Is INCOG a cabal of WEF globalists?

I have seen some comments in social media and other voter guides about the Indian Nations Council of Government (INCOG), with the implication that anyone who has served on the INCOG board is a globalist and a minion of Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum (WEF). But INCOG has been around for nearly 60 years, has no real power of its own, and its board members are mostly whoever happens to be mayor of the municipalities who are INCOG members.

Concentrated areas of population rarely stay within a given set of boundaries. Cities acquire suburbs -- either new settlements on the edge of the city or small towns suddenly in the path of growth and booming. A municipal corporation has well-defined boundaries on the map; the area where people work and live and go to church and socialize has a very fuzzy boundary that likely incorporates many municipalities, may bleed into several counties, and in some cases will extend over state lines. Infrastructure -- water supply, waste disposal, transportation -- is interconnected as well. While it's great for residents and business owners to be able to choose among a variety of cities and towns and unincorporated areas, each with its own laws, tax rates, and leadership, it's also valuable for those municipalities to collaborate and coordinate across the region.

Many urban regions have established bodies of interlocal cooperation and governance of varying degrees of formality and authority. In 1829, the Metropolitan Police was set up for the municipalities in the vicinity of the square-mile City of London. Later in the century, the Metropolitan Board of Works was established to deal with infrastructure across the region around London. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey manages New York Harbor.

The class of which INCOG is an instance is sometimes called a Council of Governments, a Substate Planning District, or Economic Development District. These started springing up in earnest in the late 1960s during the Lyndon Johnson administration, in fulfillment of requirements attached to federal grant programs. This article on Federalism.org details the federal program requirements that pushed the growth of COGs as gatekeepers to federal grants, the reversal of many of these requirements by President Ronald Reagan, what COGs did to stay alive, and the ongoing role they have in distribution of federal transportation funding, in their role as Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs).

Back in 2010, when there was some obfuscation about INCOG's interactions with the City of Tulsa, I wrote an explainer distinguishing between INCOG as the COG to which Tulsa belongs, as the MPO required for federal transportation grants, and as a contractor providing staffing and record-keeping for Tulsa's land-use process. Go read those articles first, and then let's zoom out and look at INCOG more broadly.

In 1965, Oklahoma passed the Interlocal Cooperation Act in response to regional planning requirements in the 1965 Federal Housing Act. There's a detailed explanation of how these entities came into existence in Oklahoma on the website of the Oklahoma Association of Regional Councils.

INCOG Is one of 11 that substate planning districts that cover the entire state:

• Association of Central Oklahoma Governments
• Association of South Central Oklahoma Governments
• Central Oklahoma Economic Development District
• Eastern Oklahoma Economic Development District
• Grand Gateway Economic Development Association
• Indian Nation Council of Governments
• Kiamichi Economic Development District of Oklahoma
• Northern Oklahoma Development Association
• Oklahoma Economic Development Association
• Southern Oklahoma Development Association
• Southwestern Oklahoma Development Authority

INCOG originally covered Tulsa, Creek, and Osage counties, the Tulsa Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area as defined by the Census Bureau between the 1960 and 1970 censuses. Today, INCOG is open to a broader membership. Five county governments (Tulsa, Creek, Osage, Wagoner, Rogers), 19 cities and towns, and three tribal governments (Osage, Muscogee Creek, Cherokee) are INCOG members, and another 32 cities and towns participate with INCOG in some way. Member governments have one seat on the general assembly, which meets once a year.

Oklahoma law explicitly does not require local governments to belong to a COG or to participate in a COG. But a COG may have to be involved in the pursuit of a federal grant.

The INCOG Board of Directors meets monthly. Each county has at least four seats on the board: The three County Commissioners and a member representing the county's small towns. Tulsa County has an additional six members. The City of Tulsa has 9 members, Broken Arrow has three, but the other member cities and towns have one. Usually the mayor of the municipality is the designated INCOG board member. Broken Arrow's three seats are filled by the mayor, vice mayor, and city manager. As BA vice mayor, Christi Gillespie serves on the INCOG board, as does Bixby mayor Brian Guthrie; Lonnie Sims was an INCOG board member when he was Mayor of Jenks.

You can find general assembly and board agendas on the INCOG website, but they are very terse. I wasn't able to find any meeting minutes online.

INCOG's list of services are a mix of functions relating to federal agencies and grants and services provided under contract to some member governments.

One area of particular concern is INCOG's involvement in regional lobbying. Twelve cities, Tulsa County, and INCOG are members of the Coalition of Tulsa Area Governments (CTAG), for which INCOG provides support staff. CTAG develops a slate of legislative issues each year and also signs up to the Tulsa Regional Chamber's One Voice lobbying agenda. It would be fair game to hold current or former CTAG and INCOG board members accountable for issues included on the CTAG and One Voice agendas.

Serving as an INCOG board member ex officio as the mayor of your town isn't suspicious in and of itself, but it's fair to look at the federal and non-profit grants that city governments are seeking and what strings are attached.