Search this site
Matching entries from BatesLine
Remembering Jim Mautino
Viewing for James Mautino will be 12 noon - 8 pm, Wednesday, November 1, 2023, and the service 11:30 am, Thursday, November 2, 2023, at Moore's Southlawn Funeral Home. Services will be webcast. Condolences may be left online at www.moorefuneral.com. Former Tulsa City Councilor Jim Mautino passed away last Thursday,...
Oklahoma Primary 2022: Federal races
More short takes, this time on the races for Federal office on the June 28, 2022, Oklahoma Republican primary ballot: Both Senate seats, an open race in the 2nd Congressional District, and challenges to incumbents in Districts 3, 4, and 5. If you're on the home page, click the "Continue...
2022 Tulsa School Board campaign contributions: Keller, Lamkin backed by leftist establishment donors
Campaign contribution reports show that the two registered Democrats running for Tulsa school board, District 4 incumbent Shawna Keller and Susan Lamkin, running for the open District 7 seat, are heavily backed by Tulsa's leftist establishment -- the band of philanthropists, politicians, and their hangers-on who hate Oklahoma's conservative values...
Tulsa animal ordinance rewrite slights public input
UPDATE 2020/04/27: CCP Bat Virus has delayed the Tulsa City Council's final vote on the new animal ordinance, which is now set for the regular council meeting on May 11, 2020, 5 p.m., at City Hall. If you raise backyard poultry in the City of Tulsa, if you sell...
Improve our Tulsa 2: Why You Should Vote Against the Street Package
Brent Isaacs, a native Tulsan and city planner active for many years in advocating for a better Tulsa, has has written a piece below about why you should to vote against the first item on the November 12, 2019, Tulsa ballot. Labeled on the first sheet of the ballot as...
BatesLine retrospective: The "bickering Tulsa City Councilors" narrative
In writing the previous entry about the Covington Catholic High School students, I wrote about how local Tulsa media pushed a narrative that Tulsa City Councilors, particularly those elected with grassroots support over the objections of the chamber of commerce, developers, and other special interest groups, were bickering troublemakers. This...
Bynum IV outsources Tulsa city planning to INCOG, reversing earlier stand
I am getting caught up on the local news after all the pre-Christmas busyness and was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that Mayor G. T. Bynum IV has shut down our city planning department and outsourced the task of evaluating the future direction of city development to a quasi-non-governmental...
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...
Senators, Governor renege on tax pledge; Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite launched; Ritze harassed by pro-tax rep
Wednesday night the Oklahoma State Senate passed the massive package of tax increases that was approved earlier in the week by the State House, and the bills were signed by Governor Mary Fallin. The largest tax bill, HB1010XX, passed by 36-10, including three Taxpayer Protection Pledge-breakers: State Senators Kim David,...
Oklahoma legislators betray taxpayers; Coburn launches taxpayer revolt
NOTE: I will be on 1170 KFAQ with Pat Campbell at 7:05 am on Wednesday, March 28, 2018 to discuss the tax increases passed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives last night and the path forward. Listen live on 1170kfaq.com or on the Tune In app. Later the interview will...
2017 Tulsa election: Proposition 6: City employees allowed to campaign
The sixth of the seven charter change propositions on the City of Tulsa November 14, 2017, ballot would change the rules regarding the political involvement of city employees protected under civil service and sworn public safety employees. A yes vote on Proposition No. 6 would allow civil service city employees...
Independence Day 2015
Happy Independence Day! Take 10 minutes to listen to a reading of the Declaration of Independence, from the Monticello website, read by Thomas Jefferson Williamsburg re-enactor Bill Barker. founding.com has an annotated version of the Declaration of Independence, with links to explanations of the the specific historical context behind the...
Inhofe: Gas tax isn't a tax
From the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog: Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R., Okla.), who just took the reins of the panel, said he is open to considering raising the gas tax as a way to help pay for the dwindling Highway Trust Fund that keeps...
Al Sharpton, alleged snitch and shakedown artist
You may notice this blog becoming more of a weblog in the purest sense of the word -- collections of links of interest, logged here mainly for my future reference. With that here are a collection of links and some pull quotes about Al Sharpton and the societal trends that...
The food truck approach to public transit
Many of my hipster urbanist friends are very fond of food trucks. Food trucks today offer a wide variety of cuisines and a wide range of sophistication and price. The mobility of the kitchen allows the restaurant to go where the customer is. Better food can be offered for...
Roscoe Turner, RIP
Services for Roscoe Turner will be held at First Baptist Church, 4th & Cincinnati in downtown Tulsa, Monday, January 27, 2014, at 11:00 a.m., with interment at Rose Hill Cemetery. Visitation will be held at Moore's Memory Chapel, 1403 S. Peoria, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Saturday, January 25,...
Do new OKC skyscrapers have to go downtown? A Parisian possibility
Steve Lackmeyer has a story in today's Oklahoman about the dilemma facing Oklahoma City as surface parking downtown is being replaced with new development. Now, [Stage Center] is set to be torn down to make way for a tower rising at least 20 stories into the skyline. And if one...
Help Oklahoma tornado victims
For most Oklahomans, the scary stuff has moved on to the east without any damage. One of our trees dropped a limb in Sunday's storms. Today's storms passed through Tulsa with little fanfare. We're now under a flash flood watch until 3 a.m. -- conditions are ripe for heavy rains...
Bad bureaucrats: Pension logrolling, hidden funds, expenses fiddling
A few news items of interest, while you wait for me to publish some sort of analysis of last Tuesday's results: Reuters: Special Report: How a vicious circle of self-interest sank a California city -- long, but a must-read: Yet on close examination, the city's decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class...
"Vision for Jobs" another cynical tax grab?
Just as they did in 2003, Tulsa "leaders" are preying on anxieties about job losses to justify siphoning more of your tax dollars through county government to favored businesses. Two possibilities are being discussed to raise $340 million: Either a county-wide sales tax increase of 0.4 percent or an extension...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching 'fuel tax'. [What is this?]
