Tulsa City Hall: April 2007 Archives

An edited version of this column was published in the April 26 - May 2, 2007, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here is my initial post on Michael DelGiorno's departure from KFAQ to WWTN, and here is the blog entry linking to this UTW column. Posted November 1, 2023.

DelGiorno Departs
By Michael D. Bates

Friday marked the end of an era in Tulsa radio with the departure of Michael DelGiorno from News Talk 1170 KFAQ. After nearly five years at the station, he is moving to WWTN, the top news/talk station in Nashville.

Many readers' brains may explode as they read the following sentence, but it's true nevertheless: Politics and public dialogue in Tulsa are better off for Michael DelGiorno's tenure here.

All told, DelGiorno spent 17 years in the Tulsa market, serving as program director and afternoon host at KRMG for nearly a decade, then as operations manager for Clear Channel's Tulsa stations and host of the morning show on KTBZ 1430 ("The Buzz").

At loose ends after parting company with Clear Channel and then working on State Sen. Scott Pruitt's unsuccessful 2001 run for Congress, in the spring of 2002, DelGiorno approached Journal Broadcast Group management with the concept for KFAQ's format, a talk radio station that would be, like the bulk of metropolitan Tulsa's population, unapologetically conservative.

While right-wing national talk show hosts were easy enough to find on Tulsa radio, local talk was dominated by John Erling, who delighted in poking fun at Tulsa's conservative Christians. The daily paper had (and still has) a lockstep editorial board that's liberal on social issues and never met a tax increase it didn't like.

Here is a market that repeatedly sent conservatives like Jim Inhofe, Steve Largent, and John Sullivan to Congress, that attracts students from around the world to attend two major charismatic Christian colleges, home to evangelical and charismatic megachurches, and hundreds of smaller churches with a conservative social and political inclination, but you'd never have known it by listening to local radio.

There was a niche to be filled, and DelGiorno, a conservative Republican and Southern Baptist, persuaded Journal Broadcast Group to let him step in and fill it.

Where other attempted alternatives to Erling had come and gone - like Ken Rank's valiant efforts on KAKC 1300 in the late '90s - DelGiorno succeeded. He switched from afternoons to mornings in 2003, and swiftly moved past Erling in the ratings.

It was DelGiorno's passion in speaking about the issues and his ability to rally listeners to action that made the difference. Even those who disagreed with him found his show to be compelling listening.

As the Vision 2025 debate heated up that summer, for the first time the opposition to the establishment consensus had a 50,000-watt platform for their message.

And it was that aspect of the DelGiorno show - giving a voice to people whose concerns had been ignored for years - that is his most significant legacy.

Community activists in north, east, west, south, and midtown Tulsa found out that they weren't alone in their frustration with the status quo, and through KFAQ, they started to find each other and support each other's issues.

Coalitions were born. The long ignored and less prosperous periphery of the city began to be heard. Friendships were formed across partisan and racial lines. It's telling that, during his final broadcast, DelGiorno singled out two African-American Democrats, Jack Henderson and Roscoe Turner, as the city officials for whom he felt the most respect and affection.

Issues like zoning and appointments to boards and commissions and airport management weren't on DelGiorno's radar when he began, but he could see the common thread of media bias and the use of government power to benefit the politically connected - the daily paper's tardy acknowledgement of their significant ownership interest in Great Plains Airlines being a prime example.

Here's one way to quantify his impact: Since KFAQ was launched in May 2002, we've had two City Council elections, the only two (so far) in which the daily paper failed to get a majority of its handpicked slate elected. The 2004 election almost went the other way, but DelGiorno used his show to spotlight voter irregularities in Council District 3. The result was a court case, a new election, and Roscoe Turner back on the City Council.

I feel a personal debt to Michael: I first got to know him during the Vision 2025 debate. After the vote, he asked me to come on the show on a weekly basis to track the implementation of Vision 2025. As the 2004 city elections approached, our visits expanded to include all aspects of local government. Those weekly spots attracted the attention of then-UTW reporter G. W. Schulz, and his profile of me led to the opportunity to write this column.

