. The podcast of this afternoon's round-table discussion of the debate with myself, Chris Medlock and Charlie Biggs is here.)

The list of contributors, people who like her enough to give her lots of campaign money, sure looks like a list of "special agenda citizens" to me. Many have some connection to last fall's failed county sales tax increase for river-related projects. One is a fairgrounds tenant (maybe two). Here's the list, by largest amount first. Spellings are as they are on the form. Parenthetical notes are mine.

$5,000: Danny O'Brian (P. O. Box 698, Sand Springs, executive of Cust-O-Fab)

$2,500: George Kaiser, Joe Robson

$2,000: Chet Cadieux (QuikTrip), Emmit Hahn (Chili Bowl promoter), Larry Edwards (see below)

$1,500: Jay Helm (American Residential Group)

$1,000: Tom Maxwell (Flintco), Brad Smallwood, Mark Tedford, Henry Zarrow, Tom Kivisto (formerly of SemGroup), Stacy Schusterman, Keith Bailey, W. R. Lissau, Walt Helmerich, Dennis Hall, Lynn Mitchell (of the Jenks River District), Stuart Price (Bill Clinton crony and one-time Democratic nominee for Congress)

$500: Hasting Siegfried, Art Couch (roads contractor), John Walker, Scott Morgan, Ray Morgan, Darton Zink, Tom Golden, Albert Kelly, Montie Box (Sand Springs real estate mogul)

$300: Rick Huffman (Branson, Mo.)

$250: Ken Levit (George Kaiser Family Foundation), Mitch Adwon, Jono Helmerich, Guy Berry, John Gaberino, Stephen Franklin, Jim Spoan, Mike Kimbrel (Jenks River District).

I was puzzled about the $2,000 contribution from "Larry Edwards." There is someone by that name who was was chairman of Global Power Equipment Corp., a company that went through Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in 2006, emerging in January 2008.

But then I noticed that "Larry Edwards" is next to "Emmit Hahn" at the very end of the list. I found the following info on the "about" page of the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals (emphasis added):

Two weeks after Christmas, the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals arrives like a gift from Santa Claus. In the Oklahoma metropolis of Tulsa, "Santa" is Emmett Hahn and Lanny Edwards, organizers of the four-night race meet since its 1987 inception.

Hahn and Edwards lease the IPE Building Expo Building QuikTrip center from the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority (of which Miller, as county commissioner, is a member) every January to run midget cars around an indoor dirt track.

Given that Hahn's first name was misspelled or mistranscribed, it's not hard to imagine that a handwritten "Lanny" became a typewritten "Larry." The names on the contributor list are not sorted by name or amount, so I suspect they are sorted in the order the contribution was received. Since Hahn and Edwards are listed together, it may be that they contributed on the same day. If the filing were complete, with a date for each contribution, it would be easier to know for sure.

So instead of getting $5,000 from Big Splash owner Loretta Murphy (who apparently doesn't have that kind of money to throw around any more), Miller is getting money from another Fairgrounds tenant, split up perhaps to make it seem less obvious.

MORE: A reader notes that Jono Helmerich is chairman of the Friends of the Fairgrounds Foundation and Tom Maxwell and Darton Zink are members of the board. The same reader notes that the notary public who notarized Miller's form is Ella McKenzie, Miller's taxpayer-funded secretary. Either she had McKenzie notarize it on county time or on her own time, and I'm not sure which is worse. She already had her chief deputy handle some legal business for her on his lunch hour. (I wonder if Miller has a flower fund.)

Also, in the comments, Tasha points out that contributor Rick Huffman is the fellow who built Branson Landing and proposed a similar development for Tulsa's west bank.

Earlier today I spoke to Merlyn Rios at the Oklahoma Ethics Commission. Merlyn is the person who answers the phone when you "press 1" to request information about a campaign filing.

County elections are governed differently than state and municipal elections. Like municipal elections, they come under the Public Subdivisions Ethics Act. Like state elections and unlike municipal elections, county candidates file their C-1 (contributions and expenditures) reports with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission. Unlike state elections, county elections aren't covered under electronic filing requirements, so you've got to call or drop by the Ethics Commission office at the State Capitol to pick up a copy of a county filing.

So I called the Ethics Commission and spoke to Merlyn. I asked her about the required pre-primary C-1 filings for Tulsa County Commissioner, District 2. Pre-primary filings were due yesterday.

(The law -- 51 O. S. 315 (A)(5) -- actually says the filing is due 10 days before an election, but because that always falls on a Saturday, the paperwork is considered on time if it's submitted by close of business on the next business day, which -- barring a holiday -- is the Monday eight days before election day.)

I asked specifically about filings for Sally Bell and Randi Miller, the candidates in the Republican primary. After putting me on hold to check, Merlyn told me that the Ethics Commission had received Sally Bell's report but had not received the required report for Randi Miller's campaign.

I asked her a second time specifically if Randi Miller's C-1 had been submitted to the Ethics Commission. Merlyn confirmed that it had not.

For the record, here is Sally Bell's pre-primary C-1 filing. If someone wants to mail me a copy of Randi Miller's report, I'll post it here. (UPDATE 7/23/2008: Here's an analysis of Randi Miller's C-1 report, submitted a day late, with a link to a scan of the report.)

MORE: Rick Bjorklund is suing the fair board for wrongful dismissal, Miller for defamation.

Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner Randi Miller was a no-show tonight at the After Five Republican Women's Club debate between her and Republican challenger Sally Bell. Miller committed over a month ago to participate in the forum, but she decided at the last minute to bail. I'm not surprised -- the more Miller opens her mouth, the more votes she loses. Her only hope is that her well-funded campaign consultants are able to craft a new, false image of her using ads.

The media was there to cover the event. KJRH Channel 2 (Cable 9)'s Casey Roebuck was there, but I'm told that the station would only have run a story if Miller had appeared. Without both candidates present, the station won't even run the story that Miller bailed out. I'm disappointed but not surprised. Since Glenn McEntyre's departure from KJRH, KOTV News on 6 seems to be the only TV outlet aggressively covering the County Courthouse. Maybe 6 will run a story about Miller's cowardice. (UPDATE: News on 6 did cover the no-show.)

I've seen that before -- during Vision 2025 and other campaigns, neighborhood groups and broadcast outlets let the more cowardly side dictate coverage: If one side didn't show up, the debate wouldn't happen. To their credit, KRMG insisted that their Downtown Kiwanis Club Vision 2025 debate would happen whether the vote yes side was there or not. The "yes" consultants relented and sent someone to represent their side.

We shall see what happens on Pat Campbell's show Wednesday morning at 8. I won't be shocked if Miller comes down with an acute attack of laryngitis. If she does show up, I think Pat would be smart to invite KFAQ afternoon host Chris Medlock in studio to help ask the questions. Medlock was endorsed by Miller to succeed her on the City Council, and if memory serves Medlock endorsed Miller in her race for County Commission. You have to have dealt with Randi for a while before you can see through her sympathy ploys and spin.

Unfortunately for Randi, I think Pat's already beginning to catch on. After two years, 740 KRMG's Joe Kelley is still a relative newcomer to Tulsa, and he certainly seems to "get" Miller. She's running out of media people to bamboozle.

UPDATE: Pat Campbell took some exception to what I wrote in the fourth paragraph above. He had Elvis Polo give me a call at about 6:30, and we spoke on air at 6:40. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify, and I'll link to the podcast when it's up. (My wife told me it took her two readings to get my point, so I wasn't as clear as I could have been.)

As I told Pat, my remarks were a commentary on Randi Miller's slipperiness, not on his astuteness. She will defend herself in a way that seems reasonable, unless you happen to remember the relevant contradicting fact. As well-studied as Pat is -- and the time he takes to study up on the issues is evident every day -- you almost need an encyclopedic memory to be able to pull out the relevant fact. I have no doubt Pat will be able to build that encyclopedia of local political knowledge over time, but it does take time. I mentioned Medlock as a resource because, having lived through and been politically active through the relevant history, he's already got those facts on tap.

MORE: Here's the link to the podcast of my conversation with Pat Campbell. During the first part of the hour, Pat clears up some misconceptions about how he plans to conduct the debate between Bell and Miller. I take extreme exception to the statement made on the podcast page that my comments above "insinuate that Pat is a little 'slow.'" Once again, the issue isn't Pat's astuteness -- of which there can be no doubt -- but Randi's slipperiness. No disrespect was intended, and I took pains to explain that on air this morning and in my update above.

AFTER FIVE CLUB PRESIDENT RESPONDS to "Steve" who called to defend Miller's absence in the first part of the 6 a.m. hour linked above:

What a turnout we had last night at the After Five Republican Women's Group! I hope everyone enjoyed the forum and welcome everyone back on the 3rd Monday of each month.

Unfortunately, there were some negative comments about our group made on the Pat Campbell radio program this morning by a caller that I feel need to be addressed.

After Five, as a chartered club by the Oklahoma Federation of Republican Women, does not and cannot take sides in a GOP primary. This has been stated in the monthly newsletter as well as announced at each primary forum we have held.

At last night's meeting I thanked Dan Newberry, Jan Megee and Sally Bell for fulfilling their commitment to the group and was disappointed that Randi Miller accepted another invitation canceling her appearance. The invitation for all of these candidates was extended on June 17. They all accepted immediately. We apologize that so many turned out to see the forum only to be disappointed that both commission candidates were not there. We only found out Friday evening (3 days prior). We tried to work with Commissioner Miller on timing to see if she could attend both events, as a couple of the other candidates did, however, it didn't work out.

This group is committed to treating all candidates with respect. Realizing crowd emotions can run high in these types of contested races, the officers of the group wanted to be sure it was conducted in a professional manner. Questions were taken from the audience IN WRITTEN FORM ONLY. The questions were not edited, in fact, one question was critical of my husband's radio station. It was asked as written. There were charges of planted or slanted questions being asked of Sally Bell. That is not true. Club officer & Tulsa County Chair, Joy Mohorovicic asked all of the questions written by the audience. We gave no one instructions except we didn't want speeches, we wanted questions.

We were accused of being a special interest group. Yes, we are! We are a Republican women's group. A diverse group of active Republican women who work in campaigns, fund campaigns and promote Republican ideals. In a primary, we often do not support the same candidate, but respect each other's efforts and come together in the general election to elect Republicans. That's the special interest we serve ... the Republican Party.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Medlock

President, After Five Republican Women's Group

It's worth noting that "Steve," the caller defending Miller's absence from the After Five forum, said that Dan Newberry was at the Tulsa County News forum. He was also at the After Five forum. If he could do both, why couldn't Miller?

Tonight, the two Republican candidates for Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner, incumbent Randi Miller and challenger Sally Bell, will meet in a debate during the regular monthly meeting of the After Five Republican Women's Club, at Marie Callender's on 51st Street east of Harvard. Dinner begins at 5:45; the program begins at 6:15.

Bell and Miller will debate each other on the Pat Campbell show on 1170 KFAQ Wednesday morning at 8:00.

Last night KOTV's News on 6 ran an investigative report into Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner Randi Miller's attendance record. (On that page you'll find a link to the video version of the report.) Among other stats, KOTV confirmed something I reported in my July 9 column: that Miller had missed 29 of 33 TMAPC meetings when she was an ex officio member of the commission.

This morning 740 KRMG's Joe Kelley interviewed Miller, devoting more time than he usually has to ask some probing questions. I like the way Kelley gives her a chance to tell her side of things, but at the same time he politely but pointedly calls her on some inconsistencies and gaps. I think that's the right balance. (Here's a direct link to the streaming audio of the interview.)

Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner Randi Miller has been on the radio asserting her veracity in her dispute with fired Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund. He says she told him to get Big Splash water park's problems "off the radar," which he then did by not pressing park owner Loretta Murphy (a Miller campaign contributor) for payment, so that Murphy wouldn't have to seek financial relief in a public meeting. She (Miller) says Bjorklund is lying. (Here's a link to KFAQ's Pat Campbell's July 15 interview with Bjorklund and here's his July 16 interview with Miller. On the July 16 Chris Medlock show, County Commission candidate Sally Bell replied to Miller's statements and also spoke about her platform and philosophy of government.)

Miller is not helping her case with the glossy four-color campaign mailer she just sent to voters in her district. While she doesn't outright lie, she presents the facts in a misleading manner. For example, from the leftmost panel:

A Proven Leader

Randi Miller is an effective and dynamic Tulsa County Commissioner -- elected twice by her colleagues to serve as Commission Chairman.

Technically, that's true, but the County Commissioners rotate the chairmanship each year. Miller has served six years, so, as one of three commissioners, serving as chairman for two of those six years is just the normal rotation of the job. It's no indication of her effectiveness or dynamism.

It's strange that this is the only "accomplishment" this six-year incumbent would cite.

But here's the big whopper, from the rightmost of the four panels:

Dedicated to Families

Randi Miller is married and has three children and two grandchildren....

Again, technically, Randi Miller is still married to her husband Gary. But on May 15, 2007, she filed for divorce from her husband, a fact that came to light in a KOTV investigation of her chief deputy, Terry Simonson, and his continuing his private law practice while also drawing a full-time salary as a county employee. Miller's divorce case was listed as one of several, filed after Simonson joined the county, in which Simonson was an attorney of record.

(Simonson said that he entered the case during his lunch hour and only to notify the court that Randi Miller wouldn't be there to make a scheduled court appearance to watch a video about helping minor children cope with divorce. He withdrew formally from the case on March 14. About the rest of his caseload, Simonson explained that he was using his own time on evenings and weekends to complete legal work to which he had already committed himself.)

The divorce is not yet final, so technically, Randi Miller is still married. Her presumably-soon-to-be-ex-husband does not appear in the family portrait on the cover of the mailer, which includes her three children, her grandchildren, and her son-in-law and daughter-in-law, but she is wearing a ring on her left ring finger in all the photos where it would be visible.

The issue is not that she has initiated a divorce or whether she or her husband is to blame for the failure of their marriage. It's that she's trying to sell herself to the voters by creating a misleading image with her mailer.

Why does this remind me of what Miller told KOTV's Emory Bryan about the misleading Our River Yes flyer that went to Broken Arrow voters?

A dispute over advertising for the river tax is heating up in Broken Arrow. City leaders there say their voters are the targets of false advertising. The flyer in question doesn't say Broken Arrow is going to get a riverfront development, though it clearly shows one, and the picture is titled Broken Arrow Riverfront. The News On 6's Emory Bryan reports that flyer was mailed to voters in Broken Arrow.

Some of Broken Arrow's community leaders believe the flyer is a false promise from the River tax campaign.

"And it gave the impression that we are going to get a riverfront development out of the river tax which is not true, it's very misleading," Broken Arrow Mayor Wade McCaleb said.

The flyer went to voters in Broken Arrow last week, and includes a picture titled "Broken Arrow Riverfront." But there is no money in this river tax to build what's shown in the picture.

"There is no plan to do anything after this tax unless we pass another tax," McCaleb said....

Broken Arrow's elected leaders are united against the tax and they believe supporters are trying to fool voters with the flyer. River tax supporters absolutely deny any attempt to mislead, and will not acknowledge the picture could be confusing.

"Do you see how that is misleading?" News On 6 reporter Emory Bryan asked Commissioner Miller.

"No, because it not once says this is what is going to happen," Miller responded.

(Here's the video of the KOTV story about Randi Miller and the misleading Broken Arrow mailer.)

So... the flyer never once said that she wasn't in the process of getting a divorce, so in her mind it's not misleading to say she's married.

Well, OK then.

MORE: Randi must have some big money behind her; now she's running radio ads. One of the lines from the ad nearly sent me through the roof: "Standing strong, even if it means standing alone." If there's one thing that has marked Miller's time on the County Commission, it was her refusal to stand alone. She refused to be the lone vote against the logrolled Vision 2025 ballot or against putting Boeing corporate welfare on the ballot. She refused to be the lone vote against giving insiders sole-source contracts for Vision 2025 management, legal work, and bond sales and managements, contracts that dealt with over half a billion dollars.

The ad also touts her vote (eight years ago on the City Council) against the Great Plains Airlines deal and claims that she said no when "an amusement park" asked the county for a "bailout." There's another distortion. Bell's never asked to be bailed out. Through their final year on Expo Square, Bell's continued to pay more rent and commission to Expo Square than the Drillers and Big Splash combined. Oddly, while taking credit for saying no to Bell's on her radio ad, she was bemoaning the fact, in her interview with Pat Campbell, that she was being unfairly blamed for a decision that was made by the entire Fair Board.

STILL MORE:

Chris Medlock answers Randi Miller's lament.

KFAQ's Pat Campbell asked listeners Thursday morning why Randi Miller was being singled out for blame about Bell's eviction. I e-mailed Pat with a link to the KOTV investigation from last fall. (Here's the text version of the story about Bell's Amusement Park and Randi Miller.) I also pointed him to my column about why Randi Miller needs to be retired, in last week's UTW. Here's the rest of what I wrote to him:

1. She's one of only two fair board members who were on the board when Bell's was evicted who are still on the board. The board consists of the three county commissioners, plus two appointed citizens. Of her two fellow commissioners at the time, one was defeated for re-election (Wilbert Collins) and one did not run for re-election (Bob Dick). One of the two appointed commissioners, Clark Brewster, was up for reappointment and County Commission chairman Fred Perry opted to appoint someone else. The only other remaining fair board member from that time is attorney Jim Orbison.

2. She took a leading and visible role in defending the decision to evict Bell's. She told the media that Bell's wasn't a viable business and was unsafe. (Meanwhile, Big Splash was behind in rent, and, according to Rick Bjorklund, Miller was telling him to keep Big Splash off the radar.) If you go back to stories in the World and on local TV, you'll find Miller speaking on behalf of the county and the fair board about why Bell's couldn't be allowed to stay.

3. She received campaign money from Loretta Murphy, owner of Big Splash. Loretta is the wife of Jerry Murphy, who owns Murphy Brothers, which has a contract to provide the Tulsa State Fair midway. Loretta Murphy made maximum campaign contributions of $5,000 each to Miller's 2006 mayoral and 2004 county commission campaigns. Shortly after Miller received the Murphy donation to her mayoral campaign in early 2006, Miller pushed for granting a new 10-year contract to Murphy Bros. for the midway. The contract was sole-source -- no competitive bidding. Rick Bjorklund, an associate of the Murphys from Wisconsin, was hired by the fair board later that same summer. That fall, Bell's was evicted.

During the state fair, Bell's and the Murphy midway competed for ride revenue. To give you an idea of how much money the fair generated, Bell's received about a third of its annual revenue during the 10 days of the fair. While Murphy had some rides that Bell's didn't, I always steered my kids to the Bell's rides, because they were a local business and the rides were permanently installed, not moved in just for the week. With Bell's gone, the Murphys get all of the fair ride revenue. The Murphys also received, in their new 2006 contract, first right to occupy the Bell's property if it became vacant.

The treatment of Bell's is only one reason people don't trust Randi Miller. While she was a fairly conservative city councilor, as a county commissioner she fell in love with corporate welfare, tax increases, and questionable public-private partnerships with county insiders. She pushed a $350 million corporate welfare package for Boeing, to be funded by a sales tax increase. She was ready to back a $600 million plan to build islands in the middle of the Arkansas River and did back a $282 million river tax which was defeated by Tulsa County voters.

In this week's UTW, I review the record of Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner Randi Miller and endorse Sally Bell as her replacement.

Since writing that piece, fired Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund has been pointing the finger at Miller regarding the decision to hold the Big Splash rent check.

According to the daily paper yesterday:

Rick Bjorklund, who was fired as president and CEO of Expo Square, said Thursday that he was instructed by County Commissioner Randi Miller to keep Big Splash Water Park's financial troubles "off the radar."

The fair board last week voted 4-0 to terminate Bjorklund after it was discovered that a check for half of the water park's 2006 rent had gone uncashed for a year and that it had yet to pay its 2007 rent. In addition, Big Splash's outstanding 2007 balance was never listed specifically on the financial reports presented to the fair board.

Bjorklund said Miller, who was fair board chairwoman in 2007, spoke to him about the Big Splash situation in about June of that year.

"The conversation (with Miller) was, 'Ease up on them and get it off the radar,'?" he said.

Bjorklund said he told fair board members about Miller's instructions during the executive session held to determine his fate.

