Posted on March 27, 2025 and postdated to remain at the top of the blog through election day.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025, is the annual school general election for Oklahoma school districts and technology center districts, plus city elections in statutory charter cities, and a number of special county, municipal, and school elections. Polls will be open on election day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visit okvoterportal.okelections.gov to find your polling place and view your sample ballot.

Tulsa County has two State House special primaries to fill vacancies in House District 71 (midtown Tulsa) and House District 74 (Owasso area). I wrote about the very different political leanings of Districts 71 and 74 during the filing period. Democrats and Republicans both have primaries in District 71. In District 74, the Republican primary winner will face the sole Democrat candidate.

South of Tulsa there's a Republican runoff in Senate District 8, which covers Okmulgee, Okfuskee, and McIntosh Counties and parts of Creek and Muskogee Counties. Winner will face a Democrat and an Independent in a general election next month.

There is a runoff for Tulsa Public Schools Office No. 3, the seat being vacated by Dr. Jennettie Marshall. In District 2, Calvin Moniz, who won a special election last year to fill an unexpired term, had a challenger for re-election but won a full four-year term when his opponent withdrew last month. Tulsa Technology Center Office 2 pits an incumbent vs. a challenger. None of the other Tulsa County school district seats drew any opposition.

There are City Council elections in Glenpool, Jenks, and Skiatook (two seats).

• Senate 8 Republican runoff: Bryan Logan (R). Logan is a pastor, rancher, and owns a small construction and carpentry business. He is the grassroots favorite in this race.
• House 71 Republican primary: Heidemarie Fuentes (R). More on this race below. This is a change in recommendation.
• House 74 Republican primary: Maggie Stearman (R). Stearman is a wife and mother of two small children. She has served as a teacher at Owasso Preparatory Academy and as a field organizer for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania during the 2022 election cycle. Stearman has pledged not to take money from lobbyists. One of the other candidates in the race is the wife of the representative who resigned shortly after his re-election.
• Tulsa Public Schools Office 3: Dorie Simmons (D). Simmons is a real estate agent and a mom of TPS students. The other candidate, Kyra Carby, was a TPS teacher and a community engagement manager for the Gathering Place and Guthrie Green and is now "Community Genealogy Grant Coordinator for the City of Tulsa." According to departing incumbent Dr. Jennettie Marshall, both candidates in this runoff were recommended by rubber-stamp members of the school board: Simmons by John Croisant, Carby by Stacy Woolley. Carby's connection to the Kaiser System, along with her driving record, tips the balance in Simmons's favor. Carby is currently seeking expungement of a 2017 DUI, 2011 driving under suspension, obstructing an officer, and speeding, and 2008 driving under suspension and speeding.
• Tulsa Technology Center Office 2: Todd Blackburn (R). Blackburn is CEO of Techsico and serves on the TTC Foundation. His opponent is a 14-year incumbent and retired school superintendent.
• Glenpool City Council, Ward 2: Kim Hanson-Mercier (R)
• Jenks City Council, Ward 6: Catherine Lenhart (R): Lenhart seems very informed about city government and is rightly concerned about preserving Jenks's character as it grows wisely.
• Skiatook City Council, Ward 1: Matthew Bragg (R)
• Skiatook City Council, Ward 2: Patrick Young (R)

More on House 71 Republican primary:

I had initially recommended Beverly Atteberry (R), an attorney who currently handles wills and probate and was previously a public defender. She has run twice before for this seat and, unlike her opponents, has deep roots in Tulsa and Oklahoma. I endorsed her in the 2020 primary, when she had an AQ rating from NRA-PVF, best possible for a candidate. Atteberry, however, has not raised or spent enough funds to have to file ethics reports, which is not the sign of a serious campaign this time around.

Heidemarie Fuentes has only lived in Oklahoma for three years, moving here from California, but she has been endorsed by Oklahomans for Health & Parental Rights, and she was the only candidate in the race to return a survey to OK2A and to sign the US Term Limits pledge. She quickly got involved in conservative political circles in Oklahoma. Fuentes's website and social media feed are very vocally conservative. Her driving theme is wanting to ensure that Oklahoma does not follow in California's disastrous footsteps, but she sees worrying indications that they could be happening. While she was progressive as a young woman in the late 1970s, before motherhood, Fuentes headed up a pro-abortion group in southern Arizona, she describes herself as pro-life. She writes "I know what a woman is and don't want biological men in any women's spaces. There are only two sexes, and I don't support gender-affirming care." She opposes DEI, ESG, geoengineering, illegal immigration, and wasting tax dollars on Green New Deal efforts.

The third candidate, Tania Garza, changed registration from Democrat to Republican in August 2021, works for the George Kaiser Family Foundation's Tulsa Remote program. Her campaign reached out to me for a phone interview; I found her to be very vague about her political philosophy and policy preferences, and she refused to answer a simple question about her family situation -- whether or not she was married or had children.

Historical results in recent election cycles and an informal survey of yard signs suggest this is likely to be a Democrat win no matter which Republican wins the primary. There will likely be a runoff for both parties. As I noted during the filing period, Democrats finished first in House 71 in every race in 2022, and Kamala Harris won 56% of the election-day vote in the district in 2024.

After years of dogged pursuit on the part of parents, three school board members, and other activists, the audit of Tulsa Public Schools was released on February 27, 2025, by State Auditor Cindy Byrd.

Here is the full audit report of Tulsa Public Schools. Here are State Auditor Cindy Byrd's presentation slides on the TPS audit. She first presented these slides to Tulsa 912 Project the night the audit was released and has since made this presentation in a number of other contexts, including the Statewide Charter School Board conference a week later, where I heard her presentation. It served as a stark warning to all of the charter school board members and administrators present.

Here are a few of my tweets from a first look through the audit report:

From @SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools audit: "Sixteen of the 40 bonus payments, totaling $221,000, were issued to Broad Center - Yale School of Management fellows. Only one of the 16 Broad alumni remains with the District." Kudos to @OklahomaDOGE (aka Tulsa Parents Voice)

TPS audit p. 25: "TPS hosted events... where Broad Cohorts from across the nation attended meetings in Tulsa.... Broad Cohorts participated in multiple sessions and programing which included a Child Equity Index Exercise, and an event titled 'DEI at Night.'"

TPS audit p.26: "During the two years the program was in existence prior to its approval through official legislation, the Teacher Corps participants did not meet statutory requirements for teaching in the classroom...."

TPS audit p.26: "There was evidence that the participants did not have written contracts, were yet to be properly certified, and not all of the participants had obtained the required OSBI background check, all requirements of law."

TPS audit p.26: "From the program's inception, TPS administrators took extraordinary measures to avoid directly hiring and paying trainees... bypassing board-approved contracts & using vendors, such as TNTP & Snickelbox, to pay trainees, keeping them off the District's payroll."

