Brent VanNorman for Tulsa mayor

Democrat Karen Keith has come a long way politically on the good will from her years as a TV news reader. I first met her in 1981 when I was doing an internship at KGCT 41, the short-lived attempt at a news-talk TV station in a Main Mall storefront. She was a reporter, and I went out on an assignment with her and a photographer one day; she was reporting on a puppy mill in Oakhurst and the proposed 71st Street bridge. She was a very nice person back then. I ran into her again about 10 years later when Brookside neighbors were protesting rezoning a pedestrian-friendly area for a supermarket with a massive parking lot; Keith was representing the Brookside Business Association.

In 2001, disturbed by the second defeat of a sales tax increase to build an arena, Karen Keith, former Mayor Rodger Randle, Linda Frazier, and Marilyn Inhofe-Tucker formed a group called TulsaNow with the goal "do something." Some of us who were gathered into the discussion (including myself) tried to steer the group toward better urban design and encouragement of small-scale revitalization (Roberta Brandes Gratz's notion of urban husbandry), but Karen Keith just wanted to get a big tax passed like Oklahoma City's MAPS with lots of big construction. Many in the organization wanted to oppose or at least not endorse Vision 2025 because it was just a collection of pork barrel projects and not the cohesive grassroots vision that Mayor Bill LaFortune had promised. Karen, then on LaFortune's staff as flak-catcher, was on the side for whom endorsing a tax package was the whole point of TulsaNow.

In 2008, Karen Keith's well-funded, establishment-backed campaign beat Republican Sally Bell to win a seat on the County Commission. Keith has supported every proposed tax increase.

Her nice image was undermined in 2009, her first year in office, when Karen Keith tried to bully Planning Commissioner Elizabeth Wright, the one homeowner-friendly member of the TMAPC, into resigning two years before the end of her term, bringing bogus accusations as grounds for removal. Wright stood her ground, and Keith's attempt to oust her failed for lack of a second. It was an example of Keith carrying water for special interests, specifically developers who want their applications rubber-stamped, not examined for compliance with the zoning code. The TulsaNow thread on that topic shows Wright to be an intelligent commissioner who asked insightful questions, and in Tulsa that sort of thing is not to be tolerated on our public boards and commissions. You can assume from Karen Keith's performance as a county commissioner that she will continue to govern Tulsa for the benefit of special interests, not the citizens.

Keith has come under fire regarding problems at the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice (FCJJ). Documents obtained by Oklahoma Appleseed indicate that Keith and her fellow county commissioners were notified of abuses and serious deficiencies at the FCJJ when the Oklahoma Juvenile Authority placed the center on probation in May 2023, about a year before the problems became public. Allegations include detention officers and the FCJJ nurse using contraband, favoritism, and force to elicit sexual favors from the underage inmates. The federal lawsuit (6:24-cv-00182) filed in May 2024 names the Board of County Commissioners as a defendant:

BOCC is responsible for the operation of the Tulsa County Juvenile Detention Center ("Juvenile Detention Center"), through its oversight of Defendant Juvenile Bureau of the District Court of Tulsa County ("Juvenile Bureau"). BOCC is required to discharge its responsibilities of operation and maintenance of the Juvenile Detention Center to the Juvenile Bureau in a constitutional manner. BOCC is responsible for the execution of a wide range of legal and fiscal responsibilities, including oversight of the Juvenile Bureau. BOCC contracted with OJA regarding the Juvenile Detention Center. BOCC approved a $13,070,125.00 budget for "juvenile detention" expenses, out of a $17.5 million budget total for "court related" items for the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

The complaint repeats over and over again that Keith and her fellow commissioners were on notice about the appalling conditions at the FCJJ and did nothing.

Democrat Monroe Nichols is the third candidate with significant support. He has been endorsed by former Democrat mayor Kathy Taylor and former Democrat governors Brad Henry and David Walters. (Walters was indicted by a grand jury on eight felony counts of perjury and conspiracy related to illegal contributions to his 1990 campaign. Democrat prosecutors dropped the felony counts, and Walters pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, allowing him to stay in office.)

As a Democrat state representative, Nichols receives low scores from right-of-center organizations. OCPA scored Nichols's record on key 2024 votes at 15%, 14% over his career. The Oklahoma Constitution rates him at 15 lifetime; he got a 31 this year, mainly by missing 7 of the 10 votes on this year's scorecard. He's an opponent of school choice and judicial reform. He supports driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

Nichols and Keith would both capitulate to tribal governments and accept a two-tier system of laws and justice based on ancestry. Nichols is fully committed to co-governance; Keith wants a pan-tribal courtroom in a new County Courthouse. But Brent VanNorman will have the city's legal team continue in the Federal courts to defend the principle of equal justice under law and the jurisdiction of our democratically elected government over all Tulsans, no matter what license plate they have on their cars.

I have my concerns about VanNorman. He's new to Tulsa and new to politics, so he may not recognize the agenda and implications of proposals he's asked to support and so may naively sign on to a damaging proposal. If elected, an unwary VanNorman could easily be co-opted by the same forces now backing Keith and Nichols. An illustration of the problem is the Action Tulsa struggle session he attended, where he praised and committed to an ID program for illegal immigrants. (Video of the "accountability session" here.) He needs to seek advice from conservatives who know the history and people and forces at work in Tulsa politics.

Still, there is no doubt that VanNorman's wide range of expertise and record of real accomplishments in the private sector would be better for Tulsans than either Keith or Nichols. I encourage you to join me in voting for Brent VanNorman for mayor on August 27.