Tulsa City Hall: March 2020 Archives

On Tuesday, March 17, 2020, Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV issued an executive order closing down dine-in service for all restaurants and shutting all bars, theaters, gyms, and recreational facilities in response to the Wuhan Bat Virus / COVID-19 pandemic. (Original link here. FAQ here.) Restaurants may offer take-out, drive-through, and delivery service. Institutional and business cafeterias may remain open. The dining facilities past security at the airport, soup kitchens, groceries, health care and childcare facilities are are among the exemptions.

The order mentions the pandemic declaration by the World Health Organization, and the emergency declarations by President Trump on March 13, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt on March 15, and by himself on March 16. The authority cited for the order:

Tulsa Revised Ordinances Title 8, Section 100 (G) provides that the Mayor, after proclaiming a civil emergency may in the interest of public safety and welfare make "Such other orders as are imminently necessary for the protection of life and property.

The closures took effect at 11:59 p.m. March 17 and will remain in effect indefinitely. Restaurants without their own off-street parking can request the city to designate an adjacent on-street parking space for curbside pickup. Restaurants will be able to allow customers to enter to place an order to go, but won't be allowed to sit down. Bars that serve food will be able to provide the same takeout service, but only for food. (No margaritas to go.) Retail stores may remain open.

As of 9:15 a.m. Oklahoma had 17 verified cases of coronavirus, with 247 negative tests, and 82 test results pending. That's almost double in the course of 24 hours. These are people who have been asymptomatic until very recently, going to church, going to work, shopping, hanging out in bars, giving you a hug, or shaking your hand.

The US is now ahead of the curve of growth in cases that Italy experienced. If you make a graph of COVID-19 infections vs. days, the US is about 11 days behind Italy. (Think of it like comparing your kids on a growth chart. I can tell by comparing my youngest son's height on each birthday to my oldest son's height on the same birthday that my youngest is on track to be taller than the oldest when he's fully grown.) Last week it was observed that the US curve matched the Italian curve almost exactly, but now the US infection numbers are rising faster than the Italian numbers.

Katherine Wilson, an American mother living in Rome, offered some advice yesterday to American parents:

The virus has ravaged our country. Hospitals in the north are on the verge of collapse. Intensive-care units are full of people who are elderly, but also people who are 40 and 50. The streets are empty, and restaurants are closed. You have to have an authorization paper to walk your dog.

Only 10 days ago in Rome, this wasn't the case. The government had closed schools and most sporting facilities, but nothing else. Our teenagers were socializing in the evening with their friends. Kids had time on their hands and were healthy and well rested. Did we, as parents, really want them at home on their screens, where they'd been all day?...

Our teens were going stir-crazy at home. Their friends were going out, and the government hadn't told us to restrict their activities. So, reasoning that this was a disease that didn't strike teenagers, we told them to wash their hands and unleashed them onto the sidewalks and piazzas, into other people's cars and homes....

The only thing that could have prevented -- or mitigated -- this tragedy in Italy is social distancing.

I'm not talking about a high-five instead of a handshake, or grandchildren not hugging their grandparents. I'm talking about not being close to another human being who is not your immediate family. This is the only available and effective measure to help slow the transmission of the disease.

When your teen complains that other parents are letting their kids go out and party, your reply should be something along the lines of "Where are my Beats?" Tune them out.

If in a few weeks reality reflects that you were too conservative, then hallelujah.

Wilson urges parents not to worry about screen time, not to hoard supplies, to get anyone traveling back home as soon as possible because of the possibility of travel restrictions, to find fun things to do together as a family, and not to get obsessive about the news.

In about 10 days we shall be able to see clearly how widespread the disease is, as infections become symptomatic, and shall be in a better position to know who is safe to be out and about and who is not. Social distancing now, while the infection is present but not yet symptomatic, gives us the best shot at protecting our loved ones.