I've often been asked whether his on-air persona is a pretense, a shtick to gin up ratings. For better or worse, Michael's personality, his demeanor, and his opinions never changed when the ON AIR light went dark. His passion for Tulsa was heartfelt - it's his wife's hometown and the birthplace of his kids and was his own home base for a decade and a half.

DelGiorno often expressed his frustration with local leaders who seemed too pleased with themselves over half-measures and irrelevant initiatives while the big, basic issues - crime and infrastructure - continue to go unaddressed.

It was hard for him to have hope in the future of a city that put a priority on building new facilities when we can't afford to maintain what we already own. Why build a new arena and pocket parks and a jazz hall of fame when we can't field enough police officers, fix our streets, keep the expressway lights on, or put water in our pools?

At the state level, he saw the embrace of casino gaming and a state lottery as the first step toward Oklahoma becoming just like his hometown of New Orleans, with all the social dysfunction but minus the Old World charm. Perhaps he understood the risks better because of his own weakness for gambling.

Adding to DelGiorno's frustration with what he saw as a lack of political progress, personal pressures took a toll: A libel lawsuit by City Councilor Bill Christiansen (now in its 20th month, and the pretrial conference won't happen until July 30th), the year-delayed revelation of his expulsion from two Indian casinos in a single day, and the foreclosure on his home.

There had always been humor and playfulness to leaven the earnestness, but those qualities weren't evident much over the last year or so. He was ready to start over somewhere else.

Despite the continual pressure on station management to take him off the air, DelGiorno left on his own terms. His contract was due to expire at the end of 2007, but he had already been investigating other possibilities. In early April, after a visit to WWTN, he requested and Journal granted him an early release from his contract. Two weeks after he accepted the Nashville station's offer, he was doing his last Tulsa broadcast.

WWTN is the highest rated of the two talk stations in the Nashville market, despite the fact that its competition, WLAC, runs the top three syndicated talk shows - Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. DelGiorno's hiring represents his new station's increased commitment to local talk. He's replacing the syndicated G. Gordon Liddy and Bill O'Reilly shows, increasing WWTN's local content from 8 to 12 hours daily.

DelGiorno may seem mild compared to his new stable mates. Morning host Ralph Bristol once hung up on John McCain when the senator seemed to be dodging his questions. Afternoon drive host Phil Valentine is legendary for leading the "Tennessee Tax Revolt of 2002," stopping efforts by a Republican governor and Democratic legislature to impose the state's first-ever income tax. Michael should feel right at home.

More and more drivers are tuning out traditional radio and tuning into narrowcast music stations or national talk shows on satellite radio or programming their own stations on their iPods. Local content may be the only way for analog broadcasting to compete, whether that means local politics or locally programmed, consultant-free music.

Wisely, KFAQ management's understands the value of local content. While the pioneer has moved on (still pulling arrows out of his back), the station remains committed to the mission of "Standing Up for What's Right" and to maintaining a focus on local news and politics.

If DelGiorno's detractors were celebrating at news of his departure, the party didn't last long. His longtime sidekick Gwen Freeman and former Councilor Chris Medlock are the new co-hosts of KFAQ's morning drive, ensuring a continuity of the station's point of view. With Medlock on board, I would expect as much if not more focus on local and state issues. And unlike the competing news/talk station, KFAQ's format will continue to allow time to discuss issues at length and in depth.

Michael DelGiorno could be frustrating. He would let passion get ahead of precision. It could be tough at times to get a word in edgewise. Thoroughly suburban in his outlook, he was never going to see eye-to-eye with me on the importance of a healthy urban core.

But Michael's time at KFAQ opened up the airwaves to voices and issues that never before got a hearing. Although it was time for him to move on, I'm thankful for his time here. Even if you didn't care for his manner or his take on social or religious issues, if you value the richer, broader, more open public discourse we now have in this city, you ought to be thankful, too.

It appears that Mayor Kathy Taylor is waffling on signing the ordinance annexing the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. After the measure passed 5-4, Taylor said that the Council "did the right thing for the right reason." So why, two weeks later, has she still not put her signature on the measure?

