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Oklahoma Election 2022: Do Republican legislative leaders want Stitt to lose?
Do Republican legislative leaders want so badly for Gov. Kevin Stitt to lose his bid for re-election that they're willing to accept half-measures on child mutilation in the name of "gender confirmation"? That's the question posed by a recent report by Harry Scherer in The American Conservative, "The Fight Over...
Oklahoma historical congressional district maps
I've been watching politics for a very long time, going back to my childhood, so it's funny to observe the media's new-found concern about gerrymandering -- the practice of manipulating election district boundaries to benefit one party over another. The media's concern seems to have emerged with the growing dominance...
Tulsa in top 10 for cost of driving on bad roads, top 20 for percentage of bad roads
Last week TRIP, a national transportation research organization, released its annual urban roads report, ranking U. S. cities by percentage of major roads and highways in poor condition and on the cost to drivers resulting from the bad roads. Tulsa and Oklahoma City ranked 17th and 16th respectively on the...
The Brady name game
The debate over purging the name Brady from Tulsa streets and landmarks has made international news. Tulsa City Council researcher Jack Blair discovered a December 24, 1907, street-naming ordinance that shows that Archer, Brady, and Haskell streets had different names in the initial draft -- Archer was Atchison, Brady was...
Bill Christiansen for Tulsa Mayor
Another day, another mendacious attack mailer from Dewey Bartlett Jr. If I had known there were enough Tulsans who objected to rising city budgets, county tax initiatives, the City Hall move, the Great Plains Airlines bailout, and accepting Federal stimulus money to justify a mail piece targeting those concerns, I...
"Save <em>Our</em> Tulsa for our kind, dahling"
There they go again. Many of the same people involved in the attempt to recall Tulsa City Councilors Jim Mautino and Chris Medlock, many of the same people involved in Tulsans for Better Government (the group promoting at-large councilors) -- they're on the list of named members of a group...
Jenks sales tax fails
One of the many surprising results from Tuesday's election was the defeat of three out of four questions on the City of Jenks ballot. A bond issue for streets was approved, but a bond issue for city hall improvements and a 3/4-cent sales tax for fire trucks and water and...
Money Belt is mega-wet
It's always interesting to see the Money Belt make an appearance in unexpected ways. The latest manifestation is in a map of water usage by neighborhood generated by the Tulsa World from city utility records. The neighborhoods with heaviest usage -- an average of 125,000 gallons per year and up...
The 2009 District 8 race
District 8 is a tough race for me. During his seven years on the City Council, Bill Christiansen has disappointed me over and over again. Early on, he worked to undermine and oppose some positive initiatives from my reform friends on the Council -- for example, the future growth task...
Tulsa Election 2009: Pre-primary Republican campaign contribution reports
Here is a summary of the pre-primary Form C-1 ethics reports filed with the Tulsa City Clerk's office by 5 p.m. today by Republican candidates, the deadline for the pre-primary filing for next Tuesday's Tulsa City Council races. I have listed all contributors $1,000 and over for the mayoral and...
A response to Karen Keith
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...
OKC to rest of state: "Thanks, suckers!"
Basketball boosters were quite happy to say that a relocated NBA franchise would belong to the whole state, when they were convincing credulous legislators to vote for $60 million in corporate welfare to the billionaire owners of the Seattle SuperSonics (the subject of last week's column in UTW). Now that...
Streets forum
Our local Unitarians at All Souls Church at 30th & Peoria have an interesting approach to Sunday School. In place of Alongside Bible study or theological discussion, they present public forums on issues of civic importance. It might not be the most spiritually profitable way to spend Sunday morning, but...
District 4 endorsements
Endorsements are starting to pile up in the Tulsa City Council District 4 race, with Eric Gomez receiving the support of the Tulsa World editorial board and the Tulsa Area Republican Assembly (TARA), and Maria Barnes being endorsed by neighborhood activists like Scott Swearingen and Greg Bledsoe. You can read...
Pave review
This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I review Councilor Bill Martinson's proposal for funding $1.6 billion in street repair, rehabilitation, and reconstruction, and show how it dovetails with former Streets Commissioner Jim Hewgley's proposal for funding an aggressive street repaving program. Also, UTW has several new, young columnists: Arts writer...
Jim Hewgley on the "Complete Our Streets" Report
Former City of Tulsa Street Commissioner Jim Hewgley III was on 1170 KFAQ Thursday morning (MP3) talking about the report issued by Mayor Kathy Taylor's "Complete Our Streets" task force. He has some words of praise but also some reservations, and he provides some historical perspective on how our streets...
Rich Fisher, Berean
Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. -- Acts 17:11, NASB The verse above describes the people of Berea, in Greece. After Paul the Apostle and his companions had...
The "living river": Can you dig it?
NOTE: Thursday morning, former Tulsa street commissioner Jim Hewgley and I will be on Studio Tulsa on KWGS 89.5. The show will air at 11:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m., and a podcast will be available, which I will link here. Did you know that next week's Tulsa County sales tax...
Mayor rounds up the usual suspects for street study
That's a nicer way to describe Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor's announcement today that she and Councilor Bill Martinson will convene a "leadership committee to work with them in developing a Complete Our Streets plan for Tulsa's eroding streets issue." She named developer Sharon King Davis and former Councilor Dewey Bartlett,...
River revue
The big story I've been working on is finally in print. This week's Urban Tulsa Weekly cover story is the epic tale of a century -- yes, a century -- of Tulsa's plans to do something interesting with the Arkansas River. This story was a blast to research. UTW's Holly...
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