TPS audit p.27: "The District should not have used their vendor relationships to circumvent law or policy for the payment of stipends. This behavior further contributed to the mismanagement, waste, and eventually the misappropriation of funds."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "Between SY2015 and SY2023... More than $37 million was expended [by TPS & Foundation] through various non-profit vendors including Growing Together, Teach for America, Educare, Reading Partners, City Year Tulsa, and Community in Schools Mid-America (CIS)."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "Growing Together invoices [$1.2million] lacked the detail required to verify that services billed and paid for by TPS occurred.... None of the 12 invoices were itemized and there was no supporting documentation attached to determine if deliverables were met."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.27: "The District frequently divided consultant contract costs into equal monthly payments. This method eliminated transparency over how the contract payments were utilized thereby increasing the risk for misappropriation and/or improper/inflated billing."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit pp.29-30: "Between SY2020 and SY2023 TPS paid [Tulsa Community Foundation] a total of $6,157,346 for Opportunity Project services.... administrative overhead costs were significant, accounting for more than 30% of total costs...."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "The Opportunity Project overbilled TPS a total of $96,401 for services during SY2022.... TPS paid The Opportunity Project's invoices without determining if the billing was correct."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "There was no evidence TPS reviewed the program costs or verified that the Opportunity Project billed them the correct amount."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.30: "The Opportunity Project [TCF] overbilled the District a total of $96,401 for provider costs that were never incurred during SY2022. TPS submitted these invoices to SDE for reimbursement through the federal ESSER program."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.31: "Jill Hendricks communicated to management of the Opportunity Project that TPS doesn't 'require that all the backup documentation is supplied along with the invoice...' but asked them to maintain it on site in the event SDE asked any questions."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.31: "In the close-out of SY2022 invoicing, email communication between Hendricks and staff indicated that the Opportunity Project invoices for March, April, and May 2022 had been paid in early June
but were never properly approved." Image

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p.32: "TPS submitted ESSER claim reimbursements using invoices that provided little to no information about the services provided resulting in federal funds being used to reimburse questioned costs totaling $4.9 million."

@SAICindyByrd @TulsaSchools TPS audit p33: "TPS submitted unallowable Opportunity Project expenditures totaling $110,801 to SDE obtaining improper ESSER fund reimbursements."

TPS audit p34: "TPS purchased & paid Trafera $1.347 million, full price, for 3,000 computers then agreed to allow Traferra to file for and receive the $1.2 million reimbursement from the program. This allowed the vendor to receive both full price payment & the reimbursement."

In 2016, recently elected school board member Dr. Jennettie Marshall called for an investigative audit of Tulsa Public Schools. In 2020, Tryg Jorgenson, director of Indian Education, requested that the State Auditor conduct an audit. A group of parents at Tulsa Parents Voice (now renamed Oklahoma D.O.G.E) took up the cause as part of a larger accountability effort. In July 2022, the same month that TPS Chief Learning Officer Devin Fletcher resigned, Governor Kevin Stitt formally requested the State Auditor to conduct the audit to investigate irregularities tied to vendor contracts and potential mishandling of public funds, misuse of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, and violations of HB 1775 and related administrative rules.

This public Facebook post comment from E'Lena Ashley, posting on May 17, 2021, a year before she ran for school board reflects what the public was observing as they attended TPS board meetings.

Is the TPS board Corrupt?

After tonight's meeting I have suspicions. With fraudulent payments to non existent organizations, to no transparency of how vendors are chosen. Unethical practices and misuse of 2015 Bond money! Designating funds to schools and then closing the schools ????.

I VOTE

'NO' more money forTPS!!!

#TPSfailedourchildren

The Sunday after the audit release, March 2, 2025, board members Jennettie Marshall and E'Lena Ashley held a press conference. This link leads to the full 90 minute video from Sunday's press conference. Dr. Marshall is the longest-serving member of the board, but she is not running for re-election. Ashley stated that Marshall had been fighting this fight for 8 years. She cited Jerry Griffin's resignation from the Finance Committee in 2022 as a significant milestone, exposing that board members were denied the information they needed to monitor the district's spending.

Marshall introduced a detailed discussion of the report:

It is incumbent upon us, now that the truth is out, that we help you understand how we got to this point....

What has happened, and it has been consistent in the eight years that I've been on the board, is that we had a culture of doing what we want to do regardless of what the law states or our own policy insists that we do and that was echoed in the report of our state auditor.

Some would ask, "Well, how did you know" -- and I've heard that question - "how did you know things weren't right?" From day one, when a school district declares that it's having to do a reorganization, which means means that many people lost their jobs behind the financial improprieties and the mismanagement of the district, and the criminal malfeasance of the board, who refuse to do their job.

Most of you have heard me say: "Friendships and kinships sink ships," meaning when we make our decisions based on our friendships and those that we're related to those that we play golf with, those that we sat down and have a Jack Daniels and Coke with those are bad decisions, because they are not informed decisions and the board has been guilty of making those decisions, even in the midst of being called out.

As Dr. Marshall went through and commented on the report, she said:

We like to use that word, "governance." The board's job is to govern. We're governance. Well, why is it that we go through the fact that we hire people, we do things, and to govern, you have to know and have information. To govern without information, being informed, what that is, is a rubber stamp and that is the problem that has existed over and over over again with the district.

Dr. Marshall indicated to her sorrow that despite new leadership, TPS administration is still not providing board members with the information they need to exercise financial oversight:

For those of you who have followed board meetings, how many times have you heard me ask, "What does this mean? What does this mean? And what has happened is, I've been shut down. And when we say, well, we have new leadership, and our new leadership says we're doing things a new way, let me take you back to February 10th of this year.

For the amended budget, in the amended budget, it said for 2022 2023, the budget was about $500 million, 23-24 it was $522 million, 2024-25, it was almost $800 million. When I was asking why, what I was told, "Dr Marshall, you have to look at the full report. you can't look at the bottom figures." I said, let's look at the figures under salaries in the report. It had salaries for certified staff, non-certified, and over $10 million set aside for "other." Who are the other? I went through that night that whole report. Well, who are the others? "We will have to get that information for you, we don't have it."

I went down in the report, and it said, for it had objects, other objects, and under that it had a section that stated judgments and indebtedness, and you go over to the 24-25 year, it had $174 million that they were requesting to be spent or projecting that was going to be spent in that area, and they wanted approval. The question again: What is judgments? What is indebtedness? Where are you getting these figures from? How did this come about? "Well, well, Dr. Marshall, we'll have to get back with you on it." Well, getting back to your board is not what you should do, because if you're coming to the fiduciary agents of your district, you need to come, as they say, locked and loaded with all the information. I shouldn't have to ask you ahead of time, you're asking me to administrate over the district's money with not enough information. But we're hearing we're doing things a new way.