One possibility is that she's feeling pressure to veto from individuals who could help or hinder her climb up the political ladder.

If that's so, it's disappointing. Although I didn't support Taylor's election, she had a reputation for decisiveness, and I hoped that a mayor with plenty of her own money would be insulated from the financial and social pressures that afflict politicians of more modest means.

Her first instincts were sound: The Council had the benefit of a great deal of financial analysis by administration and Council staff and came to the conclusion that it was good for the City of Tulsa and would not harm the interests of Tulsa County government. In addition to the five voting in favor, two more councilors indicated that the economic case supported annexation, although constituent concern aroused by the fair board's prophecies of doom kept them from voting yes.

While a mayoral veto might endear her to County officials - at least until the next time they regard a City initiative as a threat to their interests - it would alienate five councilors who risked a considerable amount of political capital to do what they believe to be in the City's best interests.

The Mayor has until Friday to make her decision. I'm still hopeful that she'll make the right one.

Wherein I try to figure out what I need to talk about tomorrow morning on KFAQ:

Tuesday night at 7 p.m. the South Tulsa Citizens Coalition will hold a town hall meeting to discuss the state of their lawsuit trying to stop Jenks and Bixby's deal with Infrastructure Ventures Inc. to build a toll bridge across the Arkansas River. The meeting will be held at Christ Church, 10901 S. Yale. The lawsuit suffered a surprise setback when Judge Gordon McAllister ruled that the 75-year contract between a trust established by the two cities and IVI was not a franchise. Will they appeal or give up and see if the city will step in?

Yard signs all around Woodward Park are advertising a website called stopthechop.net. The petition effort is working to save trees in Woodward Park which have been marked for removal when trimming of branches would be sufficient to protect public safety and the trees' health. One of our city's greatest but underappreciated assets is our canopy of trees. Seen from the air or a tall building, the extent and density of our urban forest is amazing. These trees reduce summer temperatures and cooling costs, improve air quality, act as a wind break, and improve property values. Councilor Cason Carter has taken some ribbing for his proposal to raise private dollars for an urban forestry program focused on city rights-of-way (there already is one for the city's parks), but I think it's a good idea. Expanding our urban forest and maintaining its health is important to the city's "curb appeal" and quality of life.

I also like Carter's proposal to amend the Tulsa City Charter to move city elections to the fall of odd-numbered years. It's a move I've championed for a long time -- it gives new elected officials time to find their feet before the budget process begins, and it helps grassroots candidates by enabling door-to-door campaigning in the summer and fall, rather than the winter when early sunset and inclement weather can interfere with a candidate's efforts to meet the voters.

The State Senate has yet to vote on whether to override Gov. Brad Henry's veto of SB 714, which would have put Oklahoma taxpayers out of the abortion business. The bill passed with a veto-proof majority, but pressure is on eight Democratic senators who voted for the bill to reverse and vote to sustain the veto. Oklahomans for Life is asking us (click to read the action alert in PDF format) to write the Democrats who voted for SB 714 and thank them for their past and future support for the bill. They provide a simple method to e-mail all eight of them at once via this address: Pro-LifeDemocrats@OkForLife.org

A bill designed to bypass anti-charter-school obstructionists on the Tulsa School Board passed the State House last week. SB 661 would expand which governing bodies could grant a charter to create an independently governed but publicly funded school. Cities of over 300,000 population and public universities could also oversee charter schools. The effort was led by Democratic State Rep. Jabar Shumate, who represents part of north Tulsa. His constituents are fed up with being trapped in sub-par schools, and they cannot afford private school tuition. One charter elementary school, the Deborah Brown School, serves the near northside, but the school board is unwilling to let them expand enrollment and unwilling to charter additional schools. When a student enrolls in a charter school, state funding (about $5,000) would follow him from his public school to his charter school.

While SB 661 has passed both House and Senate, there were some legislative maneuvers which mean that the bill is not yet able to go to the Governor. Shumate was the only House Democrat to support SB 661, the only Democrat to put the interests of schoolchildren and their parents ahead of the interests of the education union and the school board association. The bill passed with only 51 votes because a number of Republicans were absent. The bill had passed the Senate by a vote of 34-9 with bipartisan support.

