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Council to change tax ordinance to enable Gilcrease demolition
Back at the beginning of March, we reported that Gilcrease Museum would not be renovated and expanded, as Tulsa voters were promised in April 2016, but would instead be demolished and rebuilt as a smaller facility, with the help of funding from the University of Tulsa and other donors. The...
Rick Westcott for District Judge
I have known Rick Westcott for over 15 years, and I've consistently observed his diligence to determine facts, his careful reasoning, his clarity of expression, and his fairness to all. It would be a blessing to have Rick Westcott serving as our District Judge. I urge you to join me in voting for Rick Westcott on June 26.
Tweedledee IV appoints Tweedledum Jr to Port Authority
Newly sworn-in Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV has appointed outgoing mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. to the City of Tulsa-Rogers County Port Authority. The Tulsa World published a list of 52 appointments by Bynum IV to authorities, boards, and commissions. By my quick count, 23 are reappointments to the...
Sales Tax Overview Committee chairman voices accountability concerns about Vision Tulsa projects
Most of the projects in Vision Tulsa Prop 3 amount to "Here, have a pile of money." Instead of building a specific facility that will belong to the City of Tulsa or updating existing city-owned facilities, the City will write a check to some other institution to do with as...
April 5, 2016, Vision Tax / River Tax ballot resolutions
On April 5, 2016, the Cities of Tulsa, Glenpool, Jenks, and Owasso and Tulsa County will vote on sales taxes to replace the 0.6% Vision 2025 county sales tax that expires at the end of this year. The following are the ballot resolutions approved by the respective City Councils and...
Tulsa Election 2013: Proposition 2: The "Improve Our Tulsa" sales tax
In addition to voting for mayor next Tuesday, Tulsans will also decide whether to re-elect or replace the City Auditor, and will vote on three ballot propositions. Prop. 1 involves raising the city councilor salary to $24,000 per year. Prop. 2 and 3 are collectively called "Improve Our Tulsa" and...
Bully Dewey: Bartlett Jr's appointed auditor attacks whistleblower for ethics complaint
CLARIFICATION: The current city auditor won a term subsequent to his appointment; he did not draw an opponent after filing for a full term in 2011. My opinion that he is not sufficiently independent of the mayor who appointed him stands. A scenario for your consideration: A politician, fighting a...
John Wright for Tulsa County Commissioner, District 3
There are four candidates in Tuesday's Republican primary for Tulsa County Commission District 3, to fill the unexpired term of Fred Perry, who is resigning with a year and a half to go. This is the ideal situation for Instant Runoff Voting (ranking your candidates in order of preference), but...
Tulsa Election 2011: Democrat Suliburk the conservative in District 8
In the previous entry, I mentioned a candidate survey issued by OK-SAFE -- Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free Enterprise. Say what you will about OK-SAFE and their views, but the group's questionnaire gets into the details of real questions facing City of Tulsa officials, and they allow candidates to respond...
Tulsa District 7: For Steven Roemerman
We begin the BatesLine roundup of the 2011 Tulsa City Council primary races with an easy choice. I'm proud to endorse my friend, Steven Roemerman, for District 7 councilor. This endorsement is for both the primary and general election. While the other men running seem to be good folks, Steven...
Steven Roemerman for District 7 City Council
Steven Roemerman is seeking the Republican nomination for the Tulsa City Council District 7 seat being vacated by John Eagleton, according to his press release: Tulsa resident and republican, Steven Roemerman, today officially announced his candidacy for Tulsa City Council District 7, the seat currently held by John Eagleton, who...
Roemerman on the Public Works scandal
Steven Roemerman is not only a blogger, he's also a member of the City of Tulsa Sales Tax Overview Committee, which is charged with keeping tabs on how the city spends the "Third Penny" sales tax for capital improvement projects. In that role, he's had opportunity to hear representatives from...
Mayor Force One ethics
When city employees have their travel to conferences and meetings covered by a third-party -- e.g., a foundation or the Tulsa Metro Chamber -- there has to be a vote by the council to accept the travel donation. Steve Roemerman wonders why the same wouldn't be true of Mayor Kathy...
City Council street town hall report
Steve Roemerman has posted a first-hand report from one of the Tulsa City Council's town hall meetings about street maintenance and how to pay for it. (The City Council meetings are not in any way connected to the Sharon King Davis - Dewey Bartlett, Jr., headed committee appointed by Mayor...
A round-up of river tax ponderings and imponderables
If the Vision 2025 Sales Tax Overview Committee is as diligent and vigilant a watchdog as we're being told they are, how did they miss noticing that the arena was going to go way over budget when there was time to prevent the crisis? If Hurricane Katrina caused the arena...
John Piercey's Vision 2025 financial summary
As I mentioned in last week's Urban Tulsa Weekly, a few weeks ago I began my search for the source of the numbers being cited in defense of the need to raise taxes to build the two low-water dams and the Zink Lake modifications promised in Proposition No. 4 of...
In search of the Vision 2025 financial plan
Over at the TulsaNow public forum, in a discussion about the river tax plan, Kirby Crowe, program manager for Vision 2025 had this to say about the availability of information about those projects (he uses the handle Vision 2025 on the forum): Despite what some say, Tulsa County goes farther...
Roemerman on review board
Congratulations to fellow Tulsa blogger Steven Roemerman on his confirmation as a member of the City of Tulsa Sales Tax Overview Committee. It's a sign of his manifest intelligence and civic-mindedness that he was nominated by the man whose election he tried to prevent. Roemerman was a fervent supporter of...
Scary bypass
An edited version of this piece was published on April 26, 2006, in Urban Tulsa Weekly. The archived version is no longer online. Posted on the web on August 18, 2010. It appears that Tulsa's development lobby, discouraged by the results of the Tulsa City Council elections, has decided to...
Neighborhood servants
This morning on KFAQ's "Heartland" with Bruce Delay, I was talking about city council candidates, and I started to describe some of them as neighborhood leaders, but what I called them instead was "neighborhood servants." That's a very apt description of Maria Barnes (running in the Democrat District 4 primary),...
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