Love Letters/Hate Mail

Promising Prospects

For the first time in the history of Tulsa city government, we conducted something every business knows is a good practice: a survey of our customers for their views on the performance and effectiveness of city government services. Thanks to the support from the Tulsa Community Foundation, the highly acclaimed Shapard Research firm asked citizens what they think about and want from their city.

More than 1,800 households all across the city answered more than 100 questions about Tulsa. The result of the citizen survey showed that 51 percent of Tulsans surveyed believe we are headed in the right direction compared to 26 percent who do not. This two-to-one margin gives me great hope that the policies laid down in 2010 will provide a solid foundation as we move forward. Other survey results are very encouraging: 77 percent have a positive perception of Tulsa as a place to live; 65 percent were satisfied with the appearance of the city; 75 percent are satisfied with the appearance of our parks; 75 percent support the KPMG initiatives and the benefit potential it holds; 70 percent support the spending proposals I intend to pursue in this next budget; 77 percent feel proud to be a Tulsan; and 78 percent want to start developing the river.

This direct feedback will be invaluable in our planning and responding to what Tulsans want for their city. There are great opportunities that will come from this survey because it is truly a grassroots report. This is what makes it so powerful and so likely to succeed. When we began to plan for this survey it started with a simple question: "If you had 15 minutes alone with the mayor, what would you tell him was important for Tulsa to continue to be the great city it has always been?" We asked, you spoke, we listened. Now the action begins. Best Regards,

--Mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr.

Blue Rose Picked

(In response to "In Full Bloom" in the March 10-16 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

I have already been there several times with friends it is a great place meet and enjoy fab' food. Just FYI ... Tom's other place is Elwood's not Elrod's! Great article, keep up the great work!

--Dean Moore

Reading the Word

(In response to "Love Letters/Hate Mail" in the March 10-16 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

J.R. would do good to take off the tinfoil hat once in awhile. That might allow coherent, logical thoughts to penetrate.

"State's rights above the Constitution"? Supposedly, by design the Constitution narrowly defined federal powers and reserved all else to the states or to the people. It's known as the Tenth Amendment. To the Constitution.

"Preaching God in public places is not God's way". Huh? Jesus preached sermons. Let's assume he was talking about God in some of them. Sometimes there were people present, such as those at the Sermon on the Mount, and the feeding of the 5,000 and the 7,000. Then there was that whole Great Commission thing.

Lastly, if Republicanism is the problem and Democrat-ism is the solution ... we are so screwed.

--Todd Kreigh

City Divided

(In response to "News Updates" in the March 10-16 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

The disparity is so great in North Tulsa as compared to South Tulsa -- it was just an "oxymoron" to take such a survey in that regard! Going from North Tulsa to South Tulsa is like living in two different cities.

--R. Davis

Priorities Priorities

(In response to "Glass Half Full" in the March 10-16 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

Mr. Richard -- on behalf of the liquor stores -- is transparently self-serving in this article. He says, "I think they're all kind of appalled anyone's trying to do this in light of the fact we have a huge budget problem." But our antiquated liquor laws are part of the reason we have a budget problem.

Competition creates lower prices and/or better services, which spurs further demand for services. State/city tax revenues would increase, as would our quality of life. I'm tired of this moral equivalence between (a) what is good for the state and (b) what is good for an interest group. Our legislators should vote for what is good for the state.

--Adam Kupetsky

Slow It Down

Is someone going to die before these morons driving cars on Brookside realize that there is a pedestrian crosswalk at every intersection? The speed limit needs to be reduced to 25 from 32nd St. to 42st St. Lots of people walk in this area including myself and I am tired of dodging cars that don't understand what a crosswalk is for.

--Michael Thompson

Right to Work

Everything that I said the Tea-Party-Republicans-Business Owners would do they are doing in Wisconsin. Never since Nazi Germany has a political party swept into power on the basis of false propaganda and hurt its own citizenry by passing laws repealing its own previous laws as just happened in Wisconsin. They just passed a law stripping collective bargaining from its own citizens and basically stealing wages, hours, benefits and other terms and conditions of an employment previously agreed upon in writing in a totally legal labor contract.

