Search this site
Matching entries from BatesLine
Gist gone
Happy news late this afternoon that Deborah Gist has resigned as superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools. Gist resigns as the state's largest school district faces a hearing on Thursday at the State Board of Education on the loss of its accreditation. The threat to pull accreditation stems from poor academic...
Oklahoma school board filing period 2019 <s>underway</s> complete
UPDATE 2019/12/03: Here is the final list of candidates who filed for the February / April 2020 school board and municipal elections in Tulsa County. The following school board seats had only a single candidate file (Office No. 5, unless otherwise noted): Broken Arrow: Jerry Denton Glenpool: James Fuller Jenks:...
What I told the <em>Guardian</em> about Oklahoma's budget crisis and what the <em>Grauniad</em> published
If you're wondering why people believe the mainstream news media is more interested in pushing a narrative rather than reporting the facts, I've got a story for you. If you want to know why you shouldn't trust a mainstream news outlet to give you multiple reasoned perspectives on a complex...
Tulsa County Property Taxation: Introductory and advanced
Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel, recently re-elected to a fourth four-year term, provides a wealth of information on ad valorem property taxation in Oklahoma. For some time now, he has posted slide presentations online, under Statistics and Analysis, that cover basic and advanced property taxation topics and are chock-full of...
Oklahoma Senate committee passes anti-Common Core bill
On Monday, March 24, 2014, the Oklahoma State Senate's Education Committee unanimously passed a committee substitute for HB 3399, a bill initiated in the State House to repeal Oklahoma's adoption of Common Core national standards. (Click the link for the text of the bill, which shows deletions from current law...
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...
Tulsa County Budget Board public hearing audio
Boondoggle Blog's Don Wyatt has posted audio of the Tulsa County Budget Board meeting on June 7, 2012. The Budget Board is made up of the three county commissioners and the five county-wide elected officials: Assessor, Treasurer, Clerk, Court Clerk, and Sheriff. (Although our District Attorney serves only Tulsa County,...
Chloramine controversy: Safe for Tulsa's water?
A couple of readers have emailed to express their concerns about the imminent introduction of chloramine into Tulsa's water supply. I am only beginning to study the issue, and it seems there may be reason to worry. Rather than make you wait until I've thoroughly researched the matter, I've decided...
Francis McGrath, the definition of a city manager
If you look in the AP Stylebook to find out whether to capitalize city manager*, you find his name as the example, the paradigm: "City Manager Francis McGrath." When people ask me what I think about Tulsa changing to a council-manager form of government, I think of Francis McGrath. For...
Tulsa District 3 Democratic primary: For Roscoe Turner
This is the ninth rematch between current District 3 Councilor Roscoe Turner and former Councilor David Patrick. The series is tied 4-4, with Patrick winning in 1996, 1998, 2002, and 2008, and Turner winning in 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009. (Turner also won the 1998 special election, beating Patrick's sister Synna.)...
Phil Lakin and G. T. Bynum: The (as yet) unchallenged
At the end of day one of filing for the 2011 Tulsa city elections, two districts had a single candidate with no announced opponent preparing to enter the race. Phil Lakin is the sole candidate so far in far south Tulsa's District 8. Lakin, CEO of Tulsa Community Foundation and...
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...
Ballpark assessment plaintiffs petition for summary judgment
It's opening day for the Tulsa Drillers at Oneok Field, and some of the downtown property owners who are forced to pay for its construction filed a petition today for summary judgment in their lawsuit to overturn the assessment for the Tulsa Stadium Improvement District. The case against the ballpark...
My wife wants a Maria Barnes yard sign
My wife asked me the other day if we could put a sign in our yard for Maria Barnes, the former Tulsa District 4 city councilor who is seeking to take back that seat. For my wife, the decision comes down to this: Incumbent councilor Eric Gomez, who defeated Barnes...
Watch this space: Notes on my Greenwood talk coming soon
Thanks to the organizers, speakers, and audience for last night's Ignite Tulsa event. It was a great experience, and I only wish I could have stayed through the entire program -- family needs called me home shortly after I spoke. I'm happy I had the chance to come back to...
District 5: For Bill Martinson, number cruncher, straight talker, grownup
As long-time readers are no doubt aware, I was not a fan of Bill Martinson's when he first sought and was elected to the Tulsa City Council. Martinson replaced Sam Roop in District 5 after Mayor Bill LaFortune hired Roop as his chief information officer. Martinson was the candidate of...
Bartlett dodges questions about Taylor endorsement, non-partisan elections
On Tuesday, the Republican Women's Club of Tulsa County hosted a mayoral candidate forum. Six GOP candidates were in attendance: Dewey Bartlett, Jr., Chris Medlock, Kevin Boggs, Nathaniel Booth, Anna Falling, and Norris Streetman. During the candidates' opening statements, Medlock referred to Bartlett as the poster boy for "Republicans for...
Adelson in, Christiansen out, Medlock maybe; Council races shape up
Democratic State Sen. Tom Adelson announced on Wednesday his anticipated candidacy for Mayor of Tulsa. Reports of the announcement hint that many of Mayor Kathy Taylor's Democratic supporters during the 2006 primary were in attendance in support of Adelson. It will be interesting to see if Democrats who supported Don...
Bartlett enters mayor's race
Earlier this week, Dewey F. Bartlett, Jr., who represented District 9 on the Tulsa City Council from 1990 to 1994, announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for Mayor of Tulsa. Bartlett has run for office two other times. He finished second in the August 25,1992, 54-candidate free-for-all...
IDA looks at downtown Tulsa; City seeks bids for downtown services
Last fall, Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor asked the International Downtown Association to send a team to study our downtown, and in particular to look at the city's arrangement with Tul-Center, Inc., the arm of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited (DTU) that has handled downtown services since the current business improvement district was...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching 'assessment districts'. [What is this?]
