Tulsa City Hall: January 2005 Archives

I about flipped. I had tuned in late to the live broadcast of the Tulsa City Council and as the meeting ended, I heard Council Chairman and non-Councilor Randy Sullivan say something like: "On Tuesday, please remember the unrepresented citizens of District 7." Had Sullivan finally become embarrassed by the fact that he hasn't lived in his district in over a year? Had he resigned?

No. Nothing as good as that. He'll be out of town Tuesday when the Council will have a special meeting to vote on placing a charter amendment on the same April ballot as the general obligation bond issue. The amendment will allow Tulsa to have city ordinances that require council supermajorities in certain circumstances. You'll recall that the City Attorney's office claimed that the Charter's requirement of a majority vote to approve ordinances precluded any supermajority, and thus the provision was null and void that required a supermajority for zoning changes protested by a sufficient number of nearby property owners. At the time, the councilors universally expressed their regret at how badly the 71st & Harvard zoning protest had been handled, and universally expressed their support for fixing the problem. We will find out Tuesday which councilors were in earnest and which were insincere.

In the meantime, District 7 residents continue to be unrepresented even when Randy Sullivan is in town. I am still amazed that so far there hasn't been a movement by District 7 residents to protest his absence from the district. If you're a District 7 resident, I'd love to know if you think Sullivan should continue to serve, despite his non-resident status, and if so, why. Drop me a line at blog at batesline dot com.

In case you missed it, here, in MP3 format, are Michael DelGiorno's Monday morning interviews with Dawn Eden and with me, as heard on Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ. Warning: Files are large (3.5 MB and 2.4 MB respectively). These will only be available here for a few days.

Reader K. A. Hruzer writes to note that TGOV, Cox Cable's local government access channel, has rather limited access:

I'm frustrated that I cannot see/listen to our City Council Meetings.

TGOV is a COX Cable proprietary offering, which is good. However, less than 1/3 of local residents subscribe to COX Cable. Besides omitting those disproportionally too poor to afford a cable subscription, newer technologies such as VOOM, DISH or DirecTV are on the increase. None of these people have access to our local government activities in this manner.

I'm sure the powers that be wish to minimize this form of coverage; at least keep to the minimum definition of any 'Open Records' requirements.

I expect more.

In fact, it is not expecting too much that minutes of Council meetings be posted on the City Council website and archived for research purposes. A full transcript taken from the video would be even better. For that matter, streaming video posted.

IAC, it irks me that I have to wait for the 'Whirled' to 'report' their version of events, then, try to decipher what really happened.

This morning, I had the thought that better live coverage of the Council meetings should be strived for. The COX thing is good, and should be commended. But, the access is too limited. I wondered if you might try to influence your friends at KFAQ to do a live audio feed on the meetings? I don't know a thing about markets, time slots, etc. with regard to radio. The 6:00-7:xx time slot might be an important one for their revenues. In that light, even a replay late that evening would be better than none. And, those of us wishing to use exact quotes would be satisfied.

Anything which makes us less dependent upon the 'Whirled' for our information is good. Sure, blogs are good, too. But, they often don't get updated for days and are also subject to perspectives and opinions. So, the horses mouth is always best.

K. A. makes a great point. TGOV is a major breakthrough for citizen awareness of city government, broadcasting meetings of the Council, Council committees, the Board of Adjustment, the planning commission, and the Airport Authority, as well as some special programming. At the same time, because it is only offered through the local cable system (as a condition of their franchise agreement with the City of Tulsa), satellite subscribers and rabbit-ears users don't have access.

I don't see KFAQ preempting Laura Ingraham to broadcast commercial-free Council meetings. Anyway, you miss a lot without the visuals to let you know who is speaking.

Streaming video over the Internet would be the way to go -- it would be accessible at public libraries and at home for broadband Internet subscribers. Citizens would be able to watch the latest meetings any time, rather than just during designated rebroadcasts. And it would be possible for bloggers and others to link to and comment on specific excerpts.

The technology is not cutting edge, but there would be some cost involved to set it up and to pay for the bandwidth and the server software. Video is already being converted to digital format -- you can buy DVDs of Council meetings.