Kathy Taylor returns?
There's a strong rumor circulating (UPDATE: It's official.) that former Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor will be running this year to retake her former position as queen of the Borg Cube.
You'll recall that official election records in Florida and Oklahoma showed that Kathy Taylor cast a ballot in both states (in Florida by absentee ballot, in person in Oklahoma) in the contentious November 7, 2000, general election. Taylor and her husband, Bill Lobeck, were also involved in a legal dispute resulting from their claim of a homestead exemption both in Tulsa and in Broward County, Florida. Lobeck paid taxes and penalties during the 2006 mayoral campaign, then filed a suit after the election to recover what he had paid. (Taylor and Lobeck got a mention in a 2008 Miami Herald article headlined "Homestead Cheats" and in a 2010 South Florida Business Journal article on "property tax fraud.")
(Broward County, Florida, records indicate Lobeck dropped his suit against Broward County in April 2009, and Taylor and Lobeck sold their Fort Lauderdale waterfront home in March of 2012 for $2,425,000.00. Oddly, in the Trustee's Affidavit connected with the sale, Lobeck and Taylor each listed as "homestead address" 1132 S. Lewis Ave., Tulsa, the site of a 12,574 sq. ft. commercial building constructed in 1938, which is commercially zoned and which does not have a homestead exemption, according to Tulsa County Assessor records.)
You remember the $7.1 million confiscated from Tulsa property taxpayers to pay Bank of Oklahoma to cover the default of Great Plains Airlines? Kathy Taylor signed off on the settlement that put Tulsa taxpayers on the hook (so did Dewey Bartlett Jr). Thankfully, this illegal settlement was reversed by the Oklahoma State Supreme Court.
As mayor, Kathy Taylor presided over a rapid increase in city spending during the first part of her term, when sales tax revenues had recovered after the recession at the beginning of the decade, despite calls from Councilor John Eagleton and others to limit spending growth to the product of inflation and population growth. The Taylor increase in spending made the cuts of 2009 all the more painful. Taylor didn't confront the looming 2009-2010 budget crisis (Bartlett Jr, who endorsed her for re-election, claims to have been unaware of the problem until the day he was sworn in), went on CNN to denounce city councilors concerned about strings attached to federal funds, and rather than listen to Cassandras like Councilor Bill Martinson, she appears to have orchestrated his defeat, with massive last-minute donations to his opponent coming from out-of-state businessmen with connections to Taylor's husband, Bill Lobeck.
Other highlights of Taylor's term as mayor: Joining Michael Bloomberg's mayoral gun-grabbing coalition and signing Tulsa up to global warming globaloney, while keeping the council in the dark about the hiring of a new police chief, the ill-considered and more-expensive-than-planned move of City Hall to the One Technology Center building, the massive hike in the cost of building the BOK Center, the misuse of the assessment district concept to pay for a new downtown minor league baseball park (resulting in a lawsuit).
We mustn't overlook the shabby treatment that the Tulsa Development Authority (TDA) inflicted on developers Will Wilkins and Cecilia Wilkins, who were squeezed out of the chance to develop a parcel of Brady District land when it wound up across the street from site of the new ballpark (resulting in another lawsuit, which alleges that Taylor was right in the middle of the deal; the lawsuit was settled in June 2012, just days before a jury trial was set to begin).
No, I don't want another term for Dewey Bartlett Jr, but Kathy Taylor is just the other side of the same coin.
MORE: In 2009, Irritated Tulsa ranked Kathy Taylor's top 10 ungreatest moments.
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I had hoped for some changes with the change of ownership. Today's Tulsa World story on the mayoral election and Kathy Taylor's Great Plains airlines settlement has undermined that hope. One positive change -- the pictures make all of the candidates l... Read More
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I am for Bill Christiansen all the way. I remember the Taylor debacle. I believe that her desire to run again is simply to schmooze with the Obama White House. Something I hear she adamantly supports. Bill is the only self-made person in the list of candidates. I see Bartlett and Taylor as sharing the same progressive base at this point, with the expectation that their family wealth qualifies them for the job. We need Bill.
Amen
According to the Whirled via SKD:
"She(Kathy Taylor) has some unfinished business that she'd like to complete, and I think some of her ideas are good for the city of Tulsa and would bring more excitement to the city," Davis said.
Translation:
Here's just a few items from Taylor the Tyrant's list of unfinished business
1. Install the Bloomberg nanny state social engineering agenda in Tulsa like banning any soda drinks larger than 16 ounces and the abolishment of the right to bear arms of law abiding citizens.
2. Make Tulsa a sanctuary city for illegal aliens.
3. Protect, promote, and expand crony capitalism aka "economic development and entrepreneurship" for her family and friends in Tulsa's elitist class.
