John Brock Redux

He's back and he's got his sites set on City Hall. Lorton buddy John Brock, we have learned will be the front man (designated "right hander") for the newly formed Tulsans for Better Government.

You'll remember Mr. Brock from such recent events as Recall (gave money) and the BoK/Great Plains lawsuit (wrote a People's Forum letter supporting a tax payer bailout).

Stay tuned for more breaking news from Tulsa's Utica Square Mafia.

At Large Councilors? So Guinier...and Yet So Far.

Yesterday I learned of the efforts of the a "bi-partisan" group of citizens that call themselves "Tulsans for a Better Government" who are beginning an initiative petition drive to add three at-large city councilors (micro-mayors or "mayors-on-training-wheels") to the Tulsa City Council. We'll have to wait until later to add up the donated dollars given to Tulsans for Better Government by Bixbians, Broken Arrowans, Owassans, Sandites and Palm Springsians.

My first thought was a delightful one. I envisioned Bob and Roxanna Lorton, dressed in evening wear, standing outside of a Super Wal-Mart, clipboards in hand, asking harried passers-by, "Would you like to sign a petition for better government? No? How about a free Tulsa World? No? Opera Tickets?"

My second thought was not so delightful. I envisioned paid-for college students, promised a dollar a signature, in front of a Wal-Mart Super Store, asking harried passers-by, "Would you like to sign a petition for better governemnt?" Who wouldn't? [Good job on picking the name, Schnake Turnbo & Frank!]

So let's just accept the fact right now, that this petition is going to go to a vote of the people. The PR has been worked out, the funding is in place, the lawyers are ready for the court challenges, the same judges that need the Tulsa World to ignore them in order get re-elected are still on the bench and The World has run the "scientific poll" showing that most of us want something to stop all that nasty bickering at City Hall. [Note: Bickering is a Tulsa World/Steve Turnbo term for healthy debate within a democratic republic that isn't trending "our way"]

Why any citizen living in Districts 1, 2, 3, 5 or 6 would ever vote for this thing, we'll leave for later. Right now, let's just assume the "citizens" behind this attempt to "reform" our city government are on to something. Come on...it'll be fun.

So why stop there? Here are some of my modest suggestions for governmental reform in the same form as Tulsans for Better Government. [Note: In case you're reading these and happen to be a liberal who thinks Republicans shouldn't try to be funny without consequences, or you're scanning the web as part of your job with the Secret Service, I'm just kidding....okay?]

1: Let's elect five U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Sure...why have all this bickering among Senators about "litmus tests" or who is conservative/liberal enough to serve on the nation's highest court? It'll be great. No more Judiciary Committee hearings. No more having to look at Sen. Arlen Specter on TV and asking of yourself, "What party does this guy say he belongs to?" or "What happened to his hair since the Anita Hill hearings?" We'll just elect five justices every four years and let the increasingly conservative Red States swing the balance of power on the court.

2: Wouldn't it be great to require that the nation's Vice President come from the opposite party as the President? Think about it. Wouldn't every citizen's perspective be consdidered then, instead of just half of them. Especially if the President's half are conservatives? And the best part is, if you aren't happy about who your current leader is, the chances are far greater with a Veep from the opposite party, that an extremist from YOUR party might get ideas about line of succession. At the very least, we wouldn't see the President in many theaters.

3: Let's give Blue States a third Senator. Face it...Blue States, for the most part are colder and older. Sure, Lousianna is just old, but it's definitely hot and VERY humid. Cold and old states have a harder time luring people to relocate there for economic development. As a result of this, they surely deserve more representation. Don't they?

4: How about granting ex efficio seats in Congress to the editorial staffs of major newspapers? It should be obvious that anyone who can fly in the face of national trends to the right, AND can write so self-assuredly about things they have no personal experience or knowledge about, deserves to get to set policy instead of just criticising it. Send Senior Editors to DC and let the up-and-comers go to their respective State Houses.

5: Remember Lani Guineer? She was Bill Clinton's second of three nominees to be the nation's first female Attorney General. She had the brilliant idea of giving the nation's disadvantaged, proportional votes to balance out years of bias within our discriminatory society. Forget one-man-one-vote. If you've got a gripe with America, we'll give you two votes...or maybe three! Just think of all of the wrongs we could right with that kind of system. Oh...wait...minorities with extra votes might elect more Jack Hendersons and Roscoe Turners, even WITH Councilors-At-Large! Oh well...it was a crazy idea anyway. [See the editorial cartoon I did back when Lani's nomination was still a possibility].

Yes...you wild and whacky, outside-the-box thinkers at the Tulsa World and Tulsans for Better Government...there's lots of reformin' to do. So send in those checks, pay those students to circulate the petitions, have your handwriting experts ready to certify the signatures, and let's put this thing to a vote. It will be fun to see how it goes.

