Author Archives: Admin

Owen Park prepares a kaboom

Staff Report

Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Owen Park, and the entire City of Tulsa Parks Department, will be celebrating their 100 year anniversary on Saturday, Aug. 8, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Owen Park, 560 North Maybelle Avenue, by building a Kaboom Playground – among other fun-filled events.

A Kaboom Playground program utilizes volunteers to construct an entire outdoor play facility in one day – all with volunteers.  Volunteers have already been lined up to make the one-day construction happen – and all through private donations.

Ironically, Owen Park began when an explosion occurred.  From that, Owen Park was born and the entire Tulsa Parks and Recreation program began.

Kicking off the Saturday events will be City Councilor Jack Henderson, and from the Mayor’s Office Susan Neal, Director of Community Development and Education.

Events for that day start at 8 a.m. with a Fishing Tournament, sponsored by Zebco and Bass Pro. The more fish a child catches, the more chances they collect for door prizes. Only those 15 years of years of age or younger can participate. The tournament ends at 12 p.m.

The celebration actually begins the night before with the "Teen Town Reunion Dance" on Friday, Aug. 7, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. – at the Owen Recreation Center.

Live entertainment includes ‘New Greeks’ and ‘chaperoned’ by former Owen Neighborhood native and Tulsa icon Betty Boyd. Admission is $5 per person.

Other Saturday activities include a free climbing wall, an antique car display, live entertainment, and a kid’s parade.

The QuikTrip Kitchen will be available for food purchases.  Also available that day will be exhibits from the Owen, Brady Heights, and Crosbie Heights Neighborhood Associations.

At 5 p.m. that same day, Mayor Kathy Taylor will be present for the unveiling of the finished Kaboom Playground, and to proclaim Aug. 8 "Celebrate Parks Day."

For more information, contact the Owen Community Center at 596-1485.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 28 July 2009 )

Quiktrip agrees to back pay for 3,819 workers

U.S Dept. of Labor Staff Report

Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Tulsa, Okla.-The U.S. Department of Labor issued the following news release:

QuikTrip Corp. has agreed to pay $747,729 in overtime back wages for 3,819 current and former convenience store workers following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division’s Arkansas-Oklahoma District Office.

"I am pleased that this case has resulted in almost $750,000 in back wages being paid to thousands of workers across nine states," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis.

"I am committed to ensuring that every worker is paid the full wages he or she is due, and that those who work overtime receive the compensation to which they are legally entitled."

The investigation found that Tulsa-based QuikTrip had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to pay its employees the overtime compensation they were legally entitled to receive.

QuikTrip failed to pay the additional overtime premium due on performance-related bonuses.  An employer is not required by law to provide a bonus, but if a nondiscretionary bonus is paid, the bonus must be included as part of the employee’s regular rate of pay for purposes of computing overtime.

Employees worked in the states of Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

The FLSA requires that covered employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage and receive overtime at one and one-half times their regular rates of pay for hours worked beyond 40 per week.

Effective July 24, 2009, the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.  Employers must also maintain accurate time and payroll records.

For more information about the FLSA, call the Department of Labor’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243).  Information is also available on the Internet at http://www.wagehour.dol.gov or by calling the Wage and Hour Division’s Arkansas-Oklahoma District Office in Oklahoma City, Okla., at 501-217-9549.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 29 July 2009 )

Savannah man arrested in Oklahoma City

Staff Report

WASHINGTON —  The U.S. Department of Justice’s U.S. Marshals Service issued the following news release:     A Savannah man wanted by the Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department was arrested by the United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Oklahoma City, Okla., on June 26, 2009.  

Michael Allen Dimsdale, 29, was being sought a state warrant for Possession of Firearms by a Convicted felon, issued on June 24, 2009 in Savannah, GA.  The case was turned over to the U.S. Marshals, Savannah Office of the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force to locate and arrest. The Task Force conducted an extensive investigation to try and find him in the Savannah area and in South Carolina.

