Tulsa County GOP Does Not Endorse Primary Candidates

I just received this letter from the Tulsa County GOP.

Tulsa County GOP Does Not Endorse Primary Candidates

On July 28, 2009 Tulsa Mayor Candidate Dewey Bartlett, Jr. held a news conference announcing endorsements by “leaders” in the Republican Party. This release is intended to clarify that announcement.


The leadership of the Tulsa County Republican Party has not nor will not endorse candidates for any primary race. The information released yesterday was somewhat misleading.


As the Tulsa County Republican Party leadership we are truly excited for the city of Tulsa and the Tulsa Republicans. There is tremendous interest in the future of this City as shown by the number of candidates running for the top job, that of Mayor.


Our goal is to allow all Republicans to become informed with regard to any political race. We have planned a Meet and Greet event for August 4th from 6-8 pm at Central Center located at 1028 East 6th Street.


We encourage all Republicans to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to meet face to face those individuals who desire to hold elected office in Tulsa.


For more information on the election please visit our web site at http://www.tulsagop.org

Sally Bell, Chairman
J.B. Alexander, Vice-Chairman

Lost in Austen - A review from a guy that prefers SciFi

I have general disdain for period books and films like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I'd much prefer to watch Admiral Adama stick it to the Cyclons, as evident my my Netflix queue which is filled with Battlestar Galactia (great show by the way).

The other day, I found a movie called Lost in Austen. It looked like something my wife would like, since she LOVES period books and films like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Being the good husband I am , I added it to the queue for her. I also sat down and watched it with her...and guess what? I liked it. (3 out of 5 stars liked it so don't assume that I'm going to go period films 24/7 or anything).

It's the story of a modern day London girl who lives and breaths Pride and Prejudice. Dissatisfied with her life, and longing for the civility and charm of Jane Austen's love stories, she reads it all the time as a method of escape. A Pleasantville like twist occurs and she trades places with Elizabeth Bennet and enters the fictional world of Pride and Prejudice. She is afforded a new perspective on this world she loves so much, seeing the characters in a way that she had never experienced beofre. Also chaos ensues, and the story gets messed up. Mr. Darcy, Charles Bingley, and Mr. Wickham don't fall in love with the proper people!

My wife loved it. Apparently it was filled with inside P&P jokes. Most of them went over my head, but she explained them to me. My only complaint with this movie was that it was 3 hours long. However, I found it to be an acceptable way for me to learn about my Wife's favorite story without having to read the book, or watch the 6-hour BBC version.

Endorsements for Bartlett ...Who Cares?

This morning Dewey Bartlett Jr. is touting his new endorsements...But lets take a closer look at who these guys are. Then we can ask ourselves if we care

Mike Mazzei - He is from Bixby.
Brian Bingman - He is from Sapulpa.
Dan Sullivan - Sullivan is a Midtowner
Fred Jordan - Remember this guy? He is from Jenks.
Ron Peters - Mid-Town Guy.
Terry Simonson - Simonson works for the County....Chris has come out against County Sales tax...this is not surprising.
Don Burdick - I like Don, but he is a Downtown Booster.
Todd Hiett - He is from Kellyville.

So these guys either aren't From Tulsa, and probably don't have Tulsa's best interests at heart, or are Mid-Town and Downtown power brokers...

Chris is going to represent the parts of Tulsa that aren't mid-town and downtown, and that scares a lot of elites. See past the rhetoric and see these endorsements for what they are...an attempt to keep an elite in the office of Mayor.

Speaking of endorsements, did you know that Bartlett endorsed Democrat Kathy Taylor for Mayor before she dropped out, and before he decided to run? I pulled this off bing.com's cache for Taylor's website (Bartlett's endorsement has since been taken down, cache and this picture are all that's left)

Bartlet didn't seem to concerned with who the Republican nominee was going to be a few months ago when he endorsed Taylor. Is this the kind of Republican you want to be our nominee?

Is Chris Trail a Carpetbagger?

I recently read that Candidate for District 5 city councilor, Chris Trail, may or may not have lived in his new district long enough to qualify as a candidate. Incumbent Bill Martinson filed a complaint with the County Election Board, stating that he had not lived in District 5 the required 90 days prior to filling. Martinson says he became a resident on April 20th, Trail says it is March 26th.

In either case, Trail is an apparent newcomer to District 5. I called and asked him some questions about it. I asked him if he moved to District 5 from Berryhill specifically to run for council. He said “Ohh no, where I work, I’m about 4 miles from work now. It’s really great. With the cost of gas I couldn’t do that dive (anymore).”

