Accountability Burns runs for Police and Fire Commissioner

Here's another item from the colorful 1988 Tulsa city elections:

Gene C. Burns, better known as Accountability Burns, also has called himself A. B. Einstein IV, Einstein Belcher Burns, and Tulsa's Man from MARS.

His name change to Accountability, he says, "is in honor of Watergate, obviously. Accountability in government is my program."

He last ran for City Auditor in 2000, as a Democrat against incumbent Phil Wood. You see him around downtown, where he lives. I last bumped into him in a break room at TCC's downtown campus, shortly after I lost an election.

A co-worker had a big file of newspaper clippings about and correspondence with Accountability. He used to apply for jobs with the company, typing cover letters in the lobby. He has a very creative approach to phonetic spelling, and some of the engineers struck up a correspondence, replying to his missives in the same style.