Great Plains Airlines: July 2009 Archives

I'm swamped at the moment, but there's plenty of interesting blogging elsewhere around Tulsa. Here are just a few examples:

Mayoral candidate Chris Medlock writes that the Tulsa World buried the story of his opponent, Dewey Bartlett, Jr., voting in support and praising Kathy Taylor's dodgy settlement on the Great Plains Airlines loan -- a settlement that cost Tulsa taxpayers $7.1 million that they didn't owe (emphasis added):

Dewey Bartlett (R) was named to the Airport Board by Kathy Taylor (D). Kathy Taylor thennames former airport Marketing Director Mary Smith (R) to the Airport Board to replace Carl Clay (R) who was an outspoken critic of the Great Plains/BOk settlement. Mary Smith was part of the team that sold Great Plains Airlines to the public, when they went after and secured $30 million in state tax credits. Mary Smith is now Bartlett's Campaign Treasurer!

Please understand, that what Dewey did was to help the current Democrat mayor (Kathy Taylor) brush under the table the single biggest scandal of the previous Democrat mayor (Susan Savage). The Bartlett campaign team made up two-fifths of the vote that needlessly gave away our property taxes to the tune of $28 for every man, woman and child in the city, and he won't even respond to the Tulsa World, who will do everything to put his response in the most positive of lights? Don't you think it's time for KRMG and KFAQ to invite Bartlett back on the air to respond to this action in this giveaway, as well as his support of Kathy Taylor's re-election before the Republicans had selected a candidate?

Listen to Pat Campbell's interview of Chris Medlock on Dewey Bartlett Jr. and Great Plains from this morning's show.

Steven Roemerman asks whether District 5 council challenger Chris Trail is a carpetbagger. (More about Trail and the District 5 campaign for the seat currently held by Bill Martinson when I have some time to write.)

In non-political news:

Jeff Shaw recommends La Hacienda and has photos of a day at the Tulsa Zoo.

Tyson Wynn has a YouTube video of clips of Bob Wills, going all the way back to performing "Take Me Back to Tulsa" in his first movie, Take Me Back to Oklahoma.

Brandon Dutcher celebrates the appearance of homeschooled college football star Tim Tebow on the cover of Sports Illustrated and links to an article about New Urbanists who are vocal supporters of school choice.

A lot of Tulsans were outraged last summer when Mayor Kathy Taylor allowed the City of Tulsa to be added as a defendant in the Great Plains Airlines loan default case -- the Bank of Oklahoma's suit against the Tulsa Airport Improvements Trust -- then, within less than a day, agreed to settle said suit for $7.1 million. (If you've forgotten what that was all about, click through that link.)

What you may not know is that mayoral candidate Dewey Bartlett and his campaign treasurer, Mary Smith, as members of TAIT, also approved that $7.1 million settlement, with Bartlett praising Mayor Taylor for finding a way to get the City to cough up the money -- money that the City of Tulsa did not owe and money that is being paid by an increase in your property taxes. The Tulsa Beacon has the story in its current issue.

The story provides a quote from Bartlett at the TAIT meeting:

"It's something we need to do and I applaud the mayor and the Bank of Oklahoma for working out a deal... a lot of work went into this thing. It was a waste of energy. It's a new day and that's good news.

Here's the video of the entire seven-minute special meeting. The video has annotations to explain who the people at the meeting are, what they're doing, and the context of financing Great Plains Airlines -- the defunct airline that was supposed to provide non-stop service from Tulsa to both coasts.

Bartlett's question, "Is there any land involved?" is a reference to the original collateral used to secure the loan which BOk guaranteed -- a convoluted deal that the FAA inspector general condemned. There were several different parties that should have taken the financial hit for agreeing to this deal for financing GPA but none of them did. Instead it fell back, unjustly, on Tulsa's taxpayer, thanks to the conniving of the mayor that Dewey Bartlett endorsed for re-election.

The attitude that comes across in the video is, "All that matters is that all the big shots have their butts covered. Who cares about the taxpayer?"