"I turned to Randi and I said: 'You had given me instructions, Randi, to get it off the radar screen, and we did that.'?''

Miller denies Bjorklund's claim, but what he says makes sense. If Big Splash's financial troubles became public, it would show her to be inconsistent, making her look foolish or even evil for using Bell's business plan as a pretext for evicting them from the Fairgrounds. She had a vested interest in keeping Big Splash's financial problems "off the radar."

MORE: Responding to questions and comments from readers here and on the UTW story:

I was asked about my reference to "irregularities in [Miller's] personal life." In my column, I chose not to go into the specifics that the Tulsa World reported in a February 26, 2006, story headlined "Mayoral Mudfight," but you can read them at that link.

William Franklin posted a lengthy comment at UTW claiming that Bell's Amusement Park was in a state of terrible disrepair when it was evicted. His memory doesn't match with mine, and I think the Bell family did a fine job of keeping the park going when so many family-owned amusement parks in this region have closed, and despite the constraints of their location. They made do while continuing to be Expo Square's biggest rent-payer, and never asked for a taxpayer subsidy. (They were granted an extension in paying rent in the late '90s, but they made the payment with interest above prime rate.)

I took my kids to Bell's at least a couple of times each summer, and we steered them to spend their Tulsa State Fair ride tickets there, instead of on the midway. While the park was not up to Disney standards, it was at least as well-kept as Frontier City (which took my 10-year-old to in 2006), and I had no problem letting the kids on the rides or riding them myself.

Bell's had been making annual improvements to the property. The park introduced a new drop ride in (I think) 2005 and in 2006 had finally reached agreement with the neighborhood on adding a new roller coaster.

The possibility of a new coaster and a themed park first came up in 1998, not in the 1980s as Franklin asserts. Robby Bell and then Expo Square CEO Pat Lloyd made presentations to the Midtown Coalition of Neighborhood Associations that year about the future plans for the park and Expo Square as a whole.

The plan had Bell's expand all the way west to Louisville Ave., with parking for Bell's to the north, and a new main entrance on the north side of the park. The westernmost area was to be quieter uses (concession areas, souvenir stands, kiddie rides). We were shown sketches that had been done for Bell's by an amusement park consultant with a boomtown theme.

In December 2000, the Fair Board granted a lease for Bell's to expand to the west and add a roller coaster. The coaster's construction was held up by a lawsuit from the neighborhood challenging the County Board of Adjustment's decision to grant a special exception for the coaster.

It's true that the miniature golf course was no longer maintained. It was to be the site for the new coaster, once a compromise had been reached with the neighbors. There had been two courses when I was a kid. A single course was created out of the western part of both courses sometime in the late '80s or early '90s to make way for picnic pavilions for corporate events and group parties. I loved playing the course as a kid, but at some point, as mini-golf lost popularity in general (I can only think of one surviving course in Tulsa), I'm sure it became uneconomical to keep it open.

I suspect the reason Bell's didn't first think of building a coaster in that part of the property was because they intended to double the park's footprint and were granted a lease to build the coaster on land to the west, so there would have been no need to reuse existing park land.

The Fair Board could have solved the problem much sooner had it allowed Bell's to expand to the interior of Expo Square, rather than forcing any expansion to be toward the neighborhoods. Neighboring homeowner Scott Trizza proposed at the time that a new coaster could be placed north of the IPE Building, screened off by the building from the neighborhoods.

Irritated Tulsan weighs in on the Big Splash rotting timbers & held checks scandal and Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund's firing by the Fair Board.

I'm not defending Bjorklund, but I do believe he is a political scapegoat. Instead of creating controversy, it appears Miller wants to create the impression she fights it.

Bjorklund's termination places Miller further from the Bell's and Big Splash controversies.

Connection?

She would probably say "no," but the rest of Tulsans born with heads would disagree.

This years Tulsa State Fair theme is "We're on a Roll."

Bjorklund is out.

Miller is on her way out.

Connection?

[Big Splash owner and Miller campaign donor Loretta] Murphy hopes "no," but the rest of Tulsans ... you know the rest.

Maybe this year's Tulsa State Fair theme should be, "Heads Will Roll." The rolling starts July 29th when Republicans will deny renomination to Miller and choose Sally Bell as their standard bearer for County Commission District 2. Who better to zealously root out cozy, insider deals at Expo Square and the County Courthouse than someone who knows how county government works and who has suffered greatly as a result of county insider deals?

MORE:

Sally Bell was on the radio Wednesday morning with KFAQ's Pat Campbell. Hit that link to listen to the podcast of their conversation.

Sally Bell's son, Robby, was on the Chris Medlock show Wednesday afternoon for the full two hours. Robby talked about the situation at Expo Square, the future of Bell's Amusement Park, and a bit about his mother's campaign for County Commission. The show was packed with callers expressing their best wishes for the park and the family. Click these links to listen to the podcasts of hour 1 and hour 2.

Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund was fired today, as the scandal involving special treatment for Loretta Murphy's Big Splash continues to grow. Big Splash's annual rent payment to Expo Square of $130,000 was due last October; it still hasn't been paid. An rent check from 2006 of $68,000 was held by Expo Square and hadn't been cashed. This came on top of Big Splash reopening this summer without replacing rotting structural timbers on its slide tower, as mandated in December by a State Labor Commission inspector.

The Murphy family seems to have been receiving special treatment for years. As I noted when Expo Square evicted Bell's Amusement Park:

You'll recall that a Loretta Murphy gave $5,000 to the Randi Miller for Mayor campaign. Loretta Murphy owns Big Splash water park, another Expo Square tenant. Her husband Jerry Murphy owns Murphy Brothers. Shortly after Loretta's donation to Miller, the Fair Board awarded Murphy Brothers a non-competitive 10-year contract to provide the Tulsa State Fair's midway. Murphy Brothers might be happy just to have Bell's gone, so that all the State Fair-goers will have to ride their midway rides.

We learned later that Murphy Brothers' contract gave them the right to put rides on Bell's footprint if Bell's ever vacated that property.

Some have speculated that Rick Bjorklund's hiring in 2006 was itself a favor done by the Fair Board for the Murphy family. Bjorklund had dealings with the Murphys at some of his previous jobs.

Bubbaworld points out that throwing Bjorklund under the bus doesn't fix the problem. The problem is with the Fair Board (Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority). County Commissioner Randi Miller was on the board when Bjorklund was hired and has received maximum donations from the Murphys for her mayoral and county commission races. She was the lead spokesman when the board decided to evict Bell's Amusement Park. The Fair Board failed to supervise Bjorklund and failed to verify that one of Expo Square's biggest tenants was paying its bills. You'd think someone would notice a $200,000 hole in the receipts.

Firing Bjorklund may have been the first step to cleaning up the mess at Expo Square, but the next step is for District 2 Republican primary voters to fire Randi Miller on July 29.

It's becoming more and more evident that favoritism is at work on the Tulsa County Fairgrounds, and that a tenant's status has more to do with skill at spreading around campaign money than the merits of the situation. The issue of the business plan, cited by County Commisisoner Randi Miller as the reason for evicting Bell's Amusement Park after half a century, always seemed like a pretext; now we can say with certainty that it was.

The Big Splash water park, a Fairgrounds tenant since 1984, had a slide collapse last summer. In December, inspectors from the State Labor Commissioner's office ordered rotting timbers on the slide structure to be replaced before the park opened for the 2008 season. A June inspection revealed that the repairs had not been made, yet the slides were opened anyway. The slides were shut down for repair and are now open again.

Bell's was evicted from the fairgrounds after the 2006 season, just as they finally had the go-ahead to install a new roller coaster. Because the decision was announced after the season, Tulsans never got a chance to say goodbye. The Bell family had to rush to dismantle and salvage as much as they could in hopes of reopening somewhere else; one more season could have made an orderly transition to a new location possible. When asked why Bell's couldn't have been allowed even one more season, Miller responded with claims that the business plan was inadequate, hinting about safety concerns, although there were no inspection reports indicating a problem.

Big Splash has had two documented problems in a single year, yet I don't hear Randi Miller or anyone else on the Fair Board calling for an end to Big Splash's lease.

Miller received maximum $5,000 campaign contributions from Loretta Murphy, owner of Big Splash, for Miller's mayoral and county commissioner races. As far as I know, the Bells never gave campaign contributions to county officials.

Murphy's husband Jerry owns Murphy Bros., which the Fair Board (of which Miller is a member) granted a 10-year contract to run the Tulsa State Fair midway. There was no competition for the contract.

Irritated Tulsan comments on the story, connecting the dots. I.T. also calls attention to comments posted by Loretta Murphy on the KOTV comment board:

I usually do not comment on such ridiculous statements but I cannot pass these by without stating some facts. First and foremost, I cannot believe people can assume such mean and hateful thoughts about other individuals they do not even know. Jerry Murphy, my husband is a kind and caring person who has always tried to help others and be a man of integrity. He was not handed money, he made his by working long hours, day in and day out and making many sacrifices to be a successful businessman. He started out at a young age and earned everything that he has, no one gave him anything. He has been stereo-typed because of the kind of work he chose. The ones who have wrote these mean accusations do not know my husband or neither do they know any thing about who we are. The reason our world is in such turmoil today is because people choose to hate without knowing why.

I am proud of the fact that I have had the opportunity to manage and help grow Big Splash over the past 10 years. My children have grown up here and my daughter Amber now manages the park for me. She and all of our children love and care about Big Splash. Our number one concern is the safety of our customers. We have done so much over the years to protect each and every patron that enters our park. Big Splash is a challenging business because of weather issues which shorten our already limited season. Schools resume session in the middle of August which also hurts our attendance. This makes it difficult to add new attractions, but we have tried to totally revamp a Tulsa favorite. We know that we are here for the families and we receive tremendous support from our season pass holders. It hurts me to feel that people would think that we would jeopardize anyones safety.

This is for everyone that I have not covered in the first two statements. Most of the negative things that have been posted in this forum have been for political gain or are people that support the Bell family. It was no ones fault that Bell's contract was not renewed except for Bell's themselves. Imagine how the county would be run if Sally Bell is elected County Commissioner.

Bubbaworld is on the story, too:

That the folks at Big Splash were, according to the state, content to put at risk the lives of their patrons could and should give those patrons cause for alarm.

Hopefully the state will be keeping an even closer eye on Big Splash and its operators.

And maybe it is time that Tulsa County Commissioner Randi Miller starts demanding to see the "financial plan" of the folks that own Big Splash Water Park which has a history of not paying its water bill on time and of endangering its patrons.

Oops, also forgot.

Commissioner Miller will never speak ill of or demand anything of anyone named Murphy.

It's only folks with the last name of Bell that get that get the "Miller treatment"...

And Bubbaworld comments on Loretta Murphy's excuses for not replacing the rotting timbers earlier:

Of the failure to replace rotten support beams discovered by state inspectors in December and discovered still rotten during a June 3rd follow up inspection which resulted in the state shutting down the attractions Murphy said:

"We had done many things in the park to provide what we felt like was additional safety to our patrons. And, it was a couple of items on the list that we missed. It was an overview on my part."

Murphy went on to say:

"I would say it was just an oversight on my part. It's my fault that I didn't take it as serious as the Department of Labor did and I apologize for that."

At least Murphy eventually managed to sort out the meaning and usage of "overview" and "oversight", however her downplaying the seriousness of the inspectors findings is alarming.

When are we going to hear from County Commissioner Miller about this? Will there be any penalties, any repercussions?

RELATED: During Miller's tenure, Expo Square has been in the process of being purged of attractions for locals in favor of shows and events that mainly draw visitors from out of town. While bringing in outside dollars is good for the local economy, an Expo Square exclusively devoted to that aim will be bad for the fairgrounds in the long term. Evicting Bell's eliminated local visits over the course of the summer and reduced the number of people who attended last fall's fair. The Drillers' departure would get rid of another quarter-million local visits to Expo Square. I'm not sure what the status of the Flea Market is, but if they are operating, I'm sure the moving around has cost them customers.

You could argue that it was Tulsa County voters' first-hand exposure to the state of the fairgrounds that led them to support funding for improvements in two 4 to Fix the County votes and in Vision 2025. They came to go to Bell's or for the Flea Market and saw that we needed new barns and to improvements to the midway and the IPE (QuikTrip) building. With fewer reasons for ordinary Tulsa County taxpayers to visit Expo Square, it may be much tougher to convince them to approve more tax dollars for future improvements.

Stan Geiger has a few blog entries up about next Tuesday's vote on Tulsa Community College's proposed property tax increases. (See my previous entry for links to my column on the topic and sources for additional information.) Here are some excerpts from Stan's latest -- click the links to read the whole thing:

TCC Launches Media Assault:

TCC is pushing the tired notion that more tax money for higher education equals a stronger local economy. Man, if only that were true.

The Tulsa area is up to its butt in public-subsidized higher education. TCC has 4 campuses---plus an office building for executives. We have an OU-Tulsa, an OSU-Tulsa and a Langston-Tulsa. We have a Northeastern State campus in Broken Arrow. And what was once a junior college in Claremore is now a 4-year school called Rogers State University under the auspices of the OU Board of Regents.

If pouring tax money into higher education resulted in economic prosperity, Tulsa would be a freakin' boomtown.

The Hits Keep Coming:

Well, 50 bucks a year might not be a big deal to educators. But to an average working person that has a real job out in the real world and is facing wolves at the door, 50 bucks is a lot of money.

Property Tax: The Ever Growing Tax, referring to an earlier comment by XonOFF, who notes that TCC currently gets almost as much property tax in a year as the City of Tulsa, and if the tax increase and bond issue pass, TCC will receive more property tax annually than Tulsa County government. Stan relates some budget research he did 10 years ago:

In 1997, TCC's budget figures showed property tax revenue of $15.3 million. Reports say the last permanent millage increase voted to TCC came in 1994. So in a 10-year span of time, in the absence of any increase in the tax rate, the amount of property tax revenue flowing into TCC doubled.

The property tax is not a static tax. It grows. If you vote an increase today, whatever it is, 50 bucks, a hundred bucks or whatever, it will be a bigger tax increase next year, and the year after that and the year after that.

Tulsa Chiggers has some TCC facts for voters to weigh:

Did you know that space is available, especially at the Northeast Campus? ...

Did you know that TCC has been operating with a surplus for years?

TulsaNow's public forum has a thread about the TCC tax hike, and it's interesting to see that many regulars there who usually support tax increases are balking at this one.
Commenter "waterboy" writes:

I received one of their calls last night. For the first time in my life I am voting against an education proposal.

TCC is a poor administrator of tax dollars [in my opinion].

I believe they practice age discrimination.

Their human resources dept. is inept. and unresponsive. (I know this has become common throughout the business world but this is tax dollars)

They cannibalized the areas surrounding the downtown facility for asphalt lots.

Wage disparity is embarrassingly out of balance. Read their classified ads.

I told the caller that at some point TCC will have its attitude with the public reflected back towards them. For me, this is that point.

Commenter "swake" replies:

I also am voting no for the first time.

TCC is a poor downtown citizen, works to block 1st and 2nd year classes from being offered by OSU and OU Tulsa and isn't the higher education entity that we need to work to grow.

Not really. But there's a parody news story about Randi Miller sending the big guy packing on a new blog called Irritated Tulsan. Here's how it starts:

The Tulsa County Fair Board continued their un-expansion Tuesday with the eviction of the Golden Driller.

"The Golden Driller was unable to provide us with a solid business plan," said Randi Miller, Tulsa County Fair Board Chairman, "He has to be let go."

With Bell's eviction, the upcoming Driller's move and the renaming of the EXPO center to the Quiktrip Center, the TCFB continues to disappoint taxpayers of Tulsa County....

The bill for the eviction will cost taxpayers $5 million.

"I know that seems like a lot of money," [Expo Square CEO Rick] Bjorkland said, " but a least it's not mine. Seriously, $5 million is nothing compared to what I've wasted."

The construction of the parking lot in the former Bell's location cost $25 million. The glowing lights on top the Quiktrip center cost $600,000, and only worked for one year.

$25 million doesn't seem right to me, but the overall cost to the taxpayers of evicting Bell's Amusement Park was quite high.

Irritated Tulsan also has a couple of funny shopping rants (just be warned that Irritated Tulsan drops the occasional foul word -- not for kids): his own about the horror that is the Admiral and Memorial Wal-Mart and one from a reader about the scooter people.

He has some opinions about our streets, too:

If you don't live in Tulsa, you may not be familiar with our roads. There are six potholes for every square foot. A group of dedicated city employees fills the same holes over and over again. Each time it rains, there's a small breeze, the sun shines, a cat meows or an angel farts, the pothole reappears. I think it's because a mixture of pudding and oatmeal is used for road repair.

How to complete our streets? Borrow a tactic from cash-strapped schools:

The whole "Complete Our Streets Task Force" could bake. They claim more than 150 committee members.

If not a bake sale, how about the "World's Finest Chocolate?"

We sold those candy bars to raise money for our elementary school, why can't the city sell them too. The committee could go door-to-door, stand outside Reasor's and sell candy-bars at work.

We've been pimping out our kids with the "World's Finest Chocolate" for decades, and now it's time to pimp out our city leaders.

If for no other reason, Irritated Tulsan deserves a link here for calling attention to the B-52s' new album Funplex -- you can listen to the whole thing at MuchMusic.

On Sunday, former TV news reporter and anchor Karen Keith announced her campaign for Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner, a seat held since 2002 by Randi Miller.

My desire to see Randi Miller replaced is no secret. While I've applauded her efforts to return the jail to the control of the sheriff's office and her support for County Assessor Ken Yazel's budget and financial reforms, she's been a disaster on sales tax issues, on the Bixby Bridge issue, and on the management of the fairgrounds. She was even willing to lend her name to the effort to dilute democracy by adding at-large councilors to the City Council. On the City Council she had been a fiscal conservative, publicly opposing "It's Tulsa's Time," the 2000 effort to pass an arena sales tax. But since joining the County Commission, Miller has given no resistance to efforts to expand the size and scope of county government. She was even willing to jump into the Arkansas River for a photo op in support of the plan to flood the west bank and build islands in the middle of the river, something that would have cost taxpayers $600 million.

I was called a few days before the announcement by someone who, like me, publicly opposed last October's proposed Tulsa County river sales tax. This person asked if I would be willing to meet and talk about possibly supporting Karen.

I've known Karen for almost 27 years, and I like her. Way back in May 1981, I did my high school's required internship month at KGCT 41, a short-lived attempt at news/talk TV, with studios in the Lerner Shops building, on the Main Mall north of 5th St. I went along with Karen on a couple of stories, and I enjoyed getting to know her.

In 1991, we met up again when she was head of the Brookside Business Association, which was the initial focal point of the effort to stop the 39th & Peoria Albertson's. (The neighborhood was protesting the loss of street-fronting retail to a parking lot and a major commercial incursion into the residential area. That effort spawned the Brookside Neighborhood Association; I was a member of the initial board.)

In 2001, Karen was one of the founders of TulsaNow, an organization that I joined shortly after it got off the ground. Like the other founders, Karen's main focus was, in the wake of two straight defeats for arena sales taxes, to get something passed. (Many of us were more interested in land use and planning issues, which became one of the main focuses of the organization after the passage of Vision 2025.) During the Vision 2025 campaign in 2003, former County Assessor Jack Gordon and I debated Karen on a couple of occasions. More recently, she worked for the Chamber of Commerce during the recent Tulsa County river sales tax vote.

My ideal candidate for County Commissioner would refocus the county on handling the county's responsibilities, instead of trying to turn the county into a kind of metro government. Leave the business of municipal government to the municipalities, and leave them with the sales tax that municipal government depends upon. I live in District 2, and there is a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for my support: A candidate must commit to ending the Four to Fix the County and Vision 2025 sales taxes as soon as all the projects are paid for (including the Vision 2025 low-water dams) and not seeking to renew either of them or to enact a new sales tax.

From the quotes in the daily paper's story about Karen Keith's announcement, I don't think she passes the test.

"I really would like to see us bring back the cohesiveness that we had before, during Vision 2025, with the surrounding areas," she said.

"Things have gotten a little fractured, and I would like to be a part of bringing everybody back together."

A unified front is exactly what's needed to deal with the state Legislature, she said.

