Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Signed, Sealed and Delivered

Last week, Tulsa's Man-of-Many-Hats, Mike Kier, presented Jim Mautino and me with the certification papers for the recall. Many people have contacted me and asked if we could supply a list of the names of the signatories. It took us a while to get them all entered, but anyone interested in viewing the complete list for District 2 may do so by clicking here.

I'll save most of my comments for when I have more time. However, aside from the analysis done by Curtis Killman of the Tulsa World, which revealed that only 2.6% of the total registered voters in my district were required to force an expensive and destructive recall vote, and that only about one in four signatories even bothered to vote in the election on March 9, 2004, I will share with you this one other interesting bit of analysis.

Of the 770 signatures collected by Jim Burdge, Al Unser, John Benjamin, Josh Fowler, et. al., some 526, or 68.3% live west of the Arkansas river. This, despite the fact that more than half of my district, contrary to popular thought, reside east of the river.

What could account for this disproportionate fact?

Well, it could have a lot to do with reports we received that those soliciting signatures were encouraged to focus not on what the CfRG04 alleged were the reasons for recalling me, but rather that District 2 deserved a councilor "that lived on the Westside."

Hmmm...so add to the list of allegations worthy of recalling an elected official the crime of "unfortunate geography." And the Tulsa World says I'm parochial. Go figure.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least you live in your district.

Anonymous said...

I live in west Tulsa and I do hear the words "The Councilor for district 2 should live in west Tulsa" quite often. In fact most (not all) westsiders believe they should have their own district. It is very hard to teach the old dogs around here new tricks. I do want to say though that not all westsiders wear blinders and could see clearly who the best candidate was in the last election and voted for MEDLOCK!

Anonymous said...

Why are some names on there twice?

Anonymous said...

He presented "I" with the certification papers? Mr. Medlock, you should have one of your Michaels proofread your blog entries for grammatical errors before you post them.....

Anonymous said...

Anonymous get over yourself. It is not the grammatical errors in the posting that matters but the content. What significance is your posting? Not a...

CGHill said...

How many people live in west Tulsa? Twenty thousand? Unless they expand the Council to 20 members (don't give anyone any ideas), it's simply not going to happen.

Anonymous said...

CG I agree.