On Sun., July 26, 2009, the Savannah Marshals generated leads that placed Dimsdale in Oklahoma City, Okla.   This information was passed to the Marshals Fugitive Squad in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma Fugitive Squad immediately responded to the area in which Dimsdale was supposed to be staying.

Dimsdale was staying in a local motel and the Marshals had to use force to make entry into the room.  Dimsdale was taken in to custody and taken to the local jail to await extradition back to Georgia.  

Annually, investigations carried out by the U.S. Marshals result in the apprehension of approximately 36, 000 federal fugitives.  More federal fugitives are arrested by the Marshals Service than all other federal agencies combined.  

The Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force has three offices: Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah. The task force covers the whole state of Georgia. The Savannah Office of the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force is a team comprised of investigators from the Georgia Department of Corrections, the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department, the Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department and the United States Marshals Service.

The task force objective is to seek out and arrest fugitives charged with violent crimes, drug crimes, sex offenders, and other felonies. 

Last year, U.S. Marshals Task Forces arrested more than 58,600 state and local fugitives on felony charges.  

Additional information about the U.S. Marshals can be found at http://www.usmarshals.gov/.

Obama lied and the economy died

Joan Swirsky

As President Clinton’s campaign mouthpiece James Carville put it so succinctly in the 1990s, “It’s the economy, stupid!” It was true then, it is true now. People may be temporarily seduced by intriguing figures and rosy promises but, bottom line, they still have to support their families and pay their bills. When the novelty of this or that politician has worn off and his or her pie-in-the-sky promises prove just so many hollow words, reality sets in.

I am no economy expert, except for seeing every day that Americans are both depressed and terrified about their rapidly devolving savings and the inflation that has already hit them at the supermarket. The other day, I was visiting my mother in the nursing home she has lived in for the past several years, where at least 75 percent of the employees are African-Americans who heartily voted for Obama.

This was a conversation I heard in the elevator.

He: how are you doing?

She: Another day, another dollar.

He: Hey, for me it’s another day, another fifty cents.

She: Me, too. I’m down to one meal a day!

As I said, I’m not an expert on the economy person, so I will cite those who are, with lots of bullets to emphasize the horror – and Buyer’s Remorse – that Americans are now waking up to as they realize that the hope-and-change candidate they voted for in November is just another Socialist-cum-Marxist-cum-Communist whose regime (it’s certainly not an administration) threatens to transform America into yet another failed and impoverished Banana Republic.

THOSE IN THE KNOW

Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D., an expert in domestic and international financial markets and the bestselling author of The Ultimate Safe Money Guide, has documented the following. We now have:
•   A new surge in unemployment that, even without counting those who are excluded from the official numbers, amount to 14.7 million who are now jobless, the most since records dating back to 1948. Worse, for the first time since the Great Depression, every single job created after the prior recession has been wiped out.
•   Industrial production is falling at the same pace as it did in the early 1930s.
•   Global trade is falling at twice the pace of the early 1930s.
•   California – the nation’s most populous state, with the largest GDP and the greatest impact on the entire U.S. economy – is collapsing.
•   Consumers are slashing their spending, small businesses are laying-off their workers, cities and states are forced to gut their budgets.
•   The most radical government countermeasures in a 100 years.
•   The biggest federal deficits in 200 years.

Weiss lists the bald-faced lies that Obama lackeys have foisted on the American public, Imageincluding Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke lying to “60 Minutes” in March that he detected “green shoots” in the economy, Wall Street gurus lying about “the end of the bear market,” labor officials lying about “a big turnaround in our nation’s job market,” California officials lying that they would never default but two days later defaulting on its short-term debt obligations to countless vendors and taxpayers and unilaterally issuing millions of dollars in I.O.U.s that few financial institutions accepted.

Weiss also reports that the following government “help-America” programs have all FAILED!
•   TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program)
•   PPIP (Public-Private Investment Program)
•   TALF (Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility)
•   TLGP (Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program)
•   CAP (Capital Assistance Program)
•   TIP (Targeted Investment Program)
•   HASP (Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan)\
•   CPFF (Commercial Paper Funding Facility)
•   AMLF (Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Fund Liquidity Facility)
•   MMIFF (Money Market Investor Funding Facility)

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

It’s not a pretty picture.
•   Our national debt is $12,000,000,000,000 (as in trillion)
•   Social Security’s unfunded liability if $11,000,000,000,000 (as in trillion).
•   Medicare’s unfunded liability is $48,000,000,000,000 (as in trillion).