RELATED: Stacey Woolley withdraws name from City of Tulsa Ethics Commission

Ineligible because she holds public office. She'd be perfect for the City of Tulsa Ethics Commission, because knowing when to look the other way is the most desirable quality in a Tulsa ethics commissioner.

Dr. Jerry Griffin, who unsuccessfully attempted to exercise financial oversight during his term on the board, spoke to KTUL when the audit was released.

"I still haven't seen anybody step forward and say we messed up," said former TPS board member Dr. Jerry Griffin. He was the first to call for an audit and that was roughly five years ago.

"And I was made fun of for it. I was humiliated, called names," he said.

Five years later he won't say, 'I told you so,' but he will tell you that part of what motivated him was a lack of information.

"I was on the finance committee. The finance committee was a sham. Nice PowerPoints, nice data, no real data," he said.

Did you ever get any of the information you requested? "Never. Never ever, ever, ever.," he said.

Any how can that be, I mean you were a board member? "When I would talk to our state senators and representatives they would say that, 'How could that be?'" he said.

As for who's to blame for the what the audit uncovered, Griffin puts that squarely on the board as a whole.

"I've not heard anybody from the board say we're responsible. The board is responsible. Period," he said.

"Did Dr. Gist mess up? No. It was the board that messed up because the board allowed her to do whatever she wanted to do," he said.

Three years ago when we asked Dr. Gist about the audit that was about to get under way she said, "I have been very clear that I welcome any review of our practices and processes."

Last week the current superintendent made an effort to emphasize that practices and processes have changed.

"Much more information about exactly what we're purchasing, what is going to be the return on investment, exactly what will the dollars actually pay for. So our team has shored up those practices," said Dr. Ebony Johnson.

"I know Dr. Johnson can do it but she's got to step out from the pack, she's got to denounce the past in no uncertain terms," said Griffin.

As for accountability, Griffin says he wouldn't be surprised if a lawsuit was on the horizon.

KOTV spoke before the audit release to former State Auditor Gary Jones:

"It's not just for the AG'S office or others; it's for the public as well," Jones said. "You want to see that their tax dollars are spent wisely."

However, some TPS board members have criticized the current auditor, saying the TPS audit was politically motivated. Jones disagrees.

If you've been driving on the Broken Arrow or Mingo Valley Expressways lately, you've seen some of the fruit of the US Supreme Court's McGirt ruling on law enforcement. It used to be if some idiot was tailgating you when you were already 10 MPH already over the speed limit, changing lane to lane and zipping through tiny gaps like a Grand Prix driver, the idiot was likely to be driving a BMW. A couple of years ago, it began to seem equally likely that the idiot's vehicle would have tribal tags, indicating the car was owned by someone with tribal citizenship.

This phenomenon seemed to emerge with the legal argument that city governments had no authority over tribal citizens to issue traffic citations. (E.g., Hooper v. Tulsa.) Nowadays there's no pattern to the reckless driving on Tulsa's expressways, perhaps because the jurisdictional question has created a sense of lawlessness, perhaps because the jurisdictional question has had a cooling effect on Tulsa Police, which used to have squads of motorcycles set up to nab reckless and unwary speeders. When I saw the gravel semi trailer on its side on eastbound 51 under southbound 169 last week, I surmised that the semi driver had had to make a split-second swerve to avoid a collision with a speeding, lane-switching car, lost balance, and tumped over.

Last November Tulsans foolishly elected a mayor who made tribal co-governance a centerpiece of his campaign. Monroe Nichols declared that he would no longer have the city contest any challenge by the tribes over the city's jurisdiction.

A NonDoc story last month reveals that the problem is worse than that: Nichols has ordered TPD to stop making criminal referrals to the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office if the suspect is a citizen of some tribe or another. On December 5, 2024, just before Nichols took office, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in O'Brien v. City of Tulsa that the City of Tulsa has concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by citizens of other tribes on a particular tribe's reservation.

The case involved an MMA fighter named Nick O'Brien, who looks like a white guy, but he happens to have Osage citizenship, so there's a special ancestor somewhere up his family tree. He was arrested on August 30, 2021, for DUI, open container, driving with an expired tag, driving left of center, and improper use of left lane, in a part of Tulsa that falls within the Creek Nation's historical boundaries. Municipal judge Marshall McCune denied dismissal of the charges based on McGirt but then later granted dismissal of the charges based on Hooper. City of Tulsa prosecutors, not yet under the authority of Nichols, appealed the dismissal.

District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler -- you know, the man that the voters, regardless of tribal status, elected to prosecute crimes in Tulsa County on our behalf -- says that he will use Open Records requests if necessary to get City of Tulsa arrest reports to ensure that criminals are prosecuted. Kunzweiler told NonDoc, "I have my belief that very few of these crimes are being actually fully prosecuted. I have enough information to suggest to me that we have people who are committing repeated DUIs and are still out on our streets. I'm not going to stand for that." Mayor Nichols replied that the City is "sitting on 400 cases and working with tribes to make sure those are also prosecuted." Earlier in the story, it's indicated that the city has not referred these cases for prosecution anywhere but will once some kind of agreement between the city and the tribes is negotiated and ratified.

Nichols denies Kunzweiler's voter-ratified authority over prosecuting crimes in Tulsa County. Instead, Nichols wants our DA to be content as a mere stakeholder among other stakeholders, with a seat at the table but not the authority he was elected to exercise. "I think Mr. Kunzweiler is going to have to understand that being the DA does not make you the king of everything. Being the DA makes you one of the stakeholders -- like being mayor or being a police chief (or) like being the leader of a tribal nation -- it makes you a stakeholder in making sure this is the safest city in the country."

This idea of "stakeholders" exposes the anti-democracy heart of tribal co-governance. Prosecution won't be the sole responsibility of an official who was elected by the voters and can be denied re-election by the voters; it will be controlled by a group of stakeholders which is not accountable to the voters as a group and which includes stakeholders elected by a tiny minority of a tiny minority of voters, unaccountable to the vast majority.

NonDoc's story also discusses lawsuits filed by the lame-duck Biden Justice Department against two other DAs, Matt Ballard (Rogers, Craig, Mayes) and Carol Iski (Okmulgee, McIntosh), with parallel suits by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation against Ballard and Iski. The Creek Nation has also now filed suit against Kunzweiler and Tulsa County Sheriff Vince Regalado. Gov. Stitt has asked the federal court to allow him to intervene on behalf of the State of Oklahoma in the MCN case against the City of Tulsa; Mayor Nichols is committed to capitulating to the tribes, but Stitt sees the dangerous implications for law enforcement for the State and the counties and municipalities in the eastern half of the state. All of these lawsuits are about one thing: Stopping the State of Oklahoma, its DAs, its county sheriffs, and its local police departments from prosecuting any Indian from anywhere who breaks the law in "Indian country."