Remember Recall? Remember the gas tax?

"ArenaGate": Is Mayor Making a Liar Out of John Scott?

Many thanks, as always, to Michael Bates of Batesline.com for his following through on the discrepancy I reported on Friday with regard to the Tulsa World's reporting on the Arena funding. [See entry below entitled, "Did I Miss Something?"]

Bates found the County Ordinance that sent the arena question to the voters in 2003, [click here to see ordinance in PDF format]. As you can see, the only "hard and fast number" within the ordinance is the combined $183 million that represents the cumulative figure for both the arena and the convention center. Both Tulsa World articles mentioned in my previous story are consistent in reporting this $183 million figure. It is the amounts attributed to the two "sub-projects" that have shifted.

However, as I pointed out in my earlier entry, there has been no public mention, to my knowledge, of this shift of public funds as the arena project has proceeded. This means, the County hasn't been told, the Vision 2025 Sales Tax Overview Committee hasn't been told, the Tulsa City Council hasn't been told and the taxpayers of Tulsa County haven't been told [by way of the Tulsa World and other media outlets].

In a word, this fact is "reprehensible." Why? Well...let's start from a position of consistent policy, shall we?

Weeks after the V2025 vote, I began asking questions about what elected official, or elected governing body made the decision that the arena HAD to be built on its present site. At a meeting of the Tulsa County Republican Assembly [the moderate one, not the conservative one] at Johnnie's Char Grill, Deputy County Commissioner Paul Wilkenning told those assembled that the City and County had an obligation [not a moral obligation, for once] to build at that location because that was what was promised to the voters when they went to the polls.

Forget the fact that arguments could be made that other sites might be more successful or promising, the voters were sold on the Downtown site and that was that.

So where is the outrage from Mr. Wilkenning and the others who made this argument? If promises implied in the marketing materials and media presentations to the voters were so binding as to dictate the arena's location, then surely the dollar figures implied in the same materials and presentations are equally binding, aren't they?

So who moved the money? Well, the Vision 2025 Oversight Committee that is recommending the additional budget for the $3 million overrun on the glass Icon Wall is just an advisory body. As unelected officials (except for Councilor Susan Neal) they have no authority to re-distribute tax payers money. As the Tulsa World story from Saturday, Oct. 15th points out;

"Concern expressed by some committee members stems from a recent recommendation to Mayor Bill LaFortune to add $3 million to the arena's construction budget so that its iconic glass wall can be strengthened beyond the original design to exceed city codes."

In other words, all such transfers, if they have occurred, have been done by Bill LaFortune.

So where's the disclosure? Is the Tulsa World wrong in reporting [albeit surreptitiously] the shift of $16 million from the Convention Center to the Arena? Was John Scott, the Convention Center director off base when he complained at the last Vision 2025 Oversight Committee meeting on Wednesday, October 5th, that so much money had been siphoned off from his project to cover Pelli's Icon that it was getting to the point where he felt he had "not told the voters the truth" back in 2003?

Why is it that every time I, or another citizen tries to ask about how cost over runs are being handled, we either get patted on the head and reassured, or punched in the reputation by an all too enabling media?

If you aren't beginning to get outraged, then you're part of the problem.

It's time for Bill LaFortune to come to the City Council [himself] and give us some answers.

Did I Miss Something?

Sure, I've stopped having the Tulsa World delivered to my home, but I would've thought I'd have heard something as big as this. Afterall, I am a city councilor and I've been watching the arena and civic center projects pretty closely.

Compare the following excerpt from today's Tulsa World and note the figures in bold:

Building new arena's glass wall to endure wind to cost millions
By P.J. LASSEK AND SUSAN HYLTON World Staff Writers 10/14/2005

Constructing the new arena's iconic glass wall to withstand dangerous wind speeds will add $3 million to its projected cost, officials said Thursday.

Although the additional costs can be covered by the 5 percent contingency funds built into the budget for the Vision 2025 project, Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune is being asked to consider drawing $3 million from the Maxwell Convention Center expansion project.

In 2003, voters approved $183 million to construct the arena and make improvements to the convention center. Cost estimates were $141 million for an 18,000-seat arena and $42 million to add at least 10,000 square feet of space and a ballroom to the convention center.

Then take a look at another Tulsa World excerpt from August 17, 2003. Compare the figures in bold to the figures in the previous story:

Proponents see the arena combination as a boon to the area economy.
P.J. LASSEK World Staff Writer08/17/2003Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A21 of News, Vision2025

When Tulsa's Convention Center opened in 1964, it was a shining example of a modern-day events facility.
Now, nearly 40 years later, it stands as an example of a convention center that needs to be modernized and paired with a quality events arena, officials say.