"Pushing as a unified body with our Legislature to seek other sources of funding (would) make some pretty dramatic changes in how that's done," Keith said.

She chose to run for a county office because of its potential to be a "big-picture position."

"Its scope is very different from the city," she said.

Driving down 15th St. today, I passed the little sandstone-sided house at 15th and Trenton and noticed a sign in front that said "Karen Keith / County Commissioner." It was a very fancy sign, the sort that would go on a lawyer's office with the intent of staying there for decades, not something you'd put on a temporary campaign headquarters. It appeared to be enamel on stainless steel. A wavy green line appeared on the sign, part of her logo, I guess.

Maybe I'm reading too much into a sign, but it tells me that Karen Keith's campaign has plenty of money to spend, that she's financed by people with deep pockets, and that passing a river tax will be one of her priorities as County Commissioner.

I like Karen Keith as a person, but I hope someone else steps forward to run against Randi Miller.

TulsaNow forums participant cannon_fodder reminds us that on November 15, 2007, at 7:20 a.m. on KRMG radio, Tulsa County Commissioner Randi Miller said:

Whoever came up with the idea the space would just be surface parking was misinformed.

cannon_fodder has photos of the stripey, flat, asphalty-looking thing where Bell's used to be, and he counts the cost:

Keep in mind that in addition to losing the $135,000 a year in rent we also paid $210,000 to take down the Roller Coaster and another $227,500 to clear the land. Figure the annuity is worth $2mil (PV of an annuity at 7%) and we are already in for $2,500,000 before we start building those lovely lots (which cost an additional 2.5mil or so I'd guess) . Not too mention the loss of entertainment, an interesting landscape, and a Tulsa icon.

Whatever it is, it's clearly not a very expensive surface parking lot, because Randi Miller says so.

In related news, Murphy Brothers, the midway operator for the Tulsa State Fair, has signed a letter of intent to buy Wild West World, a bankrupt amusement park north of Wichita. (Hat tip to patric on the Tulsa Now forums.)

Curious to know who the Tulsa County Sheriff has in custody? The Tulsa County Inmate Information Center lets you search the database of the currently incarcerated. That same page has links to the city and county sex offender lists. The last link on the page -- Inmate Population Report -- produces a PDF file with the complete list of inmates and why they're being held. It's very interesting reading, especially to see how many are being held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (search for "ICE Hold") and what crimes these alleged illegal aliens are alleged to have committed.

My column in this issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly is about the news that the Tulsa 66ers will be moving to Bixby and what that means for the prospects of luring the Tulsa Drillers to downtown Tulsa. The same factors that make Bixby, Regal Plaza, and the SpiritBank event center attractive to minor-league basketball will be present in Jenks's River District development. Global Development's East End project, with surrounding mixed-use development, would have come closer to the situation the 66ers will enjoy in Bixby (minus the demographic advantages). Can an isolated ballpark in downtown present as appealing a situation to Drillers owner Chuck Lamson as a Jenks stadium surrounded by restaurants and nightclubs? Can Tulsa offer a better downtown location? Is a Tulsa Landing, with a ballpark on the river, still an option? And how do we keep family entertainment in central Tulsa if we can't keep families here? Reader Joe Gaudet posted this comment on the article:

You hit the nail on the head. When me and my wife moved here in 2000 with our two (then) small children we were intent on living in town. We interviewed school principals and studied real estate for six months plus. Our desire was to enroll the kids in Monte Cassino and try to live close by because we wanted our kids to be able to walk or bike to school in safety. The beginning of the school year forced us to make a decision and we selected a home in South Tulsa because there was much more house to be had for the money plus the Jenks school district had a great reputation. Our kids are teens now. One is in college and the other graduates High School in two years. My wife and I are planning to move in town then, that is providing we can find affordable housing to downsize to and public safety still remains an issue for us, especially as we get older. We do not carry concealed weapons and do not choose to. We do enjoy walking to entertainment and right now Brookside or Cherry St. looks to be the best option, except as Bixby and Jenks evolve the idea of a condo nearby starts to become an alternative. I am only citing my personal example but I am sure there are others like myself that would live in town if the key items were not repetitive issues: A) Public Safety B) Affordable Housing and C) Quality K-12 ed. Swanky loft living is attractive for young singles but if the goal is to get residential to support downtown retail and entertainment one must consider the needs of young families.

Also in this week's issue, a column by Tulsa County Commissioner Randi Miller about what might be done with Drillers Stadium when the Drillers move away. After speculating on the use of the ballpark as an outdoor music venue and a soccer stadium, she concludes with this surprising idea:

If there are no feasible ideas for retaining the stadium as a sports/music venue and the stadium has to come down, we could look to the private sector to develop a state-of-the-art family entertainment facility. Along those lines, perhaps there will come a time when the Fair Meadows Race Track is not the best usage of all the real estate currently used for the track, given that there are less than 30 live racing days a year and the rest of the time the property sits largely unused. If a good portion of the Expo Square real estate from 15th Street to 21st Street along Yale was cleared and opened for private development, it could create the perfect economic development climate to compliment the already great improvements happening at Expo Square.

Sounds like she thinks Fair Meadows is already a waste of space. Beyond that, anyone struck by the irony that the commissioner who led the charge to demolish Bell's Amusement Park thinks an amusement park at the fairgrounds would be a good idea? And who do you suppose would build a such a facility between 15th & 21st on Yale? Could it be the people who already lease the southern end of that strip for Big Splash?

A press release today from Fred Perry, recently installed as this year's chairman of the Tulsa County Board of Commissioners:

Commissioner Fred Perry today announced that he will be recommending Daryl Woodard as an appointment to Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority (TCPFA), generally known as the fair board.

"In my opinion, and that of many others, Daryl is one of the top business people in the Tulsa area. During the last three decades he has demonstrated great vision and entrepreneurial skills in the information technology (IT) field while founding and leading several very successful companies in the IT arena. As we continue to upgrade and streamline the fairgrounds, Daryl's entrepreneurial spirit, technical skills and business talents will be of great value to Expo Square." Commissioner Perry said.

Woodard is CEO and President of W.T.I. which is a holding company for several companies he has started or acquired. All are in the information technology field providing Computer System Integration, Wide Area Networks, Electronic Telephone Directories, Electronic Catalogs, Educational and Publishing Services. They are primarily located in Tulsa, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis and Wichita. Woodard has served on a number of boards in the past. He has served as the President for the Tulsa Chapter of YPO (The Young Presidents Organization), was an original member of the Executive Advisory Board of the University of Tulsa, College of Business Administration, was President for all the national MicroAge Franchises and numerous other civic organizations. A 1977 business graduate of the University of Illinois, he is married and has four children.

If approved by the Board of County Commissioners, Woodard will replace Clark Brewster who has served on the TCPFA for the last two years.

"Clark has been an asset to the board. As an owner of race horses himself, he has made significant suggestions regarding the horse racing side of the fairgrounds operations and structure that will be beneficial for years to come. This change is no reflection on Clark's abilities. He is a very smart and capable person. I certainly wish him well and hope he remains involved with the fairgrounds." Perry said.

The TCPFA trust document, allows a newly elected chairman, with the approval of a majority of the Board of County Commissioners, to either reappoint a current member, if the member is up for appointment, or to appoint someone else. Perry said he plans to put the appointment on the January 14th Board of County Commissioners meeting agenda for a vote.

I'm pleased to see the change. While I'm sure that Brewster's knowledge of the horse industry has been beneficial in Expo Square's pursuit of horse shows, he has also been on the board during one of its most controversial periods, with the decision to grant, without competitive bidding, an extension to Murphy Brothers' midway contract, the hiring of Rick Bjorklund as the new CEO of Expo Square, the decision to oust Bell's Amusement Park, and the battle over the City of Tulsa's decision to annex the fairgrounds. Brewster was the leading advocate of the new no-bid Murphy Brothers contract.

Brewster was appointed by Randi Miller to complete Cinnabar and Infrastructure Ventures Inc. executive Bob Parmele's unexpired term. On the positive side, early in his two-year tenure, Brewster put a spotlight on the excessive use of change orders by Expo Square contractors, which seemed to him a reward to contractors for serious errors and omissions. The result was changes in the Phase 4 Expo Square contracts.

You may recall Brewster's speech at a City Council meeting about fairgrounds annexation, in which he was PWNED by Councilor John Eagleton, who called Brewster's bluff on the terms of Expo Square's contract with the Arabian Horse Show:

I'm told that both Fred Perry and John Smaligo made public commitments during their campaigns for County Commissioner last year that they would not reappoint Brewster to the fair board.

Perry's choice for the board, Daryl Woodard, is a frequent contributor to Republican campaigns. He was also a supporter of the Tulsa County sales tax increase for river projects, sending his employees an e-mail urging them to vote for the new tax.

If Woodard's appointment is approved by the full County Commission next Monday, it will mean that three of the five members of the fair board are new within the last year. (Perry and Smaligo are the other two new members.) I'm hoping that will mean positive changes to the way the board does business.

This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly continues the effort to get our Tulsa County Commissioners to find out for themselves exactly how much Vision 2025 funds are on hand, how much is likely to be on hand in the next couple of years, and how much has been obligated. At the heart of the debate is informal county financial adviser (and frequent bond vendor to the county) John Piercey, to whom county officials defer all questions about Vision 2025 finances. Be sure to read Brian Ervin's news story on the topic from last week's edition, and my column from two weeks ago.

Also in this week's issue: Brian Ervin looks into Rev. Victor Orta's recent flight on Pre-Paid Legal's private jet down to company HQ in Ada. Some think it might have to do with his legal challenge to HB 1804, and U. S. Chamber of Commerce plans to go on the offensive against immigration enforcement efforts like HB 1804.

UPDATE: Fixed all the broken links. I think.

If the Vision 2025 Sales Tax Overview Committee is as diligent and vigilant a watchdog as we're being told they are, how did they miss noticing that the arena was going to go way over budget when there was time to prevent the crisis?

If Hurricane Katrina caused the arena to go more than $50 million over budget, how come it didn't have a similar effect on the cost of any other project?

The Tulsa County Vision Trust decided to allocate extra funding to the arena, because the estimated cost was wrong. Couldn't they have done the same thing for the low-water dams and Zink Dam work promised in Vision 2025? And couldn't they have decided to allocate less of the surplus receipts for the arena and hold some surplus back for the dams?

Some of my fellow Tulsa bloggers are wondering about the river tax, too. First, let's hear from some bloggers that are new to me

Jason Kearney writes that "[n]o one was a bigger supporter of Vision 2025" than he was, but he's voting no on the October 9th sales tax increase. Among some of his many reasons:

For example, developers do not REQUIRE tax dollars to move forward with these projects, they just WANT them. Who wouldn't? I can understand the county giving them a tax break for a few years, but they do not need tax dollars. County Commissioner Randi Miller has proven by her actions that she has much to gain with all of her maneuvering in this. She screwed the Bell family out of their fifty-year family business, and now she wants to stick it to the tax payers.

Jason's entry also recounts the history of Jerry Gordon and the development of Jenks' Riverwalk Crossing. And in his most recent entry, he demolishes the PR spin from the Tulsa Metro Chamber on their economic impact numbers:

My first question was this: "Is it true that the current river development in Jenks, which is wildly popular and financially successful, was built with no tax increase at all?" Her answer: "Yes."

My second question: "Is it true that the majority of the 10,000 jobs she is speaking about are low paying construction jobs, which will only last until the low water dams are complete?" Her answer: "Yes."

My third question: "If Tulsa votes down this sales tax increase, is it true that the commercial developers will still be allowed to build shops, restaurants, and condos along the river?" Her answer: "Yes."

My fourth question: "Isn't it true that the George Kaiser Foundation has already donated $20 million to enhance trails in the Riverparks area, and that work has already begun on these developments?" Her answer: "Yes."

And then there's Jason's take on the media blitz in support of the tax:

Anytime the county and the news media have to engage in a smoke and mirrors game to make the public believe that this tax has the full support of the public, anytime a PR firm has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to use children to make you feel guilty if you vote against it, there is something wrong.

Cindy Downes, a 57-year-old empty nest mom who is going to college, attended the "debate" last week at TCC, and she had to write a paper on the event as a class assignment. It's a well-written, detailed report, and you should read the whole thing. Cindy says it wasn't really a fair fight:

They had four speakers: Winn Estrada, who was against the River project; Robert Nichols, who was supposedly impartial; and Victor Muse and Randi Miller who were for the project. Winn Estrada had 10-15 minutes. The rest of the time was taken by the other three, with the majority of the time used by Randi Miller.

Victor Muse, the student debater in favor of the tax cited the Three Gorges Dam project in China as a positive example of river development. In fact, Three Gorges is a classic example of totalitarian environmental overreach, damaging the environment, archaeological sites, matchless scenery, and ancient cities, displacing two million people and a way of live dependent on the ability to navigate the Yangtze River. It's an example of the damage a totalitarian government can cause because there is no place for opposition groups that might challenge the government's plans.

Cindy went on to report some classic Randi Miller moments:

I asked about the eagles and she stated that the project would not affect this eagle habitat. I then asked to hear from Winn exactly why he thought it would. She said she did not come to debate her "constituents;" however, note that her whole speech up to this point was a "debate" against her constituent. She did give him the microphone briefly, but she kept talking about not debating her constituent and he was not able to get the "floor" back to adequately answer the question.

Someone then asked about the condition of the roads and why we should not fix them first. Her answer was that there is already $200M set aside for roads in Tulsa. There is some kind of "Bottleneck" that they are trying to figure out why this money is not getting used. They "think" it is because there are not enough companies in Oklahoma to do road repair and she encouraged the students to start a business in road repair as there is a definite need.

She ended with the statement that if this doesn't pass, it will be 20 years before it can come to the table again.

20 years? And has Mayor Taylor investigated this $200 million that Miller says is set aside for roads but isn't being spent?

You might think a blogger called CycleDog would be all for this tax plan, but no:

Some of the arguments in favor of the proposition have been downright silly. The latest was in today's newspaper, arguing that building a new park will attract droves of young people to area businesses, and these new folks will contribute so much money to the economy that the city will be able to rebuild our crumbling roads and road infrastructure. These people must have attended that same voodoo economic course as the Reagan administration.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not opposed to paying taxes when the money goes to something that provides real, tangible benefits. But when faced with a stark choice - a local school or a distant park - the right choice is very clear.

And commenter Ryan responded:

I have friends that have transplanted from San Diego, for the sole reason of being able to afford a new home, and even they never had to pay such a high sales tax to live in a city with sports stadiums and one of the nicest parks I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. I won't lie, I'm not an expert in city planning or budget, but I do know there's something wrong when this city can't develop without raising our sales tax to something that even ex-California residents scoff at.

Debb at Okie Mom Confessions confesses her reasons for a no vote on October 9th. She asks some great questions:

Vision 2025 addressed some of this already, the 2 low water dams & the shoreline beautification was to be addressed from funds from Vision 2025. Why are we, essentially paying for it yet again? Where did the money go?...

How successful will Glenpool, Skiatook, Collinsville, Broken Arrow, and Owasso be in financing their cities if the county has already pushed the taxpayers to the limit?

If we cannot already support what we have, how will we maintain an even larger expanse of parks & bridges, dams, etc., that will need a lot of costly spending for upkeep?...

MySpacer Ferdinandy gives his top 10 reasons for voting no, including:

6. CORPS of ENGINEERS APPROVAL: We don't even have approval to alter the river from the Corps yet. What happens if we vote to tax ourselves and the Corps of Engineers says "NO!" Do we get our money back?

8. COUNTY GOVERNMENTS SHOULDN'T BE IN SALES TAX BUSINESS: Sales tax is (in most responsible budgeting plans) used by cities to take care of city issues. When counties get in the sales tax business....well...there's just not enough to go around.

Some LiveJournal-ists are talking about tax. dividedjoy writes:

i don't even think they know what they want to do, all the ads and info just keep saying how badly we need this tax...but no good reasons of why besides it being for "Tulsa's future yay!!!"

part of it is that they want to build a series of low water dams - which have not been approved by the corp of engineers AND which the us fish and wildlife service says would very badly screw up the ecosystem in and around the river not just in tulsa, but up and downstream as well...they also want to build a pedestrian bridge down by 61st street...you know, by the stinky water treatment plant...

And lbangs has launched a river tax comment thread on the Tulsa Time LiveJournal community:

I'm all for smart city development, but gee, most of the studies commissioned to study this proposal will not even be finished by the time the vote comes to the public.

I'm sorry, but that is plain idiotic.

Is it too much to ask for some intelligence in our planning? I'm seeing a lot of hype and hoopla, plenty of smoke and mirrors, and precious little facts or truth.

And just who exactly is paying for all these moronic television ads trying to make you feel like you hate cute little children if you vote against this potential city-wide folly?

Somebody with deep pockets has a lot to gain from this project.

But don't look now; it ain't you or me.

And now let's turn to some of our long-time blogpals:

Jeff Shaw is pondering the magic formula:

Underestimated costs + Overestimated benefits = Project approval

And he finds this nugget of wisdom in a report called How Optimism Bias and Strategic Misrepresentation Undermine Implementation:

Lawmakers, investors, and the public cannot trust information about costs, benefits, and risks of large infrastructure projects produced by promoters and planners of such projects.

More recently, Jeff is wondering about the latest wild claim of 10,000 new jobs if the river tax passes, and he puts that big number into perspective.

Steve Roemerman is wondering how a fiscally conservative congressman can endorse a tax increase, and he wonders whether the congressman had certain facts in front of him when he made his decision. Steve's readers have been pondering the same question, as have some of Jeff Shaw's readers.

"Mad Okie" uses Google Maps to illustrate the differences between the waterside developments in Indianapolis, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City and what's being proposed in Tulsa. Hint: Note the width of the relevant body of water. And he takes issue with an unnamed state rep, quoted in a KOTV story saying that the river plan "would bring more entertainment options for everyone."

The people of the North Side, West Side, East Side, and South side dont care about "entertainment options", especially when the people pushing these "entertainment options" are the same people that evicted BELLS, a real entertainment option!

Bobby at Tulsa Topics (back to blogging again!) has a similar concern:

Thanks to the same people who want you to give them more money via the upcoming River Tax vote.... you will not be seeing the Zingo or the rest of Bells at the state fair this year.

I find it ironic, the flagrant use of kids on all the hack ads that the vote yes camp has been running on the tube lately, when the same group killed a long standing family tradition here in Tulsa.

MeeCiteeWurkor has ideas on protecting your "No River Tax" sign from getting stolen, and a guest contributor has been following developments in Sand Springs, including the Sand Springs City Council's vote to endorse the tax hike.

Those are two questions about two major thrusts of the campaign for the proposed Tulsa County sales tax increase for river-related projects. In this week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I ask whether this river tax plan is what we need to do for the sake of Tulsa's children and young adults.

In response to the first question, I deal in passing with one river tax cheerleader's active involvement in destroying a place of fun and happy memories for Tulsa's children, and pass along a suggestion, made by my wife, for how you could protest Bell's eviction from the Tulsa County Fairgrounds, should you decide not to boycott this year's Tulsa State Fair entirely:

In addition to the obvious -- don't spend money on the Murphy Brothers midway -- here's a homemade idea for those who go to the fair but wish to protest Bell's eviction: Wear bells to the fair. You can buy a big bag of jingles at a craft store for a few dollars. Thread a bunch on a ribbon to wear around your neck. Bring extras to give to friends or fellow fairgoers.

And if you want to make the point explicit, stick a nametag on your shirt with the slogan that's been spotted around town: "No Bell's. No fair."

I mentioned in the column that skipping the fair entirely is hard for a lot of people from Tulsa and the northeastern Oklahoma. Going back to the '40s my great-grandmother and grandmother would enter the craft competitions, and in recent years my two older children have had fun submitting their own creations. Joe has won two blue ribbons, one in 2004 for an acrylic painting and one last year for a convertible built with Legos. Both he and his little sister plan to enter some items again this year. To us, and to a lot of families, the Tulsa State Fair was here before Randi Miller and Clark Brewster and Rick Bjorklund, and it'll be here when they've all moved on to other things. But I can certainly understand those who plan to abandon the fair altogether.