MORE:

Sydney Morning Herald reported on March 13, 2020, on the physical effects of the Wuhan Bat Virus:

But when it's bad, it can mount an attack on the whole body - and start a storm in the lungs.

How it plays out depends on the two factors important to any invasion: the strength of your defences and the strength (or dose) of what you've been hit with....

As the body fights off the virus, inflammation starts in the lungs and can sometimes develop into pneumonia. In more severe cases - about 14 per cent - breathing becomes difficult as blood vessels leak and fluid builds up, restricting the lungs' ability to pump oxygen through the body. Patients might need a ventilator to breathe. A secondary bacterial infection might also hit, requiring antibiotics....

At the World Health Organisation, assistant director-general Bruce Aylward warns when danger strikes, it's often fast-moving. Doctors report patients can go downhill quickly during those "critical" second and third weeks and urge people with or suspected to have the virus to monitor their symptoms, particularly their breathing and fever....

As the immune system ramps up its defences, blood vessels start to leak and the lungs can be flooded with cellular debris, making it harder for them to pump oxygen to the rest of the body - and harder for patients to draw breath. "They start to drown," Professor Collignon says.

Falling blood oxygen levels put pressure on other organs, in particular the heart. More systems can start to fail, and blood pressure too, which, if it falls low enough can tip the body into septic shock, a whole-body infection....

Whatever your personal vulnerability, the dose of virus you first receive - say, from touching a contaminated door knob versus caring for an infected person over several days - also plays a big part in how your body copes. "The higher the dose the faster you will get sick, and the harder it will be on you," Professor MacIntyre says.

That could explain why otherwise young and healthy medical workers have died from the disease. Li Wenliang, the 34-year-old doctor who blew the whistle on early cases of COVID-19, went through a gamut of treatments after falling ill himself, including antivirals, antibiotics, even having his blood pumped through an artificial lung, but he died weeks later. As with SARS, clusters of severe infection are emerging in hospitals and households as people come into sustained close contact.

UPDATE 2020/04/27: CCP Bat Virus has delayed the Tulsa City Council's final vote on the new animal ordinance, which is now set for the regular council meeting on May 11, 2020, 5 p.m., at City Hall. If you raise backyard poultry in the City of Tulsa, if you sell feed and equipment to people who do, if you have expertise in animal husbandry, or if you simply think government shouldn't block Tulsans from growing their own food in their own backyards, please volunteer to speak at the City Council meeting. As you'll read below, the "blue-ribbon commission" that rewrote the animal ordinance did not include anyone with expertise in this area and ignored the information that was provided to them by knowledgeable members of the public. This is a chance to make the case directly to those who will make the decision. Tina is hoping to have at least a half-dozen speakers, but the more the merrier.

Tina writes, "If you are willing but don't know what you'd say, I can help you. All last year I laid out information for the Mayor's commission, handing them dozens of pages of evidence that our ordinances for chickens are unreasonable currently, with footnotes, and we were soundly ignored. The commission has handed their recommendations (utterly unchanged by our recommendations) to the City Council, who will be voting to keep things restrictive if we don't show up and inform them of all the things they are not considering. This is our last stand. This is our Alamo (we probably won't die, though). I have information I can put in your hands to allow you to speak for up to 5 minutes, knowledgeably, confidently, and maybe make a difference in Tulsa for backyard poultry owners." Contact Tina through Facebook to volunteer.

Earlier this year, Tina Nettles, a resident of the Hoover neighborhood and a good friend of our family's, wrote to me about her eye-opening experience in dealing with bureaucrats and board members at Tulsa's City Hall. Tina raises a small number of chickens in her backyard, as do many other Tulsans, and she got involved in providing input to a city board that has been rewriting Tulsa's animal ordinance. What she learned is something that many other Tulsans have experienced when they attempt to participate in city public hearings -- City Hall doesn't want your expertise or your input if you're not wealthy or well-connected.