I asked if it would be fair to characterize him as a carpetbagger. “I’ve lived in the district before; my parents lived there until a couple of years ago. My sister still lives in The District, I played football for the Whitney Bears, my dad’s very first restaurant was in District 5…my first job was in District 5. I don’t feel like I’m a carpetbagger, I just really care about the citizens of Tulsa and I want to do what’s right there.”

Chris Trail was not a resident of District 5 until April or March, but he says he does have a long history with the district. Trail contends that his run for council was not the motivating factor behind his move to the district. If that is the case, it would seem that he doesn’t technically qualify as a carpetbagger.

Personally it seems a bit suspect to me. When did he decide to run for council (why didn’t I ask that?!). Regardless, I do not think I’d vote for someone unless they had lived in my district for at least 1 year, 3-5 would be better. Nevertheless, what really matters is what the people of District 5 think, and I guess we will find out on Election Day.

Cicada Molting

Last night, just after dusk, I went outside in search of a cicada(locust to some of you) that had not yet molted. I found one, brought him inside and took these pictures and video. Please to enjoy..









I made a video similar to this a few years ago...It's the same thing but it takes about 10 seconds.

Find me a Jury!

My Wife just got in interesting call from a pollster asking her about her attitudes toward, Price Waterhouse, SemGroup, Tom Kivisto, and energy/oil companies in general. She was asked whether or not accounting firms should be financial liable to shareholders for fraud/corruption that they either knew about and didn’t report, or should have known about. Then they wanted to know about her education level.

It sounds to me like Price Waterhouse is getting ready to be sued. I’m guessing that someone is testing the attitudes and opinions of the potential jury pool for a suit in Tulsa. Semgroup went bankrupt so go after the accounting firm right? It worked against Arthur Andersen...

Issues with Tulsa’s Police helicopters

I read on David Schuttler’s blog My Tulsa World that both police helicopters were down. He asked, “Do we need a 3rd police helicopter now?”

I knew that the older helicopter was down. Here is a picture of it taken apart.

This ship was carrying the load of two helicopters in the interim period where we had sold the old one and purchased the new one. As such, it had several deferred maintenance items including the 4000 hour inspection and engine rebuild. This is a major maintenance event, requiring substantial down time.

Having one ship down for the 4000 hour event meant that our new helicopter was carrying the load of both ships. The risk that is run when only one ship is operational is that the second ship might go down, and that is what happened.

I spoke with Officer Jason Willingham, and he told me that there some sort of tail rotor issue. For flight safety reasons, they needed to ground it to make sure that it did not turn into a dangerous problem. Bell has inspected the tail rotor drive shaft which turned out not to be the issue. Unfortunately, more inspection is required before they know what actions are needed, but the current plan is to place it back into service on Monday for in-flight diagnostics.



The engine rebuild on older helicopter is complete and is waiting a few final parts that should arrive this Monday. After a few final inspections it should be in the air hopefully with in the next week or two. Once the newer one has the rotor issue resolved and it checks out, we should be in good shape.

Government Cheese a Hedge Against Inflation

Filed under disturbing, I was just paid a visit by my future-self. He told me several horrible things.


1. Even though I despise Apple and have nothing but contempt for the iPhone, I eventually break down and buy one. I guess it was the only way to get back to 2009 from 2032. With the iPhone 25 if you want to go back in time...There's an app for that!

2. Obama is still the president. Obama finally did what George Bush could not...destroy the Constitution. Great....

3. He did give me some investment advice so it wasn't all bad. While the Dollar does eventually collapse under the weight of out of control spending, it turns out that Government Cheese becomes our new currency. Government cheese becomes a tasty hedge against inflation. It consists of a variety of cheese types and other ingredients such as emulsifiers blended together, and comes in the following denominations: cheddar cheese, Colby cheese, cheese curd, and granular cheese.

4. He told me that I really needed to resist the urge to eat my savings, aside from not really making any financial sense, Government Cheese isn't particularly healthy (some things never change I guess). Under Obamacare there is over a 26 month wait for heart bypass surgeries. I'll start a cardio program now I guess.

5. Of course the most disturbing thing of all was the fact that I'm still bald. Screw bypass surgery, if Obamacare doesn't cover Propecia, what is the point of living anyway?

So there you go...grim news from the 2030s. Has your future-self come back with iPhone in hand? Tell me about it.

Should Sullivan get a free pass?