Jeff Shaw also brings news of a hot dog vendor who set up shop next to the daily paper's building on Main Street. I don't know if I've ever heard of someone selling hot dogs in downtown Tulsa in my lifetime, although I've seen them crop up in front of Lowe's and Best Buy stores. (A long time ago, my grandfather would buy tamales from a man who sold them in downtown Bartlesville.)

Another good piece of legislation is waiting for Gov. Brad Henry's signature. SB 507 is a serious, comprehensive tort reform bill that bears a striking resemblance to the recommendation put forward in 2004 by the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs. The OCPA blog lists the key features:

$300,000 cap on rewards for non-economic damage;

Reforming joint and several liabilities rules (eliminate the ability to collect from defendants a award percentage that is much larger than the percentage at which the defendant was at fault);

Limits and uniformity on prejudgment interest;

Requiring expert testimony for medical liability cases;

Collateral source rule reform, (defendants can now take into account how much plaintiff has already been awarded from other sources); and

Strengthen evidence required in court to prove liability and negligence to be awarded punitive damages.

In the final Senate vote, the bill passed by a vote of 25-23, along party lines except for a lone Democrat, Susan Paddack of Ada, voting in favor.

One of the goofiest accusations made in the course of the Fairgrounds annexation debate is that some councilors, specifically John Eagleton, voted for annexation just to make me happy, out of some misguided sense of loyalty.

(Other goofy debating points: I'm for annexation because I have "a bone to pick with the county," and my opinion doesn't matter because I'm not a businessman. Both are ad hominems and neither address the merits of my arguments or the arguments of other annexation proponents. I'll deal with the "bone to pick" in depth some other time, but I will say this: I have never suffered any personal or financial loss or significant inconvenience as a result of a county action -- with one exception. My skepticism about certain aspects of county government is not at all personal, but is grounded in nine years of watching the County Commissioners' actions, particularly the addiction of certain commissioners to non-competitive contracts.)

(The one exception? As a dad, I'm disappointed that my kids won't have an amusement park in town any more.)

There are five members of the Council whom I knew and with whom I was friendly before they became city councilors. If they always did what I wanted, then I would be the uncrowned King of the City Council, a modern-day Robert S. Kerr. But that doesn't happen.

I can think of one vote in particular that was important enough to me that I took the time to come to the Council meeting and speak. It was a zoning case near I-44 in east Tulsa, the part of town where I grew up and where my parents still live. I was there with other east Tulsa residents to ask the Council to deny the zoning request, which would have perpetuated the trashy first impression Tulsa gives to those who arrive by car from the east and northeast. Our side lost, with a couple of my councilor friends voting contrary to my wishes.

If any city councilor listens to me it's not because I can finance their climb up the political ladder. I can't use my massive economic and social clout to ruin them if they crossed me. I can't provide make-work jobs for their relatives. I can't take them to dinner at the Summit Club or for a round of golf at Southern Hills. And to borrow an old blues lyric that Bob Wills borrowed a few times, "I'm not good-lookin'. I don't dress fine. The way I whip it is a hangin' crime."

As was evident last Thursday night, I don't have masses of mind-numbed followers ready to obey my every command. It was pretty much just me and, amazingly enough, Greg Jennings, with whom I have often disagreed in the past, speaking in support of annexation. If the decision Thursday night was a matter of pull, there was a lot more pull on the other side of the issue.

If any of these councilors pays me any mind, it's only because I try to be precise and thorough in what I say about an issue, and sometimes I do a decent job of translating a concept from bureaucratese to plain English.

Bill Martinson certainly didn't communicate with me in composing his rationale in support of annexation. I opposed his first run for office and didn't endorse him in the Republican primary last year. I didn't feed information to the Council staff or the city finance department staff for their thorough research and analyses. Council Attorney Drew Rees did the legal research on the issue of security for the Tulsa State Fair, not me. I had a few conversations with John Eagleton, but I didn't come up with a copy of the Arabian Horse Show contract, or even have the foresight to suggest it to anyone.

