Tulsa Election 2022: City Council runoff

All of the incumbent councilors signed the proclamation of 2022 LGBTQ+ Pride Month. In 2020, Lori Decter Wright voted to impose a mask mandate on children as young as 10 and to add fines of $1,200 or six months in jail to the mandate, which also placed restrictions on public gatherings of more than 150. (Mykey Arthrell-Knezek was not yet on the council.) Dodson missed the October 2020 10-year-old mask mandate vote, but voted with the rest of the Council in November 2020 for fines and jail time.

Dodson did vote against the original mask mandate proposal in July 2020 citing constituent requests and brought forth a proposal to facilitate strip clubs providing drive-through services.

All three incumbents, Arthrell-Knezek, Dodson, and Decter Wright, voted for a financial incentive for city employees to pressure their colleagues into getting the COVID-19 "vaccine."

In August 2021, Lori Decter Wright led the push to reinstate mask mandates and impose it on children down to the age of 4, a proposal that had the support of five councilors (Decter Wright, Hall-Harper, Arthrell-Knezek, McKee, Patrick), enough to pass but not with the emergency clause. (You can watch her presentation to the August 25, 2021, Urban and Economic Development Committee meeting, starting at 34 minutes.) Decter Wright dismissed opposition to mask mandates as a vocal minority and considered her re-election in 2020 as a mandate to maintain mask mandates. In the same committee meeting, Arthrell-Knezek was also vocal in support of ongoing mask mandates.

At the August 25, 2021, regular council meeting, Arthrell-Knezek said it was "a failure" that there wasn't enough support to continue mask mandates (see 2 hrs 56 mins). "It [wearing a mask] is not a hard thing to do at all." He was concerned that tabling the mask-mandate extension "is sentencing somebody, we don't know who, to die." At the same meeting, Decter Wright (about 3 hrs 2 min) pushed the idea that the council's job was to implement without question any measure recommended by the CDC.

Campaign contribution information below is from the pre-election ethics reports that were due to the City of Tulsa clerk's office by close of business on October 31, 2022.

District 5:

Democrat incumbent Mykey Arthrell-Knezek drew 4 opponents and received 43.3% of the vote in the August election. Grant Miller, a registered Libertarian, edged out Republican restaurateur Ty Walker by only 3 votes; their combined share of the vote was 48.8%.

As of 10/31/2022, Arthrell-Knezek had raised $33,792.71 and spent $21,967.27. Three donors have given $5,800 each during this election cycle: Council-suer Burt Holmes, Robin Flint Ballenger, and Democrat megadonor George Krumme. Former Democrat mayor Kathy Taylor gave $1,000, and George Kaiser's sister Ruth Nelson contributed $500.

Arthrell-Knezek's entire resumé is a creature of the non-profit world, and he's a graduate of hyper-woke Evergreen State College in Washington state. Most recently, he is an educational specialist for Urban Strategies, Inc., a national organization engaged in "Human Capital" development in the West Tulsa (Eugene Field) public housing development.

Grant Miller has raised $14,515.00 and spent $13,085.69. Major donors include Michael & Avery Krimball ($2,900 each), Michael Khemorro ($1,000), and conservative activist Bill Bickerstaff ($1,500), and social media consultant Robin LaButti ($1,500).

Grant Miller served in Iraq as a field artillery technical data specialist for the U. S. Army, served as a police officer in Kansas, then worked as an insurance agent in Texas before returning to his hometown of Tulsa, where he is completing his law degree at the University of Tulsa, with graduation expected in December. He holds a patent for a "system and method for document sharing across a provider-client communicable network," and developed a mobile platform called Agent Alive to facilitate electronic interactions between insurance agent and client.

Miller's campaign emphasizes needs over wants. Miller's priorities are to bring the Tulsa Police Department up from the current level (around 800) to full authorized strength (943), focusing on retaining the officers we are currently losing to better pay elsewhere, and addressing the growing problem of homelessness with practical steps:

• We need to reduce waiting periods for housing placements.
• Recruiting, supporting and retaining landlords who will work with the city and organizations to increase affordable housing.
• Leverage support services. For example, assisting our friends on the street with disability paperwork and helping them obtain lost identification, which is needed to obtain benefits and employment.
• Coordinate and consolidate federal, state and local resources for maximum benefit.
• Design a crisis response system to help people quickly exit homelessness.
• Increase employment programs to provide a steady flow of income to increase housing stability.

District 6:

Republican challenger Christian Bengel came close to winning the election in August with 45.4% of the vote, while Democrat incumbent Connie Dodson only managed 38.4%.

