Sunday: Relations with county an issue in Tulsa mayor race
By KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer on Sep 7, 2013, at 4:07 PM
Both candidates for Tulsa mayor say they have tried to work with Tulsa County officials in the past. TOM GILBERT/Tulsa World file
Elections 2013
Every Monday through Nov. 4, the Tulsa World will publish answers from Tulsa mayoral candidates on questions about major issues leading up to the Nov. 12 election.
A civil engineer who worked in Iraq. A former college football player. Students eyeing political careers.
Whenever he can, Mayor Dewey Bartlett makes a point of reminding people that during his term in office, relations between the city and county have gone swimmingly.
It’s a not-so-subtle swipe at his opponent in the Nov. 12 mayoral election, former Mayor Kathy Taylor.
Bartlett has a point: there have been fewer fights between the city and county since he took office in December 2009.
But there has been less to fight about, too.
Taylor was in office from 2006 to 2009, and as things would have it, she found herself on a few powder kegs — some of her own making, some not.
By the time Bartlett took office in December 2009, the fighting was over and the issues that had strained city/county relations had been resolved, for better or for worse: the city had annexed the fairgrounds; city voters had overwhelming agreed to capture the county’s Four to Fix the County sales-tax to help fund the city’s 2008 Fix Our Streets package; and the city and county had a new jail agreement.
Taylor said last week that her administration worked with the county on numerous initiatives, including increasing funding for the BOK Center, participating in a gang task force and creating a veterans treatment court.
“We couldn’t have done it had we not done it cooperatively,” she said. “And that has always been my focus and spirit.”
Bartlett pointed to road projects the city and county have worked on together since he took office as well as the Collaborative Government Advisory Committee, which he created to come up with ways to eliminate duplication of work and cut costs.
Bartlett said his approach to the county is the same one he uses with everyone he deals with — to listen and to try to understand the other person’s perspective.
“Try to get to know each other in a very personal, direct, friendly way,” he said. “Be a good listener and certainly understand their respective views.”
Read more in Sunday's World.
Elections 2013
Every Monday through Nov. 4, the Tulsa World will publish answers from Tulsa mayoral candidates on questions about major issues leading up to the Nov. 12 election.
A civil engineer who worked in Iraq. A former college football player. Students eyeing political careers.
