Bartlett and Tulsans for Better Government

[Bledsoe]

If you go back and look at all the publicity on this issue (the Oct. 2005 proposal to add 3 at-large councilors & reduce the district councilors to 6) it is hard for me to believe that Bartlett did not know what was going on.  This was a big deal.  

It was also a big deal that we changed our form of government in 1989 from City Commission/All At-large to Strong Mayor/9-districts in response to a voting rights law suit filed by the NAACP.  Bartlett should certainly have remembered this controversy as he was elected to the first city council in 1990 from Dist. 9 under the new form of government.  

For Bartlett to say what he is now saying about TBG means he really was seriously uninformed and naive in 2005 or he is not telling the truth now.  Either indicates to me a serious question about his qualification to be mayor.  If naive--I guess that he will follow others leads rather than decide for himself--indicating to me that the folks who formed TBG in 2005 will most likely be telling him what to sign up for in 2009.

na⋅ive
 –adjective
1.    having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.
2.    having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous: She's so naive she believes everything she reads. He has a very naive attitude toward politics.

Waterboy --if you want to get into the historical minutiae of changing our form of government in Tulsa you can read Tulsans Defending Democracy's presentation to the Mayor's Commission on Tulsa's Form of Government.  See attached.  At-large will not fly in Tulsa for dozens of reasons, the most basic is that it is not legal under the Voting Rights Act, but there are lots of other policy reasons.  

By the way--I have lived in Dist. 9 since 1979 when I graduated from law school.  I have plenty of representation and can stand a little democracy from the other parts of the city.  The attitude of the TBG folks is best expressed by one of their principals to me at a cocktail party--"I long to return to the day when you could drive a golf ball from your front lawn and hit the lawn of every other member of the city commission."

[MichaelBates]

I find it interesting that, like Randi Miller and Kathy Taylor, Dewey Bartlett Jr made no objection to the use of his name by Tulsans for Better Government in the fall of 2005, when the group was actively collecting signatures for their petition for the at-large councilor charter amendment and these names lent some credibility to the effort. Each of the three only claimed to have been misinformed about or unaware of the purpose of the group when they became candidates for mayor. The petition drive stalled, Mayor LaFortune appointed a citizens' commission on city government as a way to give his pals on TBG a face-saving way to terminate their faltering effort. The at-large plan receved support from only a few commissioners; the final report rejected the proposal.

A Tulsa World story on October 27, 2005, focused on Tulsans for Better Government's petition drive for at-large councilors and included a list of advisory board members. Dewey Bartlett Jr's name was on the list. You'd think someone would have mentioned to Bartlett Jr that his name was in the paper in connection with a controversial proposal. Or he might have noticed that this group he was asked to join had generated some opposition.

[MichaelBates]

For Bartlett to say what he is now saying about TBG means he really was seriously uninformed and naive in 2005 or he is not telling the truth now.  Either indicates to me a serious question about his qualification to be mayor.  If naive--I guess that he will follow others leads rather than decide for himself--indicating to me that the folks who formed TBG in 2005 will most likely be telling him what to sign up for in 2009.

What he said.

[da dawg]

What they said....
Michael, do you recall the "conversation" at the Republican Woman's luncheon between you and Dewey where Dewey was for non -partisan elections? Now he is  for partisan elections...and signed a petition to say so....go figure....I guess it's who ever pressures him the most who gets what they want. Greaaaaaaat just what we need......

[MichaelBates]

What they said....
Michael, do you recall the "conversation" at the Republican Woman's luncheon between you and Dewey where Dewey was for non -partisan elections? Now he is  for partisan elections...and signed a petition to say so....go figure....I guess it's who ever pressures him the most who gets what they want. Greaaaaaaat just what we need......

The question actually came from Sally Bell, and it wasn't clear from Bartlett's answer whether he was for or against. He seemed to be torn between whatever opinion he held (for, I would guess) and the answer he sensed would win favor with the room (against). (Here's the video.)

During that same forum, Medlock pointed out that  the same group pushing non-partisan elections -- Tulsans for Better Government -- started out pushing for at-large councilors. Medlock said that Bartlett had been a charter member of that group. Bartlett did not speak up to deny involvement, defend his involvement, or even to say, "I have no idea what you're talking about." It's as if he hadn't yet figured out that the at-large issue and the group that pushed it were political liabilities.

[FOTD]

The devil was impressed with Dew's attitude towards the Mayor sitting on the council and hiring a city manager...

This other stuff is great though, MB. The Repigs on the far right hate seeing a moderate run for Mayor enough to chase down their past bad political acquiescence to the point where most of us today say "who cares?" It's a microcosm of the National thingy with your potty going down the shitter over who will lead this GOP schism.

You gotta love the lame out....

[rwarn17588]

The devil was impressed with Dew's attitude towards the Mayor sitting on the council and hiring a city manager...

This other stuff is great though, MB. The Repigs on the far right hate seeing a moderate run for Mayor enough to chase down their past bad political acquiescence to the point where most of us today say "who cares?" It's a microcosm of the National thingy with your potty going down the shitter over who will lead this GOP schism.

You gotta love the lame out....

I hate to concur with FOTD, but a stopped clock is right twice a day, after all.

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but it is cracking me up to see Republicans across the country essentially doing a fatwa against Republicans who are insufficiently rabid-conservative. It's this bizarre "we can win by tearing each other apart and losing," without considering the consequences of a party that shrinks so much that it has no one left but Alan Keyes-type whackos who won't get but 25 to 30 percent of the vote on a good day.

[MichaelBates]

This other stuff is great though, MB. The Repigs on the far right hate seeing a moderate run for Mayor enough to chase down their past bad political acquiescence to the point where most of us today say "who cares?"

This isn't something I had to chase down, and it only happened four years ago. I've been concerned with the City Council as an institution for a very long time, and the TBG at-large plan was an attack on fair representation in city government. I covered the issue thoroughly at the time, and even expressed specific disappointment with Dewey Bartlett Jr's involvement. (Here's the Internet Archive's snapshot of the same article from December 2005.)

[Bledsoe]

I guess I don't see this as a Republican v. Democrat issue.  Both TBG and the group I helped form--TDD were non-partisan and made up of a cross-section from both parties.  I am about as liberal a Democrat as Tulsa will tolerate.  But I am also a democrat with a little "d."

If you read the TDD report attached to my post above you will see that I have been personally plowing this ground since 1987 and the City has been dealing with this issue institutionally since at least 1954

That usually partisan Republicans like Steve Roemerman, Michael Bates and Conan71 are dubious about supporting their party's nominee speaks more of local issues and their personal convictions rather than some intra-party food fight.  They have not bought into Bartlett's hard-right attempt to interject national and state issues into the mayor's race while obscuring important local concerns.

On the local level I am proud to be associated with these guys.  I hope they feel the same way about me.  On this issue they are true little "d" democrats.  On most national and state issues I think we often agree to disagree.