Search this site
Matching entries from BatesLine
2023 Oklahoma school board filing final day
UPDATE: At the close of the filing period, we have three contested races for Tulsa school board, and contests for single seats in Berryhill, Owasso, and Union. The remaining 13 seats (including two each in Keystone and Liberty and the Tulsa Tech Center seat), are uncontested. Maria Mercedes Seidler filed...
Tulsa and Oklahoma historical maps and aerial photos
What was here? Who owned it? What did it look like? There are a number of resources available for reconstructing Oklahoma's geographical past, and they're easier to use than ever. These are my go-tos when researching the history of a neighborhood or answering questions about the past. This is an...
Improve Our Tulsa: Tulsa's Underpants Gnomes promise to fix homelessness
A dialogue pertinent to the August 8, 2023, City of Tulsa special election: "Homeless problem in Tulsa seems worse than ever and all over the city, not just downtown." "Don't worry, GT has a plan." "What's the plan?" "$75 million." "To do what?" "We don't know yet." "How do...
Segregation by Design: Greenwood and I-244
Tulsa is the focus of another recent article from a UK newspaper website: A story in the Guardian Online about the impact of expressway construction on Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood, and the possibility of reviving the neighborhood by removing the north leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop. Twenty-five years before Don...
Memorial Day weekend 1973: Saturday night in Tulsa
For fun, I decided to look up the local newspaper from 50 years ago this weekend. I was particularly curious to see what kind of live entertainment was on offer, and what people were watching on TV. (News clips below are from newspapers.com. Click the image to see the original...
2023 School Board election recap
Some thoughts on the April 4, 2023, school board and municipal results, from my live-tweet thread. (ThreadReaderApp unroll here.) At 7:36 pm, early results in the Tulsa school board election came from 4 of the 18 precincts in District 1, all east of the river (and thus incumbent Stacey Woolley's...
2023 Oklahoma school & municipal elections
April 4, 2023, is general election day across Oklahoma for school board races and for municipalities that use the default forms of municipal government established by state statute. Many cities with city charters that define a customized government structure still use the default dates for city elections. As is...
NO on Oklahoma SQ 820 recreational marijuana legalization
All of Oklahoma's voters have an election on Tuesday, March 7, 2023. The only thing on the ballot is State Question 820, which would enact a law to legalize marijuana for any purpose, over and above the "medical" marijuana law, SQ 788, approved by voters in June 2018. I will...
Sapulpa Route 66 Christmas Chute, Rhema Lights final nights
The Route 66 Christmas Chute on Dewey Avenue in downtown Sapulpa, Oklahoma, has just two more nights to run, but it continues to be a popular attraction two months after its opening on November 3, 2022. Ten overhanging steel structures decorated with a variety of themes stand in the...
ahha closes, OKPOP delayed: Is Tulsa's oligarchy competent?
Looks like Tulsa's billionaire overlords aren't as competent as they pretend to be. If they're going to insist on being in charge and push us to elect their minions, couldn't they at least show some signs of competence? And maybe a little frugality along the way?
9/11: Twenty-one years
Today is the 21st anniversary of the Islamist attacks on America. We pause to remember the husbands and wives, sons and daughters who died that day and in the years since in the pursuit of the evil movement that perpetrated the attacks. Please take a moment to remember Jayesh Shah,...
Tulsa Election 2022: District 4 dilemma
There are six candidates on the ballot for Tulsa City Council District 4, an open seat. As was the case two years ago, I'm not enthusiastic about any of them. This is my district, so I've had to make a choice....
Tulsa's Gathering Place sues Shawnee coffeehouse
See the end of this post for an update with the lawsuit's resolution. Tulsa's Gathering Place, LLC, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against a family-owned coffeehouse in Shawnee, Oklahoma, 90 miles away. The trademark complaint, filed on Friday, September 24, 2021, in the Western District of Oklahoma, claims...
Local talk radio returns to Tulsa on 1300 the Patriot
Local (almost), live conservative talk radio has returned to the Tulsa airwaves, on the frequency that was the first full-time talk radio station in Tulsa over 40 years ago. AM 1300 KAKC, owned by iHeartMedia, has rebranded itself as 1300 The Patriot, as of September 15, 2021. The station's line-up...
Goodbye, Gilcrease
You have five more days (Wednesday, June 30, 2021, to Sunday, July 4, 2021) to visit Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum, before the museum, as you've known it for the last 57 years, goes away forever.
An open letter to Tulsa visitors on the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
To journalists, photographers, and visitors, pilgrims this week of the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: Welcome to Tulsa. Some context may help you interpret what you see and hear this week.
Tulsa, May 1921: Moescha Rosenberg sues Sinclair
In 1921, Tulsa jeweler Moescha Rosenberg sued his landlord, the Sinclair Oil & Gas Co., for harassing him to get him to surrender his 10-year lease on a prime retail location.
Preserve the Midland Valley Pedestrian Bridge
Tulsa's Midland Valley Pedestrian Bridge and Zink Lake Dam viewed from the west bank, south of the bridge and dam, February 14, 2016 Resistance is gathering to the plan to demolish the Midland Valley Pedestrian Bridge across the Arkansas River. Although an engineering analysis from 2015 shows that the 110-year-old...
Josh Turley for Tulsa County Commissioner, District 2
The only contested Tulsa County office on the ballot is a rematch for Tulsa County Commissioner, District 2. Republican Josh Turley seeks to defeat 12-year incumbent Democrat Commissioner Karen Keith. Dr. Turley, whose doctorate is in organizational leadership, had a distinguished 24-year career at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office,...
Tulsa Election 2020, District 4: Kathryn Lyons questionnaire
Back on August 12, I sent the three eligible candidates for City Council District 4 a questionnaire using the email addresses provided in their declarations of candidacy or on their websites. The questionnaire included the 18 questions I asked the mayoral candidates, plus a question about neighborhood conservation districts and...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching 'downtown Tulsa'. [What is this?]