Regarding young professionals, in my column I mention a recent visit to Orlando and a Saturday evening spent on lively Orange Avenue, between Church Street and Washington Street in that city's downtown:

Downtown Orlando has shiny new skyscrapers, a basketball arena, and a beautiful 23-acre lake with a fountain. But I didn't find the crowds around any of those. There were only a few people walking the path around the lake, and the sidewalk along Central Boulevard next to the lake was empty except for me.

Instead, the throng of twenty-somethings was promenading up and down four blocks of Orange Avenue, a street lined with old one-, two-, and three-story commercial buildings. The storefronts of those buildings were in use as bars, cafes, and pizza joints. The same kind of development stretched for a block or two down each side street. There were hot dog stands on every corner. Pedicabs ferried people to and fro. The numbers of partiers only grew larger as the little hand swept past 12.

An observation from that visit that I didn't include in the column: The block of Orange between Pine and Church Streets has these old commercial buildings crowding the sidewalk on the west side and a spacious plaza framed by two modern, round, glass and steel buildings on the east side. Where do you suppose people chose to walk? 90% of the foot traffic stayed next to the old storefronts and avoided the big modern plaza.

As I mentioned in last week's Urban Tulsa Weekly, a few weeks ago I began my search for the source of the numbers being cited in defense of the need to raise taxes to build the two low-water dams and the Zink Lake modifications promised in Proposition No. 4 of the Vision 2025 sales tax.

The debate over this issue has two prongs:

(1) Did Tulsa County officials promise to build the dams during the Vision 2025 campaign? And did they promise that they'd have the money to build them even if Federal matching dollars weren't available? Despite word-parsing efforts by Commissioner Randi Miller and others, the clear answer to that question is yes, as I've demonstrated from the official ballot resolution, the official project map used during the campaign, and quotes from Commissioner Bob Dick and others during the campaign, and even after the campaign, when Federal funding was once again in doubt.

(2) Is there enough money in projected Vision 2025 revenues to cover the cost of the new dams and the Zink Lake modifications? County officials, citing numbers developed by John Piercey, the county's bond adviser, say that the answer is no. Based on revenue projections, remaining projects to be funded, and debt service, there isn't enough money, they say to fund the low water dams beyond the specific amounts listed in the resolution, much less fund any other project on this October's ballot.

That second point set me off on a search to find out for myself. I combed through the five big binders of monthly Vision 2025 reports in the fourth floor Government Documents department of the Central Library. (The most recent three binders are in the work room, so you need to ask at the reference desk if you want to see them.)

Having looked at the sales tax summaries and project summaries in the monthly reports, I had a simple mental model of how it all fit together. You had two pots of money: A pot of sales tax revenue and a pot of bond proceeds.

Sales tax receipts come into the sales tax revenue pot, and from that pot comes bond repayment (debt service: principal and interest) and cash expenditures (e.g., money to pay down the Oklahoma Aquarium debt, fees to PMg and attorneys).

The bond proceeds pot is fed by proceeds from revenue bond sales, and that money is spent on expenditures for most of the projects.

So what I wanted to know was this:

(1) How much money was in each pot as of, say, the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2007?

(2) How much money was likely to be added to the sales tax pot between now and the last sales tax check in February 2017? (There's about a month and a half delay between collection and the resulting check from the Oklahoma Tax Commission back to the cities and counties.)

(3) Of the money in the sales tax pot, how much is committed to debt service, and what is the repayment schedule?

(4) Of the money in the sales tax pot, how much is budgeted but yet to be spent for projects and for overall program expenses, and what is the schedule for spending that money, and for which projects?

(5) Of the money in the bond pot, how much is budgeted but yet to be spent for projects and program expenses, and what is the schedule for spending that money, and for which projects?

I figured that, with all the talk about how we wouldn't have enough money to build the promised dams, that somebody must have all this worked out, at least on a year by year basis. If you had the answers to those five questions, you could make decisions about borrowing against future revenues or the likelihood of additional money that could be spent on a pay-as-you-go basis or possibly even reprioritizing the sequence in which the remaining projects (including the dam and Zink Lake projects) would be funded.

I wrote about my quest a few weeks ago:

I asked Kirby Crowe by phone if he had a copy of this plan. I'm not sure if I made my meaning clear, but I came away from the conversation with the impression that he did not have a copy of Piercey's financial plan.

I called Jim Smith, the County's fiscal officer, and asked if he had a copy of the financial plan. I thought he might, since his name is on the monthly memo in the Vision 2025 report listing tax receipts, the monthly wire transfer from the sales tax fund to the trustee, and the interest earnings on the sales tax trust account.

Smith said he didn't have the financial plan, but suggested I call John Piercey. Mr. Smith could tell me what the payment to the trustee would be for the next six months, at which point it would be recalculated, but couldn't tell me anything more about future expenses.

I called Capital West, and they gave me John Piercey's number. I called John, and he was very gracious. He said he'd e-mail it to me that evening or the following morning. He said something about recalculating based on more recent tax receipts. I'd really be happy seeing the most recent version, whatever he's been using as the basis for his statements about Vision 2025 surpluses.

That was a week ago Monday, the 20th. I gave him a reminder call on the 28th -- got his voicemail and left a message. Haven't heard back yet. I'm sure he's quite busy.

Can anyone suggest somewhere else I could find this information?

That was on August 30. Eight days later, on September 7, I left another message for Mr. Piercey. I also, on a whim, called County Commissioner Fred Perry's office to see if they have a copy of this rumored financial plan. The administrative assistant didn't know, but she took my message, and about an hour later, Commissioner Perry called me. (Part of that conversation found its way into the update to this entry about the Republican Women's Club's exclusion of the opposition from a discussion of the county river tax.)

Perry told me he would ask Piercey to get me the information, and not long after I heard from Piercey. The following Tuesday afternoon, September 11, he dropped the three-page Excel printout, entitled "Vision 2025 Financial Summary" by UTW's offices. (Clicking that link will open a PDF file, about 300 KB.)

Off and on over the following week, I crunched through Piercey's numbers covering the next nine and a half years and tried to fit them together with the numbers in the Vision 2025 reports covering the past three and a half years, trying to meld them together into a consistent set of answers to my questions.

Finally, I sent Piercey an e-mail, attaching a snapshot of the financial spreadsheet from the June 2007 Vision 2025 report:

John,

Thanks again for providing me with that spreadsheet printout last Tuesday. I'm still looking at it and trying to understand how your numbers line up with the ones I observed in the Vision 2025 monthly reports from PMg.

The most puzzling thing is the gap between previous years debt service numbers and the numbers in your projections. Attached is a photo of the Vision 2025 sales tax report from PMg's June 2007 Vision 2025 report, which includes all receipts and expenditures through the end of FY07. It shows the following amounts transferred to the bond trustee:

FY	Transferred to Bond Trustee
2004	15,213,697.60
2005	34,394,424.51
2006	33,402,757.79
2007	34,645,690.81

I take those numbers to represent what has been paid to debt service to date. So it's puzzling that for FY 2008 that the debt service jumps up to $46,977,024 plus $396,500 for Series 2006 B. Did the debt service payments just jump up at the end of FY 2007, or is something else on that PMg spreadsheet that should be included in debt service to date?

Put another way, what are your numbers for debt service through FY 2007?

(I'm also surprised that the debt service number doesn't tail off in 2017, since there are only eight months of revenue from the tax in FY 2017.)

Another apparent difference between PMg's numbers and yours: PMg shows, after May 2007, $45,362,099.18 in the sales tax trust fund, and in June all of it is transferred to a new cash projects trust account, in addition to about $2 million transferred to this cash projects trust account back in February. You show $39,093,695 as sales tax revenues held by County. I don't understand how those two numbers line up.

Another question has to do with when various expenses and funds might be realized. You show a balance to be funded of $104.5 million and about $69.3 million of cashflow from bond fund reserves ($39.4 million), net earnings on bond funds ($13.7 million), and net earnings on cash flow ($16.2 million). Has anyone mapped out, to the fiscal year, when these expenses and earnings will be realized?

Thanks again for your assistance,

Michael D. Bates

Here is Piercey's reply in full, clarifying the nature of his report and his role with Vision 2025 and Tulsa County:

Capital West Securities, Inc. official involvement with raising additional funds for Vision 2025 ended in the third quarter of 2006 with the completion of the funding of $31 million in parity and subordinate bonds which partially funded the $45.5 million approved by the County for the Arena and Convention Center. The balance of the funds for the projects increased budget will come from cash flow through the end of calendar year 2008.

My current involvement is as an unpaid monitor of the monthly sales tax receipts and the preparation of a semi annual update of the status of the financial condition of the program. The day to day management of the Program is performed by PMG and the funds administration is performed by the Bond Trustee in cooperation with Jim Smith, the County's fiscal officer. The summary that was given to you is the most current semi annual Update that I have done and is not a "financial plan".

The monthly PMG report provided to the elected officials and the Sales Tax Overview committee will differ from my evaluation simply because they are looking primarily at projects implementation and monthly cash flows provided to them by the Trustee and PMG. They will also differ as a result of the time frame that I used and the in and out of money that occurs weekly.

As I pointed out to John Eagleton in a prior correspondence, the debt service payments that are shown in the PMG reports are what the Trustee requires from sales tax receipts on a monthly basis. The difference between the receipts and the payment goes into sales tax trust fund. The sales tax trust fund is being used to fund Vision projects not funded by bond proceeds. It builds up over time as a results of primarily the City of Tulsa budget process which requires all funds to be in place and appropriated before project contracts can be signed.

The Trustee's debt service requirements given to the County differ from the debt service requirements on the bonds are a results of interest earnings on the construction funds held by the Trustee as well as interest earnings on the Bond Fund Reserve account of $39.09 million. Given the amount of proceeds raised early in the program those earnings were substantial in the early years of the program and decline as projects are completed. This will also be the case with the County's sales tax trust fund as the Arena and Convention Center is completed between now and the end of fiscal year 2008.

As for specific answers to your questions:

1. Debt service has risen annually since 2003 as a results of additional bond issues being done as projects became ready for implementation. Debt service has also risen as the amount of investment earnings have declined as moneys are spent.

2. The PMG debt service numbers are net of investment earnings.

3. All the bond issues, except series 2006B, are rated AAA. In order to get a AAA rating, a cash reserve of $39 plus million was funded early in the program and is held by the Trustee. The purpose of the reserve is have sufficient funds on hand to pay debt service in the event that sales tax receipts at any one time or length of time is insufficient to pay the debt service. The Reserve is released in the final year (2017) to pay most of the final year's debt service. This final payment assumes that no short fall has occurred.

4. The Series 2006 B bonds of $10 million are subordinate bonds and are unrated. The reason being that the requirements to issue more bonds on a parity basis could not be met. The $14.5 million in cash flow for the Arena and Convention Center was also the results of not being able to issue more debt without increasing the costs of the debt and the risk that other projects would have to be postponed or possibly eliminated if sales tax receipts declined.

5. The Vision 2025 program included $575 million in specific projects with specific dollar allocations. Of that total 83% were funded by bond proceeds or in the case the Aquarium annual payments were contracted for. The balance of approximately $100 million (excluding the rebate) are being funded by sales taxes and investment earnings remaining after debt service is paid monthly. With the exception of the River Projects which were matching funds, cash flow schedules have been reviewed and PMG schedules those projects as they become ready and/or funds are available.

6. As I have noted in the past, I see no excess funds being available for new projects or increases for approved projects until after 2012-13. I hope that my forecast is too low. The bulk of any future surplus will occur in 2017 as the $39.1 million in bond fund reserve is released.

John Piercey

There's a lot to digest here. I'm putting it all here for anyone who cares to analyze it and comment on it.

One of the discoveries in all this is that there are actually four pots of money. In addition to the bond proceeds and the sales tax receipts, there is a bond repayment trust fund held by the bond trustee (the Bank of Oklahoma). When Jim Smith tried to explain to me how it worked, I compared it to an escrow account for paying taxes and insurance on a mortgaged house, which Smith thought was a good analogy. The bond trustee then repays the bondholders from this trust fund. Every six months, the bond trustee recalculates the payments they need from Tulsa County's sales tax receipts to enable them to pay the bondholders.

Here's my paraphrase of Piercey's explanation of the difference between the payments to the bond trustee (found in the Vision 2025 monthly reports) and his schedule for repayment to the bondholders: The county began paying money into the bond fund as soon as the tax began to be collected, but well before they had to begin to repay the bonds. Those early funds earned interest, which reduced the amount the county had to pay to the bond trustee in order to keep the bond trustee's fund at the required level.

Without the details of the ins and outs of the fund being managed by the bond trustee, there doesn't seem to be any way to correlate the sales tax payments to the bond trustee (in the Vision 2025 monthly reports) with the payments to the bondholders (in Piercey's financial summary). The Vision 2025 monthly reports don't cover the balances and transactions in the bond repayment trust account or in the bond proceeds pot of money. (It just now occurs to me that those two pots may actually be a single pot of money.) There are individual monthly project expenditures in the report, which you can infer are payments from the bond proceeds, but it isn't explicit, and transactions like interest earnings are either not reported or perhaps just not obvious to me. It would be good to have a spreadsheet for the bond proceeds fund that spells things out as clearly as the sales tax spreadsheet does for that fund -- the balance at the beginning of each month, all the income and the outgo, and the balance at the end.

I mentioned that there's a fourth pot of money. The June 2007 Vision 2025 monthly report shows that in February, $2,093,676.40 was transferred to the Cash Projects Trust Account, and in June, $45,961,778.85 -- pretty much the entire sales tax reserve being held in the county's accounts -- was transferred to the Cash Projects Trust Account. A memo included in one of the monthly reports says that this account is also being managed by BOk.

I still don't see a way to answer my five questions from the information available. If I were a County Commissioner or a member of the Vision 2025 Sales Tax Overview Committee, I would insist on putting that information together and updating it on a monthly basis to serve as Tulsa County's financial plan for the Vision 2025 program.

It looks to me that John Piercey, PMg, and BOk each possess different pieces of the puzzle, but that no one has actually put all of it together into a complete picture, a complete plan that would permit exploring different scenarios that would allow the use of Vision 2025 funds to complete the dams that were promised as a part of that package.

There's another aspect of this that needs to be explored, but it's late and I'm tired. I'll just point you in the general direction. On the front page of Piercey's summary are three columns: "Pre-Request," "Arena Increase," "Revised Totals." The difference between the first and third columns tell quite a story.

From an email about the upcoming Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County's luncheon (Tuesday, September 11, 11:30 p.m., Holiday Inn Select, I-44 and Yale -- the old Hilton) (emphasis added:

Commissioner Perry will present the Proposed River Plan/Tax in an educational format. He will be aided by an engineer who played a key role in the development of the 42 mile River Corridor plan from which the proposed plan was derived.

Commissioner Perry will present arguments which have been made both for and against the Proposed River Plan and the associated county sales tax to fund it. The matter is scheduled for a county wide vote on October 9th.

If you're a Republican woman and think it's egregiously unfair for a proponent of higher taxes to represent both sides of this debate (a debate where the county Republican party platform comes down solidly in opposition), you might politely encourage the RWC president, Nancy Rothman, to allow an actual opponent to argue the case for the opposition. (I won't reproduce her contact info here; if you're a club member, you have her phone number and email address in the meeting notice.)

UPDATE: I just spoke to Commissioner Perry, who wanted to emphasize that it was Ms. Rothman's choice, not his, to have him present both sides of the argument. He says he's going to have to walk quite a tight rope and that neither side is likely to be satisfied that their argument was fully presented. He also took issue to my characterization of him as a proponent of higher taxes, that there are things that make him uneasy about the river tax plan (the tax increase, Broken Arrow's opposition) and he's not cheerleading for it, but on balance he thinks it's good thing, and he is a proponent of letting the voters decide. He also pointed out that in the legislature he sometimes opposed sending an issue to a vote of the people: the lottery, casino gambling, certain tax increases.

Regarding the RWCTC event, Perry told me that Ms. Rothman is a professional mediator who feels that the Republican Party is too divided and contentious, so she didn't want to have a debate. I would think that, as a mediator, she would understand the importance of each side feeling that their concerns were fully aired and given a fair hearing. Perhaps her mediation sessions consist of her picking one side to argue both sides of a dispute.

To be fair to Ms. Rothman, there are political parties that do a much better job than Republicans of maintaining unity and harmony. For example, the Workers' Party of Korea presents a united front on every issue. You never hear a dissenting voice on any issue, or if you do, you never hear from it again. Perhaps she has the WPK in mind as a model for the Republican Party's future.

I just watched a lengthy investigative piece by KOTV about the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority's decision to boot Bell's from the Fairgrounds. If you've been reading about the issue here and in Urban Tulsa Weekly, there won't be too much that you haven't already heard, but they do a good job of pulling it all the pieces together for the viewing audience -- including the connection with Murphy Brothers, the aggressive marketing campaign by Bell's that got Jerry Murphy angry, and the fact that Bell's, even in their tough last two seasons, paid more in their lease than Big Splash and the Drillers combined.

The piece includes interviews with Robby Bell, Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund, and County Commissioner Randi Miller, TCPFA chairman, who pushed for Bell's removal.

I did learn a few new things. I learned that the Murphy family not only gave $5,000 to Randi Miller for her futile campaign for mayor, but they also contributed the same amount to new County Commissioner John Smaligo after he was elected.

Also, Miller admitted that she did NOT ask Murphy Brothers for a business plan when they granted the company a new 10-year midway contract. No competitive bidding was done.

In the piece, you'll see where the ride equipment is stored, you'll get a glimpse of the business plan that Randi Miller said was inadequate (looks professionally done to me, anyway), a certification from a ride vendor that Bell's was approved for financing for a new ride, sketches of the new coaster that was finally approved when the county pulled the plug, and concept sketches for a new park.

If you have Cox Cable, you can catch the replay on channel 53. KOTV's website has the full text of the Terry Hood's story about Bell's Amusement Park, plus photos, including images of excerpts from Murphy Brothers' 1989 and 2006 contracts with the TCPFA. I hope that KOTV will later post video of the story, and I'll link it if they do. (UPDATE: Here's the video for KOTV's story about Bell's Amusement Park.)

Well done, KOTV.

Only 19 percent of Tulsa County frequent voters sampled in a recent KOTV/Tulsa Whirled poll approve of the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority's decision to boot Bell's from their home for over half a century. 70% said they disapprove. A larger number but still a minority, 27%, supported the City's decision to annex the Fairgrounds. Since the latter was a City action, it would have been interesting to know the ayes and nays among City of Tulsa voters.

The pollsters asked whether the two changes would affect respondents' plans to attend the Tulsa State Fair. I wish they'd also asked whether the Bell's decision would affect voters' opinion of the proposed river sales tax. With Randi Miller up for re-election next year, the "deserves reelection / time to give someone else a chance" question would have been interesting to ask, too.

From the Whirled:

An audit of operations at the Fair Meadows racetrack paints a picture of slipshod business practices made possible by lax -- and at times nonexistent -- management.

The audit has led to a law enforcement investigation....

The report makes clear that "the possibility of employee fraud was implied (by the findings) but could not be proven."...

On Tuesday, fair board Chairwoman Randi Miller said she is not pleased with the audit's findings but sees the exercise as the first step toward resolving the racetrack's troubles.

"Even though the audit is bad, it only helps the constituents because we now know there's a lack of checks and balances, and we will correct them," she said.

Here's the kicker, buried at the end of the story:

Last year, the racetrack lost $174,599.

I'm happy the fair board is pursuing this, but I'm wondering: Since Randi Miller is death on Expo Square tenants who have shaky finances, will she order Fair Meadows to dismantle the grandstand and vacate within 120 days?

Zingo's dismantling is almost complete, and Bell's Amusement Park is about to vanish from their long-time location on the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. Bell's paid the most rent of any Fairgrounds tenant, but despite that, the park's lease was not renewed and county officials claimed to have no plans for redeveloping the land.

This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I ask whether the U. S. National Arabian and Half-Arabian Championship Horse Show is the real reason that Bell's was given the boot and whether trading a 50 year Tulsa tradition for a lucrative but temporary event was a smart move for taxpayers.

By the way, I used a number in the story of $20 million, which I recalled hearing cited by Expo Square officials as the cost of improvements made to attract and accommodate the Arabian Horse Show. I called Expo Square to confirm that number, and the comptroller went down the list and came up with a number of $15 million. Unfortunately, his response came too late for UTW's deadline.

