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Tulsa School Board 2020 campaign contributions and expenditures
UPDATE: Jerry Griffin emails with his complete report, which includes itemized expenditures, and which he says he filed. Either the district clerk's copy got lost, or I overlooked it. I've added the information below. Below are the campaign ethics reports filed with the Tulsa Public Schools district clerk as of...
Tulsa City Council District 4: No endorsement
"I shall show my contempt by going down to the polling booth, taking my form, crossing both their names out and writing 'GET KNOTTED' in." -- Tony Hancock, Hancock's Half Hour, "The Election Candidate" I share The Lad's sentiments about many of the races on the August 28, 2018, runoff...
Jane Jacobs film, Betsy Horowitz salute Sunday at Circle Cinema
Citizen Jane, a film documenting the struggle to preserve Lower Manhattan from being destroyed by expressway construction in the 1960s, is currently showing at Tulsa's Circle Cinema. A special event at the 2:00 pm showing on Sunday, May 21, 2017, will pay tribute to Tulsa activist Betsy Horowitz, who led...
OKC Spaghetti Warehouse, Bricktown pioneer, closes; Tulsa store remains open
Spaghetti Warehouse, one of the catalysts for transforming a neglected neighborhood of warehouses into Oklahoma City's Bricktown entertainment district, closed its doors today after 26 years of business, a victim of the surrounding district's success. The restaurant opened for business, with space for 425 diners, on November 12, 1989, at...
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...
Links elsewhere 2011/05/04
I've got a long post in progress about my visit last Saturday to the Delaware Republican Convention, but I'm not close to done yet. So here is a smattering of links to tide you over. (You'll find more links on the BatesLine Twitter stream). Jane Jacobs: Libertarian Outsider, by Jeff...
Voters' guide 2010: The Oklahoma Republican primary ballot
First of all, many thanks to Gene Kaefer and Will Buthod, who responded to my question (Voters' guide? What's it worth to you?) with an affirmative response. Thanks to their generous gifts, I was able to sign up as a premium member of Rasmussen Reports. Their gifts were enough to...
Connectivity and cul-de-sacs
Charles G. Hill has brought together two interesting items about cul-de-sacs, those dead end streets often hailed as the acme of suburban living. One is a Washington Post report that Virginia is requiring all new subdivisions to have streets that connect to other subdivisions, rather than dumping all traffic out...
Blue Dome blessings
My column in the current issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly was about what I learned during a visit to last weekend's Blue Dome Arts Festival. As I made my way around 1st & Elgin, I had a peek at plans for Joe Momma's Pizza's downtown location, a guided tour of...
A Tale of Two Texas River Cities
An edited version of this column appeared in the April 2, 2008, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive. Posted on August 4, 2018. A Tale of Two Texas River Cities By Michael D. Bates On a recent business trip to San Antonio,...
"Village Sunday"
Sorry for the recent silence. The 24-hour bug that has been going around town hit our family, too. The toddler had it on Tuesday night, his big brother and sister and mom got it Thursday night, and I had it Friday night. Saturday was a day of quiet recuperation --...
A couple of Jane Jacobs quotes
Don't know which of her books or articles they came from, but I like these: A culture is unsalvageable if stabilizing forces themselves become ruined and irrelevant. . . The collapse of one sustaining cultural institution enfeebles others, makes it more likely that others will give way . . ....
Remembering Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs, the urban observer who helped blow away the cobwebs of urban planning dogma so that we could see what really makes a city work, passed away in April. My Urban Tulsa Weekly column last week was a salute to Jane Jacobs, highlighting three lessons from her landmark 1960...
Jane Jacobs remembered
An edited version of this piece was published in the June 7, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The edited, published version of the piece is online in the Internet Archive. Posted on the web September 17, 2013. Remembering Jane Jacobs By Michael D. Bates "This book is an attack...
Things I want to write about, but not tonight
I've got a lot in my backblog, but I also have a cold, so I won't be writing any more tonight. Here's what I hope to get to in days to come: A tribute to songwriter Cindy Walker, who died in late March; A tribute to urban critic Jane Jacobs,...
TulsaNow forum live blogging
We've got a makeshift blogger's row here at the back of the OSU-Tulsa auditorium for the mayoral candidate forum sponsored by TulsaNow and the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa. Bobby of Tulsa Topics will be liveblogging the event, and David of Our Tulsa World is videotaping the event. I'll...
Must-read blogging: Jane Jacobs 101
Jane Jacobs is one of my heroes, my city planning guru. If there's one book I wish every city official would read, it's her Death and Life of Great American Cities. There's an excellent introduction to Jane Jacobs' life and work over on 2Blowhards. It not only gives you the...
An urban design reading list
Late getting 'round to this, but here's a link to my column in the current issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly, with some recommended reading on urban design. As I wrote in the column: Urban design and architecture are too important to be left to the professionals. You and I may...
Lost Tulsa: The Main Mall
Over at his Lost Tulsa blog, Tom Baddley has posted a great set of photos of Bartlett Square and the Main Mall, prior to their removal over the last few years. (Be sure to notice the photos of the Tulsa Whirled's Main Street facade, a classic example of mid-century Albanian...
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