Was Bartlett a Member of Tulsans for Better Government?

The short answer, technically he was not actually an active member of the group. The long answer is much more complicated.

One of the primary reasons I have been so opposed to Dewey Bartlett Jr. was my belief that he was a member of the Tulsans for Better Government. This is the group that pushed for at-large councilors, and for non-partisan local elections.

I had good reason to think he was a member:
A Tulsa World article (from 2005)
Their website (now archived) (from 2006)
A Batesline article (2005)

Last Sunday, I was a part of a small group who met with Mr. Bartlett to ask him questions (This will be another post).  I told Mr. Bartlett that one of my primary concerns regarding his candidacy was his involvement with the Tulsans for Better Government.  I told him that I found the idea for at-large councilors extremely concerning.  The implication in my statement was that I could not support anyone who wanted to take control of the City Council in a way that would focus power in downtown and midtown, and disenfranchise the other parts of the city.

What he said, shocked and confused me. With regard to his involvement with Tulsans for Better Government, he said that he did not know about the at-large councilor push, that it was tendered without his knowledge. He suggested that he was asked to joined the group years ago but never really had anything to do with them, and certainly had nothing to do with the idea of at-large councilors. I asked him what he thought of at-large councilors and he said the he did not think it was a good idea, and that our form of government should not be changed.

I found that extremely hard to believe. Later I told his campaign manager that I would need a lot more information. A few days later he claimed that Dewey Bartlett was never a member of the Tulsans for Better Government.  With seemingly conflicting information out of the Bartlett campaign I had to do some investigative work.

I reached out to some known members of the Tulsans for Better Government. I contacted Steve Schuller and Ted Sherwood directly, and I had indirect information from John Brock.

The story that I've been able to piece together is that Bartlett was contacted by some unknown person within the group asking that he lend his name to their cause, presumably to lend credence to their petition for at-large councilors. Schuller and Sherwood told me that he never had any other interaction with the group, that he was not an active member.

Bartlett claims that he really had no knowledge of the at-large councilor idea, that he thought he was signing up for "one of these kind of good government uhh, let's help somebody get elected" groups.

While it is good that Bartlett is seemingly on the right side of the at-large councilor issue, and while it is good to find out that Bartlett was not really a part of this Tulsans for Better Government group, I'm still rather disturbed my two nagging problems I have with this entire ordeal.

1.  Remember that Bartlett was on that very first city council back in 1990.  While I wasn't living in Tulsa at the time, I'm told that the push away from the city commissioner form of government toward the form of government we have now was a rather contentious issue.  Bartlett was a part of this change, he was there on day one and should be sensitive toward any change to the form of government.  Tulsans for Better Government was formed in 2005 for the express purpose of pushing for at-large councilors, so if we assume that since Bartlett claims he didn't know anything about the at-large councilor idea, it means that he let his name be used with out knowing what it was for.  I would like to know what he was told, but if it was anything like what Randi Miller was told when she let her name get used, red flags should have gone off in his mind and he should have gotten more information before he let his mid-town buddies use his name.

2. In 2005, when the story about the Tulsans for Better Government and their push for at-large councilors broke, it was a huge deal. Anyone who was paying even just a little bit of attention to local politics knew about this. Bartlett's name was in the paper associated with this change. A huge stink was made, and a rather large group of people from all over the city, from all political ideologies, and from all walks of life rose up and fought this. If he didn't understand what he had lent his name to in the beginning, I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that he didn't figure it out afterward. Why didn't he call for a retraction? Why didn't he ask to have is name removed from the Tulsans for Better Government's website? Dewey Bartlett Jr should have known better but instead he was silent.

Again, this became a major campaign issue in this year's primary, yet as far as I know, Bartlett did nothing to correct the record. His involvement may have at first just been incredibly naive, however, by doing nothing to distance himself from this group in 2005 or earlier this year makes him complicit in my mind. So I'm  right back to where I started before I knew that Bartlett really wasn't a part of the Tulsans for Better Government.

I see a man who unwittingly let his name be used in an effort to disenfranchise most of the city, presumably because one of his mid-town buddies suckered him into doing so. I'm not sure if that is not worse than being an unapologetic member of the group.