The issue: Sounds of the city
Mayor Dewey Bartlett began his State of the City speech on Thursday with a riff on his harmonica.
"Some of you may have heard that I occasionally embarrass my family by playing the harmonica in front of a bunch of people," he said before starting. It was a launching point for a larger message, one that celebrated the city's rich musical history.
"Playing the blues harmonica reminds me of our city - of the musical heritage that is unique to Tulsa," Bartlett said. "It reminds me of J.J. Cale, who recently died, a Tulsan who was an inspiration to many of today's legendary musicians: Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Leon Russell, to name a few."
Bartlett loves music enough to stand before hundreds of people and play a tune. He's done it before at Cain's Ballroom and the Guthrie Green.
So as incongruous as it might have seemed to see the mayor, dressed in a gray pin-striped suit and red tie, standing before hundreds of other nattily dressed movers and shakers with a harmonica to his lips, it made sense for Bartlett.
And it gave him the perfect lead-in to promote one of his favorite initiatives: the Mayor's Film & Music Advisory Board.
Bartlett told the crowed gathered at the Cox Business Center that he created the board "to bring together our musical heritage with the creativity of the Tulsa music and film industry; to create jobs and opportunity; and to tap into the creative and the sometimes nontraditional side of our city."
This from a man many would describe as a traditional Republican.
And maybe that was the point. It's election season, after all, and Bartlett - like any politician - doesn't want to be narrowly defined.
Then again, he may have just seen an audience and couldn't resist the urge to play.
He did, after all, end his speech with another riff on his harmonica.
QUOTABLE
"Elected people start drooling."
- City Councilor Blake Ewing, describing how elected officials respond to Engineering Services Director Paul Zachary's well-organized requests for street repair funding, during a council meeting on economic development
"We budgeted for the worst-case scenario, thankfully."
- City Councilor G.T. Bynum, explaining that the city included $19 million in funding for Riverside Drive improvements in its proposed capital package before it was announced that the city's application for a $14.8 million federal grant to help fund the work was rejected
"It appeared that a majority of the funding went to public transportation projects, freight rail and port projects."
- James Wagner, with the Indian Nations Council of Governments, explaining who did receive TIGER grant funding
"It could be in a tent as far as I am concerned."
- Mayor Dewey Bartlett, speaking about his proposed aviation and aeronautics facility for high school students, during his State of the City speech
FROM TWITTER
Tweets from Tulsa city officials and World
City Hall reporters Kevin Canfield
(@KevinCanfieldTW) and Zack Stoycoff
(@ZackStoycoffTW)
“State of the City: During Q & A,
Bartlett says city must “aggressively
pursue” improvements at
city-owned airport facilities.”
— Kevin Canfield,@KevinCanfieldTW
LOOKING BACK
City's grant request rejected: The city of Tulsa will not be receiving a $14.8 million federal TIGER grant it applied for this year to help fund proposed improvements to Riverside Drive, city officials learned Thursday.
The city hoped to use the grant to help pay for $40.1 million in improvements along Riverside Drive from 24th Street to 33rd Place in conjunction with A Gathering Place for Tulsa, which envisions a large park on the east side of Riverside Drive and significant changes to River Parks on the west side.
The area will be linked by two land bridges.
Thursday's announcement does not mean that road work will not happen.
Funding for the work has been included in the city's proposed $918.7 million capital improvements package set to go to voters in the Nov. 12 elections.
"It would have been great to get the funding," said Paul Zachary, director of the city's Engineering Services Department.
"That was $14.8 million out of the $19 million that is in the sales-tax package that could have been freed up for other projects or just not spent," he said. "But as far as our (capital improvement) funding package, we are not going to have to scramble."
Among the projects to get funding is Oklahoma City's Intermodal Transportation Hub, which received $13.6 million.
Taylor touts transparency: Former Mayor Kathy Taylor on Tuesday unveiled a plan to improve transparency and accountability at City Hall.
Taylor, who will face Mayor Dewey Bartlett in the Nov. 12 general election, said the city lags behind other large municipalities when it comes to sharing information with residents.
"It is about creating easy-to-understand, easy-to-access, user-friendly information so you can understand in real time where your tax dollars are going," she said.
Taylor's "Transparency and Accountability Plan for Tulsa" includes implementing the correct policies to ensure that government puts transparency first; improving the open records request process to provide information more quickly; making the city's website more user-friendly; updating the city's financial and information systems so that more information can be put online; and keeping information up to date so that residents can access it in real time.
Discussing development: The city would benefit from having a single-action plan for spurring economic development, a working group exploring the issue concluded Tuesday.
"The process makes tons of sense to me that there be a community working list of projects so that when these projects or capital improvement packages come and go it isn't an afterthought to go: 'Oh, we should also be doing things to generate new revenue,' " said City Councilor Blake Ewing. "To me, that should be the first thing we're talking about so we can figure out how to pay for those roads the next time."
Ewing is the chairman of the working group, which met for the second time.
On Tuesday, representatives from the Tulsa Regional Chamber, the Indian Nations Council of Governments, the Economic Development Commission and the city's Planning and Economic Development Department presented their lists of the obstacles to economic development.
They included a lack of structured parking, housing and hotel rooms downtown, too few transportation options citywide and not enough skilled laborers.
LOOKING AHEAD
6 p.m. Thursday: City Council meeting, City Council chambers of City Hall, Second Street and Cincinnati Avenue
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Tulsa City Council
Mayor Dewey Bartlett and former Mayor Kathy Taylor have eight weeks to make their cases before voters go to the polls Nov. 12.
Michigan-based Horizon Group Properties and Charlotte, N.C.-based Collett & Associates, the developer of the Tulsa Hills shopping center, seek to build a large outlet mall on a 64.8-acre parcel at 129th East Avenue and Interstate 44, officials said.