Kunzweiler rightly points out, as we have pointed out here, that in 1907 no one -- not the federal government, not the state government, and not the tribal governments -- believed that there were still Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole reservations on which the tribal governments (which were being wound down as unnecessary) held criminal jurisdiction.

In its amicus brief in one of the Creek lawsuits, the Cherokee Nation says that it spent $74 million to beef up its criminal justice system to handle cases that were previously prosecuted by DAs. Think about that. What exactly has the tribal maneuvering post-McGirt done to benefit their citizens? $74 million that might have gone to benefit tribal citizens directly is instead being used to create a duplicative system of courts and allowing child molesters like Jimcy McGirt to go free.

Good-hearted but poorly informed people who are casually following this legal struggle may think of this as yet another attempt by evil Caucasians to oppress the long-suffering and noble Indigenous Americans. I haven't been able to find any statistics yet on the distribution of Degree of Indian Blood among tribal citizens, but the math involved in membership growth through generations of intermarriage suggests that most of the beneficiaries of this jurisdictional confusion will be mostly-white criminals with one Indian ancestor 10 generations back and no cultural connection to the tribe of which he is a citizen.

Voters in the City of Bethany have banned city subsidies to private businesses and have enabled the recall of elected officials. The propositions were on the February 11, 2025, municipal ballot, along with elections for city council and mayor.

State Rep. Tom Gann (R-Inola), a vocal critic of taxpayer subsidies to attract businesses, posted the following post-election press release from Bethany City Councilor Chris Powell, who is also the State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Oklahoma:

Press Release Bethany voters pass subsidy prohibition, recall procedure

BETHANY - Voters in Bethany passed two propositions placed on the ballot by initiative petition, one creating a procedure by which a city elected official could be recalled and another that prohibits the city from subsidizing private businesses. The subsidy prohibition [Propositon 4] received 57% support while the recall procedure [Proposition 3] earned 64% of the vote. Two other propositions put forward by a charter review committee, removing an obsolete personnel board and allowing the city to trade surplus materials, also passed by large margins.

The subsidy prohibition and recall procedure questions qualified for the ballot by initiative petitions carried out by Councilman Chris Powell who gathered signatures of over 400 voters for each. Several members of the council, including incumbents Steve Palmer and Marilyn McPhail as well Jeff Knapp who recently resigned his council seat to run for Mayor, publicly took positions against the prohibition of subsidies. The council passed a resolution in December opposing the proposition, with Powell being the lone vote against the resolution. Palmer and McPhail lost their re-election bids and Knapp was defeated for Mayor by Amanda Sandoval.

Powell was motivated to carry out the initiatives after a charter review committee proposal for a recall procedure was blocked from the ballot by council. After deciding to petition for recall, Powell chose to petition at the same time for the proposal to prevent the city from subsidizing private businesses. Powell said, "We have had a number of these subsidy deals that in my view were unnecessary to support a business that would have been successful regardless or worse, supported a business venture that failed and left us with empty storefronts. I don't believe these tax rebates and TIF subsidies are proper, the track record in Bethany shows they haven't worked out or weren't needed, and on Tuesday the voters showed that they agree with that viewpoint."

Recent criticism of subsidy programs such as the state funds going to electronic vehicle manufacturer Canoo, which filed for bankruptcy last month, as well as concerns about Tax Increment Finance (TIFs) may have played a part in voter's support for the subsidy ban proposition. Norman's Arena TIF has faced a referendum petition that gathered far more signatures than necessary but is now tied up in court by TIF proponents with legal challenges over technicalities, and Rep. Tom Gann (R-Inola) has introduced HB1069 which would require proposed TIFs to undergo greater scrutiny and go to a vote of the people before being enacted. "People are starting to become more aware of the subsidy programs and don't like what they see," Powell said, "we're likely to see more rejection of these handouts to businesses and developers whenever they can be forced to put them before the voters."

Contact

Chris Powell
405-408-4898
okcspowell@gmail.com

Gann comments:

A local official in Bethany, OK saw through all the hype about subsidies and Tax Increment Financing Districts. He took action and informed the people. The people responded and stood up for their community and rejected the concept of subsidies and incentives, will others follow?

HB1069 which would have required TIF districts to be voted on by the people failed in the General Government Committee on the same day this email was written. HB1069 received 2 YES votes and 5 NO votes.

State Reps. Derrick Hildebrant (R-Catoosa) and Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow) voted in favor of HB1069; Stacy Jo Adams (R-Duncan), Cyndi Munson (D-OKC), Ellen Pogemiller (D-OKC), Eric Roberts (R-OKC), Judd Strom (R-Copan) voted against.

The Bethany City Council approved the following resolution opposing the ban on subsidies at its December 17, 2024, meeting (page 64 of the PDF). According to the minutes, Mayor Nikki Lloyd, Councilors Ken Smart, Marilyn McPhail, Peter Plank, and Kathy Larsen voted yes; Chris Powell voted no. McPhail lost her re-election bid; the other councilors voting yes won't face re-election until 2027. Mayor Lloyd did not run for re-election.

RESOLUTION NO. 1710

A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BETHANY, OKLAHOMA OPPOSING PASSAGE OF THE FEBRUARY BALLOT ITEM CONCERNING SUBSIDIES TO BUSINESSES AND CORPORATIONS, A CHARTER AMENDMENT.

WHEREAS, an initiative petition ballot measure proposing an amendment to the Charter of the City of Bethany to prohibit the subsidy of businesses and corporations with public funds controlled by the City of Bethany, as set forth in Resolution No. 1706 and published in accordance with the laws of the State of Oklahoma has been placed on the February election calendar; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would prohibit Tax Increment Financing as authorized by the Oklahoma Constitution at Article 10 Section 6C; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would prohibit the use of tax rebates to induce businesses to come to the City of Bethany; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed prevents would prevent subsidies to any businesses or corporations to include non-profit corporations and municipal corporations; and

WHEREAS, the measure if passed may have unintended consequences that could impact, impede, or prevent agreements with public interest programs in which corporations participate are benefit from to include the Bethany Economic Development Authority's Bethan Improvement Grant; and.

WHEREAS, the measure if passed would reduce the City of Bethany's bargaining power to enter into agreements with businesses and corporations to promulgate economic and tax base growth in the public interest, and to compete with Oklahoma City in attracting businesses to our community.

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Bethany, Oklahoma opposes the passage of the subsidy ballot item.

This is the story of a building in Tulsa's Greenwood District that rose from the ashes of the Tulsa Race Massacre, housed a successful pharmacy, became a beloved malt shop, served briefly as a neighborhood co-op grocery, saw its share of burglaries, robberies, and violence, suffered an ignominious old age, and finished its life as a location in a beloved cult film based on a book by a local author, before its final destruction at the hands of city officials, backed by federal funds, after a mere six decades of existence.