Former Mayor Susan Savage, who has lived in the Money Belt for as long as I am aware, and who as mayor had a documented problem appointing people outside the Money Belt to authorities, boards, and commissions, is the chairman of the Tulsa Animal Welfare Commission which headed up this rewrite. Four of the five members of the commission live in the Money Belt; three in the midtown portion. As far as I can determine, none of the commissioners live northeast of 71st and Harvard, north of 21st Street, or west of the river, and none are involved in agriculture. Home values range from $234,000 to $523,308. (Zillow's current estimate of Tulsa's median home value is $127,893.) Three commissioners are registered Democrats (Savage, Robin Flint Ballenger, Cordell Dement) and one of the registered Republicans, Teresa Burkett, only has contributions to Democrats and to ActBlue in the FEC's database of federal campaign contributions. (The other Republican is Christine Kunzweiler, a small-animal veterinarian who also happens to be the wife of District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler.)

Savage and Burkett presented the proposed revisions to the Tulsa City Council's Urban and Economic Development committee this past Wednesday, March 11, 2020, with Savage doing nearly all of the talking. Ballenger was also present but not at the table. The legislation had a First Reading at that night's City Council meeting (a formality, with no discussion), with a scheduled Second Reading scheduled for March 25, 2020. Here is the draft ordinance to be considered by the City Council, with backup material. Here is a local copy of the draft ordinance (50 MB PDF) which has been OCRed.

You can watch the video of the 50-minute committee presentation here. Councilors Cue, Decter Wright, Fahler, Hall-Harper, Lakin, and McKee were present, but only Hall-Harper and McKee had any substantial comments, and only McKee mentioned agricultural animals, specifically relaying constituent interest in raising goats in residential neighborhoods. Savage made reference to public comment, but it seems to have had no affect on the proposed changes. When Savage acknowledged the input of subject-matter experts, she referred specifically to the city's legal department and the Tulsa Planning Office -- in other words, the only expertise they wanted involved legal enforceability and compatibility with zoning laws, not expertise on animal agriculture in an urban context. No one from the public was invited to speak. The council did not review the legislation at all; once Savage's presentation was over, the council moved on to the next agenda item without (as far as I could see) voting on whether to advance it.

The revised animal ordinance has been placed on the March 25, 2020 May 11, 2020, 5 p.m., Tulsa City Council agenda. Now is the time to contact your city councilor (dist#@tulsacouncil.org, replace # with your district number 1 through 9) to urge them to listen to Tulsa citizens with hands-on experience raising chickens and other agricultural animals. (UPDATE 2020/04/27: Date changed to reflect the city's CCP Bat Virus lockdown.)

Here (and continuing on the jump page) are Tina Nettles's observations on the process of rewriting Tulsa's animal welfare ordinance. The accompanying photos are courtesy of Tina Nettles and show her hens and a collection of the eggs they've laid.

Monday December 2, 2019
10th floor, One Technology Center,
Tulsa City Hall
Tina Nettles

I'd stood before this microphone every month for the last five months with no difficulty, but tonight was so different, in the worst possible ways.

No fan of speaking in front of crowds, I hadn't suffered from this debilitating condition, of the dry mouth and the pounding adrenaline, the sound of my heartbeat whooshing behind my eardrums, until tonight. I literally felt the room was spinning around me and I clutched the lectern with trembling hands to try and make it all go still. What made this one moment feel like it was suddenly running in slow motion, with the whole universe coming unraveled as I struggled to connect even two sensical words together?

My eyes were finally open to how my nice little midwestern city's government had never been what I thought it was - the very picture of red-state conservativism, with minimal interference into the daily lives of its citizens. No. That's not what I was watching unfold before my eyes. Minutes before, the head of the commission had moved that the current wording of the chicken ordinances be voted on and passed to the city council in the near future, before we had even reached tonight's public comment, with no regard to what we had advised in all the months leading up to this moment, nor regard for what we were about to further advise.

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