Wagoner County's Hobson's choice
Higher sales tax or higher property tax to pay lawsuit settlement?
Happy Inauguration Day! We were happy to be able to stay home today in front of the fire and watch the festivities. C-SPAN2 had unfiltered video from the ceremony at the Capitol rotunda and the watch party at the Capital One Arena. Some favorite moments:
Usha Vance wrangling squirmy Mirabel during the Vice President’s oath. (And how about those stylin’ band-aids Mirabel was sporting?)
The Naval Academy Glee Club singing the 1944 Peter J. Wilhousky arrangement of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, with its beautiful third stanza sung a cappella by the men. If you were a high school choir member, you know that arrangement and were probably singing along. (I was.)
The air kiss forced by the brim of the First Lady’s hat. (Mary Katherine Ham referred to Melania’s elegant outfit as “dark MAGA Carmen Sandiego.”)
The unflappable Carrie Underwood, Checotah’s own, undeterred from the loss of the backing track, led the ceremony in “America the Beautiful,” a cappella. A true musician who has no need for autotune.
Meanwhile in Oklahoma, the election cycle never ends, which brings me to the latest articles at BatesLine.com:
Oklahoma needs election date reform: We had an election last Tuesday, involving ten thousand voters (mostly in Muskogee and Inola), voting on 27 propositions in 22 jurisdictions spread across 24 counties. It’s time to stop elected officials from playing the low-turnout game and consolidate elections on a consistent cycle.
Wagoner County sales tax election, February 11, 2025: We have another election in just three weeks, with school board primaries, municipal primaries, school bond issues, and a variety of special elections. Wagoner County voters must decide whether to pay a $13.5 million wrongful-death settlement with a quarter-cent, 15-year sales tax increase (if the proposition passes) or a ten-year property tax hike (if the proposition fails).
At the State Capitol:
Tom Gann proposes Oklahoma House transparency reforms: The Inola Republican pushed for sweeping rules changes that would remove power from what former State Rep. Jason Murphey calls the “imperial speakership.” Sadly, Gann’s proposal was defeated.
In our schools:
The cost of special-education mainstreaming: A guest opinion from my friend Scott Pendleton on how mainstreaming students with disabilities fails to serve their needs or the needs of other students. In passing, he’s got an interesting tidbit about a former U. S. Senator.
Beyond the elections:
Helping former Tulsans who lost everything in the LA wildfires: A couple who moved from Tulsa to southern California 11 years ago lost their home and belongings in the wildfires. They had been unable to get insurance on their belongings. Friends from Tulsa (people I know) set up an online fundraiser that is now near 90% of the goal.
Shipping Forecast centenary: Celebrating a 100-year-long BBC radio series that warns ships at sea of impending gales while soothing insomniacs to sleep. In 2003, I wrote an article about a musical spoof of the Shipping Forecast from the 1960s, sung to Anglican chant, and it led to me publishing, in 2007, the definitive story of the Mastersingers, a group of British school teachers who worked with Beatles producer George Martin and comic actor Peter Sellers, chanting the weather forecast, the highway code, the telephone directory, and a church-choir version of “Help!”
When writing new articles, I often go back into the archives, and while there I fix dead links. Occasionally I find a draft that for unknown reasons I never finished, and I’ll blow the dust off, give it a polish, and get it published. Here are the most recently updated articles, plus a few that I re-read recently:
The subject of lawsuit settlements and sinking funds in Wagoner County brought to mind Tulsa mayor Kathy Taylor’s agreement to a $7.1 million dollar settlement in a lawsuit related to Great Plains Airlines that cost Tulsa taxpayers but made BOK very happy. The Oklahoma Supreme Court later invalidated the settlement and forced BOK to pay Tulsa back.
As for where to find extra money in a county budget: In 2012, blogger Don Wyatt attended and recorded a Tulsa County budget board meeting. Wyatt found that there is lots of off-budget money that county Tulsa County officials had to spend, while Oklahoma County included those funds in their budget process.
It’s always fun to look back at 2006, when mayoral candidate Kathy Taylor was confronted by then-KJRH reporter Glenn McIntyre with evidence that she had voted in both Florida (absentee) and Oklahoma (in-person) in the November 2000 presidential election. See if you think she reacts as someone with a clear conscience would.
Why Daylight Saving Time makes sense (most places): From 2018, written after some personal experience in a place (Queensland) that doesn’t observe daylight savings time but needs to. I considered some alternative solutions to the problem of distributing daylight around work and school. Worth a re-read as proposals circulate to move permanently to DST or stay forever on Standard Time.
On scruples and stumbling blocks: In 2007, I gathered excerpts from a collection of recent blog posts by other bloggers, all around the topic of Christian scruples and behavior regarding cigars, bawdy humor, laughter, alcohol, dating, and nutritional fads. I assume I wanted to write something to tie them all together but never got around to it. A few of the linked articles are no longer online and are not available on the Wayback Machine, so this piece is somewhat archaeological, preserving fragments of lost literature, just as we find bits of lost Greek and Roman literature quoted in works still extant.
Off the air: Written at the end of a week in March 2005 when I rose early every morning, from 5:30 am to 9:00 am, to serve as co-host on KFAQ’s Morning Show as Michael DelGiorno recuperated from surgery and regular co-host Gwen Freeman moved into the driver’s seat. We had a lot to talk about: It was a momentous week of developments in the city establishment’s attempt to recall two reformers on the City Council, Chris Medlock and Jim Mautino. Here are a couple of photos from inside the studio, back when it was on 29th Street west of Yale. Gwen has not changed in 20 years. I… have.
That’s plenty of reading to keep you busy. Don’t forget: You’ve got to click the links to get to the good stuff. This newsletter is just a pointer to it.
Thanks for reading!
Michael D. Bates