Conspicuously absent

A couple of my Tulsa Blogger colleagues (Steve Roemerman, Mad Okie) noticed that Councilor Bill Christiansen, who is said to be plotting a run for Mayor, was absent from Thursday night's meeting, which was chock full of controversy. Christiansen avoided going on the record for or against allowing city employees to unionize and avoided voting on a couple of key charter change proposals -- protecting historic preservation zoning and reforming the recall process.

Councilor Roscoe Turner surprised a lot of people with his vote the other week against a charter provision to require a councilor to resign if he moves outside his district and again this week with his vote against recall reform. There was a silly rumor going around that Turner swapped his vote on the requirement to live in your district for a vote from Randy Sullivan (the Councilor who doesn't live in his district) to support unionizing city workers. I found that rumor incredible: Turner has enough honor not to make that kind of deal, and enough sense not to trust Randy Sullivan to keep that kind of deal. (On Thursday, Sullivan voted against allowing city workers to unionize.)

I saw Councilor Turner a few days ago and asked him about his vote on the district requirement. He pointed out that state law already authorized the Council to expel a member who moved outside the district, but there needed to be a complaint from a District 7 resident before they could investigate and act.

(I wrote about the relevant statutes back in January when the Whirled finally acknowledged that he no longer lived in the district. Bubbaworld disagrees with my analysis and makes a pretty convincing case that if you moved often enough, the City Charter allows you to run for Council in any district. I could run in District 6, since I was a qualified elector there from 1981 through 1988, and in District 9, since I was a qualified elector there from 1988 through 1993.)

I'm hoping that Councilor Turner was making a tactical move in his vote against recall reform. It couldn't win last Thursday -- Sullivan, Neal, Baker, and Martinson were all against it, so at best it would have been a 4-4 tie, with Christiansen absent -- but Turner's vote against allows him to bring it up at the next meeting for reconsideration when Christiansen is present and will either send the measure on to the voters or at least put Christiansen on record opposing recall reform.