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2023 Tulsa sales tax & bond issues
City of Tulsa residents will vote on a new sales tax on August 8, 2023. Why are city officials pushing for a new tax more than two years before the current tax expires? Click to read ballot language, ballot resolutions, and lists of "specific" projects.
Tulsa City Council preview, 2021/05/05: 36th & MLK TIF
AFTER-ACTION REVIEW: All items on the regular council meeting agenda were approved without dissent. There was only one controversy: Gary Brinkner, vice chairman of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, objected to special event application for the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival, which would block off Greenwood and Archer for three...
Improve Our Tulsa 2: November 12, 2019, ballots
Tuesday, November 12, 2019, voters in the City of Tulsa will be presented with three questions for funding capital improvements through a temporary increases in property tax and sales tax and a permanent sales tax increase for the city's "rainy day fund."
Vision Tulsa forum tonight (Tuesday, March 8, 2016)
The Tulsa County Republican Men's Club is hosting a forum tonight, Tuesday, March 8, 2016, at 7:00 p.m., about the upcoming April 5 vote on the "Vision Tulsa" tax propositions. George McFarlin and I will be there to explain why you should vote against the propositions. I understand that there...
Transfer east Tulsa into the Catoosa school district
Over on Conversation Catoosa on Facebook, there's a rumor about moving the City of Tulsa's Rolling Hills subdivisions from the Tulsa school district to the Catoosa school district. This is an area southwest of Admiral and 193rd East Avenue that has been in the City of Tulsa since the massive...
Montereau v. Ken Yazel: Leashing elected officials through deprivation of legal counsel
NOTE: Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel was on 1170 KFAQ with Pat Campbell and Eddie Huff at 7:35 a.m. Tuesday. UPDATE 2014/06/25: In an 8-1 decision today (Winchester dissenting), the Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned the Court of Civil Appealsand remanded the property tax appeals to be considered on their merits....
Tulsa Election 2013: Proposition 3: The "Improve Our Tulsa" G. O. bond issue
Our condolences and prayers go out to the Inhofe family. A small private plane registered to Dr. Perry Inhofe, son of Sen. Jim Inhofe, crashed on Sunday, killing the pilot. The "Improve Our Tulsa" package of capital improvement funding comes to voters as two propositions. We've talked about the 7-year,...
Bill Christiansen for Tulsa Mayor
Another day, another mendacious attack mailer from Dewey Bartlett Jr. If I had known there were enough Tulsans who objected to rising city budgets, county tax initiatives, the City Hall move, the Great Plains Airlines bailout, and accepting Federal stimulus money to justify a mail piece targeting those concerns, I...
<em>Whirled</em> blurs Kathy Taylor responsibility for Great Plains settlement
I had hoped for some changes with the change of ownership. Today's Tulsa World story on the mayoral election and Kathy Taylor's Great Plains airlines settlement has undermined that hope. One positive change -- the pictures make all of the candidates look bad, not just the disfavored candidate. One...
Oklahoma Election 2012: No on State Question 758
There are six state questions on the November 6, 2012, general election ballot in Oklahoma. All of them are constitutional amendments, requiring a vote of the people, and all of them are legislative referenda -- questions initiated by the legislature, rather than by initiative petition. The state election board has...
The anthropomorphization of the GOP
This post has been percolating in my brain for a couple of months, and the topic for even longer, but other business has prevented its completion until now. As I read conservative blogs, I see a great deal of understandable frustration with different aspects of Republican Party politics: The National...
Excise board rubber-stamps property tax hikes
While Oklahoma voters have closed off most avenues for tax hikes without a vote, there remains one loophole: the sinking fund. As Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel explains in the news release below, each taxing entity (a city, for example) presents the county excise board an estimate of the property...
Great Plains settlement reversed; BOK must repay City of Tulsa
UPDATED 2011/10/13 with links to further reaction and my interview with KRMG's Nicole Burgin. Just remember, though, BatesLine had the story first, thanks to an email from an alert reader. This post is worthy of a flashing light, a flaming skull, and 72-point type. Tulsa's taxpayers get our $7 million...
George Kaiser, GKFF, and Solyndra
This is long, but worth reading, particularly if you're knowledgeable about the financial aspects of bankruptcy. There are some interesting twists and turns that seem to suggest that GKFF's investments have been protected to the detriment of federal taxpayers. If that's so, I'm torn: It's better for Tulsa if GKFF...
That sinking (fund) feeling; will Bartlett Jr get a slush fund?
UPDATE 2011/04/04, 11:00 pm: HB 1992 did not come up for a vote today; it is on the Senate calendar for April 5. There's still time to call or email your state senator. My state senator, Gary Stanislawski, told me he plans to vote against HB 1992. UPDATE: HB 1992...
Westcott explains BOk bailout vote: "We had no authority"
Tulsa City Councilor Rick Westcott sent his District 2 constituents an explanation of the legal situation in which the councilors found themselves Thursday night, when they voted to appropriate money from the sinking fund to pay the settlement in the Tulsa Industrial Authority / Tulsa Airport Improvements Trust lawsuit (money...
BOk bailout: Other voices
Comments from elsewhere on the web about the City of Tulsa's payment of a $7.1 million Great Plains Airlines debt it did not owe: KFAQ's Chris Medlock was a City Councilor the last time someone tried to get the City to pay for the Great Plains mess. Here's what...
Councilors, this is a test
I hope Tulsans will show up at tonight's City Council meetings (at 5 in room 201 of the City Hall tower and 6 in the Council chamber) to voice their objections to Mayor Kathy Taylor's capitulation in the Great Plains Airlines lawsuit and to urge councilors to reject payment of...
BOk is still after Tulsa's money
See below for updates, including audio from my interview on KFAQ today and the request for action and the resolution that the City Council will consider tomorrow night. You may have thought the Great Plains Airlines fiasco was far behind us. Three years ago, then-Mayor Bill LaFortune tried to convince...
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