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Tulsa City Council preview, 2021/05/05: 36th & MLK TIF
AFTER-ACTION REVIEW: All items on the regular council meeting agenda were approved without dissent. There was only one controversy: Gary Brinkner, vice chairman of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, objected to special event application for the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival, which would block off Greenwood and Archer for three...
Tulsa Election 2020: Mayoral candidate questionnaire
Last Wednesday, BatesLine sent a questionnaire to the six serious candidates for Mayor of Tulsa, using the email addresses provided in their declarations of candidacy or on their websites. We sent two reminders. We received replies from three candidates: Craig Immel, Ken Reddick, and Ty Walker. The survey consists of...
Outside Trump's Tulsa Rally
My family would like to have gone to the rally, but it was too soon to want to be around 18,000 people, or to stand outside for hours in the hot sun without a good chance of getting in. Hearing about hundreds of thousands of ticket requests reinforced the...
The Usual Suspects: Tulsa Economic Recovery Advisory Committee
Does G. T. Bynum IV know anyone who lives east of Yale, north of 21st, or west of the river? I've been watching the creation of blue ribbon panels for years, and this list is disturbingly familiar. The mayor's picks for his Economic Recovery Advisory Committee are yet another expression...
Tulsa animal ordinance rewrite slights public input
UPDATE 2020/04/27: CCP Bat Virus has delayed the Tulsa City Council's final vote on the new animal ordinance, which is now set for the regular council meeting on May 11, 2020, 5 p.m., at City Hall. If you raise backyard poultry in the City of Tulsa, if you sell...
Joe Newhouse for Oklahoma Senate District 25
UPDATE 2016/06/24: Bob Jack contacted me this morning, and we spoke a short time ago, taking exception to some of the things I wrote below. I have made some additions based on our conversation which are highlighted below. FURTHER UPDATE 2016/06/25: At my invitation, Bob Jack has sent a reply,...
Christmas Parade returns to downtown Tulsa tonight
After a few schismatic years, downtown Tulsa will once again have a parade with the word Christmas in the name. The Tulsa Christmas Parade starts tonight, Saturday, December 13, 2014, at 6 p.m. The rectangular parade route will begin at 7th Street and Boston Avenue, traveling north to 3rd Street,...
April 21, 1914: Tate Brady offers to raise Indian cavalry for Mexico war
The Tulsa Daily World and the Tulsa Democrat both ran front page stories about Congress authorizing President Wilson to use the Armed Forces to intervene in Mexico. The World's front page was almost entirely devoted to the impending Mexico invasion. Above the masthead, a red banner headline read "LAND MARINES...
Downtown Tulsa needs demolition limits, regulatory and tax relief
Route 66 "planter" and "nature band-aid" attempt to distract from ugliness of Tulsa Community College surface parking lot. UPDATE 2019/11/29: I'm revisiting this entry years later, as Strong Towns uses Black Friday to call attention to parking minimums, zoning laws that require a minimum number of parking spaces based...
Vision2: Wildlife Department opposes new dams on Arkansas River
The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife is opposed to new dams on the Arkansas River, according to a Public Radio Tulsa news story on the impact of low-water dams on the river's water and wild animals. The Tulsa City Council has included $71 million for modifying the Zink Lake dam and...
Tulsa festival-palooza
Tulsa is overrun with special events this weekend, September 22 - 23, 2012, and next week the Tulsa State Fair begins. Tulsa Greek Festival: Saturday is the final day, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., at 12th and Guthrie on the grounds of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church. Get in free with...
BOHICA: Chamber & County start agitating for another tax hike, regional unification
The TEA Party folks say they're Taxed Enough Already, but several of them who might have run against a Democrat Tulsa County Commissioner (with plans to raise our county sales taxes once again) opted instead to run against Republican legislative incumbents who are working to reduce our state income tax...
Tulsa Election 2011: Blake Ewing in District 4
Blake Ewing, Joe Bates, and Rocky Frisco, September 9, 2011. Photo by Trish Molina. Copyright 2011 Aithne Studios. Used by permission. Of the seven City Council races on today's ballot, the District 4 race, the only one in which I'm allowed to vote, is the only one in which...
BOK Center street closures a pointless nuisance
This has been bugging me for a while; an item on tonight's council agenda brought it to mind again. It's bad enough that the construction of the BOK Center permanently blocked 2nd Street, once part of a through pair of one-way streets (with 1st Street) connecting to Inner Dispersal Loop...
Tulsa District 4 Republican primary: For Blake Ewing
This is the only election I get to vote in tomorrow, and I'm voting for entrepreneur Blake Ewing for the Republican nomination for Tulsa City Council District 4. In the 2009 primary, I endorsed legendary Tulsa musician Rocky Frisco in his race to unseat incumbent Eric Gomez, who had beclowned...
Tulsa District 4: Get Rocky Frisco some wheels!
Legendary Tulsa musician Rocky Frisco, member of the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, who also happens to be a candidate for the Republican nomination in Tulsa City Council District 4, has been an involuntary pedestrian for the last several weeks, following the theft of his old, beat-up, but reliable Toyota...
Bill Leighty on historic preservation
Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission chairman Bill Leighty has an excellent op-ed in the latest issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly about the importance of historical preservation to Tulsa's future. I'm tempted to quote the whole thing. The heart of the article is an account of a recent Preservation Leadership Training...
Lackmeyer: Kanbar mothballing could complicate future renovations
Steve Lackmeyer of the Oklahoman wrote a response to my item from last week about the possibility that Kanbar Properties may be selling its entire downtown Tulsa portfolio and reportedly will be mothballing some buildings pending their sale. Lackmeyer sees a pattern at work: Tulsa, it seems, gets so close,...
Kanbar bailing out of Tulsa?
There are indications that downtown Tulsa's biggest property owner is looking to sell and get out, despite big plans announced last fall and very recent affirmations of his commitment to Tulsa. Last month's Tulsa People had a Q&A with Maurice Kanbar, the San Francisco inventor who owns over 2 million...
Elliot Nelson, Blue Dome District in the MSNBC spotlight
The gastronomic empire of prolific Tulsa restaurateur and publican Elliot Nelson, owner of McNellie's, El Guapo (loud automatic music warning), Yokozuna, Dilly Deli, Fassler Hall, the Dust Bowl Lounge and Lanes, Brady Tavern, and The Colony, was profiled Sunday on MSNBC. There doesn't seem to be a way to embed...
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