If anything, the thoughts I've presented here and in my column owe more to the research and analysis that others did than the other way around. The only original point I contributed to the conversation had to do with the non-financial benefits of annexation, a point that didn't seem to carry a lot of weight in Thursday night's debate. (Which is why my business background is irrelevant to the discussion.)

I guess it's more comforting to annexation opponents to believe that I mesmerized the City Council into bending to my will than to believe that five independent, intelligent councilors came to their own conclusion based on facts and logic, in the face of heavy pressure to set those facts aside.

It took a while, and everybody got to speak that wanted to speak, but the City Council voted 5-4 to approve the ordinance to annex the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. Voting in favor were Henderson, Turner, Barnes, Martinson, and Eagleton; voting against were Westcott, Troyer, Christiansen, and Carter. The emergency clause vote broke the same way, which means it failed -- two-thirds vote would be required to put the annexation into immediate effect. Without the emergency clause, it will go into effect sixty days after the Mayor signs the ordinance.

I'll be on KFAQ at 6:10 in the morning to talk about the debate and the vote, so tune in to 1170 and listen.

I was especially impressed with Councilor Martinson's comments. I've had plenty of disagreements with him on various issues, but his analysis of the pros and cons of annexation was flawless, just as impressive as his analysis of the city's financial constraints. His business and accounting experience is a real asset to the council.

As are the legal expertise and fearlessness of Councilor Eagleton. A highlight of the meeting was when he called fair board member Clark Brewster (the banty rooster) on Brewster's bluffing claim that the increased sales tax rate resulting from annexing the Fairgrounds would constitute a breach of contract with the Arabian Horse Show. Eagleton had the contract in hand, demanded that Brewster cite the paragraph to back up his claim, and then read the clause that clearly contradicted Brewster's claim. Eagleton's diligent digging for facts has diffused several of the bogus arguments leveled against annexation.

UPDATE 4/11: There are two complementary accounts of the City Council debate on annexation in the latest Urban Tulsa Weekly: Brian Ervin's news story on the debate, with details on why various councilors voted the way they did; and my column, on the factors that may influence Mayor Kathy Taylor's decision to sign or veto annexation.

UPDATE 4/18: David Schuttler has posted video on YouTube (thanks, David!) of the exchange between Clark Brewster and John Eagleton regarding the Arabian Horse Show's contract. I had forgotten that it was actually Bill Martinson who interrupted Brewster to ask him how a city action could cause a breach of contract between the fair board and the Arabian Horse Show. Brewster's reply, "The terms of that contract provides [sic] very specifically what their vendors would pay as a matter of tax," led to Eagleton's question, "Clark, which paragraph are you referring to?"

This week in Urban Tulsa Weekly, I take a look back at the decision of the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority last fall to evict Bell's Amusement Park from the Tulsa County Fairgrounds. Although it's not a new story, the way the eviction was handled sheds some light on the question of the City of Tulsa's annexation of the Fairgrounds (to be decided this Thursday night by the City Council), currently an unincorporated enclave surrounded by the City of Tulsa. Expo Square management and TCPFA members have made a number of claims about the effects of annexation, and those claims need to be weighed in light of the board's credibility and transparency -- particularly the credibility of the three TCPFA members who were on the board prior to 2007.

Here's another doubtful decision: Last year the Tulsa State Fair reached the one million attendance mark for the first time in four years. In December, the 2006 Fair won six awards for Marketing and Competitive Exhibits at the International Association of Fairs and Expositions (IAFE) in Las Vegas. Amber Phillips, who was manager of the Tulsa State Fair in 2004, 2005, and 2006, overseeing increased attendance each year, didn't get to enjoy the fruits of her hard work and creativity, because Expo Square CEO Rick Bjorklund had fired Phillips a week earlier. (Officially, her position was eliminated in a "reorganization," but it's not as though they're going to stop having a Tulsa State Fair, and someone has to manage it.)

You can read more commentary and background about the Bell's eviction here (including an interesting look at Bjorklund's career trajectory). And this website has a number of articles on Bell's and other amusement parks in this region, including Frontier City and Joyland in Wichita. Here's his evaluation of what was done to Bell's.