Bartlett enters mayor's race

Earlier this week, Dewey F. Bartlett, Jr., who represented District 9 on the Tulsa City Council from 1990 to 1994, announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for Mayor of Tulsa. Bartlett has run for office two other times. He finished second in the August 25,1992, 54-candidate free-for-all special election to replace Rodger Randle; that election was won by acting mayor Susan Savage. In 2004 he ran for the open State Senate District 33 seat. Tom Adelson, seen as the likely Democratic nominee for mayor, won that election 51.5% to 48.5%, a 910 vote margin.

Bartlett made his announcement at the Tulsa Press Club, but the event wasn't open to the public. A friend tells me that she was told to leave by Karl Ahlgren, one of Bartlett's campaign consultants. Ahlgren is the A in AH Strategies; Fount Holland is the H. Both men used to work for Tom Coburn during his time in the U. S. House, but Coburn's principles don't seem to have rubbed off on them. The two have followed the money in recent years, working for campaigns to raise taxes on Tulsa County residents. Holland was involved in a nasty smear campaign against Republican District Attorney Tim Harris on behalf of Brett Swab, who was running against Harris in the primary.

I lived in Brookside for most of Bartlett's tenure on the Council. At the time, he seemed to be supportive of neighborhood concerns, backing Brookside's objections to commercial encroachments into the neighborhood and winning passage of an ordinance designed to hinder the proposed six-laning of Riverside Drive north of I-44. The ordinance, Title 10, Chapter 3, requires any proposal to fund the widening of Riverside or Houston to be put on the ballot as a separate proposition.

More recently, however, Bartlett has taken a number of disappointing public stances. In 2005, he lent his name to the effort of "Tulsans for Better Government" to reduce the number of council districts to 6 and create three city-wide at-large council positions. The proposal would have diluted representation for north, west, and east Tulsa. The three at-large councilors would almost certainly have come from the Midtown money belt, overrepresenting those priorities at City Hall.

According to reports of Bartlett's announcement, he has nothing but praise for Kathy Taylor's tenure. Bartlett enthusiastically endorsed Taylor's re-election prior to her decision not to run again.

At his announcement, Bartlett trotted out the usual blather about "partisan bickering," which always seems to translate to "councilors should shut up, hurry up, and do what I say." It suggests to me that he intends to treat the City Council with the same degree of contempt as the current mayor. The opposition to Taylor's budget and the ballpark assessment wasn't borne of partisanship, but it was motivated by concern for fairness and sound fiscal policy. I appreciate councilors who are willing to stand on principle, even when there's a political price to be paid, and I want a mayor who will respect council opposition instead of trying to steamroll it.

Using the phrase "partisan bickering" pretty much guarantees you won't get my support. Using it is a sign that either you haven't been paying attention or you don't appreciate vigorous public debate of the issues.

Bartlett says he wants to increase city revenues by increasing Tulsa business, not by raising taxes, which is interesting because I can't remember a tax increase he has opposed in recent years. In fact, I'm pretty sure he endorsed a couple.

Today at a Tulsa County Republican rally, I spoke to Jarred Brejcha, who is working on Bartlett's campaign. (I didn't see Bartlett at the event.) I told him that Bartlett has some fences to mend if he hopes to win grassroots Republican support. When Brejcha told me that Bartlett is open to listen to all sides of an issue and all parts of the city, I replied that what matters is whose advice Bartlett will heed when it comes time to make a decision.

Bartlett's name gives him a huge advantage, as was demonstrated in 2006, when Robert Bartlett (no relation) won the Republican nomination for Tulsa City Council District 4 without actively campaigning. Older Republicans fondly remember his father, Dewey F. Bartlett, Sr., who served one term as Governor of Oklahoma (1967-1971 -- defeated by David Hall for re-election in 1970 by two thousand votes), then served a single term in the U. S. Senate from 1973 to 1978. The senior Bartlett died of lung cancer in 1979 at the too-young age of 59.

The rumor around the rally is that Councilor Bill Christiansen will make his formal announcement a week from today. There's also a rumor that Christiansen has hired campaign media consultant Fred Davis. (I spotted Davis last Monday on United's non-stop flight from LAX to Tulsa.)

The only other announced Republican candidate is small businessman Clay Clark, aka DJ Clayvis.

MORE: Chris Medlock notices an interesting similarity between Bartlett's campaign logo and Kathy Taylor's.