Head Chamber Pot to speak

Speaking of the Cockroach Caucus, the head of the bureaucracy at the Tulsa Metro Chamber, Jay Clemens, will speak to the Tulsa County Republican Men's Club this Friday at the Fountains Restaurant, 6540 South Lewis. The TCRMC monthly luncheon begins at 11:45 am, and the cost is $9 for the Fountains' lunch buffet. There are always a number of guests in attendance, and we usually have as many women as men present.

I'll have to miss it, I'm sad to say, so I hope someone who goes will take some good notes and pass them along to me.

Mr. Clemens, a resident of Broken Arrow, is a controversial figure. Many in the business community would like to see him replaced. They see the Chamber as fiddling while Rome burns -- taking expensive junkets to the Caribbean and Hawaii, continuing to focus economic development efforts on luring large facilities to Tulsa, rather than nurturing businesses that are already here. Insiders talk of a controlling attitude that stifles innovation both within the Chamber bureaucracy and in the city as a whole. During a previous stint in a similar role elsewhere, Clemens received national attention for discouraging a company's plan to bring 500 new jobs to the area because it would "unrealistically drive up wages."

It is widely believed that the Chamber is encouraging the effort to recall Councilors Chris Medlock and Jim Mautino because of the Councilors' efforts to hold the Chamber accountable for how the Chamber spends the City of Tulsa's hotel/motel tax dollars. It should be interesting to see what he has to say to Republican grassroots activists, who enthusiastically support Medlock and Mautino and the reform of the city's economic development approach. It will be interesting to see what they have to say to him in return. It may be a valuable learning experience for Mr. Clemens.

By the way, the Fountains Restaurant serves wonderful bread pudding, which is delicious, and, I am told, also possesses interesting ballistic characteristics when saturated with glaze, but I've never seen that for myself.

UPDATE: In answer to a question, no, you do not have to be a member of the TCRMC in order to attend the luncheon. (Although you are encouraged to join -- dues are $20 per year.)