And here's a link to last week's column on the City Council's vote to authorize Tulsa police officers to verify the immigration status of anyone who is taken into custody on felony or misdemeanor charges.

The intervention by Congressman John Sullivan and Senators Coburn and Inhofe seems to have given the Council the backing they needed to take up this issue. Here you can read a letter from Sullivan to Mayor Kathy Taylor prior to the Council vote, and here is one from after the vote, urging her to implement the resolution.

Some further notes on local law enforcement and illegal immigration

In a letter to the head of ICE, Sullivan repeats his call for expediting the Sheriff's Office application for 287(g) status:

I believe that a 287(g) designation, which would allow for the cross deputization of Tulsa County Sherriff’s deputies and jail personnel, would help to mitigate these problems by ensuring that Oklahoma law enforcement personnel have the authority, training, and tools they need to report and detain criminal aliens in the course of their regular duty. If implemented in Tulsa, the 287(g) program would act as a force multiplier for ICE and help protect our communities from terrible incident like the one mentioned above.

Nashville police recently obtained 287(g) status. This case is one of the reasons they pursued it vigorously:

Garcia was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide while intoxicated and evading arrest. Court officials said he has reached a deal with prosecutors and will plead guilty today, the same day the trial was scheduled to begin. His lawyer, Assistant Metro Public Defender Glenn Dukes, did not return a call seeking comment.

Garcia is being held at the Metro Jail under an immigration hold, which means he'll be turned over to federal authorities after any criminal sentence he might serve.

But Garcia was well known to law enforcement before the fatal accident.

County records show that he had been booked into the Metro Jail on at least 14 different occasions since 1997.

Besides the DUI cases, he had been charged with domestic assault, leaving the scenes of accidents, driving on a revoked or suspended license, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, theft, failing to have insurance and driving with an open container.

On at least one occasion, local authorities said, Garcia was flagged by federal authorities and deported, only to return and resume his streak of arrests.

The other times, Garcia went to court, was jailed for some period and released. Sheriff's officials said they routinely sent notification to federal immigration authorities that they had booked a foreign-born inmate.

Nashville hopes to replicate the success of 287(g) in Charlotte, N.C.:

In the seven-month period following the implementation of its 287(g) immigration enforcement program, Charlotte, N.C. saw significant decreases in the number of Hispanics arrested for Driving Under the Influence (DUI), the total number of DUI-related arrests among Hispanic persons and the amount of Hispanic gang-related crime, law enforcement personnel there said.

In the program’s first nine months, Charlotte’s specially trained sheriffs identified 1,520 arrestees as having entered the country illegally.

All were marked for deportation back to one of the 31 different countries — mostly Central and South American — from which those 1,520 individuals came, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph told WFAE (Charlotte) talk radio last month.

And a full 20 percent of the foreign-born persons who were brought into the jail and subsequently identified though 287(g) had been arrested for drunken driving, Pendergraph said.

At the same time, a statistical analysis by the Sheriff’s Office shows that the number of Hispanic-related DUI incidents and arrests fell sharply in the months following the beginning of 287(g).

From 2005 – when sheriff’s deputies had to request an arrestee’s immigration information from a federal database in Vermont, as they still have to do in Nashville – to 2006, the number of Hispanic persons arrested for DUI decreased by 26 percent.

Additionally, the number of overall DUI-related arrests of Hispanic persons decreased by 63 percent – from 1,379 to 508 – during the same period.

Over the weekend, I received an e-mail from the proprietor of Super Steve's Super Site, a Tulsa-based website devoted to amusement parks. He had some happy news about Bell's Amusement Park's progress toward clearing the fairgrounds location and getting their rides stored in hopes of reopening elsewhere.

Tulsa Steel Services Corporation volunteered a day of free services -- "tools, manpower, and expertise" -- which enabled them to get the White Lightning Log Ride dismantled. If Bell's gets at least half of the Zingo roller coaster and White Lightning down by May 15th, the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority will give them an additional month to finish clearing the site:

If half of both said rides are not taken down by May 15, Bell's will not be able to stay and finish the job, but if they can meet the deadline, they will have another month. Why this deadline is in effect beats me, as you would think the fairgrounds would want Bell's to completely remove everything for free, but remember how smart those in charge of the fair are. (Honestly, who kicks out a growing amusement park and puts a trailer park next door? And on fair property!?) Luckily, with Bell's extra help, meeting the deadline won't be a problem, and better yet, because of the skills and expertise of TSS, the ride will be able to be set up again after this removal - this would probably not have been possible before.

With some hope of retrieving their biggest rides for future use, the Bell family has announced that the park will reopen in 2008. Where hasn't yet been announced.

White Lightning is actually a bit of Forgotten New York in the heart of Tulsa. It is half of the log flume from the 1964 New York World's Fair. (The other half used to be at Dollywood in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.)

Stay tuned to Super Steve's Super Site for continuing coverage of the Bell's situation.

It took a while, and everybody got to speak that wanted to speak, but the City Council voted 5-4 to approve the ordinance to annex the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. Voting in favor were Henderson, Turner, Barnes, Martinson, and Eagleton; voting against were Westcott, Troyer, Christiansen, and Carter. The emergency clause vote broke the same way, which means it failed -- two-thirds vote would be required to put the annexation into immediate effect. Without the emergency clause, it will go into effect sixty days after the Mayor signs the ordinance.

I'll be on KFAQ at 6:10 in the morning to talk about the debate and the vote, so tune in to 1170 and listen.

I was especially impressed with Councilor Martinson's comments. I've had plenty of disagreements with him on various issues, but his analysis of the pros and cons of annexation was flawless, just as impressive as his analysis of the city's financial constraints. His business and accounting experience is a real asset to the council.

As are the legal expertise and fearlessness of Councilor Eagleton. A highlight of the meeting was when he called fair board member Clark Brewster (the banty rooster) on Brewster's bluffing claim that the increased sales tax rate resulting from annexing the Fairgrounds would constitute a breach of contract with the Arabian Horse Show. Eagleton had the contract in hand, demanded that Brewster cite the paragraph to back up his claim, and then read the clause that clearly contradicted Brewster's claim. Eagleton's diligent digging for facts has diffused several of the bogus arguments leveled against annexation.

UPDATE 4/11: There are two complementary accounts of the City Council debate on annexation in the latest Urban Tulsa Weekly: Brian Ervin's news story on the debate, with details on why various councilors voted the way they did; and my column, on the factors that may influence Mayor Kathy Taylor's decision to sign or veto annexation.

UPDATE 4/18: David Schuttler has posted video on YouTube (thanks, David!) of the exchange between Clark Brewster and John Eagleton regarding the Arabian Horse Show's contract. I had forgotten that it was actually Bill Martinson who interrupted Brewster to ask him how a city action could cause a breach of contract between the fair board and the Arabian Horse Show. Brewster's reply, "The terms of that contract provides [sic] very specifically what their vendors would pay as a matter of tax," led to Eagleton's question, "Clark, which paragraph are you referring to?"

This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I take a look back at the decision of the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority last fall to evict Bell's Amusement Park from the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. Although it's not a new story, the way the eviction was handled sheds some light on the question of the City of Tulsa's annexation of the Fairgrounds (to be decided this Thursday night by the City Council), currently an unincorporated enclave surrounded by the City of Tulsa. Expo Square management and TCPFA members have made a number of claims about the effects of annexation, and those claims need to be weighed in light of the board's credibility and transparency -- particularly the credibility of the three TCPFA members who were on the board prior to 2007.

Here's another doubtful decision: Last year the Tulsa State Fair reached the one million attendance mark for the first time in four years. In December, the 2006 Fair won six awards for Marketing and Competitive Exhibits at the International Association of Fairs and Expositions (IAFE) in Las Vegas. Amber Phillips, who was manager of the Tulsa State Fair in 2004, 2005, and 2006, overseeing increased attendance each year, didn't get to enjoy the fruits of her hard work and creativity, because Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund had fired Phillips a week earlier. (Officially, her position was eliminated in a "reorganization," but it's not as though they're going to stop having a Tulsa State Fair, and someone has to manage it.)

You can read more commentary and background about the Bell's eviction here (including an interesting look at Bjorklund's career trajectory). And this website has a number of articles on Bell's and other amusement parks in this region, including Frontier City and Joyland in Wichita. Here's his evaluation of what was done to Bell's.

County Commissioner Randi Miller is holding a meeting to discuss Fairgrounds issues tonight at 6 p.m. at the Cafeteria, which is on the east end of the Expo (IPE) Building. Only officials who oppose the annexation of Expo Square by the City of Tulsa have been invited to speak, and the meeting was deliberately scheduled to coincide with the weekly City Council meeting, so as to prevent any city councilors from attending. (As a former councilor herself, she knows this.) This is a great opportunity for Fairgrounds neighbors to ask Commissioner Miller some tough questions about Expo Square policies. I plan to be there, camcorder in hand.

This is not the meeting at which annexation will be decided. That will occur next Thursday, April 5, at the regular City Council meeting. City councilors are getting a lot of pressure from county-related individuals, and they need to hear from annexation supporters. Don't assume that just because it's the reasonable and right thing to do, that they'll find it easy to vote in favor of annexation. (You can find several good links on the topic, including a link to my UTW column here.)

This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly is about the latest developments in the City of Tulsa's move to annex the Tulsa County Fairgrounds (aka Expo Square).

Related to that topic, UTW reporter Brian Ervin has a cover story profile of City Councilor Roscoe Turner, the leading proponent of annexation.

There were a couple of developments in the story that I didn't get to in my column: Mayor Kathy Taylor's bizarre entrance into the debate with her set of bargaining chips and County Commissioner Randi Miller's passive-aggressive raising of the white flag. But Ervin does a great job of covering them in his news story on annexation.

If you're interested, here's a link to the
state law that governs a city's annexation of an enclave -- 11 O. S. 21-103.

Chris Medlock has the beginnings of a list of answers to frequently asked questions regarding the City of Tulsa's proposed annexation of the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. He tackles the following questions:

Q: Is the City taking over the Fairgrounds from the County?
Q: Is the Fairgrounds a “tax free” zone?
Q: Is the 3-cent tax break the major draw for retail activity at the Fairgrounds?
Q: Is annexation akin to raising taxes?

That last one has an interesting answer. Medlock points out that Sen. Randy Brogdon, indisputably the taxpayers' best friend at the State Capitol, was previously Mayor of Owasso, and as Mayor and thus a member of the City Council, he voted to approve numerous annexations, many of them including already developed property which suddenly became subject to city sales tax and millage. Either that means that Randy Brogdon is a tax-raisin' fiend, or else annexation isn't really a tax hike.

Annexation opponents have also asserted that the City of Tulsa gets a free ride on the use of the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center, more colloquially known as the County Jail. In a comment on an earlier entry, County Commissioner Fred Perry wrote: "He [Michael Bates] ignores the fact that the county runs the jail and charges the city nothing (a multi-million dollar value)."

But there's more to that story. First of all, everyone who spends money in Tulsa County, whether within the city limits of Tulsa, in some other municipality, or in the unincorporated areas, pays the 1/4 cent sales tax that funds operation of the jail. Tulsa businesses supply the lion's share of that fund. Everyone who owns property in Tulsa County, whether within the city limits of Tulsa, in some other municipality, or in the unincorporated areas, pays the county millage, part of which goes to fund operation of the jail. Even though the money flows through county government, most of it originates with the economic activity of City of Tulsa residents.

The City of Tulsa also has a contract with the Tulsa County Commission, running until June 30, 2008. In the contract, the City provides the County with the use of the old city jail, on the third floor of the City of Tulsa Police Municipal Courts Building, just west of the courthouse, and the use of the Adult Detention Center on Charles Page Boulevard near Newblock Park. The City also provides a "fully staffed evidence property room" to handle evidence required for district court cases related to City of Tulsa law enforcement. The agreement refers to a separate agreement giving the County use of a facility adjacent to the County's Juvenile Detention Center.

When the contract was executed in 1998, the value of the City of Tulsa's contribution was estimated at $1,862,350. The contract specifies that the "reasonable value" of the City's contribution is equivalent to paying the County for daily housing of 116 municipal prisoners.

In exchange for all of that, plus $1 a year, the County pays to house up to 116 of the City's municipal prisoners. If the monthly average of the daily number of municipal prisoners ever exceeds that number, there is a formula for the City to compensate the County for the excess. But if the number of municipal prisoners is lower than 116, the County does nothing to compensate the City.

Now, not every perp caught by the Tulsa police department is a "municipal prisoner." When someone is arrested on a violation of state law -- homicide, robbery, grand larceny -- that case will be handled through District Court, no matter whether the sheriff, the Tulsa police, the Highway Patrol, or some other authority arrested him. The county jails exist for the purpose of handling such prisoners. (I'm sure someone could find the appropriate cites on oscn.net. I'm too tired right now.)

Municipal prisoners are defined in the contract as "individuals present in the Jail System exclusively as the result of a City of Tulsa misdemeanor charge." If you're convicted of violating one of the laws in the Tulsa's penal code and you haven't also violated a state law, you'd be considered a municipal prisoner. At the time the jail contract was executed, the number of municipal prisoners was less than 80 per day, about a third below the amount considered equivalent to the City's contribution to the system. I am not sure what the current average number of municipal prisoners is.

What would happen if, hypothetically, the County Commission decided to "retaliate" for annexation by terminating the jail agreement with the City?

The County would lose the use of the old city jail would have to find another place to house prisoners awaiting trial in District Court, as the old county jail on the upper floors of the courthouse has been remodeled into offices for the District Attorney. The County would also have to set up a bigger evidence room of its own find other facilities to replace those that the City provides it free of charge. Finally, the County would lose the financial benefit it enjoys when the number of municipal prisoners that the County pays to house drops below the level the City is allowed by virtue of its contribution to the system.

In short, the County would be cutting off its nose to spite its face, especially since annexation would not have a detremental effect on County government. That would also be true if the County were to follow through on threats to move the Fairgrounds out to Glenpool. But that is a post for another day.

A couple of facts for everyone afeared that Expo Square will lose its competitive advantage if the City annexes the Fairgrounds, subjecting it to city sales tax, and all the boat shows, car shows, RV shows, etc., will relocate to the new downtown arena.

From the Expo Square website:

The Expo Center provides 354,000 square feet of column-free space under a cable-suspended roof. The building spans 448,400 total square feet on two levels, connected by side ramps and stairs. This design allows for a unique variety of show floorplans and designs.

(For the benefit of old-timers like me, the Expo Center is the IPE Building.)

From the Oklahoma Ford Center website:

Arena Floor: 34,074 square feet (144'x 260')

(I can't find planned dimensions for the BOk Center floor, but I assume they'd be comparable.)

So you could fit 10 BOk Center floors inside the Expo Center. There is no other space in the Tulsa area that can accommodate the kinds of events that are held at the Expo Center. The closest in size is the Tulsa Convention Center exhibit hall, which is 102,600 sq. ft., but I suspect it has floor loading limits that don't apply at the Expo Center, which was built to exhibit enormous pieces of oilfield equipment.

Likewise Expo Square has a beautifully restored art deco Pavilion, which is the right size for minor-league sports events and smaller concerts, and state-of-the-art horse and livestock barns and show arenas, all surrounded by plenty of free parking.

A lower sales tax rate is not Expo Square's competitive advantage over facilities in other cities or in our own metro area. The facilities are Expo Square's advantage, and annexation doesn't change that.

I got a description of the annexation discussion at last night's City Council meeting from someone who watched it. A bunch of county and Expo Square officials lined up to say, "This is bad for both of us! You better think about this before you do it!" But the county officials didn't offer anything substantive to think about. They didn't provide any data to analyze -- just a heapin' helpin' of FUD.

(Wouldn't it have been cool if the county commissioners had then lined up to do Aretha Franklin's number from The Blues Brothers?)

I'm hopeful that our city councilors will respond just like Matt "Guitar" Murphy did.

UPDATE: Be sure to read Commissioner Fred Perry's reply in the comments below.

Perry drew a comparison between the State Fair Park in Oklahoma City and Expo Square in Tulsa. Here is a montage from Google Maps, at the same scale, of the two facilities -- Oklahoma City on the left, Tulsa on the right. The larger buildings on the southwest corner of State Fair Park, all grouped together, are all livestock barns. The oval building is State Fair Arena. The smaller buildings in the center are State Fair Park's exhibit buildings; they have nothing to compare with Expo Center's 350,000 sq. ft. of unobstructed space.

And since the Louisiana Superdome has been mentioned as an example of a sports arena hosting boat shows, RV shows, etc., it's worth pointing out that the Superdome is a domed football stadium, not a basketball/hockey arena. The Superdome has a floor area of 166,464 sq. ft. (408' x 408'). That's five times larger than the floor of an arena like the BOk Center.

Last Thursday night, the city finance department presented their analysis of the fiscal impact of the City of Tulsa annexing the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. In the extended entry you can read the full text of the finance department's analysis. The city would almost certainly gain net revenue by annexing the currently unincorporated territory, possibly as much as $1.1 million per year.

The only scenario in which the city loses money involves the lowest revenue estimate and the city being required to patrol the Tulsa State Fair. I think the case could be made that as the Fair is a highly attended paid-admission event, the property owner (Tulsa County) would be required to provide or pay for security, just like any privately-run, paid-admission festival.

There are other reasons besides the financial ones for the city annexing the Fairgrounds. I outlined some of them in my December 6, 2006, UTW column.

Our new County Commissioners, John Smaligo and Fred Perry, will be sworn in this morning at 9:30 at the Tulsa County Courthouse, in Room 119 of the Administration Building at 6th & Denver. It's a good time to show your support and appreciation for a change in direction for County government and an end to the empire-building that characterized the commissioners that are leaving office.

My Urban Tulsa Weekly column, out today, is a salute, of sorts, to outgoing Commissioners Bob Dick and Wilbert Collins, a look at their legacy and at the kind of changes we hope the new commissioners will make.

One issue that the new County Commissioners will face, although the decision is ultimately out of their hands (the City can act unilaterally, under state law), is the possibility of the City annexing the Tulsa County Fairgrounds, aka Expo Square.

Contrary to some statements that this land has ever been unincorporated territory, subject only to the jurisdiction of Tulsa County, in looking back at old maps as part of some other research, I've found confirmation of the fact that large parts of the Fairgrounds have been within the city limits of Tulsa at various times in the past.

The overview map for the 1932 Sanborn Fire Map of Tulsa (I can't link to it directly, but if you're a Tulsa Library card holder, you can access it over the Internet) shows the western two-thirds (160 acres more or less) of the Fairgrounds within the City of Tulsa. That area included all the developed parts of the fairgrounds, including the International Petroleum Exposition grounds (where the Expo building is now), the Pavilion, cattle barns, and other buildings.

(UPDATE: This link will take you right to the map, zoomed in to the Fairgrounds and its surroundings. If you're not already logged in to the library website, you'll first be taken to a screen to type in your last name and Tulsa Library card number. You can use the arrow icons to pan around to other parts of the map, including the bottom where you'll see the date of the map. And here's a link to a PDF version of the same map. Sheet 317, showing the detail of the fairgrounds, is here. Keep in mind that the racetrack and grandstand shown on the map was just east of where the half-demolished Exchange Building now is, an area which is now a parking lot for Fair Meadows.)

Then there was an article in the January 16, 1960, Tulsa Tribune, about the changes in the city limits over the previous decade. (You can find it in the annexation vertical file at Central Library, and it's also reproduced in a City Council report on annexation from a couple of years ago.) The map accompanying the story shows an area apparently west of New Haven Ave from 17th Street to 21st and west of Pittsburgh (the mid-section line) between 15th & 17th Street as within the City of Tulsa in 1950, but out of the city in 1960, except for a very small tract around the city water tower at 21st and Louisville. This would have been about 60 acres of land. The story says:

A section of the Tulsa County Fairgrounds (located at Yale Ave. and 21st St.) is the only area which was disannexed from the 1950 limits.

Owned by the county, the fairgrounds usually is not considered for annexation to the city, but special problems have caused it to come and go from the city limits.

Annexed to permit construction of Veterans' Village following the war, it was removed from the city after the buildings in the Village were removed.

City Engineer W. R. Wooten recalled the same area was taken in and then thrown out again some years earlier when horse racing was a debatable activity there.

