The issue: government transparency
Mayor Dewey Bartlett and former Mayor Kathy Taylor have eight weeks to make their cases before voters go to the polls Nov. 12.
From the looks of it, government transparency could be one of the campaign's top issues.
Taylor recently pitched a five-point plan to improve transparency at City Hall. It includes improving the open records request process to provide information more quickly and making the city's website more user friendly.
It's nothing scintillating, but what one might expect from the candidate not in office.
For Bartlett, the person in office, government transparency is something his administration has to demonstrate every day, not just talk about.
That's not always easy, as evidenced by what transpired last week.
Assistant City Attorney Shelton Benedict and a Legal Department staff member early last week said it is not the city's policy to release 911 recordings.
Benedict's remarks came after the Police Department denied a Tulsa World request for any emergency calls regarding a shooting at the Best Budget Inn on Sept. 1. The incident involved Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Sheldon Robinson.
Benedict's comments directly contradicted those of city spokeswoman Michelle Allen, who told the Tulsa World in June that the city's interpretation of the Open Records Act is that 911 recordings are public record and that the city releases them regularly. In fact, the city has released at least seven 911 recordings since 2010.
On Thursday, in an interview with the World, Bartlett and his press secretary, Lloyd Wright, said the city's policy had not changed.
"That was this one," Wright said, referring to the Sept. 1 shooting. "That doesn't mean the policy has changed." Asked whether the city would release recordings of 911 calls in the future, Wright said, "Don't know. Depending on what the call is."
Bartlett declined to give his opinion of whether the city should release the 911 recordings of the Sept. 1 incident, saying, "I am not a lawyer."
The next day, the Police Department released the tapes.
- KEVIN CANFIELD, World Staff Writer
QUOTABLE
"Money is what's guiding this, not the best interest of the urban core."
- City Councilor Blake Ewing, discussing some property owners' views of proposed restrictions to demolitions and surface parking lots within the Inner Dispersal Loop, at a Downtown Coordinating Council meeting
"There is a great deal of frustration out there, as I am sure you are aware of, not just about the eyesore of having this stuff out there as long as it has been, but now the rodent population that is on an uptick because you have these giant brush piles all throughout midtown Tulsa."
- City Councilor G.T. Bynum, discussing storm debris removal, with Mayor Dewey Bartlett during Thursday's council meeting
FROM TWITTER
Tweets from Tulsa city officials and World City Hall reporters Kevin Canfield (@KevinCanfieldTW) and Zack Stoycoff (@ZackStoycoffTW)
"Love that our mayoral candidates are competing over who can make Tulsa gov't more transparent. Everybody wins! techpresident.com/news/24399/tra..."
- City Councilor G.T. Bynum @gtbynum
"Tulsa's demographic trends: Slow population growth, rapid growth of minorities and elderly, increase of poverty. Just like nation."
- City Hall Reporter Zack Stoycoff @ZackStoycoffTW
LOOKING BACK
Retail incentives: City councilors are considering an incentive program to make Tulsa more competitive with surrounding cities in attracting big-box retailers.
The program would offer up to $2 million in sales-tax rebates for businesses that would generate substantial sales-tax revenue, Economic Development Director Clay Bird told councilors Thursday.
Rebates would be limited to reimbursing retailers for public infrastructure.
A new retailer or its developer would be required to build the infrastructure with its own money, and the city would reimburse it over time in payments relative to the amount of tax revenue the business remits to the city each year.
No reimbursement would be given if no tax is generated,
Councilors said they plan to discuss the proposal further this week and would aim to vote on it soon, but they offered no objections Thursday.
Outlet mall: The owner of The Outlet Shoppes at Oklahoma City is in discussions to build a similar factory outlet mall in east Tulsa, city officials confirmed Tuesday.
Michigan-based Horizon Group Properties and Charlotte, N.C.-based Collett & Associates, the developer of the Tulsa Hills shopping center, are considering building a large, "high end" outlet mall on a 64.8-acre parcel at 129th East Avenue and Interstate 44, officials said.
The Outlet Shoppes at Oklahoma City has about 90 businesses spread over 350,000 square feet. Its stores include Saks Fifth Avenue, Nike, GAP and Tommy Hilfiger.
Tulsa's Woodland Hills Mall, in comparison, has 165 stores and 1 million square feet.
Bird stressed that the city has seen no concrete plans for the development.
Deputy fire chief sues: A deputy fire chief is suing the city for at least $325,000 because of his reassignment from the Tulsa Fire Department's administrative chief position last year. Jeremy Moore, a 16-year veteran of the department, was informed Nov. 7 that he would serve as a district chief, his previous job, rather than in the post he had held since April 2011.
He argues in a lawsuit filed in Tulsa County District Court last month that he was demoted without cause shortly after Ray Driskell became fire chief.
Both Driskell and Moore were candidates to replace outgoing Chief Allen LaCroix, who had appointed Moore to the administrative chief position.
Moore alleges in the lawsuit that this "was a motivating reason" for his reassignment.
Surface parking lots: The Downtown Coordinating Council voted 12-2 to "strongly oppose" a proposal to restrict new surface parking lots and building demolitions in their area, saying it would violate business owners' rights and deter development.
It has no authority over the ordinance.
Under the proposal, Board of Adjustment approval would be needed for any demolition and surface parking lot within the Inner Dispersal Loop.
Surface lots would be allowed only as an accessory use on a property that has an additional principal use, and property owners would have to show that the building to be demolished is of "no viable economic use" and that efforts have been made to sell or lease the property for a profit.
Exceptions would be made when a building was deemed unsafe and if the property owner could show that a new building would replace the demolished one.
Currently, property owners are not required to explain why they seek to demolish a building.
- KEVIN CANFIELD and ZACK STOYCOFF, World Staff Writers
LOOKING AHEAD
1:30 p.m. Wednesday: Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, City Council chambers of City Hall, Second Street and Cincinnati Avenue
6 p.m. Thursday: City Council meeting, City Council chambers of City Hall, Second Street and Cincinnati Avenue
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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.
Mayor Dewey Bartlett began his State of the City speech on Thursday with a riff on his harmonica.
