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Tulsa Election 2020: Bynum's narrow win
Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum IV narrowly avoided a November runoff, winning re-election outright with 51.9% in this first round of City of Tulsa voting. 30-year-old Greg Robinson II, running to Bynum's left, garnered 28.8% of the vote. Ken Reddick, running to Bynum's right, finished third with 13.8%, followed by Ty...
Tulsa Election 2011: AGAINST all propositions
Only seven districts have Tulsa City Council races but voters in every district of the City of Tulsa can vote Tuesday, November 8, 2011, on the four charter amendment propositions on the general election ballot. On the left of the ballot (under a city council race, if you have one)...
Non-partisan elections: Can't tell the players
In this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly, Ray Pearcey deploys an apt analogy against the Save Our Tulsa non-partisan election proposition on Tulsa's general election ballot this Tuesday. If you are a baseball fan you've had time to recover from late night World Series games, so I want you to imagine...
"Save <em>Our</em> Tulsa for our kind, dahling"
There they go again. Many of the same people involved in the attempt to recall Tulsa City Councilors Jim Mautino and Chris Medlock, many of the same people involved in Tulsans for Better Government (the group promoting at-large councilors) -- they're on the list of named members of a group...
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...
Multi-partisan city elections
Last week I wrote a piece correcting the history of Tulsans for Better Government and the three charter changes recommended by the Citizens' Commission on City Government. In that entry, I quoted a statement in the Citizens' Commission report that some of the commissioners preferred my notion of multi-partisan city...
Rewriting Tulsans for Better Government history
Still too swamped for a detailed analytical post, but I must at least point out the misstatements at the end of last Friday's story in the daily about the initiative petition filed by Tulsans for Better Government in support of a charter change for non-partisan elections. The original web story...
Minneapolis uses ballot descriptions for candidates
An idea advanced by Tulsa City Councilor John Eagleton that the Tulsa Whirled editorial board found silly beyond their intellectual capacity to explain is already in use in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The following text appears in Chapter 2, Section 5A of the Minneapolis City Charter (emphasis added): Section 5A. Conduct of...
<em>Whirled</em> editorial board: "We're too dense to understand this idea, much less write a joke about it."
The hive-mind that writes the unsigned editorials from its Totalitarian-Moderne bunker on Main Street had this to say today about a suggestion made Tulsa Councilor John Eagleton regarding a proposal to make city elections non-partisan: OK, this one is simply too easy so we're going to let you fill in...
City Charter amendments on tonight's agenda
More later, but for now just a brief note: Tonight's Tulsa City Council agenda includes a vote on whether to move forward with nine proposed amendments to the Tulsa City Charter. Many of the amendments came from the work of the Citizens' Commission on City Government in 2006. Here's a...
At-large barge runs aground
An edited version of this piece was published in the June 21, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The archived version is no longer online. Here is my blog entry linking to the article. Posted on the web August 2, 2009. Links to the Citizens' Commisison final report added October...
Citizens' Commission on City Government discusses voting methods; SB 1324 update
An edited version of this column appeared in the May 17, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is no longer available online. Here's my blog entry linking to the article. Posted online October 26, 2017. Charter change commission winding down The blue-ribbon panel assembled to consider radical...
SB 1324, HB 2559, Susan Neal, and non-partisan elections
This week's column covers three topics: (1) An update on the status of HB 2559 and SB 1324, the bills in the Oklahoma legislature which would dictate local zoning and land use policy from Oklahoma City; (2) Mayor Taylor's hiring of former City Councilor Susan Neal; (3) the topics under...
City Hall update: HB 2559, SB 1324, Susan Neal, and non-partisan elections
An edited version of this piece was published on May 10, 2006, in Urban Tulsa Weekly. The archived version is no longer online. Posted on the web, with hyperlinks to related articles, on August 18, 2010. We're now a month past the city election, and it's time to follow up...
For multi-partisan city elections
An edited version of this piece was published in the April 5, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The archived version is no longer online. Posted on the web August 8, 2009. For multi-partisan city elections By Michael D. Bates Once again, dear reader, you have me at a disadvantage....
Multi-partisan city elections, not non-partisan
My latest column in Urban Tulsa Weekly, which was filed on Monday, before the election, recommends switching city elections from the current primary/general structure to a multi-partisan instant-runoff election. Note that I said multi-partisan, not non-partisan. (I don't write the headlines or cutlines for my stories.) My column explains the...
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