"The city wouldn't permit the betting," Wooten recalls, "so the area was disannexed. Horse racing finally was ended by calling out of the National Guard."

The story doesn't say when the disannexation occurred, but a 1957 Rand McNally map shows the section I described above as still within the city limits.

A Tulsa Whirled story Saturday reports that 20 years ago, then-Police and Fire Commissioner Bob Dick supported Tulsa annexing the Tulsa County Fairgrounds, saying the city could use the additional revenue. Roscoe Turner, then a city boiler inspector, advised against it. At the time, Turner said that nearly every boiler on the fairgrounds would fail inspection and nearly every building would have to be shut down, generating no revenue to the city.

Today the two have changed sides on the issue. Turner is a city councilor in search of additional revenue for the city. Dick is a retiring county commissioner who is also a member of the board that oversees the fairgrounds.

Since 1986 most buildings at the fairgrounds have been refurbished or replaced, so Turner's concern about boiler safety is no longer an impediment to annexation.

Today Dick's objection to annexation seems to center around the city sales tax that he was after in 1986:

"I bought a hot tub at one of those [Expo Square] shows. You spend $6,000 on something, 3 percent makes a difference," he said.

"Dear Commissioner Dick, congratulations on your purchase of a $6,000 hot tub at the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. You owe $180 in city use tax on said item. Please remit at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, City of Tulsa Finance."

Dick also mentions that the City will have to provide services, but the City already provides every service except law enforcement. As an out-of-city water customer, the fairgrounds pays higher water rates than in-city customers, but loss of that extra revenue wouldn't detract from the sales tax gain. Water revenues go to a different fund which cannot be used for City general fund operating costs like police protection and street repair.

Susan Neal of Mayor Kathy Taylor's office gave a passive-aggressive response when asked about the Mayor's opinion on the issue, suggesting that Turner would have to develop his own analysis of the benefits, rather than offering the assistance of the Mayor's staff to look at the possibility. (Of course, Mayor Taylor appears to be about to do a deal with Jenks and Bixby and the county cronies at Infrastructure Ventures, Inc., to get their private toll bridge built. Taylor's had a meeting with IVI people, but has left the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition (STCC) out of the loop.)

Current and former Okies and amusement park enthusiasts from other parts of the world have been weighing in on Tulsa County's refusal to renew a lease with Bell's Amusement Park.

Dave the Oklahomilist posted a new entry yesterday, wondering about Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund's sudden decision to cut off all talk of renewing Bell's lease:

And this after, and in spite of, Bell's agreement, with a condition, to allow its books to be audited by an independent trio of accountants. The condition? That the information contained in Bell's business plan "not be disseminated outside" the fair board offices.

One is left to conclude that this was a deal-breaker for Bjorklund and the county commissioners. Why? It seems reasonable enough on the surface. Is it possible that the plan all along was to pass the Bell's information on to others? Is it possible that it was, in truth, the only reason for requiring Bell's to jump through this particularly hoop? And that the condition insisted upon by Bell's would put the fairgrounds officials in jeopardy should any information get to persons who have no business having it? People who, perhaps, are planning to go into business directly competing with Bell's?

Ms. Cornelius of A Shrewdness of Apes remembers the park from her childhood, including getting ride tickets for good grades and the old giant slide, and she's taken her own kids there the last two summers during visits to her parents.

Screamscape ("The Ultimate Guide to Theme Parks") has a whole page devoted to Bell's with a chronology that goes back to Bell's second coaster proposal in 2001.

Thrill Network has a forum topic from August devoted to the new coaster that Bell's finally got the go-ahead to build.

Finally, a word to friends in the neighborhoods directly adjacent to that side of the fairgrounds, some of whom have expressed surprise at my concern about the fair board's dealings with Bell's. I supported their effort to stop the expansion of Bell's to the west, closer to the neighborhood and in violation of the 1984 Expo Square master plan, part of the Comprehensive Plan, and the written expression of a commitment made by the fair board to the surrounding neighborhoods about what kind of development would be allowed in each section of the fairgrounds. I can understand why many of them hope to see Bell's gone from the fairgrounds, and they don't care how it happens.

It's probably the best for all concerned if Bell's relocates, preferably to a site within Tulsa's city limits, but this is the wrong way to bring it about. I have similar feelings about City Attorney Alan Jackere's situation: I'd rather he no longer be City Attorney, but the way Mayor Taylor is going about it has me and a lot of other people very suspicious.

I was on KFAQ this morning with Councilor Roscoe Turner, who is calling for the City of Tulsa to bring the Tulsa County Fairgrounds (aka Expo Square) within the city limits. Currently, the fairgrounds, roughly 240 acres (3/8 of a square mile), is an unincorporated enclave surrounded by the City of Tulsa on all sides. Annexing the fairgrounds is a good idea, and it should have been done a long time ago.

Some background: Tulsa County acquired the fairgrounds when the site was well outside the city limits of Tulsa. Eventually, new housing developments surrounded the fairgrounds, and they were brought into the city boundaries, but the fairgrounds as a whole were never annexed. Parts of the fairgrounds to the west of the Pavilion, used for temporary housing during WW II, were annexed by the City and later deannexed. A small tract of land near the corner of 15th & Louisville is still owned by the City and is within the city limits. (This was the location of a large water tower which once provided adequate water pressure to the higher elevations of midtown. The tower is gone, and now the water used in these neighborhoods that has to flow downhill from some other reservoir then back uphill. But that's a rant for another time.)

There is a similar situation with LaFortune Park. When it was created it was outside the city limits. The City grew up and around it, and I can remember seeing city maps that showed nearly all of that half-section from Yale to Hudson, 51st to 61st, marked as "OUT." Only the Memorial High School campus was within the City of Tulsa's corporate boundaries. Later most of LaFortune Park was annexed, except for the old County Farm, a rectangular plot of land southwest of 51st and Hudson, now known as the Gardens at LaFortune Park. (I can remember our third-grade class going out to the County Farm in 1971 to sing Christmas carols to the residents.) Ultimately this, too, was brought within the City boundaries. The ownership of LaFortune Park did not change. It is still owned by Tulsa County, but it is subject to City of Tulsa ordinances and City of Tulsa sales and property taxes.

Can the City annex the fairgrounds? Yes, and they can do it without the County's consent. Oklahoma state law provides that if a municipality surrounds a piece of unincorporated territory on at least three sides, the municipality may annex the land without the consent of the landowners.

This has been the law for a long time, but new legislation (from 2005, if I recall correctly) requires that the strip of surrounding land (the "fence line") already within the municipal boundaries has to be at least 300' wide, and the annexing municipality must extend city services to the annexed territory within a certain period of time. Neither of the new stipulations would hinder this annexation: There are miles of Tulsa surrounding the fairgrounds on all four sides, and Tulsa already supplies water, sewer, stormwater, fire, emergency medical, and hazmat services to the fairgrounds, nearly every city service except law enforcement, which is handled by the Sheriff.

Again, it has to be emphasized that annexation wouldn't change ownership. The fairgrounds would still be owned by Tulsa County and run by the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority (TCPFA, aka the fair board), which consists of the three county commissioners and two other members, currently Jim Orbison and Clark Brewster. Annexation wouldn't affect the fair board's ability to enter into long-term, non-competitive sweetheart contracts.

But annexation would eliminate the anomalies in law enforcement and tax rates. The fairgrounds and the surrounding land would be subject to the same zoning ordinances and zoning process. The same sales tax rate would apply to businesses on and off the fairgrounds. The same hotel/motel tax rate would apply to the fairgrounds motel and to nearby motels. The same noise ordinances would apply on and off the fairgrounds.

When the fair board considers a lease, they'd have to consider whether the proposed activity complies with city ordinances. I'm sure existing uses would be grandfathered in, but any zoning relief needed for whatever replaces Bell's would have to pass muster with the City of Tulsa's Board of Adjustment (which applies the law as it is; one of Bill LaFortune's positive legacies) or the Tulsa City Council. Currently, anything the fair board (made up mostly of the county commissioners) wants to allow only needs approval by the County Board of Adjustment (appointed by the county commissioners) or the county commissioners themselves. There's no independent check on fairgrounds development.

This is a good thing to do, and I appreciate Councilor Turner for raising the issue. The additional revenue will help the entire city, and the uniformity of laws will benefit neighboring homes and businesses.

A Myspacer copies a plea for help from the owners of Bell's Amusement Park in Tulsa:

In case you haven't heard Bell's Amusement Park which has provided entertainment for Tulsan's and others in Oklahoma for fifty years is having hard times. The Bell's are close freinds and are good people who enjoy putting smiles on the faces of their patrons. If you like to give your support for Bells please read the following and send e-mails to those who can make a difference. Thankyou.

There is an article in the Nov. 10 Tulsa World online in the Local Section if anyone wishes to know more.

To our Tulsa and Oklahoma friends: As you may know we were served with eviction papers for the park on Wednesday. They have given us 120 days to remove everything and return the land to its original state (bare dirt). If you want to help us we would appreciate e-mails to all of the poeple on this list, any friends, you have who might like to help and perhaps calls to the Fairgrounds. Thank you in advance should you choose to speak out in our behalf. Signed Sally Bell (Bell's Amusement Park)

The link above has a list of e-mail addresses for you to contact to express your concern.

Here's a link to the Whirled story. The story makes it clear that County Commissioner Randi Miller is the instigator of the eviction.

There are so many things wrong with this, it's hard to know where to begin.

First of all, the decision to evict a 55-year fairgrounds tenant should have been deferred until the two new members of the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority, aka the Fair Board, are sworn in at the beginning of January. Those two new members are Fred Perry and John Smaligo, who will replace Bob Dick and Wilbert Collins on the County Commission and will be ex officio members of the Fair Board and several other boards and commissions. Miller is quoted as saying she'll wait until the new board members are on before deciding what to do with the land. Why not wait until Perry and Smaligo are on board before deciding on the eviction?

Second, what's the rush? Bell's won't be able to find a new location and pack up and move a roller coaster, a log ride, and countless other rides in a matter of four months in the middle of winter. Why not give them a full year or two to make arrangements to move? And why not give Tulsans a chance to say goodbye with a final season at the park?

Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund says this decision is in the best interest of the taxpayers. I have long complained that the County Commissioners and the Fair Board members are focused on maximizing revenues regardless of the impact on the community. I say that Expo Square is a public facility, to be managed in the public interest. While we want Expo Square to pay for itself, we don't have to maximize the revenue for every square inch of the place, any more than a you'd try to squeeze money out of every inch of a county park.

But Bell's does bring in money for Expo Square, a percentage of receipts. It won't cost the county any money to let them stay there one more year, but it will cost the county if Bell's is replaced with a parking lot.

Finally, and this is what really smells suspicious to me, by forcing Bell's to leave now, before any public discussion of a replacement for that space, the Fair Board is effectively disqualifying Bell's from any competition for the right to redevelop that space. Bell's isn't going to move out and then move back in. If the Fair Board were trying to be fair, they would put out a public request for proposals and allow Bell's and others to specify their plans for the space. The winning proposal would then be selected based on revenue, benefit to the community, neighborhood impact, and other intangibles.

But of course this is Tulsa County and, for about six more weeks anyway, it's dominated by County Commissioners who love making insider, exclusive, non-competitive deals with their pals for the use of public land.

I suspect the eviction of Bell's is part of such an insider deal. You'll recall that a Loretta Murphy gave $5,000 to the Randi Miller for Mayor campaign. Loretta Murphy owns Big Splash water park, another Expo Square tenant. Her husband Jerry Murphy owns Murphy Brothers. Shortly after Loretta's donation to Miller, the Fair Board awarded Murphy Brothers a non-competitive 10-year contract to provide the Tulsa State Fair's midway. Murphy Brothers might be happy just to have Bell's gone, so that all the State Fair-goers will have to ride their midway rides. Miller and the other Fair Board members need to disclose every contact with Murphy Brothers or any other private entity concerning plans for Bell's location.

Like a lot of midtown neighborhood leaders, I supported Sunrise Terrace as they attempted to keep the County from letting Bell's build a new roller coaster closer to their neighborhood, violating the area's comprehensive plan. But the neighbors, with a few exceptions, weren't trying to get Bell's shut down or to prevent their expansion. Most neighbors would have been happy to let Bell's build a roller coaster in toward the center of Expo Square and away from surrounding neighborhoods, but the county was reserving the land north of the Expo (IPE) Building for their landscaping and parking master plans.

Call your County Commissioner (current and future) and call Rick Bjorkland at Expo Square and register your concern. Insist that all dealings involving Bell's location be made public. Insist that Bell's be given a reasonable time to move.

UPDATE:

Techie Vampire has happy memories of Bell's from her youth and is angry that her son won't get to share in those memories.

Jeff Shaw puts the eviction of Bell's into the broader perspective -- the growing list of "Things Not in Tulsa Anymore":

I’m not opposed to economic development. To the contrary. But economic development can happen in conjunction with the preservation of historical aspects of the city.

Here is what I see is happening: all these historical and cultural “intangibles” are being or have already been razed, and there is nothing left of “Tulsa”. After a few years, and after the life has been sucked out of our city, we get people coming along with “bold new projects” in order to create something exciting. The reason: there’s nothing in Tulsa that will bring people in.

My response to that reason: Its because all the reasons that people have to love Tulsa, have been destroyed - in the name of development.

I'd go as far as saying historic preservation can be an engine of economic development.

Dave, the Oklahomilist, has been following the Bell's eviction story from the beginning. His initial entry asks how it's possible that a parking lot could be more profitable for Expo Square than an amusement park that pays $135,000 a year in rent. That same entry has an account of KRMG's Joe Kelley asking Randi Miller the same question, followed by a vigorous discussion in the comments, including this letter from Craig Adams to the Fair Board regarding their assertions that Bell's isn't viable:

Mr. Bell secured a bank loan of 3/4 million dollars to build a new wooden roller coaster contengent on a lease approval from the fair board. Banks do not lend that kind of money to companies which are insolvent or on shaky financial grounds. Just doesn't happen.

Mr. Bell has consistantly reinvested in the business the past several years in new equipment and rides to keep attacting new business and to retain current customers.

Despite being closed for 20 days to repair storm damage this past summer the park has had record business and on several occasions had to turn away customers because the park was too full. Doesn't sound like a failing business to me.

By the way, I think I've figured out the connection between the RV park and reduced foot traffic through Bell's. It sounds like work on the RV park reduced the amount of parking on the west side of Expo Square. People who normally would have parked in that open grassy area had to park on the east side of Expo Square and would have entered on the east, possibly spending all their ride money on the Murphy Brothers midway before ever reaching Bell's.

Randi Miller is now saying publicly that she'd be willing to give Bell's more time if they ask for it. Keep the pressure on, folks, and let's insist on full disclosure. Miller and the other members of the Fair Board should disclose all communications they have had about future use of the property, whether among themselves or with potential tenants such as Murphy Brothers.

Got this e-mail tonight from Fred Perry (the only candidate for County Commission District 3 who votes the way Republicans want him to vote).

TO: FELLOW OPPONENT OF A BRIDGE WHICH CHANNELS TRAFFIC UP YALE AVE.

FROM: FRED PERRY, STATE REPRESENTATIVE & CANDIDATE FOR COUNTY COMMISSIONER

It has come to my attention that there is a communication being circulated by supporters of my opponent which has the following misleading, and even false, information:

(1) It contains a quote regarding my statement in favor of a bridge. Yes, when I represented Bixby a few years ago when Bixby was a part of House District 69, I did make such a statement. The quote is from that time period. However, that was when it was simply being discussed as a bridge and the exact location and the fact that it would be funneling traffic up Yale was not yet proposed (at least not to my knowledge). And, even if I was in favor of it later when it was planned as coming up Yale, I did not know the ramifications of same. I have been steadfastly against a bridge coming up Yale for some time. As many of you know, I have attended the STCC meetings and voiced my opposition there, to the press and in any venue it was discussed. I have also written the same and there have been quotes in the Tulsa World, Jenks Journal, Bixby Bulletin papers in 2005 and 2006 to this effect. Also, keep in mind that I signed the statement, as Becky Darrow and Michael Covey can verify. (Actually, you probably got a scanned copy of the statement.)

(2) The faulty communication further alleges, I'm told, that I have moved "to Bixby" (which is false) that I am either now "on the other side of the issue" (in favor of the bridge coming up Yale). Again, this is FALSE. I live in a BROKEN ARROW zip code (74011) near 133rd and Garnett, NOT in Bixby. Someone apparently got my new phone number which is 369-3735 and assumed I moved to Bixby since that is a Bixby Telephone exchange. Bixby covers part of 74011 zip code. However, my new mailing address is 11404 E. 133rd St., BROKEN ARROW, OK. And, I am still north of the river (check the map). Even if I DID live in Bixby, that wouldn't change my mind about the fact that the bridge traffic should be channeled up RIVER ROAD. My opponent and I agree on this. Call me or email with any questions.....By the way, the best thing for the STCC folks is to have Bill Christiansen stay on the City Council and Fred Perry get elected to County Commissioner. Then, you have opponents in both bodies. Please circulate this to other STCC and others opposed to the bridge coming up Yale. FRED PERRY......Vote for Fred Perry for County Commissioner

A couple of points worth expanding upon: Garnett Road is the dividing line between Bixby and Broken Arrow between 131st and 141st Street, and Perry's new address is indeed in Broken Arrow and on the north side of the river, in an area and a city that will not be affected at all by the proposed south Tulsa toll bridge.

Perry's House District 69 was redrawn and made more compact after the 2000 census. Prior to that time (from Perry's first election in 1994 through the 2000 election) District 69 included part of Bixby south of the river, as Perry mentioned. During that same period, as the STCC has frequently pointed out, the planning maps showed an east-west bridge crossing the Arkansas River at 121st Street.

At today's candidate forum, Bill Christiansen went on and on about how he never goes negative in a campaign. In response, Fred Perry pointed out that Christiansen had already sent out a piece claiming that Perry is only running for County Commissioner because he needs a job, along with suggestions that Perry was out of touch with local issues as a legislator. Perry responded with a list of his legislative accomplishments that have a direct bearing on the quality of life in southern Tulsa County. The moment was the highlight of the forum, and I hope to have audio posted sometime this weekend.

Fred Perry's opponent in the District 3 County Commission race, Bill Christiansen, levied the following devastating accusation against Perry, and it is undeniably true:

"I think Fred goes down and gets in line with the Republicans and votes the way the Republicans want him to vote."

Someone needs to tell Bill that this accusation works much better at winning a Democratic runoff.

The Tulsa County Republican Men's Club is sponsoring a forum for the Republican candidates in Tuesday's runoff for County Commission Districts 1 and 3. Both candidates in both races have committed to appear. The event begins at 11:45 a.m. at the Radisson, 41st Street between US 169 and Garnett. If you want to buy lunch, there's a $10 buffet, but you don't have to have lunch to come and hear the forum. The program should end at 1 p.m.

This week in UTW, my column is about the two Republican runoffs for Tulsa County Commission, between State Rep. John Smaligo and former Tulsa City Councilor Anna Falling in Commission District 1, and between State Rep. Fred Perry and City Councilor Bill Christiansen in Commission District 3.

(Added on September 30, 2006, to fill in the gaps in my Urban Tulsa Weekly column archive.)

The legislative candidates who support the south Tulsa toll bridge are saying that the legislature has nothing to do with the issue, and that the bridge shouldn't be an issue in a State House race.

Here's an example to the contrary from this morning's Whirled:

The city of Tulsa's Legal Division does not believe that another government can condemn city land that's needed for the bridge and has cited relevant Supreme Court case law, but Bixby City Attorney Phil Frazier says his city is within its rights to do so.

He bases his stance on an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling from 1965, when he was Tulsa's city attorney.

In that case, the high court held that Tulsa had the right of eminent domain on property in Rogers County, which Tulsa needed to develop the navigation channel for the Port of Catoosa.

"This very same fuss was going on, and the city of Tulsa went to the Oklahoma Supreme Court for a decision," Frazier said. "The Supreme Court came back and said that as long as it was in close proximity that the city of Tulsa could condemn.

