Pets at council meetings, big arrests and a prison-bound former superintendent among weekly news
Published: 2/9/2013 10:00 AM
Last Modified: 2/8/2013 11:24 AM
City Councilor G.T. Bynum with an ultra-cute dog needing a home.
Tulsa Technology Center art students are creating steel panel murals for a new bridge on Boulder in downtown Tulsa.
Dog eat dog world: The Tulsa City Council can fight like cats and dogs and now they have the pets to show it.
To raise awareness about pet adoption, the council will bring two animals from the Tulsa Animal Welfare Shelter at a meeting once a month.
Finally, constituents will be able to determine whether a councilor is a cat or dog person.
Museum pieces: City Councilor Skip Steele wants to remind everyone we used to have the most oil in the world by building a museum.
"On either side of the entrance you would have oil derricks," Steele said. "Arched over the entrance would be a big sign: Oil Capital of the World. That is my vision. It would be so cool to see that."
No public money would be used.
But, he’s hoping those making fortunes in the oil industry will step up to pay for it.
‘Take this job and shove it’: The Expo Square president and CEO fired in 2008 will receive $285,000 in lawsuit settlements.
Rick Bjorklund was fired after the Tulsa World reported that one of the fairgrounds' largest tenants, Big Splash Water Park, had failed to pay its 2007 rent and that a check for half of its 2006 rent had gone uncashed for more than a year.
Also, fairgrounds officials failed to list the outstanding balances on the monthly financial reports provided to the fair board.
The lawsuits alleged civil rights and breach of contract violations.
Take a stroll along the Boulder walk: The Boulder Avenue Bridge, which spans First and Archer Streets downtown, is open for business.
The 1929 bridge closed more than a decade ago because it had become unsafe.
After a year-long $8.3 million construction project, it will serve as a link between the Brady District and downtown.
Tulsa Technology Center art students will be installing steel murals along the sides to depict the city’s history and provide beautification.
For those of you who really tuned out this past week, here are a few major items to know:
Bad boys, bad boys: Tulsa Police arrested brothers Cedric Dwayne Poore, 39, and James Stanford Poore, 32, in the Jan. 7 murder of four women at Fairmont Terrace near 61st Street and Peoria Avenue.
The women – Misty Nunley, 33; Julie Jackson, 55; and 23-year-old twins Rebeika Powell and Kayetie Powell Melchor – were tied up and shot in the head.
Because the state’s corrections systems uses paper records and snail mail, it took more than two months for officials to obtain a warrant for one of the brothers, who had violated his parole.
Going to the clink: Former Skiatook Superintendent Gary Johnson, 57, received a 12-month federal prison sentence for filing false federal income tax returns and accepting bribes.
He will serve at least 10 months behind bars.
Johnson had pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiring to “defraud the United States and to corruptly solicit, accept, give, and offer things of value,” from May 2004 to July 2010.
A state audit of the school district found it paid the vending companies owned by Rick Enos $570,000 more than it would have paid for market-value prices.
Tulsa County grand jury indictments unsealed in 2010 accused Johnson of embezzlement and bribery associated with that audit.
Among the information released in court records, agreements of money exchanges were made using coded words.
In one instance, Enos gave Johnson a cash payment by hiding it in a football program at a University of Oklahoma suite during a game.
State of awareness: Gov. Mary Fallin delivered her State of the State address.
Fallin’s proposed appropriations is $6.95 billion, which is an increase of $120.2 million.
The proposal includes a quarter-point reduction in the top personal income tax rate, increased funding for child welfare, mental health and Medicaid.
Hearbreak: In another sad, tragic day, a 15-year-old killed himself Monday morning in the restroom at Coweta Intermediate High School.
The ninth-grader, identified as Triston Stephens by the Medical Examiner's Office, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Monday's incident is the second time since September a student has committed suicide at an Oklahoma school.
Eighth-grader Cade Poulos, 13, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a crowded hallway at Stillwater Junior High School on Sept. 26.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among teens in Oklahoma, where the rate among teens is above the national average, figures show.
Tulsa World Scene Writer Jason Ashley Wright best described our collective feelings of heartbreak.
Written by
Ginnie Graham
News Columnist