Bengel has raised $32,770.91 and spent $22,971.01. Many of his max donors have connections to Crossland Construction Company.

Christian Bengel has 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, most recently as an Implementation Specialist for Lumen Technologies. He is an Army veteran, serving in the Korean DMZ, and he served from 1999-2016 as a Tulsa County Sheriff's Office reserve deputy. From 1994-2000, Bengel worked for the Radio Services Division of the City of Tulsa.

Dodson had raised $25,084.34 and spent $16,473.55. She has received max contributions from big Democrat donors (George Krumme, Burt Holmes) and Cindy Robson and Lloyd Robson. Santiago Barraza and Joe Robson each gave Dodson's campaign $2,000. Dodson lists four-figure contributions from three businesses, which wasn't legal last I checked: Azteka Motors, Chadwick's Lawn and Landscape, and "(Fabulosos) Case De Mariscos." Mayor GT Bynum IV's GTPAC gave Dodson $1,000, and she is also backed by the city employee's union (AFSCME Local 1180), the FOP, the Tulsa Regional Chamber's Tulsa Biz PAC, and PACs for home builders and realtors.

Connie Dodson's LinkedIn lists her role as city councilor as her most recent job, and Connie Palmer Photography as a concurrent job since 2005, but her photography website was last online in 2014.

On August 20, 2022, a few days before the city general election, my Facebook page received the following strange but clearly hostile message from D Richard Dodson:

Your so full of donkey bullsh** on your choices on City Council. 3 of your choices lost last time and looks like they will again. Tell me this, why would the voters of District 6 even think about Christian Bengel when he has lied about everything from the start? Heck his past employer TCSO won't even endorse him nor will the FOP. Last election the IEBW endorsed him for $1,000 because a family member was involved with them but later on endorsed his opponent for $3,000, why? And this campaign they once again endorsed his opponent and not him. By the way, who has endorsed him? Now on to Reddick. Who has endorsed him, GTR [Greater Tulss Area Realtors]? Come on put some effort into your positions. Remember, the Sheridan Church ordeal from last time?

There is a Darby Richard Dodson registered to vote at the same address on Connie Dodson's declaration of candidacy. The Facebook profile of the D Richard Dodson that messaged me states that he lives in Banjul, Gambia, but he seems quite interested in east Tulsa businesses, as well as strip clubs, sex toy shops, BDSM, and barbecue (screenshots available on request). That might explain Councilor Dodson's concern for the fate of strip clubs in the pandemic.

District 7:

Earlier I posted video of incumbent Democrat councilor Lori Decter Wright voicing her approval of District 4 Councilor-elect Laura Bellis's unhinged rant accusing council candidates and a member of the school board of being fascists and Nazis.

Lori Decter Wright has raised $22,237.09 and spent $14,776.47. Decter Wright's funders include George Kaiser and his son Philip Kaiser, GKFF executive director Ken Levit, former Democrat mayor Kathy Taylor and her husband Bill Lobeck, former Democrat mayor Susan Savage, philanthropist Lynn Schusterman, Patrick Carr of Carr & Carr Law, and Keith Station, the Chief Diversity Officer of the City of Omaha.

Tulsa Forward PAC, 14585 S Gary Ave, Bixby, OK, 74008-8034, contributed $2,900 to Decter Wright. This PAC has not filed its own report with the City Clerk, but has filed with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission. It is headed by Eli Potts, a political consultant and a member of the Osage Nation Congress, and is funded by the Cherokee Nation ($5,000), the Osage Nation ($2,900), Sue Ann Arnall (Harold Hamm's ex-wife, $5,000), George Krumme ($5,000), Wendy Thomas of Leadership Tulsa ($500), and Shirlee Ostensen ($150).

Decter Wright is executive director of Kendall Whittier Inc., a non-profit partnered with the George Kaiser Family Foundation. She worked previously as education & membership director for Sweet Adelines and as an opera singer and voice teacher in San Jose and the San Francisco Bay Area. She grew up in San Francisco and came to Tulsa in 2014.

Ken Reddick, who previously ran for District 7 City Council and for mayor, raised $12,630.44 and spent $10,742.53. Reddick's major donors include newly elected State Rep. Mark Tedford ($1,000), Realtors PAC ($750), Chad Ferguson ($500), Sagenet chairman Daryl Woodard ($500), and Justin Van Kirk ($500), a Republican who ran a strong race against Decter Wright in 2020.

Reddick owns Clean Slate Contracting and is a certified project manager, previously working for the University of Tulsa and for an AEP/PSO contractor. His campaign focus is on public safety and reducing governmental burdens on small business.