Among the nine items funded in Proposition 3 is $183 million for a new arena and renovations to the existing Convention Center. The city would spend $125 million for an 18,000-seat arena and $58 million to modernize the Convention Center.

Opponents say the Convention Center and arena are facilities that will drain the city's general fund. The city currently subsidizes the Convention Center with $2 million annually from a hotel-motel tax and the general fund.

For those of you that aren't too good with the math, that's a $16 Million swing that to my knowledge, was never reported to either the council or the public. What happened in the last two years? Did I miss something?

John Brock: How Do You Know?

I hope I can break down John Brock's diatribe in the Reader's Forum section of the Tulsa World on Sunday. But while I try to negotiate through his convoluted logic and rhetoric that makes me think it was more likely written by Steve Turnbo (or one of his paid PR people) than Mr. Brock himself, let me pose this simple question with regard to the following statement from his remarks.

A minority of the city councilors does not want to honor that commitment. The excuse is that BOK knew or should have known that the commitment of the City Council could not be trusted, and therefore BOK doesn't deserve to be paid.

Over the past couple of months, we on the City Council have been holding a series of Executive Sessions with regard to the BOK lawsuit against the airport board. We've met five or six times and the discussions have been lively. But what's most interesting, if you didn't know, is that the public isn't allowed inside of a executive session. Why? Because, since the topic regards our position and strategies with legal counsel regarding the city's position in a lawsuit, disclosure of our discussions could weaken the city's ability to negotiate or try a case.

So, if every councilor was respecting the confidentiality of the executive session process, how does John Brock know that "a minority of city councilors does not want to honor that commitment?" Who spilled the beans?

Could it be Randy Sullivan, who after every meeting rushes from the meeting room to his council office to make phone calls behind a closed door? Or, is it Susan Neal, who during a verbal assault on my motives behind pursuit of the Airport Investigation, referred to remarks I had made in "another session in this very room?" That's right, one of the executive sessions!

The "Gang of Four" is constantly barraged by the Tulsa World for a supposed lack of integrity. Ironically, we're not the one's leaking our discussions to the parties involved in the law suit.

You have no idea how much I am chomping at the bit to enlighten the citizens about the shennanigans that are going on behind closed doors. You won't have to wait long.

Hot Rumor: A Hint for the Frustrated

For all of you wracking your brains to figure out the identity of the rumored Democrat annoited one, that I alluded to in my last entry, here's a little hint.

Go back and look at Michael Bates' report on the airport investigation phase 1 report. Read it through. The name is there and should pop out at you, if you give it some thought and keep in mind the clues from the first entry.

Happy hunting.

Hot Rumor: "Please Have Your Boarding Pass Ready"

I have generally shied away from retelling rumors in this blog, but as a mayoral candidate, I find that I’m getting some really good ones. Most of them deal with “who might be thinking about running, or thinking about maybe thinking about running” for this and/or that elective office.

Of course, I’ve also been given just about every name in Tulsa as a potential candidate for mayor. I generally wait until I’ve heard the name from multiple, believable sources before ever considering that rumor to be worthy of “spreading.”

However, if the source is tapped in enough and not prone to being wrong too often, then you take it as a “probable,” or at the very least, “very possible.” Such was the case with a rumor I got today.

Let’s leave it a bit vague to frustrate the lawyers, shall we?

What I was told is that the Democrats (among who past rumor mills have ruled out Kathy Lobeck Taylor and Sharon King Davis and ruled IN Tom Baker) have an ace-in-the-hole candidate waiting in the wings; someone with a track record of winning races and a source for substantial funding.

However that isn’t the most interesting factoid, because the name I was given also happens to have been a major player in Great Plains Airlines. That’s right, the latest name bandied about as “The One,” played a role in losing (or misplacing?) over $30 million in taxpayer money. With credentials like that, no wonder he’s considered formidable.

If true, probable or very possible, could this have anything to do with the Tulsa World’s full-court press on ending the City Council’s investigation into Great Plains? Could it have something to do with the desire to paint me as a “paranoid” vigilante hell-bent on finding “red meat?”

Something to ponder. At the very least, it will be fun to see if this rumor pans out, or peters out.

But If You Catch Them, You've Got Calimari.

Which goes great with "red meat." Especially "great big chunks of red meat!"

Not really sure how I missed this posting on Michael Bates' Batesline. Maybe it was the title:

"Squid use ink to cloud the waters and escape, too"

I guess I was in a hurry, scanned the title and reasoned that I wasn't in the mood for a marine biology lesson on the evasion techniques of ten tenticled aquatic creatures. Afterall, Bates is a MIT grad and it is rumored that if he was to suffer from male pattern baldness, his receding hairline would reveal an actual point atop his head [I'm kidding...folks, we're old friends].

