Tulsa Topics

Today was a little different than normal. It started off with an email from the Chairman of the Tulsa GOP sent at the request of State Senator Randy Brogdon. Here's the context of the email:

This is being sent to you by request of State Senator Randy Brogdon.

I'm State Senator Randy Brogdon and Im asking for your help. Please sign the Taxpayers Bill of Rights Petition.

Join me as we send a strong message to Governor Henry and the State Legislature to STOP OVER SPENDING OUR MONEY!!!

There are only two weeks left for you to make your concerns known by signing the petition

Stop by our local office at 3323 E 51st Suite L located at 51st and Harvard, next to Bodeans seafood---or call 712-9600.

You can go by and sign the petition and pick extras up to distribute to your friends.

We cannot let Governor Henry and the liberal democrats defeat this effort.

Tell them Senator Randy Brogdon sent you by----

And you want the Legislature to STOP OVER SPENDING.

Please don't wait, your help is needed today!

I'm a firm believer that Oklahoma needs a Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR), so I decided to make a trip over to the office on 51st Street. Bodeans seafood is just a hop, skip, and a jump from my neck of the woods. The "local office" was inhabited by a group called "policticalactivists.org" and actually had three petitions on location. I've driven by the place a number of times and thought it was just another temporary employment service, but in fact they're a fairly well organized "political activist" group for hire. Here's some info from the politicalactivists.org website homepage:

"At politicalactivists.org we are a non partisan organization dedicated to putting conservative issues on the ballet for voter approval. In just a year and a half we’ve helped with both George W. Bush's and John Kerry's Presidential campaigns, Republication and Democratic voter registration drives, more than two dozen state initiatives including Arnold Schwartznegger's, constitutional amendments, referenda and even a plebiscite. We also aided in the execution of The Building Environmental Communities (501c3) and The Environmental Voter Education Campaign (527) in association with The Democratic National Committee, America Coming Together, and The Sierra Club. In addition, we helped The Rock the Vote campaign in registering 1.4 million voters for the 2004 Presidential election."

Like I said earlier, there were three petitions present at their local office -

1. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (The one I signed today).
2. Eminent Domain Property Rights (I signed this at the ODOT Informational Meeting regarding the widening of I-44).

The one that surprised me was-

3. Reform the City Council. (This is the one from Tulsans for Badder Gov't which would reduce the City Council Districts to six and elect three "at large" City Councilors).

I asked the guy that was manning the office how the different petitions were doing and he said the TABOR and the Eminent Domain Property Rights were coming along nicely. I also asked him what type of numbers were needed and he said 300,000 for the TABOR and 150,000 for the Eminent Domain (I don't have a clue what type of numbers are actually needed). We briefly discussed the "Reform the Council" petition and I told him that I wouldn't sign it and he said there were a lot of people that didn't want to sign it. He did make a half-hearted attempt to tell me that it would have the effect of making the City Council better to which I replied, "Better for who, the GOB network?"

For some reason, I had a brain cloud and didn't pick up a copy of the petitions while I was there and continued to run my errands around town. On the 2:00 PM news brodcast on KRMG, I heard that Tulsans for Badder Gov't was shelving the initiative petition process and putting its hopes behind a "Special Citizens Committee" formed by the Mayor. Hans Helmerich, one of the panel's leaders, stated that he thought it was important to pull this process out of a lot of politics and really take a careful study of it. Personally I think the Mayor is afraid of damage this will cause to his re-election bid. Here's the 740 KRMG audio of the story -

20051205-740KRMG_Council_Reform_Petition1.mp3

I decided to swing back over to the politicalactivists.org office and see if I could get a copy of the petitions. As I was nearing 51st and Harvard, I noticed four fire trucks in the parking lot of the strip center. I parked my truck nearby and snapped a few pictures of the event. Apparently Mario's NY Pizza had a fire, but it looked like it was under control pretty quickly. I then got back on track and headed into PA's office. There were 2 or 3 people in line turning in petitions, which gave me a chance to look around a bit. I noticed the price they were paying per signature for each petition.

The TABOR petition was paying $2.00/signature, the Eminent Domain petition was $0.50/signature, and the so-called Council Reform petition weighed in at $0.75/signature. All of this information is available at the politicalactivists.org website. (At least it was at the time of this post)

I don't really have a problem with this process, but what does bother me is how this group advertises that you can make $3.25/signature. This is assuming that a person decides to sign all three petitions. In my opinion, it's kind of a "bait and switch" to have two "worthwhile" causes grouped with a lemon. Again, in my opinion, I believe the TABOR and Eminent Domain petitions hold their water, but the Council Reform petition is nothing more than "Recall - Plan B" pure and simple.

When it came my turn, I asked if I could have some copies of the petitions and the gentleman told me no problem and asked how many of each I needed. I also told him about the story that broke on KRMG's news and he told me he hadn't heard anything about it yet, but they would still pay for signatures. He also stated that the Council Reform petition had been "on again, off again" more than once. I noticed while waiting in line that the people in front of me turned in a pretty sizable stack of petitions. Each petition is on different color paper stock so I could "guesstimate" what the make-up was. Out of a stack of about 70 completed petitions, it was evenly divided between the petitions on white paper stock (TABOR) and the petitions on green paper stock (Eminent Domain). I only saw a couple of petitions that were on the reddish peach paper (Council Reform).

In conclusion, I have the following advice and observations to pass along to you -

• Make sure you know what petition you're signing, before you sign it.
• I'm not entirely convinced that the Council Reform petition is dead irregardless of the news story on KRMG and Hans Helmerich's comments. Like the guy said at the PA's office, "on again, off again."
• Pay close attention to this so-called "Special Citizens Committee" that is forming to study the issue of Council Reform. Hold the Mayor accountable and make sure everything is above board and out in the open. (I really don't expect this to happen, and I'm pretty sure the Committee membership makeup will look like a who's who of the GOB club)