The Legislature could, and should, define more precisely whether one city can condemn land within the boundaries of another, or whether a county can condemn land within municipal boundaries. The Legislature could, and should, define more precisely whether one city can condemn land owned by another, or whether a county can condemn land owned by a municipality. The Legislature could, and should, determine whether a public authority can be created for the purpose of condemning property for the use of a profit-making private company. The Legislature could, and should, determine who has jurisdiction over riverbeds. It's my understanding that none of these issues are set out plainly in the law. All of these issues bear on whether this bridge can be built without the City of Tulsa's approval.

By the way, in Mr. Frazier's example, the City of Tulsa was condemning property in unincorporated Rogers County, not within the boundaries of another city, and not property belonging to another city. The issue for the south Tulsa toll bridge is whether an Bixby-Jenks Title 60 trust or Tulsa County can condemn land within and owned by the City of Tulsa.

In the House District 69 race, Fred Jordan and Darrell Gwartney support the IVI toll bridge; Chris Medlock, Lisa DeBolt, and Jeff Applekamp oppose it.

This week's Urban Tulsa Weekly column covers the District Attorney's race between incumbent Tim Harris and challenger Brett Swab, as well as, in brief, the two Tulsa County Commission races. The column takes a critical look at the numbers Swab has been using in making his case against Harris's re-election. In the County Commission races I endorse former City Councilor Anna Falling in District 1 and State Rep. Fred Perry in District 3.

(UPDATE: In response to meeciteewurkor's question in the comments, District 2 Commissioner Randi Miller is not up for re-election until 2008. County Commissioners serve four-year terms. In every county, District 1 and 3 Commissioners are elected in the same year as state-wide offices; District 2 Commissioners are elected in presidential election years. In 2002, we had the unusual situation of electing all three Tulsa County Commissioners, because District 2 Commissioner John Selph resigned in March of that year. District 3 Commissioner Bob Dick was re-elected without opposition in 2002.)

Also, this week's issue has the big, big 2006 Absolute Best of Tulsa special section, split online into five categories: kids and family, local celebrities, mind and body, restaurants, and goods and services.

This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly puts the claims made by District Attorney challenger Brett Swab against incumbent DA Tim Harris under a forensic examiner's microscope. There's also a brief discussion of the two Tulsa County Commission races on the Republican primary ballot.

I think Tulsa Whirled editorial page editor Ken Neal would feel better if he added some fiber to his diet, but it would make all of us a bit poorer not to have him cranking out his weekly column of crankiness. His latest spleen-venting on Sunday has this simple headline: "NIMBY."

A well-heeled, noisy group of Not-In-My-Backyard citizens continue to insist that candidates for public office pledge to oppose a bridge across the Arkansas River at Yale Avenue in far south Tulsa.

Their latest targets are the candidates for the District 3 county commissioner post and House District 69 in the Jenks area.

In the commissioner race that likely will be decided in the Republican primary July 25, only Clay Bird, the former deputy mayor seeking the post, has resisted.

But, like town drunks, his opponents, Bill Christiansen, Jerry Smith and Fred Perry, have "taken the pledge," more or less agreeing to check their brains at the courthouse door.

The bridge opponents have gotten three of the GOP candidates in the House race to sign. But Darrell Gwartney and Jeff Jordan refused to cave in to the anti-bridge pressure.

Did you spot a couple of glaring errors? It's Fred Jordan who is running for House District 69 (HD69) and refused to sign the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition pledge. I have no idea who Jeff Jordan is. And the County Commission District 3 (CCD3) race will be decided by Republican voters -- no Democrat filed for the seat -- but it likely won't be decided on July 25. With four veteran campaigners in the race, I would be surprised if anyone managed to clear the 50% hurdle. It's more likely that the race will be settled in the August 22 runoff.

I wasn't too surprised that Clay Bird supports the bridge. He once said that he considers himself a national Republican but a local independent, and thought the "Chamber, Developers, and Establishment Party" was an apt name for the kind of local party he wishes he could join. He never seemed to have much patience for the concerns of neighborhood groups or the questions of skeptical councilors. He worked to delay passage of the City of Tulsa's first ethics ordinance. I'm not too shocked that he would be at home with a cozy deal like the one Infrastructure Ventures Inc. (IVI) made first with the Tulsa County Commissioners and now with the City of Jenks.

But I learned something today that does a better job of explaining Clay Bird's support for the south Tulsa toll bridge. In fact, it might explain why he is even running for County Commission.

Backing up a bit: Clay Bird was a real estate appraiser during his term as City Councilor from 2000-2002. He chose not to run for re-election, and he took a position on the staff of Mayor Bill LaFortune, serving the entire four years, winding up as Deputy Mayor and Chief of Staff. After LaFortune's defeat, Bird stayed on for about a month to help new Mayor Kathy Taylor with the transition.

On May 14th, the Whirled ran a story about Bird's departure from the Mayor's Office. It said that his last day at City Hall was April 30, and it strongly implied that he had yet to find a new job:

He's packing up his experiences, including helping with the mayoral transition, to take with him.

Former mayoral chief of staff Clay Bird said the past four years working for Bill LaFortune was a lesson in the good, the bad and the politically ugly.

Bird, 44, said he plans to take those lessons with him into his next career endeavor, whatever that may turn out to be....

For the past month, Bird said he has concentrated on the transition with new Mayor Kathy Taylor. His last day at City Hall was April 30.
Bird said he thinks he has a lot to offer his next employer because he has job experience in both the private and public sectors. He was a city councilor before joining the mayor's staff and was self-employed as a property appraiser.

Stories during and right after the June 5-7 filing period referred to Bird as a former city councilor and mayoral aide. No mention was made of any new employment.

The first mention of a new job for Bird was in the July 9 Whirled story about the CCD3 primary.

Bird, 45, became the CEO of Energy Reclamation LLC after leaving his post in the Mayor's Office this year. The company promotes enhanced oil recovery technology.

Bird views the commission post as an administrative position and believes that his experience as a city administrator sets him apart from other candidates.

So sometime between May 14 and July 9, Clay Bird became CEO of Energy Reclamation LLC. The company's website says that it was founded in 2005. The site is promoting new technologies for recovery of crude oil from old deposits.

Our technology involves in-situ generation of CO2 to recover trapped residual oil from reservoirs.

Briggeman's patented technology allows for a method of reducing the viscosity of heavy crude oil by injecting an exhaust gas into the oil.

Here's what the website's "People" page says about CEO Clay Bird:

After a spirited recruiting campaign Energy Reclamation LLC. signed their number one choice for CEO, Mr. Clay Bird. During a brief, but intense, courting Mr. Bird researched, reviewed and interviewed everyone and every aspect of the company. While making his decision he met several times with Dr. Bakhtiyarov, the World's foremost expert on EOR, who had only recently endorse the technology. Mr. Bird also met with the University of Tulsa's highly respected research people to better understand the technology and to help validate his decision to join the company. Although Mr. Bird has limited expertise in the oil industry he has proven "Fortune 500" skills. Prior to being named CEO of Energy Reclamation, LLC, Mr. Bird served the City of Tulsa as Chief of Staff/Deputy Mayor, overseeing a workforce in excess of 4,000 employees with an annual budget of nearly half a billion dollars. Mr. Bird is well respected in the community for his faith, demeanor, management style and leadership skills.

Nothing on the website or elsewhere indicates when Bird was named CEO. The customary announcement press release doesn't appear anywhere on the web, not even in the Whirled's archives. But from the other articles, it must have been in that two month window between May 14 and July 9.

So this is a new company promoting an emerging technology, and you'd think that the investors would expect this coveted CEO to focus his attention on building the company. I know a number of people who have been involved in technology startups, and it is an 80-plus-hours-a-week all-consuming job.

You wouldn't think the investors would allow their new number-one-choice-for-CEO to spend his time running to be elected to another full-time job. If successful in his run for County Commissioner, Bird would only be able to give them six months as CEO, and he would be able to give the job his full attention for only the four months following the runoff.

So why would the investors in the company allow this key employee to start moving toward the exit as soon as he took the job?

The answer may be at the bottom of that same "People" page. Scroll all the way down and you'll find:

Howard Kelsey is a life long Tulsan, continuing the nearly half century Legacy of the family owned, highly respected Kelsey Company. Educated at Northeastern University and University of Tulsa, Howard processes a keen mind along with an eye to detail. Howard is involved with several of the Iconic features in the Tulsa and surrounding area.... Being a former Director of a State wide organization has increased Howard's networking talents, along with being the Company pilot which increases our mobility.

A June 10, 2006, Whirled story about Energy Reclamation LLC identifies Kelsey as a "principal of the company."

Can you name another company of which Kelsey is a principal? IVI, the company that wants to build the south Tulsa toll bridge, the company that made the very lucrative non-competitive deal with Tulsa County to finance the bridge, and which now has a similarly lucrative non-competitive deal with the City of Jenks.

And if you're trying to get that bridge built, what could be more important than having your own man on the County Commission? It might be important enough that you'd be willing to give him a job and a title so that he could make ends meet until he takes office and starts drawing a county paycheck.

If that's what is going on here, it wouldn't be the first time something like that appeared to be happening. In April 1993, Frank Keating joined Gary Richardson's law firm as a senior partner and at the same time said he was considering a run for Governor the following year. Questions were raised by his opponents about whether Keating was earning his keep or whether he was being "kept" -- paid for working while running full-time for Governor. In 1998, when Keating bypassed more experienced attorneys to appoint Gary Richardson's son Chuck to replace Bill LaFortune as DA, some people saw it as payback for Richardson's support of Keating.

One difference between Bird's situation and Keating's is that Keating would have brought relevant experience and a great deal of prestige to Richardson's firm. You could make the case that just having the name Keating on the shingle benefitted the firm financially. It's much harder to make that case for Bird as CEO of a high-tech energy startup.

This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly is about Tulsa-area legislative primaries, particularly about the most hotly contested race, the Republican primary to replace Fred Perry in House District 69, which includes far south Tulsa, Jenks, a bit of Bixby, and the northern part of Glenpool.

One of the emerging issues in that race involves the proposed toll bridge across the Arkansas River that would connect south Tulsa near 121st Street to Jenks and Bixby. Although Fred Jordan got a tremendous headstart in the campaign, helped by $100,000 in contributions, largely from the development industry, Jordan is losing ground as south Tulsa voters learn that he is in favor of the toll bridge as proposed by Infrastructure Ventures Inc.

The South Tulsa Citizens' Coalition asked all five Republican candidates to sign a representation opposing the bridge. The representation states that the candidate will not support a bridge until certain intersections and streets connecting to the bridge have been widened, will oppose any heavy truck traffic on Yale between 121st and the Creek Turnpike, and won't support the north end of the bridge connecting to or near Yale Avenue. Chris Medlock, Lisa DeBolt, and Jeff Applekamp have all signed these letters, and Medlock was a leader while on the City Council in getting city officials on record in opposition to the bridge. (Here is a PDF of Medlock's representation letter.)

Fred Jordan and Darrell Gwartney have refused to sign the representation, which Jordan calls, "a highly restrictive and legalistic 'pledge' committing [his opponents] to oppose the bridge under any reasonable circumstances." (Here is a PDF of Fred Jordan's statement to the STCC.) I'm sure STCC members would object to the characterization of the preconditions, which I summarized above, as unreasonable.

Jordan, who has been vague on the issue until now, has started to lose supporters to Chris Medlock. (Although there are two other candidates who oppose the bridge, they are trailing far behind Jordan and Medlock. Neither DeBolt nor Applekamp are likely to make the runoff.) A couple of days ago I spoke to Kari Romoser, who lives near 111th and Yale, an area that would feel the traffic impact if the bridge is connected to Yale. She had Fred Jordan's sign in her yard, but she recently pulled it up and replaced it with a Chris Medlock sign.

Jordan's position on the bridge issue wasn't the only reason for Kari's change, but it was an important reason. Her family has invested a lot to be in this part of Tulsa so that they can send their children to Jenks Southeast Elementary School. Anything that would hurt the value of their home or affect safe access to the school is important to her.

Jordan's company, Caprock Resources, is developing three residential areas along Elm (Peoria) in south Jenks. Two of them, Wakefield Pond and Wakefield Village, are along 121st St., in an area that would benefit from the proposed bridge without bearing a significant traffic impact. (For he folks north of the bridge in south Tulsa along Yale, the traffic impact would far outweigh any convenience benefit.)

So far, the toll bridge has been a local issue, involving Tulsa County and the cities of Jenks and Tulsa, so why does it matter what a state representative thinks about the issue? In his statement, Jordan says that, "to my knowledge, there is no pending or proposed action in the legislature relating to the bridge."

In fact, there was a measure in the Legislature this session which passed the House but was killed in the Senate that would have had an effect on the toll bridge deal. The process has raised all kinds of issues that the Legislature may address at some point: Should counties and cities be able to enter into private toll bridge deals of this sort? Who has ownership and jurisdiction over the Arkansas River bed? Whose approval is needed to build a private toll bridge? Should private toll roads and toll bridges be legal? Should the jurisdiction responsible for connecting infrastructure have a say in whether a toll bridge is built? When a city and the county, or two adjacent cities, are at odds over a bridge, who makes the final decision?

As we learned with the Board of Adjustment legislation (SB 1324, HB 2559) this session, it won't be enough to have the Tulsa City Council on our side, because the Legislature could take away the City's say on this contentious issue. It will be important for south Tulsa residents to have someone in the Legislature who will represent their interests on this matter, someone with the savvy to detect and block any attempt to bypass Tulsa's city government.

The final report from Tulsa's Citizens' Commission on City Government is the topic of this week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly. The commission, appointed by then-Mayor Bill LaFortune last December, finished on schedule, made some constructive recommendations, including a recommendation against adding at-large seats to the City Council.

You can find the full text of the Citizens' Commission on City Government report on the Tulsans Defending Democracy website.

Also in this week's UTW, Ginger Shepherd covers the new Tulsa Public Schools superintendent, downtown revitalization in Muskogee, the recently passed City of Tulsa budget, and the sweet no-bid contract Murphy Bros. got to continue to run the Tulsa State Fair midway.

The story quotes Jerry Murphy, owner of Murphy Bros.:

Murphy added, �why would you fire someone that is doing a good job?� and been doing it for a long time?

In fact, the midway has been a disappointment for a long time, and Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority (TCPFA -- the fair board) members owed it to the public to see if another operator couldn't bring better, more reliable rides for better prices, but instead they continued the Tulsa County practice of awarding contracts to insiders without competition. Jerry Murphy's wife, Loretta Murphy, contributed $5,000 to the mayoral campaign of County Commissioner Randi Miller, who is also a member of the TCPFA and voted to approve the contract with Murphy Bros.

Tulsa County filings as of 5 p.m. Tuesday. I have been hearing of at least three candidates with previous campaign experience (two of them prior office holders) looking at the District 3 county commission race now that incumbent Bob Dick has withdrawn from the race.

COUNTY ASSESSOR

Jack Gordon, 4151 E. 46th Place, Democrat, Tulsa, OK 74135, 03/17/1950

Ken Yazel, 9914 So. 87th East Ave, Republican, Tulsa, OK 74133, 02/27/1945

COUNTY TREASURER

Dennis Semler, 10624 E 100th St. S., Republican, Tulsa, OK 74133, 09/04/1956

COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 1

Wilbert E. Collins, SR., 1447 North Elgin, Democrat, Tulsa, OK 74106, 04/08/1941

Tracey Wilson, 5419 E 96th St N., Republican, Sperry, OK 74073, 10/23/1959

COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 3

William L. Christiansen, 5106 E 86th Place, Republican, Tulsa, OK 74137, 12/23/1947

(Our District Attorney serves only Tulsa County, but nevertheless he's considered a state officer, and filing is handled by the State Election Board. Tim Harris has filed for re-election, and he is being challenged by Republican Brett Swab.)

Bob Dick announced earlier today that he will not file for re-election as Tulsa County Commissioner for District 3.

Who will step in?

My column this week in Urban Tulsa Weekly looks back at the Oklahoma legislative session just ended and the state election filing period next Monday through Wednesday, June 5 through 7.

SB 1324, the bill that would have interfered with local control of zoning, was dealt a humiliating 42-3 defeat in the State Senate, while its sister bill HB 2559 died in conference committee. SB 1742, a landmark pro-life bill, won by overwhelming margins in both houses and was signed by the governor. The legislators on the wrong side of those issues deserve special scrutiny as they face re-election this year, but they won't get any scrutiny unless they have an opponent.

In particular, District 70 Representative Ron Peters and District 72 Darrell Gilbert haven't faced opposition in six years and eight years respectively, and I'm hoping someone will step forward to challenge each of them.

District 3 Tulsa County Commissioner Bob Dick has yet to announce his plans, and it's beginning to look like Dick is trying a J. C. Watts-style handoff to his handpicked successor. You'll recall that Watts announced at the last minute in 2002 that he wouldn't be seeking re-election to Congress. Candidates that might have run for that open seat were caught flat-footed, but Watts' political consultant and chosen heir, Tom Cole, had advance knowledge of Watts' plans and was ready to run right away.

Speculation is that Dick's chosen successor is either Tulsa City Councilor Bill Christiansen or former State Sen. Jerry Smith. The district covers the southern part of midtown Tulsa, south Tulsa, Broken Arrow, and Bixby. (Click here to see a map of the Tulsa County Commission Districts.) The district is heavily Republican, and there has to be some man or woman of integrity and wisdom among the tens of thousands of registered Republicans in the district who would be willing to step forward and serve as a candidate.

Given the huge pot of money under the control of the Tulsa County Commissioners -- well over half a billion in Vision 2025 money, plus Four to Fix the County tax dollars, plus millions more money available to lend in their role as the Tulsa County Industrial Authority -- and the County Commission's propensity to avoid competitive bidding, we need to clean house at the County Commission. Having Bob Dick or his handpicked successor in office is not an acceptable result.

If you are considering a race for any of those seats, or would like more information about being a candidate, I'd be glad to talk with you. Drop me an e-mail at blog at batesline dot com.

UPDATE: The Whirled is reporting that Bob Dick is running for re-election and Bill Christiansen plans to challenge him. Not much of a choice. With the fans of insider deals splitting their votes between Christiansen and Dick, a conservative reformer could easily gain enough primary votes to make the runoff and then win the runoff. (That's more or less how Tim Harris came out of nowhere to win the DA's office back in 1998.)

Here's a roundup of local opinion and information on Tulsa County's "4 to Fix" tax. I've picked out some of the choicest blog-bites, but be sure to click the links to read the whole thing:

Here's what appears to be the official website for the vote yes campaign.

Here are the ballot resolutions passed by the Tulsa County Commission, and a sample ballot (PDF).

Do the River First is one of the groups opposing the tax, specifically propositions 2, 3, and 4.

The South Tulsa Citizens Coalition opposes the entire package.

Councilor Chris Medlock explains his opposition to the tax, and his proposal for using the money to fund public safety in the City of Tulsa.

On the radio:

Joe Kelley, KRMG morning host, on his blog, The Sake of Argument:

I�ve met with many of these politicians and have found many of them to be in outright glee over the windfall of cash from Vision 2025 and the current Four-to-Fix. Not once have I heard a single politician say, "Yes, the extra money would be nice, but if we need more funding for any of our projects, we should first look at cutting spending somewhere else. Until we work harder to eliminate waste, we should not ask the taxpayers to shoulder a great burden than what they already pay."

KFAQ morning host Michael DelGiorno has frequently expressed his opposition to the new county tax.

In print:

The Tulsa Beacon:

The projects on the list have merit but some are just not high priorities. County government is essentially closed to public comment on its capital priorities and that is another reason to vote no.... County government serves an appropriate function. But the land area served by Tulsa County is shrinking as cities take in more annexed land. The county shouldn�t be involved in municipal projects.

Here's the Tulsa Beacon's news story on the tax vote, with a list of projects.

Here's my latest Urban Tulsa Weekly column on 4-to-Fix, a column about the tax proposal from when renewal was beginning to be discussed, a column about Tulsa County Commissioners' aversion to competitive bidding.

The weekly Owasso Reporter opposes propositions 2, 3, and 4, saying that it's a bad deal for north Tulsa County towns, too, because the money for road projects in the area is a token amount that won't actually get anything fixed.

In the blogosphere:

Dan Paden:

I know it's only a pittance, but dadgummit, it makes Tulsa a donor city and I'm not at all convinced that it's worth it. Let's set a precedent and actually stop renewing some of these taxes.