My congressman, John Sullivan, just got back from rehab for alcohol addiction at Betty Ford. In his announcement he asked for support and prayers, and my initial reaction was to do just that. However, as his time at Betty Ford started to close, I had quite a different reaction. A few days before his treatment was complete, he missed the debate and vote on Cap and Trade. I was rather upset that he was not there for that. It turned out that it did not matter because the margin of victory was such that one vote didn’t matter.

Nevertheless, I could not quite shake my feeling of anger. I read Michael Bates’ column on Batesline hoping that he could show me why I'm being unfair, but it didn't help.

There are some things Sullivan has done that I disagree with, but the vast majority of them, in the grand scheme of things, have been of no real consequence, so I don’t hold it against him. The truth is, as Bates pointed out, he is a good conservative who tows the line on conservative fundamentals, which I can appreciate.

Bates stated that, “It would be wrong to push John Sullivan out the door because he sought rehabilitation for alcoholism.” I agree with that in principle. I am floored that he pushed himself to rehab without being forced to go. He did it because it was the right thing to do, for himself, and for his family. It seems hard to be angry with someone for doing the right thing.

I think what continues to gnaw at me, isn't so much that he wasn’t there for the Cap and Trade bill, It's that he put the first district in a position of not having a representative for 30 days in the first place. I cannot fault him for doing the right thing. However, eventually doing the right thing doesn’t make up for starting off on the wrong foot to begin with.

Perhaps it is unfair to hold a public official to high biblical standards, but this whole situation has got me thinking about my political pragmatism. Should I support someone who falls short of my standards merely because it is good for the party, or because I don't like the other guy, or because I feel like I need to be pragmatic?

No! Unfair or not, these are the standards that people seeking political office should be held to, for a whole host of reasons. I understand that the verses I am going to share are talking about people in positions of leadership in the church, but the Bible was written during a time of totalitarian dictatorship. People did not get to choose their political leaders. These are good principals, therefore, I am going to view all candidates through the lens of 1 Timothy 3:1-10. (with a few changes of my own to make it relevant to politics...again understanding that this verse it talking about church leadership)

1 …Whoever aspires to be an overseer elected official desires a noble task.

2 Now the overseer elected official is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.

5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church his constituents?)

6 He must not be a recent convert new to politics, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil opposition.

7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap.

8 In the same way, deacons political candidates are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain.

9 They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith conservatism with a clear conscience.

10 They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons elected officials.

Based on these standards, perhaps Sullivan should not have been representing us in the first place. Perhaps most, of the folks in politics shouldn’t be representing us. Nevertheless, this leads me to my point. When we start ignoring our principals and start standing on the shifting sands of pragmatism and party first, we will end up with the representation we deserve.

I am not sure whether or not I'll continue to support Sullivan after this. I need to think and pray about it. He has done a courageous thing, and I applauded him for it, but I do not think he is entitled to a free pass.

Baldwin for Office Probably Congressman

Alec Baldwin might run for Congress! I was so excited by the prospect, that I made this campaign video for him. I mashed some inspiring audio from Mr. Baldwin with some music by Whitney Houston. It's really great, and I hope it helps him get elected. I can't wait for Alec to be introduced as Congressman Baldwin!

**Warning Mr. Baldwin drops the S bomb and the GD bomb a few times...so watch out**

Council Database Request....Denied

I recently received a request for a feature to my Tulsa City Council Database; a complete record of every vote of the council. This would be an amazing feature. I can imagine a ton of different queries that I would run if I had that data in my database. It would be pretty sweet.

However, the amount of work it would take to compile, normalize, and enter that data into my DB would be immense. Joseph Bojang suggested that I had a lot of time on my hands, but I don't have that much. Fortunately access to this data does not require a freedom of information act request...It just requires that you have a lot of time on your hands.

Go to the Tulsa City Council Meeting Search page, and look up past meetings. All the data you need/want is contained in the meeting minutes. It's all there...unless you want to go further back than 2007, then perhaps it would require not only a ton of time but also a freedom of information act request.

My Tulsa City Council Database

Using this City of Tulsa link as my source for data, I have created a relational Database in MS Access to define the make up of every council since 1990. I created it to help me glean insights into the amount of experience on each subsequent council after the 1st one in 1990. When I get back from vacation, I’ll look into exporting this into MySQL if anyone is interested.

I did a lot of the data entry by hand, so it is possible that there are errors, report them to me at roemermanonrecord at gmail dot com and I’ll correct them. Also if you want to take a stab at adding your own features, I’ll fold them in to my version…just email me your changes.

