City Hall Report
BY KEVIN CANFIELD & ZACK STOYCOFF World Staff Writers
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Find full coverage of Tulsa’s local
government.
Quotable
“I for one am excited that Tulsa
is putting on its big-boy pants as
it pertains to parking in downtown.”
— Councilor Blake Ewing,
discussing the proposed changes
to the city’s metered parking
system during a council committee
meeting
“I never want to be Oklahoma
City, but I want to be Oklahoma
City in that respect.”
— City Councilor Phil Lakin,
noting Oklahoma City’s strong
record of administering its
Community Development Block
Grants program during a council
committee meeting
“I think it could get us in trouble
to continuously outsource everything
we do. ... Pretty soon we’ll
find a way to outsource the City
Council.”
— City Councilor Jack Henderson
on a proposal to privatize
maintenance of downtown’s
parking meters
Week in review
Mayor’s 2013 goals: As the
new year begins, Mayor Dewey
Bartlett said he is sticking to
an old slogan he first unveiled
when running for office four
years ago. “You know that
phrase I had — ‘the jobgettingist
mayor’ ” Bartlett said in an
interview last week. “That is
what I want to be known as. That
is my goal — providing economic
development for our city.”
Bartlett said Tulsa is blessed
to have three major industries
— aviation, manufacturing and
energy — that account for more
than 50 percent of the jobs in
and around the city and that his
job is to “wave the flag for them
all the time.”
HUD fine: The U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development
has penalized the city of
Tulsa $704,930 for failing to
spend Community Development
Block Grants in a timely fashion.
The fine, levied late last year,
has been imposed in the form
of a reduction in the city’s fiscal
year 2012 allocation, which was
decreased from $3,206,807 to
$2,501,877.
Dafne Pharis, director of the
city’s Grants Administration Department,
said the city plans to
make up for the lost funding and
that the fine would not affect
individual recipients to whom
funds were allocated.
To make up for the lost funds,
the city plans to use CDBG
carry-over funds from 2011 and
unappropriated program income,
and reduce the city’s 2012 budgets
for the Grants Administration
and Working In Neighborhoods
departments in amounts
equal to what they received from
HUD in 2012.
Public Safety Intelligence Working
Group: Crime Prevention Network
Director Carol Bush told a
City Council working group Tuesday
that widespread misconceptions
about the organization’s
anonymous crime-reporting tip
line are discouraging residents
from using the service.
More outreach and education
are needed to dispel fears that the tip line is not secure or truly
anonymous, she said.
Bush made her comments at
the first meeting of the Public
Safety Intelligence Working
Group, which was created by
City Councilor G.T. Bynum in
response to a Jan. 7 quadruple
homicide at the Fairmont Terrace
apartments near 61st Street and
Peoria Avenue. The group, which
will meet three more times in
the next three weeks, seeks to
develop “specific objectives”
for improving communication
between residents and police,
Bynum said.
Tulsa Club sale: The sale of
the dilapidated Tulsa Club was
delayed again Tuesday when
the longtime absentee owner of
the building filed for personal
bankruptcy in Nevada.
The filing by California
businessman C.J. Morony has
the practical effect of placing a
stay on all civil legal proceedings
against him, including last
week’s planned sheriff’s sale of
the building, city officials said.
The vacant building at 115 E.
Fifth St. was first scheduled to
be sold in August at a sheriff’s
sale. That proceeding was stayed
when Morony — who for years
had been listed as owner of the
Tulsa Club building — created a
limited liability company in Nevada,
transferred the title of the
Tulsa Club to the LLC and placed
the LLC in bankruptcy.
City councilor pay increase: City
Councilor Jack Henderson on
Thursday proposed increasing
councilors’ annual salaries from
$18,000 to $24,000.
The proposal also calls for
annual cost-of-living increases
or the creation of an independent
commission to periodically
review council salaries.
Henderson said before
Thursday’s meeting that providing
cost-of-living increases to
councilors, who are part-time
employees, would eliminate the
need for any future discussion of
councilors’ salaries.
Councilors’ pay was last
increased in 2001, from $12,000.
It was the first time councilors
had received a raise since the
City Council was formed in 1990.
Council actions
Officer seeks representation: City councilors approved one request
on Thursday and rejected
another by former Tulsa Police
Cpl. Harold Wells, who asked
for legal representation in two
federal civil lawsuits.
Wells is serving a 10-year
federal prison term in Minnesota
after being convicted of five
charges that resulted from a
police-corruption investigation.
The lawsuits were filed by
Hugo Alberto Gutierrez and
Thomas Dale Ranes — both of
whom allege that Tulsa police
violated their civil rights through
false arrests and unlawful
searches and seizures. Neither
case was part of the federal
investigation.
After meeting in executive
session, councilors voted 7-0 to
deny Wells’ request for representation
in the Gutierrez case
and voted 4-3 to approve his
request in the Ranes case.
CDBG process: The City Council
took the first step Thursday to
change the city ordinance that
lays out the process the city uses
to allocate and oversee Community
Development Block Grants.
The federal funding — which
amounts to millions of dollars
each year — is allocated by
the council annually to local
organizations that serve the
city’s low- to moderate-income
populations.
The proposed changes are
intended to streamline the process,
require more accountability
from funding recipients and keep
councilors up to date on how the
projects are proceeding.
TPD staffing falls short: The Tulsa
Police Department has fallen
far short of staffing increases
recommended by an independent
consultant in 2008, Chief
Chuck Jordan said Thursday.
MGT of America Inc., which
was contracted by the city to
review the police department’s
manpower, recommended that
the department hire 58 officers,
create 40 civilian positions and
increase the time officers spend
on proactive policing and administrative
duties.
The economic recession of the
years following the MGT report
has kept the department from
making headway on those goals,
Jordan told a city committee.
Parking meter update: A 38
percent drop in Tulsa’s parking
meter revenue since 2006 can
be blamed at least partly on
inconsistent enforcement and
maintenance — the two areas
that would be drastically improved
by a proposal to upgrade
the meter system, officials said.
Mayor Dewey Bartlett has
asked the City Council to consider
raising parking meter rates to
up to $2 per hour and lengthening
their operating hours as the
city seeks to fund an additional
enforcement officer and privatize
the system’s maintenance.
A city review committee in
October recommended hiring
Tulsa-based American Parking
to replace hundreds of meters,
oversee maintenance for five
years and ensure that at least 98
percent of the city’s meters are
working.
The goal, Bartlett said in an
interview last week, is “to have
a system that at least breaks
even.”
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