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Nathan Dahm in striking distance of runoff
State Sen. Nathan Dahm is within striking distance of making it into the runoff for U. S. Senator Jim Inhofe's unexpired term, according to a new Sooner Poll of the Oklahoma Republican primary. Oklahoma conservatives are beginning to coalesce behind the Broken Arrow legislator. The poll shows U. S. Rep....
Oklahoma tribal gaming compact renegotiation
Governor Kevin Stitt wants to renegotiate Oklahoma's exclusivity agreement with the state's tribal governments and to increase the state's percentage of gambling revenue from tribal casinos. The original compacts, established starting in 2004, expire at the end of this year. The exclusivity fee starts at 4% for lower levels of...
2018 Oklahoma governor primary: Process of elimination
Can you tell I'm not excited about the race to succeed Mary Fallin? It's taken a long time to make up my mind, and it's still not as firm a decision as I'd like. As with many of the judical races, my current inclination to vote for Dan Fisher in...
Notes on the Oklahoma teachers' strike
I'll be on 1170 KFAQ with Pat Campbell Wednesday morning, April 11, 2018, just after the 8:00 am news to discuss the teachers' strike, the race for governor and other political topics. Listen at 1170 on the AM dial, online, or on the Tune In app. A collection of notes...
Tulsa pastor indicted for embezzlement
Indicted for "unlawfully divert[ing] Community Center funds for his own personal benefit in the approximate amount of $933,507.80": Rev. Willard Jones, a pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, faces three counts of wire fraud and one count of tax fraud. FOX23 learned a community center the church built was the vision...
Ray Price, B. J. Thomas, Ray Stevens performing free in the Osage
In case you missed it: In the coming weeks, Osage Casinos are bringing in three legendary singers for free, all-ages concerts. This Friday, May 4, 2012, Ray Price will be performing at the Osage Casino west of Bartlesville. Ray Price was a pioneer of the honky-tonk sound in the 1950s;...
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...
Bob Wills Osage County ranch in quiet title suit
I'm working on analyzing the C-1 forms submitted by candidates for Tulsa City Council. In the process of locating real residential addresses for donors who insist on listing their business addresses, I needed to look at Osage County land records, and while I was there, on a whim I searched...
Roscoe Turner to Tulsa's "socially challenged"
Roscoe Turner, Tulsa's most believable city councilor, drills for the truth, in an open letter to bored Tulsa hipsters: Those who believe the Tulsa metropolitan area has nothing to offer and must spend tax dollars developing the river to keep our young professionals entertained must be socially challenged. There are...
Saying no in order to say yes
We've won the argument. They're reduced to saying, "Voting yes is positive, voting no is negative. And you wouldn't want to be negative, right?" At the TU Earth Matters forum, the vote yes side didn't bother refuting the factual points I've raised, but they dismissed them as poking holes. Anyone...
Michael DelGiorno departs KFAQ
An edited version of this column was published in the April 26 - May 2, 2007, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here is my initial post on Michael DelGiorno's departure from KFAQ to WWTN, and here is the blog...
A quartet of photo blogs of interesting and forgotten buildings
Here are some interesting photo pools and sets I found recently on flickr, all featuring cool old buildings and signage, much of it of the vanishing variety: First, Tom Baddley's Lost Tulsa, which we've commended to you before. He has a new set devoted to the soon-to-disappear Metro Diner....
Blogger party NYC
I'll be here in Tulsa, a couple thousand miles away, but Karol said to spread the word, so just in case someone reading this is likely to be in or near Manhattan this weekend: ***BLOGGER PARTY NYC*** It's on, baby. Are you a blogger? Do you read blogs? Everyone is...
Should Indian nations be included as Indian Nations?
My correspondent who attended the Jenks City Council meeting also said that this item was on the agenda: "Request to approve Resolution No. 427 approving and adopting the second amended agreement creating the Indian Nations Council of Governments, providing for membership for the Cherokee, Creek and Osage Indian Nations." When...
Six more FOR
My column this week is about the six Tulsa city charter amendments on the April 4 ballot, and why you should vote FOR all six. I wrote a column about these amendments, and those that didn't make the cut, back in November, right after the amendments had been approved for...
Blue ribbon jeer
This week's column is about the demise of the late, unlamented petition pushing for at-large members of the Tulsa City Council, and Bill LaFortune's new "Citizens' Commission," which appears to be intended to push the same agenda by other means. Elsewhere in the current Urban Tulsa Weekly: Have you wondered...
Dawn's Odyssey, Book LXVI
Wherein our heroine sees antiques that were exactly like household items that might have belonged to President Eisenhower's parents and visits Oklahoma for the first time, puzzling through the Delphic utterances of a Sonic call box and visiting a temple of the state's established religion: Imagine your local community rec...
Arena feasibility study still valid?
Last Tuesday there was a discussion in the Tulsa City Council committee meeting about the lack of a firm cost estimate on construction of the new downtown sports arena and the lack of a business plan to account for annual operating revenues and costs. Assistant Public Works Director Mike Buchert...
State questions 705, 706, 712
A lot of people have been asking me about the state questions. Here are three more -- the gambling questions. I'm voting NO on all three. Gambling won't grow the economy, and won't provide any significant money for education. In fact, gambling will take money out of the local economy...
Gambling on casinos in western New York
Indian casinos are much in the news here. The Seneca Nation, which developed a casino in the old convention center in Niagara Falls, NY, plans to build one east of the airport in Cheektowaga. (And you thought Oklahoma was the only state with interesting Indian place names. Up here, they've...
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