Danny Boy O'Connor reports on the discovery of a foundation stone from a demolished commercial building on Greenwood Avenue. The building, on the southeast corner of Greenwood and Latimer Street, was used by director Francis Ford Coppola as the pet shop in the movie Rumble Fish, based on the novel by Tulsa's S. E. Hinton. The stone will be moved to the Outsiders House for preservation:

You're looking at an 8-foot concrete footing, left buried on Greenwood from the original buildings featured in Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, based on S.E. Hinton's classic novel and filmed in Tulsa in 1982. I discovered this hidden piece of history a few years ago while searching for historic filming locations. I immediately thought the site would be a perfect location for a future museum. As fate would have it, I later met with Kimberly Johnson, CEO of the Tulsa City-County Library. To my surprise, this very site was the planned location for her new library in North Tulsa. I shared the story with her, explaining that a piece of cinematic history lay buried beneath the surface. I asked for permission to recover it for a future exhibit or museum, and she graciously agreed to let The Outsiders House Museum preserve it. Today was a good day! I can't thank Nathan Tuell and the team at Nabholz Construction enough for carefully digging out the footing and loading it onto our trailer. Huge thanks as well to Gary Coulson from The Outsiders DX in Sperry, Oklahoma, for helping transport and store it. And, of course, my deepest gratitude to Kimberly Johnson for making this dream a reality--allowing us to save the last remaining piece of the Rumble Fish pet store location. P.S. Thank you, Patrick McNicholas, for the reference photos and the photo mashes.

Rumble Fish and its locations inspired Chilean author Alberto Fuguet to visit Tulsa and then to create a documentary about the experience: Locaciones: Buscando a Rusty James (Locations: Looking for Rusty James"), which was screened at Tulsa's Circle Cinema in 2014.

The pet store location was a two-story retail building on the southeast corner of Latimer St and Greenwood Ave. The 1957 Polk City Directory says that Kyle's Sundry was at 1023 N. Greenwood, and the Kyle Apartments were upstairs at 1023½. This was one of the last surviving bits of a commercial area on the north end of Greenwood Avenue between King Street and Pine Street. Sometimes called Upper Greenwood, the area was considered more family-friendly than Deep Greenwood, at Archer. Many of the buildings, like this one, were two stories, with rooms to rent on the 2nd floor. There were a number of churches here, a movie theater (the Rex, just two blocks away at 1135 N. Greenwood), groceries, cafes, barber shops, and pool halls. The area was cleared as part of the City of Tulsa's urban renewal program. This sort of retail building, and the idea of having retail next to residential, was considered "obsolete" and "blight" by urban planners of the day, so it was demolished at some point in the mid-1980s.

I see a lot of hair-on-fire social media posts from my friends on the political left about the way the Trump Administration has hit the ground running, particularly the rapid moves by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to shut down questionable flows of Federal funds through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Notwithstanding President Trump's denial of any links to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, he clearly understood the same urgency that inspired Project 2025: If you're going to be a good steward of the authority entrusted to you and the political capital you have after an election win, you have to have plans and personnel queued up long before Inauguration Day. Really, you need to start well before Election Day to draft executive orders, vet sub-cabinet political appointees, and lay out a sequence of events. That didn't happen in 2016, and opportunities were wasted as a result. There are wild-eyed claims that Trump is driven by an agenda developed by Curtis Yarvin, an online personality known as "Moldbug."

Your incoming team needs to be well versed in laws and precedents involving presidential authority, government finances. To look at it as a computer software engineer, you need to know the operating system, the kernel, system functions, the whole toolset you have at your disposal to accomplish your aims. None of this requires violating the Constitution, federal statutes, or court precedents.

A friend reposted a claim that Trump was violating the Constitution by spending money on DOGE without explicit action by Congress to appropriate money for the initiative.

DOGE (as the US DOGE Service) is just a new name of an existing office (US Digital Service) which President Obama established by Executive Order. It is under the Executive Office of the President, and presumably it is spending money that Congress has appropriated for the current fiscal year to the EOP or possibly that was directly appropriated for the USDS. I haven't been able to find any number more recent than $30 million appropriated to USDS in 2016.

An apportionment is an Office of Management and Budget (OMB)-approved plan to obligate budgeted resources. Here's an OMB document showing how the apportionment process was handled by the Obama Administration in 2016. The OMB ensures that funds are apportioned in accord with appropriations and continuing resolutions authorized by Congress. Apportionments are listed on the OMB website. Under FY 2025, under Executive Office of the President, you'll find JSON and Excel versions of apportionment requests.

I found several apportionment requests for US DOGE Service, citing 31 USC 1535 and 5 USC 3161 as authorizing legislation. The first provision allows agencies to purchase services from other agencies; the second allows funding for temporary organizations established by executive order or by statute. So presumably the USDS is using appropriated funds to pay the US DOGE Service Temporary Organization to track Federal funds and analyze spending for fraud, waste, and abuse.

When President Obama was faced with a Congress he thought would obstruct him, he said, "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone," and used executive actions within the discretion already authorized by law to move money and people around to pursue his priorities. There's bound to be plenty of litigation, but it appears that the Trump team is following Obama's example.

Take a close look at Executive Order establishing DOGE. Section 4(a) specifically links the US DOGE Service mission to the purpose for which US Digital Service was created -- "Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity." Section 5 carefully bounds the Executive Order so as not to override the statutory authority of OMB, agency heads, and congressional appropriation authority.

Several people on social media have mentioned Franklin D. Roosevelt as another example of a president making sweeping changes, using powers delegated by statute, without needing immediate congressional action, finding ways around the existing bureaucracy to get things done:

In addition to revamping the Supreme Court, FDR believed that he needed to reform and strengthen the Presidency, and specifically the administrative units and bureaucracy charged with implementing the chief executive's policies. During his first term, FDR quickly found that the federal bureaucracy, specifically at the Treasury and State Departments, moved too slowly for his tastes. FDR often chose to bypass these established channels, creating emergency agencies in their stead. "Why not establish a new agency to take over the new duty rather than saddle it on an old institution?" asked the President. "If it is not permanent," he continued, "we don't get bad precedents."FDR would look at other ways to increase his administrative and bureaucratic power. His 1937 plan for executive reorganization called for the President to receive six full-time executive assistants, for a single administrator to replace the three-member Civil Service Commission, for the President and his staff to assume more responsibility in budget planning, and for every executive agency to come under the control of one of the cabinet departments. The President's conservative critics pounced on the plan, seeing it as an example of FDR's imperious and power-hungry nature; Congress successfully bottled up the bill. But in 1939, Congress did pass a reorganization bill that created the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and allowed FDR to shift a number of executive agencies (including the Bureau of the Budget) to its watch. While FDR did not get the far-reaching result he sought in 1937, the 1939 legislation strengthened the Presidency immeasurably.

