It was just days before he would be replaced on the Tulsa Airport Improvements Trust (TAIT) and Tulsa Airport Authority (TAA), having been rejected behind the scenes by the City Council for reappointment to another term. Nevertheless, at the board's meeting last Thursday, September 14, lame-duck Ron Turner jumped right in to nominate Meredith Siegfried for another year as TAA chairman, breaking the precedent of rotating the chairmanship. Not only did he make the nomination, but he cast the deciding vote. Although he wasn't legally obliged to abstain, it would have been decent and honorable to allow his replacement, Dewey Bartlett, Jr., to participate in the selection of a new chairman.
Siegfried, as chairman, seconded her own nomination.
Siegfried and Turner are both Nordam board members and have tended to vote in lockstep on TAA and TAIT. Perhaps, by keeping her in the chairmanship, Turner figures he can keep a hand in running the city's airports.
Not only is it a breach of precedent, it's a bit presumptuous to appoint Siegfried to a year as chairman when her TAA/TAIT term expires midway through her term as chairman. There's no guarantee that the Mayor will reappoint her or that the Council will confirm her.
The nominations were approved by a 3-2 vote, with Don Himelfarb from the Mayor's office casting a vote in favor. Himelfarb was attending his first TAA/TAIT meeting and acknowledged, in response to Siegfried's question that the Mayor had not given him any direction regarding the selection of a new chairman. Nevertheless, he voted. It's not clear whether he was there as a formal proxy for the Mayor, and therefore entitled to vote on her behalf, or just present as her eyes and ears.
(Where was Mayor Kathy Taylor? There's a rumor that she was out of the country -- in Paris with her husband. If she was running the city long-distance, it might also explain why she was caught flat-footed by the controversy over police pay.)
David Schuttler has posted the meeting video at Google -- you can find via this entry on his site. The vote on officers for 2006-7 occurs within the first eight minutes.
Comments (5)
Bates, your problem is presuming people have HONOR in this crummy town. Son, where have ya been for like da last 30 years?
General Ron Turner is a WIMP.
Posted by Paul Tay | September 20, 2006 7:37 AM
Posted on September 20, 2006 07:37
General Turner's actions remind me of the movie STAR TREK II - The Wrath of Khan. Old Ricardo Montelban's swan song at the end the movie, while hamming it up dying, says as Khan:
For Hate's Sake, I stab at thee!
Of course, The General is a better actor. And, was a better combat pilot too, probably.
Meridith SIEG-HEIL Seconding a nomination of her Ladyship to be Chairman of TAIT? Methinks that contrary to Robert's Rules of Order!
Posted by Bob | September 20, 2006 7:49 AM
Posted on September 20, 2006 07:49
does the eithics ordinance address this in any way?
Posted by sbtulsa | September 20, 2006 9:07 AM
Posted on September 20, 2006 09:07
How is the Siegfried's family member that said he wanted to sell his shares of Nordam?
What is the salary of TOM BAKER and Susan NEAL (both former Tulsa City Councilors that did not seem to ever want the Great Plains Airline's mess investigated when Medlock got no help from Baker or Neal). Is it any wonder they both
just happened to be hired by Kathy Taylor? I guessed it long before it was ever formally put in the news.
Remember when Kathy Taylor was first elected? She wanted to have someone in charge because she knew in advance she would be out of the office. Tom Baker -- hired for what rate of a generous pay and Susan Neal's salary under Kathy Taylor? Kathy's husband is rich -- did it end up he is still a Florida resident living in Tulsa? Curious from those homestead questions when Kathy was running for Mayor.
Michael Bates article on the Arkansas Development
-- also see another article in T.W. today "The River Always Wins" --warning the 1986 river flood definitely could happen again and the possibility of riverfront development raises concerns. We owned a home on the golf course of the country club in Broken Arrow and standing with my husband at a high point on 131st where we could see the damage of the Bixby flood to homes, businesses, all of the Bixby schools -- what a horrible mess as well as what it did to
the Sand Springs 1986 Arkansas river flood. The
article also questions the safety of building
homes and businesses on islands. Going back to
the article it also talks about the decisions that were made and Tulsa also could have faced
damage with levees similar to New Orleans.
Posted by susan | September 20, 2006 10:09 AM
Posted on September 20, 2006 10:09
I've been suspicious of the "East Village" development as a scheme of the powerful Siegheil Family to get the City of Tulsa, TIA and/or TDA to buy-out the downtown Nordam site.
They've reportedly wanted to unload their downtown Toxic Waste Superfund Candidate Clean-up site for years. Their downtown site is now superfluous with their two other Tulsa plant sites.
A tax-payer financed acquisition of their downtown plant would help them clear the Environmental Liability by transferring the property FIRST to a government entity for "re-development", BEFORE the re-sell to a private developer(s).
Wasn't a tax-payer financed Corporate Welfare scheme to benefit the Siegheils promoted back in 1997 during the Tulsa Project I promotion cycle, with Mayor Savage flacking for the Siegheil Family, to include the purchase of their downtown site for one of the downtown Tulsa Projects?
Posted by Bob | September 21, 2006 1:00 PM
Posted on September 21, 2006 13:00