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Vision Tulsa forum tonight (Tuesday, March 8, 2016)
The Tulsa County Republican Men's Club is hosting a forum tonight, Tuesday, March 8, 2016, at 7:00 p.m., about the upcoming April 5 vote on the "Vision Tulsa" tax propositions. George McFarlin and I will be there to explain why you should vote against the propositions. I understand that there...
Mayoral flashback: When Bartlett didn't blame Taylor for the Tulsa budget mess
Here is the monthly sales tax news release from Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr's office, dated February 5, 2010. This is two months after Bartlett Jr was sworn in, just shy of three months after he was elected mayor in 2009. Please especially note the final paragraph, which I've highlighted...
The Tulsa non-partisan election and runoff process
There's a good deal of confusion about the City of Tulsa election process. Tulsans have amended the election dates and terms of office about a dozen times in the last seven years. In just a few years we've gone from partisan elections in February and March of even-numbered years to...
Tulsa Election 2013: Ethics report notes; mayoral bet-hedgers
This is the first City of Tulsa mayoral election in which candidates are required by state law to file campaign finance reports through the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, rather than the city clerk's office, making it far easier to have access to the reports and analyze them. Tulsa County candidates also...
Dewey Bartlett Jr: Republican for Kathy Taylor
I'll be on 1170 KFAQ Wednesday morning at 7 with Pat Campbell to talk about mayoral candidate and former Tulsa mayor Kathy Taylor's record during her term from April 2006 to December 2009.* Taylor is claiming to have "cut wasteful spending," but in fact the general fund budget under her...
Kathy Taylor returns?
There's a strong rumor circulating (UPDATE: It's official.) that former Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor will be running this year to retake her former position as queen of the Borg Cube. You'll recall that official election records in Florida and Oklahoma showed that Kathy Taylor cast a ballot in both states...
Reason misses the story on Dewey Bartlett Jr
My guess is that Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr has a friend at the libertarian Reason Foundation or has a friend who is a major donor to the organization, because they've posted another story -- with video this time -- hailing him as a budgetary genius. Clearly, the only Tulsans...
Vision2: Tulsa better off going it alone
A possible response to my earlier entry, Vision2 share vs. Tulsa County municipality population, is that it doesn't count the money in Proposition 1 to improve city-owned facilities and to provide "equipment and fixtures and other capital improvements" for businesses in the "Airport Industrial Complex" as part of Tulsa's share....
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...
A challenge to City Council candidates: Put last-minute contributions online
UPDATE: As of noon Friday, September 2, 2011, six candidates have accepted the challenge, and one, Steven Roemerman, has already posted his pre-primary C-1 disclosure, which isn't due until Tuesday. (See end of this entry for a list of candidates and links to their campaign finance information.) Campaign finance disclosure...
Kathy Taylor hagiography
I was surprised this week to see that TulsaPeople had dropped its glossy mag look for newsprint. Then I looked more closely and saw that it was in fact Urban Tulsa Weekly that put a paper-airplane-tossing Kathy Taylor on the cover and a lengthy love song to the former Tulsa...
Martinson, 2009: Tulsa Metro Chamber "advocates... blind obedience"
In 2009, incumbent Councilor Bill Martinson was defeated by Chris Trail, a well-funded challenger, a newcomer to politics and to the city limits, funded and supported by forces that didn't like an intelligent skeptic on the Tulsa City Council scrutinizing their schemes. I recently came across Martinson's response to the...
Tulsa Election 2011: Filings, Day 3
The filing period ended at 5 p.m. today. The Tulsa County Election Board has the official list of Tulsa municipal candidates on its website, but here's a list for handy reference. I've added (MON), (TUE), or (WED) to indicate the day on which each candidate filed. CITY AUDITOR-2 (Two) Year...
Bartlett Jr's first year in office
This week's Urban Tulsa Weekly cover story, by reporter Mike Easterling, is a look back at Dewey Bartlett Jr's first year as mayor of Tulsa. Easterling spoke to the Mayor himself, to chief of staff Terry Simonson, to several city councilors, to urbanist and developer Jamie Jamieson, and to me....
Money Belt RINOs back Nancy Bolzle
The clubby insiders are doing all they can to oust County Assessor Ken Yazel. It might be because he's the only county official who has opposed county tax increases for frivolities. It might be because he insists on assessing fair market value for everyone, even the very wealthy. It might...
G. T. Bynum on the cover of <em>UTW</em>
The cover story in this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly is a profile of Tulsa District 9 City Councilor G. T. Bynum. Reporter Mike Easterling has written an interesting story about a significant figure in Tulsa politics, and he includes extensive quotes from Jack Henderson and Rick Westcott, Bynum's colleagues from...
New City Hall and the budget crisis
Late yesterday afternoon, I received an interesting e-mail from Fox 23 investigative reporter Emily Sinovic: This youtube clip has been getting passed around quite a bit recently. Do you have anything you'd like to say about what's happened since you raised these concerns about the unnecessary decision to move into...
Auditor: For Preston Doerflinger
If you weren't convinced a year ago that Tulsa needed a new City Auditor, you should be now. The incumbent, Phil Wood, has held the job since 1988, and he's the only auditor we've had under the 1989 City Charter, which gave the Auditor's office a great deal of independence...
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...
PAC contributions in city elections
Several political action committees have contributed to City of Tulsa candidates during the current election cycle: BOK BOK Financial PAC: Dewey Bartlett Jr, $1,000; Chris Trail, $1,500; (Eric Gomez received $1,500 and Phil Lakin received $2,000 before the primary, in addition to contributions from George Kaiser, BOK attorney Frederic Dorwart,...
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