Face it, America. You made a mistake voting these Nazis into power. They are going to do everything that the business world wants. Take-aways of wages, pensions, social security and any other benefit is on the table for them. Some have even proposed alleviating child labor laws to get low waged work from human beings. They have already publicly stated that. Rather than working to better wages, hours, working conditions and benefits for all, they are of the mind to strip those of anyone whose terms are better than third world countries.

What trade and labor unions want for the citizenry is minimally decent and preferably high standard wages, hours, benefits and other terms and conditions of employment. This has always been what labor unions strive for.

The theory is that when more people can have the means and wherewithal to participate in the economy, then demand, the most

important component of an economy will take care of itself. The mantra of the right winged business world over the past two decades has been productivity, which has been continuously stretched to include downright stripping of worker's portions of the profits or pay and passing on the benefit to the higher echelon and millionaires. The Bush millionaire tax cuts are nearing a decade of implementation, and see what it has done to

the economy. I submit that you will have no productive economy without allowing the so-called lower and middle classes, the working people of this country to participate in a robust economy. Wake up America!!

--Lawrence Hill, Emeritus

Stand Up

The zeal in which the media has taken sides for the freedom seeking masses, especially in Africa and the Middle East, begs the question as to their concerns about the good people of Taiwan. Here we have our Senator Kerry and the UN talking about military intervention into Libya and yet if China decided to invade Taiwan they would look the other way.

Why is the support of a Democracy, constantly threatened by the soon to be most powerful nation on earth, any less important than the people of Libya choosing to engage in an overthrow of tyranny?

The Taiwanese people have already paid their dues for their freedom and it is time for the United States and the rest of the free-world to insist on a pledge from the United Nations to come to their aid while they still have any collective military and economic advantage. For the trend is that every day China grows more and more able to turn the Taiwanese people into slaves.

That will be the darkest day in history.

--Joseph DuPont

Sheen Beginnings

Here are my thoughts on Charlie Sheen creating Tulsa: There's been a lot of talk lately as to Tulsa's origins. As a fairly new Tulsan, I have been lucky to know about this for some time. Since I first moved here in 2004 and looked into my fair city's genesis. You see you can't just look this up online, you need to put in the hours and go to the library and look up book of records.

It's there you'll find that yes, Charlie Sheen did indeed invent Tulsa. What's in dispute is did he do it in his sleep; the short answer is yes. All the permits, buildings and municipalities were indeed done during his sleep. Most of it was during the REM cycle with the ribbon cutting taking place during his twilight into waking up the next morning. He did this great act during the filming of Young Guns in 1988. It was on set with his brother Emilio that they reminisced to their times in Owasso when Emilio was filming The Outsiders. Charlie of course did not star in this seminal Oklahoma classic, but was around enough on set to appreciate the atmosphere. Fun fact: Emilio was able to invent Topeka during his filming of D3: The Mighty Ducks, which explains his lack of screen time in this, the weakest of the duck trilogy.

Sure Charlie, born Carlos Estevez, was never afraid of taking on the family pastime of creating cities. Taking after his father Martin Sheen's work was a long time goal of Charlie. You see Martin Sheen, born Ramon Estevez possessed the long time Estevez power of creating cities even whilst in slumber. Why he created Waterloo, Iowa while on a bender with Dennis Hopper on the set of Apocalypse Now while falling asleep listening to Abba on vinyl.

So what does this mean to us today? The Sheen/Estevez warlockian powers are not to be trifled with. And now that their once secret power is out and public, the only question left is how long until a new city graces our presence via Winning. You might ask yourself, but I know people who have lived here before 1988, and my simple answer to you is, Holograms. Go ahead and ask them who Lou Diamond Philips is, they won't know.

--Michael Bausch