BatesLine on Tulsa Beacon Weekend

Plus robots, the TPS audit, tribal co-governance, a Greenwood building, and the legality of DOGE

NOTE: If you happen to see this on Saturday, March 22, 2025, you still have a chance to head over to the Pavilion at Expo Square to see the FIRST Robotics Championship Green Country Regional, where 42 teams from across Oklahoma and around the world (e.g. Belize, Turkey, Florida, Minnesota) compete with their robots for advancement to the World Championships in Houston. FRC is the big-robot competition, played on a volleyball-court sized field. It’s fun and exciting and attendance is free. Bring a pair of safety glasses if you’d like to see the team displays in the “pits.”

This Saturday, March 22, 2025, at noon, I will be a guest on Tulsa Beacon Weekend, hosted by Jeff Brucculeri. The hour-long interview program is heard in Tulsa on KCFO AM 970, live-streamed online here and on the KCFO app. The show is a production of the Tulsa Beacon, the weekly newspaper founded in 2001 by the late Charley Biggs.

This was my second appearance on the show; the first was last September, talking about upcoming elections. Another guest will be on at the beginning of the hour, and then Jeff and I will be talking about some of the topics I’ve been covering recently on BatesLine, including DOGE, the recently released state audit of Tulsa Public Schools, and the ongoing impact of the McGirt decision on law enforcement in Tulsa.

If you miss the live broadcast, the most recent episode will be available to listen again for one week through the KCFO app and through the website: From the Listen Live popup, choose Menu, then the microphone icon, then choose Tulsa Beacon Weekend; Joe Riddle's Old Time Radio Theater is also available.

Here are links to my most recent articles on BatesLine.

Tulsa Public Schools audit: You’ll find a link to the audit and State Auditor Cindy Bird’s presentation slides, a video of Auditor Bird’s presentation to Tulsa 912 Project, my tweets from an initial scan through the report, and remarks from the three current and former board members who pushed for this audit, amidst condescension and ridicule. This is more of a finders’ aid than an analytical piece, which I hope to write in the future. (Why aren’t more public education advocates outraged at the waste of funds on consultants and self-dealing?)

Kunzweiler, O'Brien ruling challenge to tribal co-governance: An MMA fighter’s DUI is the occasion for the latest skirmish in the ongoing battle over law enforcement in Tulsa, the mess created by Neil Gorsuch’s McGirt ruling. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals says the City of Tulsa has concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute Indians who aren’t members of the tribe on whose land the crime was committed, but Mayor Nichols doesn’t want to prosecute any Indians at all, part of his tribal co-governance pledge. Nichols says the city has 400 criminal referrals from TPD that he won’t let them send to the DA. The DA says people with multiple DUIs are going unprosecuted, and he’ll use an Open Records request to get those referrals and file charges. The Muscogee Creek Nation has filed a flurry of lawsuits against three DAs, the Tulsa County Sheriff, and the City of Tulsa, and Gov. Stitt wants to intervene in the suit because Nichols is ready to roll over and play dead.

Bethany bans business subsidies: A news release from State Rep. Tom Gann reports that voters in the OKC suburb approved charter amendments to ban city subsidies to private businesses and to enable the recall of elected officials. The effort was led by City Councilor Chris Powell, who is also the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Oklahoma.

Greenwood's Kyle Drug Store, the Rumble Fish pet store: The 60-year history of a mixed-use building that rose from the ashes of the Tulsa Race Massacre, was a community gathering place for many years, and then as a swan song served as a key filming location in that lesser known movie Francis Ford Coppola filmed in Tulsa.

Does Trump's DOGE violate the Constitution? A lot of folks are in a panic over the rapid-fire burst of executive orders, RIFs, and funding cuts in the first weeks of the 2nd Trump administration to reduce the size of the federal government. I look at the laws and precedents that have been cited as the legal basis for these actions.

Coming soon: A preview of the April 1 election, which includes school board races and a few special state legislative races.

As always, click the links for all the details. Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends. Thanks for reading!