Right now it only has data about the council in the DB, but there is no reason why I cant add data regarding budgets, tax packages, censuses data, really anything that is relational to the council…we will work on that in future releases.

Here is the current layout of the tables, queries and some assumptions and constraints.
Tables:
* Council - defines councils from 1990 - today. from swear in date of the council until the swear in of the next one
* Councilors - defines the 40 councilors who have served over the past 19 years
* Council terms - defines the terms of each councilor (hard to look at since it must be linked to the Councilors table)

Queries:
* Council Makeup By Council Num - will tell you who was on each council. Enter 10 for the current council, 1 for the first one
* Total Combined experience By Council - Will tabulate the total experience (in years) of that council at the end of the term.
* Total Council History By Council Num. This is the same query as the previous but it doesn't add up the terms of service. It will show you who is on the current council, and what previous councils they have served on.
* Total Council history - Gives you all the past councils and their makeup all on one big listing
* TotalExp by Councilor - gives you the total experience of any councilor (in years), by name (must be exact)

There are a ton of other queries one could run, this is all I have for now.

Assumptions and constraints:
I credit the current council with an extra year of exp, assuming that they will finish out the term

If you want the avg length of service for any given council, you will have to calculate it yourself. There are several councils that had more than 9 councilors (due to deaths or resignations) so you have to determine what to divide by yourself.

No term is exactly 2 years...They are usually 1.9 years...sometimes a few days over 2 years.

[UPDATE]
Per Jeff Shaw, I've added a query that lets you look up all the councilors from a particular district. (Councilors by Dist)

Staggered Three-Year Terms #1

Once again it is almost time to vote for City of Tulsa Charter Changes. One of the changes that Tulsans will consider will create staggered three-year-council terms. I am opposed to this charter change, and over the course of the next two or three posts, I will be encouraging Tulsans to vote against it.

This charter change affects the terms of office for Tulsa City Councilors in a few basic ways:

Firstly, it increases the term to three years as opposed to the 2 years it has been since 1990.

Secondly, it staggers the elections for the 9 council seats so that every year there will be 3 seats up for grabs. It would group districts 1, 4 and 7 in one group, 2, 5, and 8 in the next, and 3, 6, and 9 in the last group.

Thirdly, and probably the most confusing of the consequences, deals with the initial terms of these groups. In order to stagger these groups successfully, the first election will set up terms of 1, 2, and 3 years. For example, I live in district 7 so if this passes, my councilor will have a 1 year term, then one year later I will vote for my councilor again, but this time for a 3 year term.

Are you still with me? Good, on to my first major problem with this charter change, the staggering. What is the purpose of this staggering? Presumably it is to protect you from yourself. Under the current system, all the seats are up for grabs at the same time. Heaven forbid if the silly electorate tossed out the entire council in favor of freshmen councilors. If we were inclined to be foolish enough to toss the entire council out on their collective…seats…there would be no one left that had any experience. Wouldn’t that just be a travesty? This staggering keeps us from taking such drastic and stupid action. It protects the integrity and continuity of the council.

At least I presume that is their thinking. The hubris required to come up with this plan is astonishing. It does not protect us from ourselves, what it really does is protect the council. It makes them freer to take positions that are contrary to the will of the people, with only a 1 in 3 chance of incurring the immediate wrath of the citizens of Tulsa.

Regardless of how you feel about protecting the integrity and continuity of the council, a brief look at history shows us that this change is unnecessary. It seems to ignore how Tulsans have historically voted for their councilors. Except for the very first Tulsa City Council way back in 1990, every subsequent council has enjoyed a core group of senior counselors with prior experience.

Taking the past three councils as examples proves my point. The current council only has two freshman councilors (Bynum and Gomez). It has three sophomore councilors (Westcott, Eagleton, and Troyer), and the rest have served three or more terms in office! (Patrick, Henderson, Martinson, and Christiansen) Assuming that these councilors serve the rest of their term, when it comes time to vote on this charter change, our current council will have over 41 years of combined experience!

This council is by no means an anomaly; the previous council had two sophomore councilors, two with three more terms and over 30 years of combined experience

The council before that? 42 years of combined experience and only three freshman councilors.

I could go on, but I won’t; you can see the data for yourself by downloading this MS access Database I created to help with my research. I have a few other problems with this change, but I’ll get to them in another post.

The bottom line, that this change is not necessary. If it aint’t broke? You got it…don’t fix it.

Read part 2.