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Tulsa District 5: For Sam Roop

District 5 is a three-way race: Incumbent and first-term Councilor Chris Trail, former District 5 Councilor Sam Roop, and school district employee and PTA leader Karen Gilbert. No Democrats filed, so Tuesday's primary winner takes the seat. Because of her conflicts of interest, because she is the consensus choice of...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 9, 2011 11:38 PM

Kathy Taylor's Trail to revenge: Martinson defeat financed by Lobeck, associates

What many of us suspected was confirmed by the post-primary ethics filing from Tulsa District 5 City Councilor-elect Chris Trail: Trail was Mayor Kathy Taylor's instrument of revenge against City Councilor Bill Martinson, who opposed her on the ballpark improvement district, raised concerns about the overly rosy revenue projections in...

Posted by Michael Bates on November 5, 2009 7:18 AM

The Trail from Sand Springs

Last Thursday, KRMG's Joe Kelley interviewed Tulsa District 5 City Councilor-elect Chris Trail about his defeat of incumbent Bill Martinson. It was an interesting conversation. During the segment, Kelley mentioned his conversation with Trail at the Beer Summit, and that shortly thereafter, he was speaking to one of Trail's firefighter...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 14, 2009 10:29 PM

Primary post-mortem: Some initial thoughts

A few thoughts before turning in: Thanks to news director Dan Potter and the KRMG news team for the chance to contribute to tonight's coverage of the primary election. It was a pleasure, and I look forward to the next opportunity. Many thanks to Chris and Cheryl Medlock for their...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 9, 2009 1:17 AM

District 5: For Bill Martinson, number cruncher, straight talker, grownup

As long-time readers are no doubt aware, I was not a fan of Bill Martinson's when he first sought and was elected to the Tulsa City Council. Martinson replaced Sam Roop in District 5 after Mayor Bill LaFortune hired Roop as his chief information officer. Martinson was the candidate of...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 5, 2009 1:38 AM

Biggest mayoral fundraiser, spender is not on the ballot

Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor, who ended her campaign for re-election early this summer, raised and spent more money on her non-campaign than any of the candidates seeking to replace her. Steven Roemerman and I worked together to sift through the pre-primary campaign reports, and he has posted a spreadsheet summary...

Posted by Michael Bates on August 31, 2009 5:59 PM

Monday morning local linkage

I'm swamped at the moment, but there's plenty of interesting blogging elsewhere around Tulsa. Here are just a few examples: Mayoral candidate Chris Medlock writes that the Tulsa World buried the story of his opponent, Dewey Bartlett, Jr., voting in support and praising Kathy Taylor's dodgy settlement on the Great...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 27, 2009 10:19 AM