FDR won the 1932 election precisely because he promised to take quick and decisive action to address the Great Depression, in contrast to Herbert Hoover, who was careful to stay within precedent and norms. As the above linked article shows, FDR was a pragmatist willing to move from one experiment to another to find measures that would put Americans back to work, relieve hunger, and stabilize the financial system. (Although FDR was not an ideologue, he was steered and influenced by ideologues, including Harry Hopkins, a Soviet agent.)

After taking office in 1993, Bill Clinton fired nearly every US Attorney and the head of the FBI and replaced them with loyalists. Republicans hated it, but what's the point of an election if the newly elected officials aren't allowed to change anything? The Framers of the Constitution would not have approved of a permanent branch of government that pursues its own policy preferences unaffected by the results of an election. (They'd also object to the size and scope of the Federal government, stretching the Elastic Clause to the breaking point.)

I am old enough to have lived through several cycles in which control of Congress and control of the White House changed hands. Back when Nixon, Ford, and Reagan were president, the House was Democrat-controlled throughout, and the Senate as well, except for Reagan's first six years in office. During that period, Republicans wanted the executive branch to have more power at the expense of the legislative branch, and Democrats wanted Congress to have more power to constrain the President. When the situation was reversed under Clinton and Obama, Democrats were defending the prerogatives of the President, and Republicans were urging Congress to use the power of the purse to reign him in.

I've seen the same thing in discussions of voting systems -- caucus selection, jungle primaries, non-partisan elections, instant runoff voting. People will argue for one or the other based on whether it would have helped their preferred candidate to win or not. But that will change from year to year. Republicans love first-past-the-post when the Green Party siphons enough Leftist votes to allow the GOP to win with a plurality. The GOP loves runoffs when right-of-center voters are split among several candidates and the Leftists are united behind the Democrat.

It makes more sense not to decide matters of long-term constitutional structure on short-term advantage. If we want to talk about extra-constitutional authority, 90% of what the Federal Government spends money on is not authorized by the Constitution. The Framers intended for there to be "energy in the executive" to be able to respond quickly to emergent situations at home and abroad, but Congress has delegated far more power to the Executive Branch than the Framers would have believed to be wise. A smaller, less important Federal Government would reduce the stakes in federal elections and hopefully reduce the amount of fear and panic that is generated over the results.

DOGE meme from imgflip.com

MORE:

A friend has posted a YouTube video from the MinuteEarth channel warning: "Your Favorite YouTube Channels Might Not Survive This."

And here's the thing: Many of your favorite channels, rely, at least in part, on the kind of funding that's in danger. Here at MinuteEarth, half of our production budget last year came from partnerships with scientists at government organizations like NASA, and through government-funded universities and National Science Foundation grants. These institutions allocate a tiny amount of their budgets to outreach and communication about science, which include supporting editorially independent videos on channels like ours so we can share the important -- and awesome! -- research they are doing with curious folks around the globe.

The end of the video identifies Neptune Studios LLC as the copyright owner of the video. From MinuteEarth's partners page (which hasn't changed substantially in four years):

We help our nonprofit and university sponsors reach a large, engaged, and scientifically-minded audience. In addition to crafting traditional sponsorship messages, we often work with experts from these organizations to tell the stories in the videos themselves. Past partners include the University of Minnesota, Bill and Melinda Gates, GiveWell, and the Heising-Simons Foundation....

Many of our videos contain sponsored ending messages, in which we thank partners for their support and tell our audience about their products. We work with brands to shape engaging messages that are true to the spirit of each brand. Past successful integrations include a diverse group of consumer brands, from Audible to 23andMe to Crunchyroll....

No shame in selling your visual storytelling skills, but when "half of [y]our production budget" comes from government money, it calls into question your editorial independence. Would you ever do a video that exposes research that is unimportant -- or non-awesome! -- or shoddy, misleading, or harmful, if it makes your government clients look bad. Would you do a video on the practice of estimating temperatures for defunct climate monitoring stations? Or the influence of urbanization changes on global temperature measurement? Or the hazards of gain-of-function research? You'd figure out pretty quickly what you can and can't say in order to keep the funds flowing that allows you to keep doing what you love.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025, is the annual school primary for Oklahoma school districts and technology center districts, plus city elections in some charter cities, and a number of special county, municipal, and school elections. Polls will be open on election day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visit okvoterportal.okelections.gov to find your polling place and view your sample ballot. Early voting will be available on Thursday and Friday only from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will be no early voting on Saturday. Tulsa County early voting will be at the long-time election board building in the old Marina-style Safeway at 555 N. Denver. Only one early-voting location will be open for Wagoner County, at the First Baptist Church, 401 NE 2nd, Wagoner; unlike many recent elections, the Broken Arrow location will not be open.

Tuesday is a primary election for any school board seat with three or more candidates; if any candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, that candidate is elected; otherwise, the top two candidates compete in the school general election on April 1, 2025, alongside school board seats for which only two candidates filed. Also on February 11, some charter cities, including Oklahoma City, Norman, Edmond, Bristow, Pryor Creek, Ponca City, and Altus, will elect mayors or city councilors; in Tulsa County, only Owasso has a municipal election. Special primary elections will be held for unexpired county commission seats in Oklahoma and Okmulgee Counties. Many school districts, including Jenks and Owasso, will vote on bond issues (property tax increases). There are county-wide propositions in Garvin, Major, Sequoyah, and Wagoner Counties, most notably the Wagoner County proposition to increase the county sales tax for 15 years, in lieu of a 10-year increase in property taxes, to pay a $13 million dollar civil rights judgment. Here is the full, statewide list of elections for February 11, 2025.

Tulsa County elections:

Tulsa Public Schools, Office No. 3: Brandi Joseph. Incumbent Jennettie Marshall is not seeking re-election for this district, which covers nearly everything north of Pine Street, plus all of the Osage County portion of the Tulsa Public Schools district. Brandi Joseph (39) is the lone registered Republican running. Joseph is an ORU alumna and member of Victory Christian Center. Dorie Simmons (50) and Eartha (Shanina) McAlester (46) are registered Democrats; Kyra Carby (39) is registered independent. Simmons is a real estate agent and attends Metropolitan Baptist Church. Carby was a TPS teacher and a community engagement manager for the Gathering Place and Guthrie Green and is now "Community Genealogy Grant Coordinator for the City of Tulsa. In this role, she oversees the administration of the Emmett Till [Cold Case] Grant Program providing support to grant subrecipients while advocating for the victims and families of racial violence from the Tulsa Race Massacre." None of the candidates filed the required pre-election campaign and expenditures reports by the Monday, February 3, 2025, 5 p.m. deadline. Nehemiah Darnell Frank doesn't like Brandi Joseph, which is a very good endorsement in her favor.

