Cities: November 2003 Archives

No Federal elections this year, and only a handful of governor's races on the ballot, but many cities around the nation hold their municipal elections in the fall of odd-numbered years. (A good time of year for elections, but it appears that a proposal to move Tulsa's elections to the fall won't be on the ballot anytime soon. Instead we may end up with an early January primary and campaigning during the Christmas season. Bleah.)

It's interesting to see how many of these local elections turned on questions of development and growth, dealing with the nitty-gritty of zoning codes and land-use plans. Here in Tulsa, such issues have not been a major factor in city elections, at least not in terms of open debate -- but development interests have funnelled huge amounts of campaign dollars to favored candidates, and the Tulsa Whirled has managed the trick of endorsing candidates based on their redevelopment philosophy without actually mentioning the issue on their editorial page or in their news coverage.

But elsewhere in the country these issues loomed large and were given significant coverage in the local press.