Better shop around
The new Urban Tulsa Weekly is out. My column this week is about the proclivity of Tulsa County Commissioners (as commissioners, and as board members of various trusts) to grant sole-source contracts, a practice which doesn't serve the best interests of Tulsa County's taxpayers. The IVI bridge is just the latest example of the County Commissioners choosing not to shop around for the best deal.
G. W. Schulz covers the controversy over the airport noise abatement program, which happens to involve Cinnabar, a company headed by some of the same folks who head up IVI. David Schuttler was interviewed for the story -- he's chronicled the shoddy, but expensive, work done by Cinnabar's subcontractors on his home.
If you have ideas you'd like to see me cover in future columns, please post them here as a comment, or e-mail me at blog at batesline dot com. Thanks.
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Again, two well written and articles. Still can't really take this paper home, because of the advertising impact on kids. Its a good "bus stop" paper. Nonetheless, I appreciate keeping up to date. These are things that don't get talked about in other media.
The time has come for some real changes in this city. New money will never arrive in this city until the old money relinquishes its grip on our beloved town.
Please cover the proposed charter change commission proposed by Councilor Baker. It is on the Council agenda to be discussed at tonight's meeting. This seems like it might be an attempt to subvert the responsibility of the Council and promote a special interest agenda of At Large Councilors and Non- Partisan Elections, that has been prudently opposed by the council already. It deserves immediate attention because the timeline that has been proposed would have this 7 member body formed and ready to submit recomendations by January 2006. What's the rush?
Another item of interest should be the foot dragging that is taking place regarding the appointment of members to the Ethics Commission to review potential ethics violations. There have been quite a few complaints filed that have yet to be addressed by this commission. As far as I can tell, the Administration is currently reviewing these complaints to determine if they have merit, which in and of itself seems like a conflict of interest and a blatant attempt to subvert the proccess to disenfranchise the voters who fought to have a means to address potential ethical violations. BTW, I find it a bit ironic that this has taken years to get to this point, but we are going to have a charter review commission up and running in less than two months and ready to make recommendations, hogwash. It seems another case of what the oligarchy wants, the oligarchy gets. Shameful.
Mike, It would make a good column (or several) if you looked at past PUD's and see if the requirements are being met. Two that hop to mind are 8 acres and Sharp's little property behind the consortium. I am sure there are a million more that have "forgotten" the requirements.
If you add up the "disapprove" and the "don't know about the candidate/refused to answer" in the Ok Poll/news on 6 approval poll Jack Henderson would rank approx. 76%, Tom Baker approx. 63%, Susan Neal 63% disapprove/don't know/refused. THIS IS NOT GOOD NEWS! It makes you frustrated as some of our elected officials choose to be so bland, people feel they don't know them -- that's NOT GOOD for the Citizens of Tulsa to not know your councilor in your district!
Urban Tulsa is great for allowing Michael Bates to write about important issues. The polls tell us there is no "white knight" on the city council including the Mayor.
I would like to see Michael Bates write a review on who all the deal makers were in the GREAT PLAINS AIRLINES. If it goes way back to former Mayor Susan Savage, then start with all those people involved too.
Pretty soon, if we don't start getting some answers, the deal makers that are costing TULSA to pick up a HUGE TAB, just might remind of us
of Saddam -- he did not want the details of what he did wrong either.
Mr. Bates,
Tuesday evening our newly formed neighborhood association had its first official meeting. ( We are the North Tulsa County Neighborhood Association or better known as the 23 acres in N.Tulsa County). In attendance were Commissioner Collins, Councilor Turner, and Senator Brogdon. When Mr. Collins spoke, his only theme was to announce the 4 to fix extension. I am using this article to send out to our neighbors to encourage them to vote no on the extension. Thank you.
Use block captains to help spread the word in Neighborhood associations to put out flyers. On the neighborhood information sheet you pass out,
remind them to
read BATESLINE and read the Michael Bates section in the Urban Tulsa Weekly as well as the G.W.Schulz section.