Broken Arrow Public Schools, Office No. 5: Bruce Allen Lamont (48) is the lone Republican running. Jerry Denton (60) is the incumbent Democrat. Another challenger Kate Williams (40), a freelance writer and an adjunct professor at TU and TCC, is also a Democrat. Williams filed a Statement of Organization, but none of the candidates filed the required pre-election campaign and expenditures reports. In response to my open records request, the BAPS district clerk indicated that she was unaware that candidates were required to file anything other than a Statement of Organization. The Broken Arrow Sentinel interviewed Williams.

Owasso City Council, Ward 5: Chad Balthrop (R, 54) is Executive Pastor at First Baptist Church, Owasso; Brandon Shreffler (R, 43) is a driving instructor. Long-time incumbent Doug Bonebrake is not seeking re-election. Neither candidate has anything on the web or social media that describes specific policies or what they would change about Owasso's direction as a city. Balthrop filed a Statement of Organization with the city clerk, Shreffler did not, and neither candidate filed the pre-election report of contributions and expenditures required by state ethics laws.

Jenks Public Schools bond issues: Proposition No. 1 is $18,950,000 for Phase III Freshman Academy expansion, plus other improvements; Proposition No. 2 is $650,000 for student transportation equipment. According to the Jenks Bond Transparency Act document, Jenks Schools has $114 million in outstanding debt principal, plus $33 million in unissued bonds approved at the 2020 bond issue election.

Owasso Public Schools bond issues: Proposition No. 1 is $193 million for a new 5th grade center, fine arts center, soccer complex, and other improvements; Proposition No. 2 is $4.5 million for vehicles for student transportation. According to the Owasso Bond Transparency Act document, Owasso Schools has $56 million in outstanding debt principal, plus $33 million in unissued bonds approved at the 2022 bond issue election.

Beyond Tulsa County:

• Wagoner County sales tax increase, 0.25% for 15 years, to pay federal court settlement
• Garvin County sales tax increase, 1% for 15 years to build a new county jail
• Major County sales tax increase, 11/32-cent (0.34375%) for 18 years to build a new County Health and Education Center and renovate the existing Health Department building
• Major County sales tax increase, 3/32-cent (0.09375%) for 7 years for county courthouse renovations
• Sequoyah County 4% permanent lodging tax for fairgrounds operation (60%), contracting for marketing and tourism promotion (30%), and roadside beautification (10%)

RESULTS:

132,627 votes were cast for 112 races or propositions across the state, but many jurisdictions had two propositions and there was some overlap between school, municipal, and county issues. The biggest turnout: 18,452 for mayor of Norman. The smallest turnout: 16 voters in the town of Paradise Hill in Sequoyah County. Only 20 voters each chose a Moffett school board member (also in Sequoyah County) and an Ada city councilor. Langston had 26 voters for a town proposition -- can't find any info on what issue was on the ballot. Two seats on the Bristow city council for Ward 3 -- a regular election and a special election for an unexpired term -- were decided by 39 voters.

Image by Grok

Dueling worldviews are holding conferences this week at the University of Tulsa.

TU's Honors College and Department of Philosophy & Religion is sponsoring an evening-plus-a-day conference commemorating the 1500th anniversary (sesquimillennial?) of the death of early medieval Christian philosopher and polymath Boethius. Registration is $15 or $25 for two and includes meals and receptions. (TU students and staff can attend for free. At this writing, the registration link is broken, and I have emailed the conference contact to see if it is still possible to register and attend. UPDATE: Registration closed on January 31. The banquet is full, but you may still be able to register by email to attend the other conference sessions.)

Please join The University of Tulsa's Honors College and the Kendall College of Arts and Sciences Department of Philosophy and Religion as we commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the death of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius Feb. 6-7, 2025. We will be joined by internationally recognized scholars to honor the life and work of one of the fundamental thinkers of western Civilization. Across the centuries, his works have illuminated the path of reason and revelation for thoughtful readers. His exploration of the themes of fortune and providence continue to resonate to the present day. Though known primarily for his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius wrote widely, including works in the fields of theology, logic, mathematics, and musical theory.

He was key for the transition from the ancient Roman and pagan eras into the Christian Middle Ages. Besides his intellectual works, he was a prominent figure in the history and politics of the post-imperial west. Imprisoned and executed by the Arian Ostrogothic king Theodoric, Boethius has become an example of resignation and resistance in the face of injustice, and an example of the resilience of humanity under persecution. His cultus as a saint was confirmed by the Catholic Church in 1883.

This conference will have two keynotes by some of the worldwide experts on Boethius, John Marenbon of Cambridge University and Peter Kreeft of Boston College. They will be joined by numerous other scholars to illumine the world bequeathed by this pivotal figure, who will explore the many dimensions of Boethius' work and influence, honoring a man whose vision has shaped the intellectual landscape of the West.

Here is the list of sessions:

• Why read Boethius now?
• Boethius and the Concept of the Person
• Virtue and Knowledge: Boethius and the Quadrivium in Medieval and Renaissance Europe
• A Soft Sword, Two Clocks, and an Abandoned House in Milan: Boethius in the Context of Ostrogothic Italy
• Teaching Boethius in a Classical Curriculum
• The Feminine Genius of Lady Philosophy
• The Consolation of Music: An Exploration of the Use of Music in Boethius' Healing
• The Icon of Boethius and Lady Philosophy
• The Contemporary Relevance of The Consolation of Philosophy: Twenty Healing Lessons

Fans of John Kennedy Toole's hilarious novel A Confederacy of Dunces will recall that Ignatius Reilly's misreading of Boethius's most famous work, The Consolation of Philosophy, was often on his thoughts as he suffered the indignities of the fickle finger of Fortuna.

The Boethius conference begins Thursday evening, February 6, 2025, at TUPAC with a social hour followed by a keynote address by John Marenbon of Cambridge University, "Why read Boethius now?" On Friday, February 7, 2025, there will be eight sessions at Helmerich Hall, including a panel discussion on "Teaching Boethius in a Classical Curriculum." The conference will be capped off in the Great Hall of the Allen Chapman Student Union with a banquet and a talk by Boston College Professor Peter Kreeft, "The Contemporary Relevance of The Consolation of Philosophy: Twenty Healing Lessons."

You may know Prof. Kreeft from his popular works of philosophy published by Intervarsity Press, such as Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley, Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ, or The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion. Between Heaven and Hell imagines a conversation between three very different thinkers who all died on November 22, 1963: Lewis representing orthodox Christian thought, Huxley representing eastern mysticism, and JFK representing modern western secularism.

(I met Prof. Kreeft about 40 years ago when he came to MIT to speak to a roundtable of students from various Christian organizations on campus. It was a fairly small group, and we were around a large table in a Course III (Materials Science) classroom in Building 8. It was there that I learned that the double-E in his Dutch surname is pronounced like an English long A.)

