Tulsa Election 2011: Progress report

Things are moving rapidly on this last day before the Tulsa City Council primary, and I'm doing my best to catch up. Several developing stories:

Oklahoma City-based Majority Designs (the direct mail firm of Fount Holland and Karl Ahlgren) have put out mailers "not authorized by any campaign or candidate" advocating for the election of Byron "Skip" Steele (District 6 Republican), Jeannie Cue (District 2 Republican), and David Patrick (District 3 Democrat). The mailers are paid for by "Working Tulsans" with a return address of P. O. Box 52804, Tulsa OK 74152, a mailing address that belongs to a 48-year-old Creek County registered voter. The bulk rate endorsement is Majority Designs. If you wondered when Ahlgren's bunch would start to flout the spirit (if not the letter) of campaign disclosure laws, it's underway.

The great big vacant lot at 14th and Utica (a scar from Eric Gomez's damaging tenure on the City Council) sprouted a couple of political signs late last week, calling District 4 Councilor Maria Barnes a "bozo." Given that the big plans for that plot have failed to materialize, who's the real bozo?

Early this morning in District 8 in far south Tulsa, supporters (or employees?) of Midtown Money Belt-backed candidate Phil Lakin creepily confronted South-Tulsa-neighborhood-backed candidate George Gibbs as he and a volunteer distributed yard signs. So much for Lakin's pledge to run a clean campaign.

I have more endorsements to issue. I'll give you the whys and wherefores later but for now, I'll lift the suspense and tell you that I'm endorsing Maria Barnes in the District 4 Democratic primary, Blake Ewing in the District 4 Republican primary, George Gibbs in the District 8 Republican primary, and Robert Pinney in the District 9 Republican primary.

I've already endorsed Steven Roemerman (7 - Republican), Jim Mautino (6 - Republican), Sam Roop (5 - Republican), Roscoe Turner (3 - Democrat), David Bell (3 - Republican).

District 2 is complicated because of the above news item. In District 1, Jack Henderson has been an ally in backing neighborhoods and defeating tax increases for many years, but I'm a bit worried by some of the campaign contributions he's received this time around. That said, I'm bothered by Twan Jones' contributor list, too. If you live in either of these districts and have met the candidates, I'd be interested in your perspective. (If you live in, say, Eucha and just want to indulge in some uninformed bloviating, I'm not interested at all.)

There's the news in brief. More detail later.

MORE CAMPAIGN WEIRDNESS: Reports of a robocall allegedly from Jack Henderson to District 4 Democrats in support of Maria Barnes. I'm told Barnes didn't authorize it and Henderson knows nothing about it. Jim Burdge, campaign consultant for Ken Brune, Barnes' primary opponent, has a reputation for this sort of trick; the night before the 2005 recall election (Burdge was a consultant for the campaign; Brune was the pro-recall group's attorney), an unauthorized call went out, using an edited Richard Roberts radio comment to attack Chris Medlock.