Laura Roslin can, Sarah Palin can too.

This morning while I was riding my motorcycle, I was thinking about McCain's VP nod Sarah Palin, and how some say she doesn't have the experience necessary to be the president. It occurred to me that that was bogus, because if former Secretary of Education Laura Roslin can step up to lead the remnants of the 12 Colonies against the Cylons, surely Sarah Palin could lead our country, especially after serving as VP under Saul Tigh...err, I mean John McCain.


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BOK Grand Opening

I drove my motorcycle downtown this morning to attend the BOK Center Grand Opening festivities. Garth Brooks, Hanson, Cesar Pelli (the architect), droves of public officials, and of course Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor were all on hand to officially open our new arena.

It was neat to see the inside of the arena and eat about 20 bucks worth of food for 4 dollars. I even was able to procure a piece of the official ribbon from the cutting ceremony. So, I had a good time. I took several pictures which can be found here. Or you can just enjoy these.









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New South Tulsa Bridge Developments

I received this email from the STCC(South Tulsa Citizens Coalition)

STCC has learned that the City of Jenks along with one of Oklahoma’s Indian tribes is a week or so away from announcing a new plan to construct the South Tulsa bridge. STCC has contacted both Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor and Tulsa City Councilor Bill Christiansen regarding this recent development and both public officials informed STCC that the City of Tulsa has unfortunately not been contacted by the City of Jenks to assist in developing the new bridge plan. Further, STCC has unfortunately not been contacted by the City of Jenks to assist in developing the plan. From STCC’s standpoint, any new bridge plan must include (1) the City of Tulsa’s participation in and equitable sharing of any revenues derived from the bridge, (2) the financing and construction of the infrastructure necessary to handle the future bridge traffic and (3) the northern connection point of the bridge being Riverside Drive.

As always, STCC appreciates your support and we will keep you advised of any new developments.

South Tulsa Citizens Coalition

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BOK Center: Family Fun?

I think the BOK Center is beautiful. I disagree some who say it looks like a toilet, or a roll of duct tape, or whatever else. I'm captivated by it. Even though I think it was a mistake to build it with tax dollars, and that it will ultimately be a drain on Tulsa's resources, I hope against hope that it will succeed.

To that end, I'd love to do my part to help it succeed by going to as many events as I can. Looking over the list of upcoming events, there are several that I'd love to take my family to. However, at 20-30 bucks a pop, for the cheep seats, I simply can't afford to go. I can't take my family to the center for anything less that $125, plus parking, plus concessions, I'd be lucky to get home for for under $150-$200. That is a weeks worth of groceries!

So it appears that I wont be helping this arena succeed. I suspect that there are several families in the Tulsa Area that will look at the cost and come to the same conclusion. Which is unfortunate since we helped pay to have it built. Perhaps after the banner year, when it is likely to start losing money, they will drop the ticket prices.

I do however plan to attend the grand opening this weekend. I can certainly afford free parking, free admission, and $1 concessions.

I've taken several pics of our new arena, and plan to take several more, You can see them here.

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Mayor Force One's Carbon Footprint

I was discussing Mayor Taylor’s jet with some friends, specifically how I had been able to determine all the flights her plane had taken since Jan 1 of this year. During the conversation, someone wondered what her jet's carbon footprint was. I thought that was an interesting question. Typically I don’t care about such things, but I know a lot of people are very concerned with carbon emissions, so I figured I’d take a stab at figuring it out.

The first step was to figure out how many hours Mayor Force One has operated, between Jan 1st, and Aug 20th (the data I have). I came up with 196.6833 hours. This is actually not correct, because there are some flights that I know are missing in my data, and there are others where the flight time was not recorded, but it is probably not too far off.

Second, determine how much fuel a Learjet 31a consumes per hour. According to this website its 632.2 liters/hr or 167 gallons/hr. So we can estimate that her jet has consumed at least 32846.12 gallons of Jet A so far this year.

