Tulsa City Council

Tulsa city councilors and the mayor’s office met virtually on Wednesday for their annual retreat to lay out priorities for the coming year.

Many big plans from 2020 are still on the table because they got derailed during the coronavirus pandemic. Those include neighborhood revitalization, raising all city employees’ pay to at least $15 an hour, and making permanent a joint mental health response team that includes Tulsa police, fire and mental health professionals.

Tulsa city councilors met Wednesday with what’s become a rare controversial nominee for a city authority, board or commission.

Mayor G.T. Bynum picked construction executive Bob Jack for a seat on the Infrastructure Development Advisory Board. Jack is chair of the Tulsa County Republican Party.

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said Thursday he would welcome direct federal coronavirus relief funding from the federal government to help address the city's projected budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year caused by the pandemic. 

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum announced Thursday that applications are open for up to $6.5 million in grants for nonprofit organizations impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Tulsa City Council wants to give the Muscogee (Creek) Nation two more years to decide whether it can commit $16 million dollars to building an Arkansas River Dam near 101st Street.

The deadline for that was Dec. 31 of this year. The council voted last week to extend the deadline to Dec. 31, 2022. Councilor Phil Lakin said the additional time will ensure everyone’s budgets have recovered from 2019’s spring floods and the coronavirus pandemic and will give Tulsa officials time to meet with Muscogee (Creek) officials about the matter.

Tulsa city councilors will consider a resolution this week supporting a right to counsel for people facing eviction.

The resolution also encourages tenants, landlords, mediators and courts to find solutions that will allow time to get rent paid, including through assistance programs.

Councilors Kara Joy McKee and Lori Decter Wright are behind the resolution. They said they hope the resolution will send a message to judges and help steer more renters toward available, free representation.

The Tulsa City Council convenes next Monday for its inauguration, where all nine councilors will be sworn in.

Afterward, the council will hold a special meeting to elect the chair and vice-chair. Despite the worsening pandemic, that will all happen in the city council chambers.

Councilor Lori Decter Wright said they don’t have much choice.

Tulsa County’s active COVID-19 infections are at a record high, but the Tulsa City Council’s working group on the pandemic said on Wednesday no new restrictions are planned at the moment.

"What we saw roll out last March are the tools in the toolbox. Right now, the tool that we have that we want people to use is masking, washing your hands and watching your distance. We don’t want to limit gatherings. We don’t want to impact our community’s economic recovery right now," Councilor Lori Decter Wright said during a council committee meeting held virtually on Wednesday.

The Tulsa Park and Recreation Department will spend October soliciting citizen input and participation with a series of surveys and online community meetings.

Let's Talk Tulsa Parks will include an online survey, a call-in hotline, and nine virtual community meetings -- one for each Tulsa City Council district with their respective councilors.

Tulsa City Councilors say interest in raising chickens for eggs and meat has increased as citizens have been cooped up during the pandemic, and the council is considering pecking away at limits on the number of chickens allowable under law and the minimum distance of shelters from homes.

At a Wednesday meeting of the council's urban and economic development committee, Councilor Kara Joy McKee said this is a food access issue.

In a 9-0 vote, the Tulsa City Council voted Wednesday to amend the city's penal code to include sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression as protected classes for the purposes of the enforcement of hate crimes.

While the state of Oklahoma and federal government both have hate crimes statutes on the books, they do not cover those four classes.

Councilor Jeannie Cue asked city attorney Mark Swiney if such an ordinance would violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, providing equal protection, a concern she said she had heard from constituents.

Saying the science is clear that children 10 and older can spread and be sickened by the novel coronavirus, the director of the Tulsa Health Department recommended the Tulsa City Council amend the city's COVID-19 mask ordinance to apply to those 10 and above rather than just those 18 and above.

The Tulsa City Council will consider adopting a hate crime ordinance with protections for sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.

State law covers crimes motivated by race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or disability.

The ordinance was proposed by Councilor Crista Patrick. She said as isolating as the past several months have been for many Tulsans, it would be good for everyone to hear that they are safe.

"I think that it’s important that all of our residents hear from us, the city leaders, that we are standing against hate," Patrick said.

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum won a second term Tuesday night, taking 51.9% of the votes, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board's unofficial results.

Candidates in Tuesday's elections needed more than half the votes to win outright. Contests where no candidate received more than half the votes will go to a runoff between the top two.

Community organizer Greg Robinson, Bynum's main challenger, won 28.8% of the votes. Project manager Ken Reddick, who painted himself as a more conservative option than Bynum, got 13.8% of the vote. All other candidates got less than 3%.

Two weeks ago, members of the Tulsa City Council voted to postpone a decision on what action, if any, to take regarding the "BLACK LIVES MATTER" street mural painted in the days leading up to Juneteenth and President Trump's controversial rally in Tulsa. 

On Wednesday afternoon, they again reached no consensus, leaving the matter for a future meeting.

A Tulsa City Councilor says Mayor G.T. Bynum's reelection should be a concern for conservatives. 

District 5 Councilor Cass Fahler appeared on an episode of "The ThriveTime Show" entitled "Is G.T. Bynum a Secret Democrat?" Fahler was asked to give examples of Bynum acting out of step with conservative values.

Tulsa Public Schools has reached out to Oklahoma's Congressional delegation and the Tulsa City Council to discuss their need for support for the district's nutrition programs.

In a Wednesday meeting of the Tulsa City Council's urban and economic development committee, TPS Superintendent Deborah Gist said that when schools abruptly closed to in-person learning in the spring due to the coronavirus pandemic, the district still managed to serve 1.5 million meals via deliveries and distributions. 

Presenting the results of a research study analyzing use-of-force by the Tulsa Police Department over several years to the Tulsa City Council, TPD Chief Wendell Franklin said that the public will have no say in the development of any new use-of-force policy.

"The question was if there was going to be community input allowed in our policy decision-making, and the answer to that is no," Franklin said, in response to a question from Councilor Lori Decter Wright.

Update 9:20 a.m.: This story, photo, and headline have been updated to reflect that the ordinance has been signed by the mayor and is now in effect.

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum has signed an ordinance that requires adults to wear face coverings in many public settings, in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19 among a skyrocketing number of cases and hospitalizations.