Dave the Oklahomilist:

It's not like last time where we were having to replace facilities at the fairgrounds that were to the point of being unsafe. And as far as we can tell a no vote does not take bread out of anyone's mouth.... Saying no on Tuesday is a shot across the bow to all units of local government as we tell them to quit taking us for granted. Get lean and mean. Figure out what is essential. Get creative.

Steve Roemerman:

Due to increasing construction and higher property values, Tulsa County is enjoying increased revenue from property taxes. Meanwhile Tulsa is withering on the vine. Any sales tax that The County levies will only serve to limit the funding options of Tulsa, or any other city in Tulsa County for that matter.

Mad Okie:

Which is more important?

Pick one:

1. Golf Cart Storage
2. Police
3. River Development
   

If you selected #1 then vote Yes for 4 to fix, otherwise vote NO on 4 to Fix so financing can be available for the more important things.

MeeCiteeWurkor:

Just a reminder to those of you who think you are being taxed to death. This Tuesday on the 13th, if you live in Tulsa County, you need to go vote NO on all five items on the �4 to fix� ballot.

Homeowners for Fair Zoning:

Bottom line: The county is in great shape, the surrounding towns' tax revenues are way up, Tulsa's revenues are down and our city infrastructure is falling down around us! That sales tax revenue should now come back to City of Tulsa for police, streets, etc. and the county should go back to living on THEIR OWN INCOME -- property taxes.

Tulsa Chiggers:

It is obvious to everyone that the CITY OF TULSA needs the municipal sales tax income stream instead of the County. Although we can all see the fruits of the County's improvements to such things as LaFortune Park and the Fairgrounds, 4 to Fix was always supposed to be a temporary tax.... The County is not broke, so let's don't fix it!

Charles G. Hill provides some insight from the other end of the Turner Turnpike.

If I've missed anything significant, drop me an e-mail at blog AT batesline DOT com.

A few questions I haven't seen answered anywhere about the 50 cent per month per wireless phone tax on Tuesday's ballot, which is supposed to pay for a 911 system that can pinpoint the location of an emergency call made from a wireless phone:

Who will be collecting these funds?

How much will the new 911 equipment cost?

How much are the estimated annual operating costs?

How much money is the tax expected to raise?

How will any surplus money be spent?

What funds will be used to compensate for any shortfalls?

Anyone know?

I've been remiss in not calling attention to the website that David McKinney has set up urging Tulsa to "do the river first" -- to put capital improvements money toward the Arkansas River master plan, making the long-deferred dream of many Tulsans a priority.

It's a well-designed and well-written site, and it has -- as far as I've seen -- the only list of projects for the new "4 to Fix the County" taxes anywhere on the Internet. He takes humorous jabs at three of the projects -- a road to nowhere, more comfortable accommodations for golf carts, and more money for soccer fields.

McKinney is calling on Tulsa County voters to turn down propositions 2, 3, and 4 on the December 13th ballot. His hope is that the county will come back with a revised package that starts to implement the Arkansas River plan. Tulsa City Councilor Chris Medlock would prefer to use the money at the city level to improve public safety; as much as he cares about river development, he thinks it's a higher priority to deal with a violent crime rate that is nearly twice the national average.

We have time to debate between those priorities after December 13. The first step is to vote no on December 13. Both McKinney and Medlock would agree that both the river and public safety are more important than spending $3,000,000 to make sure the golf carts at LaFortune Park are cozy at night.

A few days ago I wrote that the people pushing for the new $62 million Tulsa County sales tax didn't seem to want to participate in today's debate at the Tulsa County Republican Men's Club (TCRMC). Late in the day Thursday, Commissioner Randi Miller decided she would make herself available to debate Councilor Chris Medlock after all.

A large crowd filled The Fountains Restaurant's largest dining area today. As people signed in and paid for lunch, each paid-up member of the TCRMC ($20 / year) was given a copy of the official sample ballot for a straw poll to be taken at the end of the debate.

I'm not going to try right now to provide a detailed account of the debate. Neither debater overwhelmed the crowd. Miller relied on a PowerPoint presentation during her 10 minutes. Medlock had written a speech and pretty much put on his reading glasses and read it; he was much more effective during the rebuttal and Q&A when he was speaking extemporaneously.

During Q&A I asked Commissioner Miller why the County couldn't use its use tax to finance the most critical need (juvenile justice center and courthouse improvements). It would supply about $4 million a year under the lower rate that would be in effect if the new "4 to Fix" tax fails. The use tax paid for renovation of the Pavilion and other fairgrounds improvements.

Miller asked me where my use tax numbers came from. They are from the Oklahoma Tax Commission's monthly sales tax reports, which you can find on their website. I took the 18 months from the March 2004 through August 2005 reports. (Because of reporting deadlines, the March 2004 report was the first report with the higher county tax rate after the Vision 2025 tax went into effect.) In those 18 months, Tulsa County collected $7.3 million in use taxes. Adjusting that number for the use tax rate without the 1/6th cent "4 to Fix" tax (use tax rate can only be as high as the sales tax rate), and for a year rather than 18 months, it comes to $4,075,528.30. The County's Proposition 1 is for 12% of the projected $62 million total -- that's $7.4 million, which the use tax could cover in a little under two years. Why not reprioritize that money, spend it on the courts and justice system instead of on improving the fairgrounds, which is already in wonderful shape?

58 TCRMC members voted in the straw poll. The "no" side prevailed on all four propositions -- ranging from a 58-42 margin for Proposition 2 (parks) to a 51-49 margin for Proposition 4 (roads). (You'll find the ballot resolutions for the four propositions here.)

I was surprised not to see any "vote yes" brochures. Someone had printed up copies of my Urban Tulsa Weekly column on the topic, and someone else made some "vote no" yard signs.

Steve Roemerman was at Tuesday night's meeting about the IVI toll bridge -- has a good summary of the controversy here.

Meeciteewurkor is having another contest -- come up with the funniest (but still decent) answer for what the P. J. stands for in Tulsa Whirled reporter P. J. Lassek's name. For extra credit, write a typically slanted Whirled City Hall news article, then write the Ken Neal editorial founded on that article.

At about 3:21 PM, I received an email from Club for Growth, the pro-fiscal responsibility pressure group:

[Club for Growth President] Pat [Toomey] will be on the show, NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, tonight on PBS. We hope you can tune in because he was originally scheduled to debate Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the head of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

This is the same RINO organization whose members are blocking budget cuts from passing the House and the same group that once received a big check from George Soros. Unfortunately, Ms. Resnick backed out of the debate. We guess it's tough to defend RINOs.

This came about an hour later:

Well, it looks like Pat won't be on Jim Lehrer's TV show tonight after all.

The TV producers for the show simply couldn't find a RINO who was willing to debate Pat so they decided to scrub the segment all together.

Shame on the Republican Main Street Partnership for not being willing to defend their pro-pork position in what would have probably been a friendly venue. But more shame on the producers of News Hour for caving into their manipulations. Cowards who are afraid to defend their policies count on this kind of reaction by debate organizers. Can't have a fair debate without both sides, so the side that is afraid to debate finds one excuse after another to avoid sending someone, and the organizer feels compelled to cancel the debate to avoid a one-sided presentation.

For an example of the right way to respond, look at the way KRMG handled a similar situation with the 2000 "It's Tulsa's Time" arena sales tax vote. The proponents refused to make someone available for a debate on KRMG, but KRMG determined to go ahead with the scheduled debate with or without a "vote yes" representative. In the end the "vote yes" side sent someone.

Don Burdick is doing the right thing, too, regarding this Friday's debate on the December 13th vote on a new five-year round of sales tax -- $62 million more for Tulsa County Commissioners to spend.

Don is president of the Tulsa County Republican Men's Club. Over a month ago, he scheduled this debate for their November luncheon, and he asked me to speak on behalf of the opposition. He asked County Commissioner Bob Dick to speak for the proponents, but Dick refused when he learned it would be a debate. Dick also it was sub dignitate sua for him to debate a non-elected official. So City Councilor Chris Medlock was brought in for the opposition.

Things get a bit confused, but my understanding is that at this point Dick dropped out and the "vote yes" side substituted County Commissioner Randi Miller. Then they told Don that Medlock shouldn't debate for the "vote no" side since he's running for Mayor. The vote yes consultant helpfully suggested someone else to argue for the opposition. Their ideal choice for someone to face in a debate was unavailable.

Don Burdick declined to let the proponents dictate who they'd be debating against. As things now stand, Commissioner Miller revealed last Thursday that she is unable to attend, and the consultant says no one else can come. Burdick is going ahead with the program, even if only opponents make themselves available to speak. And he's going ahead with a straw poll on the county sales tax, open to club members only, with the results to be made public.

Good for Don. But what does it say about our County Commissioners that they are unwilling to make the case for the $62 million they want from us?

Judge Rebecca Brett Nightingale will hear arguments today on the County's motion to dismiss the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition's lawsuit against the three County Commissioners. The suit alleges that Commissioners violated state law in approving the contract with Infrastructure Ventures Inc., in which IVI will build a bridge across the Arkansas River and maintain, operate, and collect tolls on it for seventy-five years. The STCC would like supporters present in the courtroom -- Room 708 of the Tulsa County Courthouse, 500 S. Denver Ave., at 1:30 p.m.

I'm sure judges are able to filter this out, but I wonder if it ever crosses a judge's mind in a suit like this that the County Commission is her landlord and controls the funding for courthouse improvements. That may be why STCC wants a crowd there, so she can see that the suit matters to a sizable block of voters, too.

Last night my son and I went to the Tulsa State Fair. We spent some time in the Just for Kids attraction in the old Youth Building: He worked with the hands-on science exhibits, he built with wood planks, and we watched a fun science demonstration.

We wandered along the midway looking at the rides, my son trying to figure out how to allocate his ride tickets. He decided he'd rather spend them in Bell's Amusement Park, there on the fairgrounds, since he knew which rides he liked the most. (For the record: Super Round-Up, Pharaoh's Fury, the Scrambler.) I was happy for the ticket revenue to go to Bell's instead of Murphy Bros., the company that's had a sole-source contract for the midway since 1971.

According to Susan Hylton's report in the Tulsa Whirled, Expo Square chief Denny Tuttle is in the process of negotiating a five-year extension with Murphy Bros. on their midway contract, which has never been competitively bid. If our County Commissioners were really looking out for the best interests of taxpayers and fairgoers,
they'd go through a competitive bidding process. Once again this year, many Murphy Bros. rides weren't ready to run at the beginning of the fair because of equipment problems or failure to pass inspection. Last night -- a week into the fair -- we noticed there weren't as many rides as in previous years, and several Murphy Bros. rides were out of order.

A competitive bidding process gives us a chance at a midway vendor with a better safety and reliability record. It could also get us better ride rates. Most rides for big kids and grownups cost $4 or $5 each.

Food vendors and hawkers of miraculous kitchen gadgets are all subject to competition at the fair, but the midway contract grants one vendor a monopoly on a big chunk of real estate in the heart of the fairgrounds. There at least ought to be competition when the midway contract is granted.

The citizens of Tulsa County ought to wonder why so much county business -- who handles a half-billion in revenue bonds, who gets to build a hotel on the fairgrounds, who gets to build a toll bridge across the Arkansas River, who handles land acquisition -- is just given out to favored vendors.

Joe Kelley has posted a lengthy analysis of the IVI Bridge issue. I appreciate the time he's taken to get a grasp of the issue and to "show his work" -- not only to come to a conclusion but to tell the rest of us how he reached it.

I don't have time for a point-by-point commentary, so I'll just point you to it, and encourage you to join in the discussion over there.

So Jenks Mayor Vic Vreeland thinks there are only five people who object to Infrastructure Ventures Inc's cozy deal with Tulsa County for a toll bridge across the Arkansas River? You have a chance to prove him wrong tonight.

If you have yet to sign South Tulsa Citizens Coalition's petition against the IVI bridge, stop by 101st and Yale between 5:00 pm and 6:30 pm this evening.

Don't know why, but I kept thinking of this bridge deal when I was watching "Casino" Friday night....

A note from the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition about the proposed IVI toll bridge:

Dear STCC Supporter:

We thought you may want to know that County Commissioner Bob Dick called a meeting with a select few of our elected officials on Thursday, September 29th regarding the proposed toll bridge. Commissioner Dick invited City Councilors Bill Martinson, Randy Sullivan and Tom Baker, Bixby Mayor Joe Williams, Jenks Mayor Vic
Vreeland and Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune and his chief of staff. City Councilor Bill Christiansen (whose district the proposed toll bridge will be in) was not invited, but attended anyway. Commissioners Miller and Collins did not attend.

It is STCC's understanding that Commissioner Dick invited only certain city officials to this meeting as to not trigger the Open Meetings Act. Once again, more meetings regarding the proposed toll bridge without public input and behind closed doors.

During the meeting, Commissioner Dick made the following comments .....

- The proposed toll bridge must be constructed at its current location because various individuals and entities had bought land counting on the toll bridge to go in at its current location.

- IVI and/or the County is willing to give the City of Tulsa a piece
of the pie in order to get the bridge constructed. No specific numbers were discussed however.

Jenks Mayor, Vic Vreeland commented that STCC is a group of only 5 people and that STCC does not represent the number of people that it purports to represent. (He obviously has not been to any of our meetings.)

It is STCC's understanding that the basic tone of the meeting was "what can IVI and/or the County do to get this toll bridge pushed through?"

The meeting concluded with Commissioner Dick agreeing to come back to
the table at a later date with the specifics of the deal the County and IVI are proposing. STCC encourages you to email or write the elected officials and advise them not to be persuaded by Commissioner Dick and IVI's tactics. An attachment is included with this message with all of their email addresses. Please let them know that you know what is going on and it is not acceptable.

Thank you once again for your continued support.

The latest issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly is online, and my column this week is about Tulsa County's push to pass an extension to the "4 to Fix the County" sales tax:

Tulsa County�s three commissioners are scrambling to put together a list of projects to be funded with a new 1/6th cent sales tax. Although there�s a year to go until the �4 to Fix the County� (4FC) tax expires, county officials are eager to get Tulsa voters to commit at the earliest possible opportunity to pay the tax for five more years.

The reason has little to do with funding critical County government functions, and everything to do with mayoral politics and the balance of power between City and County. While the County has accomplished a lot of good with 4FC, the question Tulsa voters should be asking is, �Who needs the money most?�

Read the whole thing, as they say.

I started working on an entry on yesterday's debate between Michael Covey of the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition and Tony Dark, an engineer with TetraTech FHC, the firm doing the engineering work for Infrastructure Venture Inc. (IVI), over the south Tulsa bridge which IVI wants to build as a public-private partnership with Tulsa County. I got distracted with e-mail and some other blog browsing and didn't get it done to my satisfaction.

For now I'll leave you with these few comments: Michael Covey did an excellent job of stating the case against the IVI-Tulsa County deal and against IVI's desired location of the bridge. I was amazed that the pro-IVI side would represented by an engineer working for a subcontractor, and not by one of the IVI principals or one of the County Commissioners. While Tony Dark did a decent job, the issues at hand involved policy and economics more than soil compaction and traffic counts. Clearly IVI didn't want anyone present who could be expected to answer questions about the public policy aspects of the bridge.

Covey has proposed an alternative plan, in which the City of Tulsa would build the bridge with revenue bonds and pay Tulsa County and River Parks the same amount of money they are expecting ($89 million and $44 million respectively) under the IVI plan. Based on information from George K. Baum and Associates, it's estimated that the City of Tulsa would net $611 million dollars over the life of the bridge, some of which could be used to pay for the infrastructure upgrades required for the roads which link to the bridge.

Referring to the County's intention to seek renewal of the 4 to Fix the County sales tax in order to raise $59 million for capital improvements, Covey asked, "Why would I vote for $59 million in taxes when Tulsa County has walked away from $658 million net profit?"

Regarding the STCC's proposal to move the northern end of the bridge so it connects into Riverside Drive rather than Yale Avenue, Dark made a telling remark. Dark said that moving the north end of the bridge would relieve traffic for existing subdivisions along Yale, but would create a 15 foot high barrier next to a planned high-end housing development along Riverside at 121st. In other words, the County wants to protect the interests of the new developer as the expense of neighborhoods where the developer has already sold all the homes and moved on.

Roemerman on Record will be quiet for a while, as Steve Roemerman is off to Gretna, Louisiana, just across the Mississippi from New Orleans, with a group from his church to help Convoy of Hope. We'll keep Steve in our prayers and look forward to his report when he returns.

Our Tulsa World has added more video clips from Mayor Bill LaFortune's September 6 third-penny meeting at the Zarrow Library. This is a great service that Mr. Schuttler is doing by filming, converting, and posting these video clips. Too often the claims and promises made in this sort of meeting are lost to history. His summary of the meeting puts the clips in context. In another entry he has the response from Mayor LaFortune and Fire Chief Allen LaCroix to the question, "Are we prepared if Keystone Dam breaks?"

MeeCiteeWurkor has a special comments thread just for registering your opinion of the Tulsa Whirled. He's asking for submissions in a contest -- things you can do with a Tulsa Whirled. And he's about to add a new contributor to the blog.

City Councilor Chris Medlock has a recent entry on his proposal regarding the sales tax money currently going to Tulsa County for "4 to Fix the County." He says that the county is fixed now, and between the Vision 2025 sales tax and rising property taxes, the county is well fixed for funds. By denying a renewal of the 2/12ths cent "4 to Fix" sales tax, City of Tulsa voters could opt to pass the same size sales tax at the city level and earmark it for public safety.

Another noteworthy item on MedBlogged cites two Tulsa Whirled City Hall stories, one from 2002, one from last week. The March 2002 story has Mayor-elect Bill LaFortune saying he plans to have a direct, face-to-face relationship with the City Council, which lines up with my recollection of my first meeting with LaFortune as he started his run for office. The September 2005 story has councilors, including recently-elected Bill Martinson, complaining that LaFortune won't deal directly with the Council on issues like the new third-penny proposal.

Tulsa Downtown reports that new clubs are opening in the Blue Dome district.

Tulsa newcomer Joe Kelley has been trying the immersion approach to understanding his new hometown, and he's posted a list of some of the people he's met with so far, and would like suggestions for others he ought to talk to. About a week and a half ago, I introduced him to the tawook at La Roma Pizza (a Lebanese restaurant disguised as a pizzeria), and we had a very enjoyable conversation. He seems to be a very astute observer and a quick study.

Tulsa Topics has an audio tribute to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, including their radio theme song, "Okie Boogie," "Cadillac in my Model A," and tributes by The Tractors and Asleep at the Wheel. One thing I love about Bob Wills songs -- you don't need liner notes, because Bob tells you who's playing as the song proceeds.

As always, you'll find the latest and greatest entries from blogs about Tulsa news on the Tulsa Bloggers aggregation page.

The same accounting firm that audited the Tulsa County Industrial Authority also audited the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority (TCCJA), and Urban Tulsa covered it in their March 17th issue, in a story by G. W. Schulz entitled "Who's Minding the Jail?"

After bond indebtedness from construction of the county lockup was retired in 2001, $12 million remained. The report shows the Justice Authority finished off what was left of the $12 million this year, $1.6 million, and continued on into the red reaching a $2.9 million deficit, which the authority has scrambled to cover with funds from other county entities. In other words, the authority this year spent $4.5 million more than it took in from sales tax revenue.

The story goes on to describe how the problem was finally uncovered. It also tells why the overview committee for the jail sales tax didn't spot the problem -- the overview committee has no teeth.

Committee Chair Robert Breuning said the oversight board is not permitted to examine the Justice Authority�s major decisions until �after the fact.� He said authority attorney Jim Orbison �scolded� the committee for attempting to inform the authority that the proposed use of a detox center to save money would cost significantly more than had been forecasted.

�Our duty was not to advise, but observe,� Breuning said the committee was told. �But after the fact, there was no reason to observe.�

I had gotten out of the habit of reading Urban Tulsa, but it appears now that they are committed to doing in-depth reporting on local issues. Thanks to G. W. Schulz and Urban Tulsa for digging into this story.

P. S. I'll be on KFAQ 1170 at 7:10 Wednesday morning to talk about the audit of the Tulsa County Industrial Authority.