The third step is to determine how much carbon dioxide is produced when burning that amount of fuel. According to this EPA site, one gallon of Jet fuel produces 21.095 pounds of CO2, so that means that her plane has produced 692,888.901 pounds or 346.44 tons of CO2.

What does this all mean? I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t normally care about such things, especially since I don’t believe that global warming is caused by people. However Mayor Taylor seems to be concerned about it. Apparently the Brookings Institute has reported that Tulsa and OKC have high per capita carbon footprints.

Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor believes that Tulsa is in the forefront of cities which are tackling issues related to greenhouse gas emissions. “Our residents appear ready to make the behavioral changes that are required,” Taylor said.

Speaking of behavioral changes, perhaps she could help by flying her jet less.

On a related topic. I’ve been thinking about purchasing a carbon debt from these guys. For five bucks they will cut down a tree in your honor and send you a send you a certificate for one carbon debt…NO JOKE.


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BOK Center Construction

I've been taking pictures of the BOK Center from the 11th floor of the old Tulsa City hall since May 2007, unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to start my series at ground breaking, but I still got a rather nice progression of construction all the way to completion (on the outside at least).












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FOIA Request Update

Speaking of things that are moot, about a month ago I teased you with a vague description of a Freedom of information Act Request that I had filed. While I'm still going to see where my request goes, it is largely moot, because I found another way to get my data.

As you may well aware, Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor in previous months has used her private jet, or Mayor Force One, to ferry councilors on a whirl wind tour of other city's ball parks and to bring Councilor David Patrick back to Tulsa for an important vote. Mayor Taylor decided that she did not want us tracking her jet via this site, and had that tracking blocked, or shut down.

Now I don't particularity care where Mayor Taylor takes her jet. For the most part I think that is her private business, but when she uses that jet for public purposes on grounds that are ethically questionable, I think she loses that right to privacy. FightAware argues that there isn't really a right to privacy in the first place.

The aircraft being displayed on FlightAware are operating in public airspace. They are arriving and departing from airports with their identification number painted on the aircraft. They are broadcasting their whereabouts and intentions on public radio frequencies. They are all using services provided by the United States federal government Accordingly, this information is completely public in many forms.

I didn't like that we were blocked from this information, I think we have a right to know where she took her plane, and if she continues to use it to ferry public officials, I think we deserve the right to continue to know where she takes her jet. So I filled a FOIA Request to the FAA to get that data. To that end I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the request has not been fulfilled yet, and I expect it to take a few more months. The good news is that it doesn't matter, because I have found a new way to track Mayor Force One.

I have retrieved a list of every flight from the 20th of this month to Jan 4 of 2008. I could go back further, if I wanted, but I figured that was close enough. I've provided that list to Chris Medlock, and my fellow Tulsa Bloggers for their own analysis. I have compiled a list of several flights that I think are suspect, or in other words, here are some flights that I think might have had councilors on them. I was going to publish the entire list, but my wife didn't think that was very nice.

A couple of points about the list I'm providing. 1 the times are in GMT. 2. The nature of the data is such that all legs of the trip aren't always recorded, so in the case of the July 10th trip to pick up David Patrick, I only have one leg. 3. you can go here to look up airport codes.

So without further ado, here is the list of suspect flights.

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Kathy Taylor
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Was Tonight's Council Meeting Moot?

[UPDATE]This entire post is moot...Chris Medlock did some additional digging into this issue and he found out that the Council has started taking silent rolls. So there is no issue here. I'll post my comments about the meeting tonight when I have some time review my notes.[UPDATE]

Tonight's council meeting was one of the better council meetings in recent history. There was actual disagreement and strong debate. The debate of course was over whether the city should put fourth on the November ballot a street package of 12 years and 2 billion dollars or a package that takes 5 years and 900 million dollars.

I found the debate terribly interesting, and I took a lot of notes that I was going to use to provide you with a rundown of the meeting. Ultimately the 12 year package won, but was the entire meeting moot?

