Mautino: Tulsans are fed up
Tulsans are so disgusted with the disputes between the City Council and Mayor Dewey Bartlett that they are ready to vote them all out, District 6 Councilor Jim Mautino said.
Mautino said Tulsans are “fed up with the Council and the mayor. They just want them all out. If that is what the people want, they have the ability to do it.”
Mautino in a radio interview on Tulsa Beacon Weekend on KCFO AM970 said some councilors were ready to fight with Bartlett the moment he took office. Later, the controversy was intensified by the Fraternal Order of Police who objected to both pay cuts and layoffs.
“I think part of it is by design,” Mautino said of the conflict between some councilors and the mayor. “When this all started, I probably alienated some of the councilors because I was wanting to give Mayor Bartlett six months. I think any new elected official needs a honeymoon. This whole thing was a leftover from Kathy Taylor. The Fraternal Order of Police perpetuated it.
“They were working with Kathy Taylor at the time for the JAG grant. The FOP asked if she would get the grant to extend it so they had more time. The justice grant was actually between six and eight months to prolong the inevitable (cuts). She said to go ahead and file for it but she did not pursue it. She kept kicking it down the road. The FOP was a little frustrated. She was letting it fall on the new mayor’s shoulders.”
Taylor had only funded her office for 10 months instead of 12 - a mess that Bartlett inherited. When Bartlett took over, he was two months’ short in the fiscal calendar year.
“The worst part was that he didn’t know this was going on until the finance department told him two months after he was in office,” Mautino said. “Essentially, what came out in that report is that Mayor Bartlett is behind the eight ball.”
Some FOP officers complained that Terry Simonson, Bartlett’s chief of staff, lied about the timing of the grant application. City councilor hired an investigator for $5,000 and turned his subsequent report over to the city prosecutor who recused himself from the case.
City Attorney Deirdre Dexter said her office decided unanimously to recuse themselves from the council investigation. Councilors sent the report to her office to see if criminal charges could be filed against Simonson and Bartlett.
If convicted, they would face 10 days in jail and a $100 fine for lying to the councilors.
Councilors allege the report shows Simonson and Bartlett lied.
“The mayor at that time did not want to enter into a JAG grant,” Mautino said. “It was a short-term fix. I agreed with that. We need a long-term fix.”
The issue came to a head as Tulsa continued a string of 18 months in which sales tax revenues dropped below budget projections.
Bartlett approached the FOP and gave it two choices: renegotiate the current contract with unpaid furlough days and percentage pay cuts or face layoffs. The firefighter union chose the pay cuts and no firemen lost their jobs. The police voted to keep the contract in place and more than 120 police officers were let go.
The JAG grant spared a few of those jobs. Simonson and Bartlett said the federal grant could not be used to retain officers, only to hire or rehire police. The FOP claims that the funds could have been used to avoid layoffs.
“We needed a solution like we got with the Fire Department,” Mautino said. “They gave back 5 percent of their wages and made concessions. They did try to negotiate.”
Mautino said the police department has roughly 200 supervisors with one supervisor for roughly every 2.8 police officers. Mautino said their wages, not including benefits, total about $14,330,000.
The whole controversy “blew up” when a former employee sent an e-mail to Councilor Bill Christiansen “with the help of the FOP,” Mautino said.
Mautino, who had served previously on the City Council, said when he took office in this term, he perceived that there were councilors who did not like Bartlett.
Mautino thinks the council and the mayor are at an impasse.
“Somebody has to give,” Mautino said. “I think the council is in a very strong position and the mayor is in a weaker position.”
Mautino said the Tulsa Metro Chamber of Commerce operates like a labor union, steeped in self-interest. It is very influential in placing people on city boards.
“That’s why we have such a disparity between the nine districts in terms of representation on these boards,” Mautino said. “We have so many appointees in District Nine and District Four (both in Midtown). Those are influenced by the chamber. I am not saying that is all bad. It does invest a lot of power in those people.
“I believe the chamber exerts too much influence on our city government.”
The chamber is in a position to play the mayor against the council and the council against the mayor, Mautino said. Mautino said he believes Taylor still carries a lot of influence on some members of the council.
City councilors are sued
Three Tulsa citizens are suing the nine city councilors for allegedly violating Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act over an incident in which Mayor Dewey Bartlett was barred from a closed executive session on June 17.
Nancy Rothman, Burt B. Holmes and Henryetta McIntosh are represented by attorney Paul DeMuro.
The councilors met in executive session to discuss an investigation of an accusation that Bartlett and Chief of Staff Terry Simonson lied to the council about a federal grant for police officers.
The lawsuit challenges the council’s authority to conduct a criminal investigation.
Violation of the Open Meeting Act is a criminal misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of $500 and one year in jail. The lawsuit is a civil action. City law states that lying to the council carries a maximum fine of $100 and 10 days in jail.