Meanwhile, at 101 E. Archer in downtown Tulsa (the old AHHA building, acquired by TU), the University of Tulsa's Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) will hold its inaugural conference. (Someone at TU thought it would be cute to create an acronym honoring a murderous Communist.)

The Center for Heterodox Economics invites you to our first conference addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time. From the global political issues to the challenges of inequality, poverty, gender equality, climate change, and anti-capitalism movements, our discussions promise to be both engaging and impactful.

This event is open to everyone, and we encourage you to join us in exploring these critical topics. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a vibrant community dedicated to understanding capitalism.

The description on the Center for Heterodox Economics homepage is a little different:

The Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) is excited to announce its inaugural conference, set to take place in February 6th to 8th. This groundbreaking event will bring together leading scholars, organizers, students, and local citizens to explore alternative perspectives in economic theory and practice.

Understanding the history and mechanisms of capitalism is crucial for addressing social and economic issues. By examining timely topics through a heterodox perspective, we can explore how our economic system functions and how people drive societal transformation.

Join us for this landmark event as we pave the way for a more inclusive and dynamic understanding of economics.

The conference sessions:

• How does Your Work Embody Heterodoxy?
• The Political Economy of Karl Marx
• Inflation, Austerity, and Class Conflict
• The Political Economy of Occupied Palestine
• Community Organizing and Class Consciousness
• The Political Economy of Piero Sraffa
• Probabilistic Political Economy
• The Exploding Crises of Care and Climate under Capitalism

The conference will also be presented on CHE's YouTube channel.

Rabbi Dovid Feldman will lead the session on "Occupied Palestine." Feldman heads Neturei Karta, an anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jewish organization that rejects the legitimacy of the State of Israel because only Messiah can restore Israel.

I note that this Communist-inclined conference is being held on the same block as a museum devoted to a famous Communist agitator and Stalin fan, and I can't help but wonder if the jolly banker who financed the latter is also involved with the former. If any of my readers have information on the funding source for this new TU initiative, I'd be very interested.

Interesting too that the CHE conference got two mentions in the Tulsa Whirled, but no mention was made of the Boethius conference. That may be indicative of the Whirled's Leftist leanings but may also reflect a powerful and persuasive local force behind CHE.

As pleased as I am that classical philosophy has regained a foothold at the University of Tulsa so quickly after the "True Commitment" demolition of the humanities at TU, it is disturbing to see TU at the same time opening a new avenue for the propagation of destructive illusions about human nature. Donors and alumni may wish to communicate their concerns to President Brad Carson and his administration.

Talk radio host Lee Matthews is back on the air in Oklahoma City, but in Tulsa you'll only be able to hear him on the internet.

In early November 2024, there was a big layoff of iHeartMedia employees, including on-air talent. Lee Matthews, whose evening drive show had been simulcast 5 - 7 p.m. weeknights on KAKC 1300 and 93.5 in Tulsa and KTOK 1000 in Oklahoma City, was one of those suddenly off the air. In January 2024, Matthews's 6 - 8 a.m. morning drive show on KTOK only had been displaced by the nationwide "Your Morning Show with Michael DelGiorno." 1300/93.5 The Patriot is now syndicated talk radio 24/7. The station also recently replaced Charlie Kirk with Armstrong & Getty, a Sacramento-based morning show delayed six hours, and they added Houston-based Michael Berry to fill a two-hour gap in the evening. Armstrong & Getty and Berry are all based at iHeartMedia stations, so I suspect there is a financial benefit to using them.

Last week, on Inauguration Day, Matthews returned to the Oklahoma City airwaves on KQOB Freedom 96.9, with a weekday 4 to 7 p.m. evening drive program. Freedom 96.9 is licensed to Enid, with transmitter in Crescent and studios in Oklahoma City, and is owned by Champlin Broadcasting, which also owns KWFF Hank FM. (Champlin was also the name of an Enid-based oil company and refinery.) Freedom 96.9 also features former State Sen. Jake Merrick with a daily morning drive show from 7 to 8 a.m. The rest of the schedule is syndicated conservative talk, including Brian Kilmeade, Dan Bongino, Dana Loesch, Joe Pags, and Jimmy Failla.

Meanwhile, Tulsa remains without a daily local talk show. Tulsa Beacon Weekend, hosted by Jeff Brucculeri, provides a one-hour long-form interview every Saturday at noon, often on local topics. KRMG has occasional in-depth interviews with local newsmakers. KWGS's Studio Tulsa, a daily 30-minute interview with Rich Fisher, left the air in June 2023. But no station in town is offering the kind of local talk radio we enjoyed on KFAQ for nearly two decades, with local officials in studio to converse with their constituents, candidate and issue debates, and in-depth analysis from the host and local opinion leaders.

I have heard that there have been stations with an interest in offering local talk radio, but perhaps not for the kind of money needed to get someone to do three hours a day, five days a week, with all the off-air preparation involved.

To be honest, even when Matthews was on 1300, despite my early hopes, Tulsa issues never got much air time. Perhaps because of iHeart's prescribed format, the show's content segments were short, constantly interrupted with traffic reports and PSAs. A good amount of time was devoted to conversations with national iHeart reporters or talking to local callers about national issues, and there was often an interview with a nostalgic pop culture figure promoting a new book. It was fun to listen to Freddy Boom Boom Cannon and Juliet Mills, but I don't ever recall Matthews doing an interview with a Tulsa newsmaker. When Matthews was off for vacation or some other gig, the station simply moved Jesse Kelly's national show earlier, rather than have another local host substitute for Matthews.

Local talk radio matters. Conservative Republican voters will turn out and vote for RINOs in Republican primaries and progressive Democrats in non-partisan city and school elections because there isn't a mass-media outlet discussing local politics from a conservative perspective, there isn't a voice with a reach big enough to contradict dark money and big money. This is how you get faux-conservatives like Gentner Drummond, who couldn't win in 2018 when Pat Campbell was on the air, but could in 2022 after Pat's passing and the end of KFAQ. As I discussed in my City Elders talk in April 2022, the lack of an effective conservative mass-media voice is how you get a turnout for school board that's majority Republican but votes for the Democrat-backed progressive.

FOR THE RECORD:

From the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, captures of the schedules of KAKC and KTOK before the advent of Your Morning Show with Michael DelGiorno, after his show launched on KAKC and KTOK,

• KAKC schedule August 2023
• KAKC schedule September 2024
• KAKC schedule January 2025
• KTOK schedule December 2023
• KTOK schedule March 2024
• KTOK schedule January 2025

AND FURTHERMORE (2025/03/21):

In response to a FB comment complimenting Lee Matthews on his new Freedom 96.9 show and remarking that "the other station must have been holding you down," Matthews replied:

Thank you! You are correct. There was a LOT of corporate advertising that took time away from my content. There were also a LOT of mandates I had to abide that didn't make for good programming. Glad to be free of all that Bravo Sierra!