I attended the meeting in person, while at the same time I set the meeting on my DVR for later review. After the pledge and prayer I was preoccupied with setting up my laptop, getting my camera ready, and getting settled. Despite my lack of total attention, I noticed that Councilor Eagleton, the Chairman of the council, seemed to skip the call to order, and the receipt and filing of the minutes from last week. I thought to my self, "Did he bring the meeting to order? I don't think he did...huh, I guess I just wasn't paying attention." But when I got home and reviewed the beginning of the meeting I was shocked to discover that indeed he did not bring the meeting to order, 1a and 1b (receipt and filing of the minutes) were pulled from the agenda so no harm there, but he definitely did not call the meeting to order.

What does that mean? I don't know. Does that mean the meeting was moot? I suspect that Councilor Christiansen, chief opponant of the 12 year plan, could make that argument. We will see what happens.

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Barack Roll

Enjoy...



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Rick Roll

If you build it...

...they will come.

Or so says the invitation to the BOK Center Grand Opening Weekend.



Here is hoping that they are right.

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South Fork Joe Creek Cost Overrun Update

Last week I reported the cost overrun of the South Fork Joe Creek stormwater channelization improvement project. A change in scope was the primary reason for the overrun of over 50%. A commenter wanted to know who was responsible for approving such a large change. Today would be the first time I had had an opportunity to talk to the Pubic Works employee who gives us updates on stormwater projects. To that end, I had promised an answer by the end of the day, and while I don't have an answer to the specific question, I do have more information.

As with most Third Penny projects, this project was not designed before the vote. The the ordinance amount was determined based on an estimate of what it would take to box and bury the creek, the original plan. As part of the design process many neighborhood meetings held and it was determined that the neighborhood didn't want to lose the entire creek. Also, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mandated that the city not bury the entire creek, and that a certain amount of the creek had to be preserved. Apparently they did not want to lose it either. The change in scope was a fairly large one which required a 404 permit from the Corps and the purchase of a couple of houses to accommodate.

I did not get as far as who was the responsible for approving the change in scope. I figured that it was a rather moot question if the Corps required the change. It is hard to know exactly what would have happened had it not been for that requirement by the Corps. I don't know if such a change in scope would have occurred with neighborhood input alone. I hope that was a good enough answer to the question.

I'm more than willing to research any other Tulsa Third Penny or bond project question that y'all might have. Send me an email at roemermanOnRecord at gmail dot com, or use the Call Me button to the right to contact me.

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South Fork Joe Creek Cost Overrun

One of the duties of the Tulsa Sales Tax Overview Committee is to alert the Council of projects with substantial cost overruns. The South Fork Joe Creek project is one such project. Here is the portion of the report to the council that outlines the cost overrun of this project.

As required by ordinance, the Sales Tax Overview Committee is charged with notifying the City Council of any projects that exceed the ordinance amount by a margin greater than or equal to 15%. A contact for the construction of the South Fork Joe Creek project was recently executed for $11,897,000 dollars and the original ordinance amount for the project was $5,000,000. The project has experienced design changes, substantial right-of-way cost increases, construction cost escalations, and additional sanitary sewer relocation costs due to the design changes.

To the best of my understanding, here is the Reader's Digest version of why this happened. The citizens in the neighborhood were unhappy with the original design as it would have destroyed part of the creek that they had grown to love. They asked that the project be re-designed in such a way as to keep that portion of the creek open. This required a significant scope change and resulted in the current cost overruns.

I'm satisfied that the these overruns are not the result of mismanagement or oversight. Furthermore, were I in the neighborhood around South Fork Joe Creek, I would have made the same objections to the design.

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The Sly Fox of Tulsa

Last night I rode my motorcycle downtown to take some pictures, when I ran into a fox by the river parks. Now, running into a sly fox downtown is by no means out of the ordinary, except when it really is a fox...for real.

Stay out of city hall Mr. Fox!!! We have enough politicians downtown who are adept at raiding the storehouse as it is!

Here are some of the other pics I took last night, click to embiggen.





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