4. Continue the fleecing and federal government waste inherent in the handling of federal CDBG funding by the city of Tulsa to buy the support of influential special interests receiving these funds while making the city and it's citizens more reliant on the federal government and willing to accept more federal intervention and authority in local matters as a fait accompli towards accomplishing item #1 .
Bartlett was unaware of a budget crisis? Even though Kathy Taylor wasn't running (she said) to deal with the budget crisis?
Yeah - I can believe that. Bartlett seems to live his life in a perpetual state of unawareness.
Yes, Ms. Taylor has cut plenty of corners and stepped on plenty of toes in her wheeling and dealing, but fortunately we can rely on Mr. Bates to keep the long list of knocks on Taylor featured prominently on this blog. You may not have liked Taylor's methods OR her "accomplishments" at City Hall, but she definitely gets things done. That's a lot more than we can say for poor Dewey. If Tulsa voters elect Taylor again, at least we will know what we are getting.
A good thing about Taylor that no one can deny is that she can match Dewey Bartlett's meager brain with less than half of her own. Always prefer "smart" over "dumb as a stump."
The other good thing about a Mayor Taylor is that Terry Simonson finally will be banished from city government, for real this time. The guy is always a net negative, always leaving trouble and bad feelings in his wake. I have no idea why so many have considered him to be the Indispensable Man for all these years.
Bill Christiansen hasn't got a prayer of winning the election. He will appeal to those who admire chest-thumping in their politicians, but he can't win. Although he just might finish ahead of Dewey.
The three-way race is going to make for a fun campaign. For ill or good, my money is on Taylor.
I'll get the popcorn started.
(Oops - here goes try #2 on the Captcha...)
Tulsa's last four mayors (Susan Savage, Bill LaFortune, Kathy Taylor, and Dewey Bartlett) besides being the pre-selected candidates of the local ruling power elite, did the bidding of their patrons and paymasters in the following:
Each proposed raising the local sales tax to benefit Manhattan Construction, FlintCo, and/or Bank of Kaiser, and their associated cronies, sub-contractors, consultants, and suppliers.
Susan Savage tried in 1997 with "The Tulsa Project", and again in 2000 with "It's Tulsa's Time". Both failed to benefit our local heavy construction companies that like to build Arenas. Her usefulness to her financial patrons exhausted, she chose to not run for re-election after ten long years in office.
Bill LaFortune, given every job he'd ever held, ran on his family name, and imitated the language of a reformer while a candidate. Yet, he eschewed reform from the month he took office, organizing a "Vision Summit" of local notables, to promote a new downtown arena and associated new sales tax. The roof of the Convention Center even appropriately leaked during the photo-op, albeit curiously in the prolonged dry spell....
Bill LaFortune, County Commissioner Dirty Bob Dick and approximately $1,000,0000 in Vision 2025 campaign money to promote the new tax gulled voters with the Vision 2025 Mantra "It's About Jobs".
It generated a few hundred temporary construction jobs for mostly illegal aliens.
LaFortune continually feuded with the Reform-minded Tulsa City Council, and sat quietly by while his benefactors initiated a recall against two of his fellow GOP city councilors. GOP voters were not confused when 60% of them preferred anyone BUT Bill LaFortune in the subsequent GOP Mayoral primary, and he "won" the primary with 40% of the vote, mortally wounded politically.
Leading us to Mayor Kathy Taylor, who personally backed the Kaiser River Sales Tax, which failed abysmally.
She managed to toss her former employer, Bank of Kaiser, at least four appetizing tax-payer financed morsels, with the 30 year bond financing of One Technology Center becoming our new City Hall; the ONEOK Stadium bond financing; the sweetheart lease guarantee by Bank of Kaiser for any vacant space in OTC that they wanted to occupy anyway; and finally, joining the city to a lawsuit and immediately "settling" with her former employer, Bank of Kaiser, to the tune of $7 million in taxpayer money for the failed Great Plains Airlines convoluted financing.
Taylor probably did some polling, and found out she couldn't get re-elected dogcatcher, so her two-time backer Dewey, Jr. replaced her. And, given his marching orders by his political benefactors, promoted corporate welfare for bankrupt American Airlines, voter bait for the minor municipalities in Tulsa County, and $150 million for the Metro Chamber to dole out to its friends for NOT leaving Tulsa. All failed on November 6.
I hope there are some public debates with the Mayoral candidates. Dewey, Jr. and Kathy Taylor will have to be extra slippery to avoid ownership of their terrible records.
Good detailed info with a lick of humor! I linked to this post from my own blog, http://talkoftulsa.com/