Anyway, the posting is acutally about P. J. ("Punch & Jab") Lassek's Sunday article oulining former Airport Investigator Wilson Busby's allegations that, among other things, I do bear impressions and have a penchant for taking my steaks rare (VERY rare.)! Here's an excerpt:

Busby was retained by the City Council for their investigation into the Tulsa Airport Authority, which also covered publicly-subsidized Great Plains Airlines. Busby was hired on the recommendation of Roop. A thread connecting the two men is political consultant Jim Burdge, who managed Roop's campaigns for Council and who shared an office with Busby. Burdge also managed campaigns for Bill Christiansen and Randy Sullivan, and he worked for the Coalition for Responsible Government 2004, the group that sought to recall Councilors Chris Medlock and Jim Mautino.

The two associates are accusing Medlock of trying to turn the airport investigation into some sort of witchhunt. Busby claims he saw Medlock pose like a bear and demand "red meat". When I read that, I couldn't help but think of Tim the Enchanter, in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," warning the knights of the killer rabbit: "Death awaits you all, with nasty big pointed teeth!" (Click here for audio)

Why would Roop go after Medlock? Roop's boss would lose his job (and so would Roop) if Medlock's campaign is successful.

Give it a read. You might even learn a thing or two about squid.

Boeing! Boeing! Boeing! Was the Bridge Bounced for Boeing?

It’s amazing how easily Bob Dick can revise history if it fits his purpose in building the IVI Bridge. On KRMG’s Morning News with Joe Kelley today, Commissioner Dick made the following remark:

“Joe…a quick history…and you weren’t here. This bridge was part of the 2025 Vision [sic] package…and only because Boeing came into the picture did it get dropped out of that package, because we needed to accommodate the money for the Boeing plant. You know, obviously we didn’t get it. But had that not occurred, this bridge would’ve been part of 2025 and would’ve been being built right now.”

Why is this interesting? Because Commissioner Dick emphatically states that this bridge was part of some final package to go before the voters. However, I was present at the final meeting of the Vision Leadership Team, and this bridge wasn’t mentioned. In fact, there was no public mention of the bridge making any final cut that I can remember and I was pretty involved in the process.

In a story published on March 8th, 2003, the Tulsa World listed the bridge along with a laundry list of other projects that had been supplied by both governmental entities and private citizens as part of the Dialog/Visioning process. The listed it as follows:

City of Bixby

• South Tulsa County bridge project, $7.3 million
• Haikey Creek drainage basin flood protection project, $14 million

Nowhere in any of my records, or anywhere that I can find online, does it ever state that the bridge had made the final cut (at least publicly) before the Boeing opportunity came along. Of course, I can only talk about what was “publicly” the case. Perhaps Mr. Dick has information about how the final list was determined that the public isn’t aware of? Perhaps Mr. Dick is familiar with final lists that the public was never intended to see, until the people cutting the deals behind closed doors were ready for them to see them?

This is apparently part and parcel as to how Mr. Dick prefers government to operate. The grand flaw in our county governmental structure is that the County Commission is both the executive and legislative branches. There is no formalized oversight, or at the very least, very little.

The suspicion that a deal had been cut can be heard on the audio tape from the August INCOG meeting that was secured by the leadership of South Tulsans Citizens’ Coalition, on which a Bixby public official can be heard chastising Mayor LaFortune about “Tulsa” going back on the deal that was cut to remove the bridge from the final list. If that deal occurred, and there is no reason to believe it didn’t, then our mayor showed a distinct lack of respect for the concept of public disclosure with regard to projects that could have a very negative impact on the citizens of the city he’s supposed to represent.

Finally, it’s pretty disingenuous to make the assertion that had the bridge been part of the package that was placed before the voters in September, 2003, that it would’ve passed and would be “being built right now.” Does Commissioner Dick think the homeowners that are upset about this bridge today, would’ve been less upset during the Vision 2025 campaign? Would crowded streets near their schools and homes be any more acceptable, just because the Chamber would’ve had a budget to sell the idea?

The reality is, given the galvanizing effect this bridge has had on the citizens of South Tulsa, Commissioner Dick should be counting his lucky stars that the bridge proposal was never part of the final package, because there is a good chance that whatever package it was included in, might not have passed.
If this were the case, then there are a lot of other projects that might have never seen the light of day, either.

Shut the Door and Lock and Latch It!

Here comes PJ with a brand new hatchet!

Wilson Busby took an axe...
And gave Chris Medlock forty whacks.
And when his job was partly done...
He billed the city for Forty-One.

Thousand that is.