All of which adds up to $71,000,000,000,000 (as in trillion!). In short, the Obama regime has in six short months made the United States the most indebted country in the history of world civilization!

This is “change,” economist Dick McDonald writes, that “only an imbecile could love.” McDonald (http://www.riseupamerica.us/) has his own laundry list:
•   Obama promised to save 3 or 4 million jobs, but we have lost 3.5 million jobs since January.
•   Obama has promised to hold unemployment to 8 percent – it’s at 9.5 percent and skyrocketing.
•   He has brought the Government’s tax receipts from corporations down by 55 percent.
•   He has brought the Government’s tax receipts from individuals down 27 percent.
•   He has brought the number of unemployed to 20 percent and rising.
•   He has sent businesses reeling from being told they will bear more of the tax burden and have reduced staff.
•   He has favored wealth redistribution over job creation and economic growth.
•   He has funded a Gestapo-like mob of ACORN brown shirts who intimidate everyone.
•   He has given an equity interest in General Motors to an unsecured UAW debtor as a political payoff.
•   He has hired over 30 Czars to run the country without them being vetted by Congress.
•   He has militated against U.S. energy independence by refusing to increase domestic oil drilling in ANWR and offshore and build nuclear plants, but stood by his “addiction” to ethanol, which has caused corn shortages that precipitated starvation in the Third World.
•   He has used Democrat-controlled media and academia to silence his critics.
As everyone now knows, unemployment is still surging, with many states reporting up to 15 percent to 20 percent of people out of work; consumer confidence is plunging even further; and loan losses are exploding.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Obama’s Cap & Tax Bill – which will cost every family $3000/year and force jobs to go to China and India – promises that every American will be TAXED every time they flush their toilets, turn on the lights in their homes, open their refrigerators, and drive their cars – that is the short list! In other words, every single activity of daily living will be monitored electronically for “usage” and then taxed to the hilt.

Obama fundraiser with George Soros
Why?  Because the way Socialism works is to tax people to such a Draconian extent that they can no longer afford to "make it" on their own and so must be “taken care of” by Big Government. Yes, the same government that has brought us the utterly FAILED Post Office, Medicare, Medicaid, and Motor Vehicle systems, to name but a few Big Brother debacles.

Then there is the centerpiece of Obama’s Socialist dream, to “transform” our healthcare system, the better to “serve” the more-than 300-million people who live in America – including multi-millions of illegal aliens, felons, and other multi-millions who can afford health insurance but “choose” not to buy it.

In his prime-time news conference on July 22 – in between trashing the “stupid” Cambridge police department for doing their jobs – Obama admitted that he hadn’t read the House version of the healthcare bill. Then he had the nerve to describe a three-card-Monte scheme to pay for it, all the while repeating the urgency of whacking the American people with another $1.5 trillion in debt.

As writer and author Larry Schweikart has chillingly documented, Obama’s monstrous “healthcare” Bill includes, among hundreds of other horrors:
•   Page 22: A mandate for the Government to audit the books of all employers that self insure.
•   Pg 30:  A Government committee that will decide what treatments/benefits a person may receive.
•   Pg 42: The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You will have no choice!
•   Pg 50: HC will be provided to ALL non-US citizens, illegal or otherwise.
•   Pg 58: Government will have real-time access to an individual’s finances and a National ID Healthcard will be issued!
•   Pg 59: Government will have direct access to your bank accounts.
•   Pg 65:  Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions and community organizations like ACORN.
•   Pg 85: The Government will ration your Healthcare!
•   Pg 95: The Government will use groups, i.e. ACORN & Americorps, to sign up individuals for Government HC plan.
•   Pg 85: Specifics of Benefit Levels for AARP members – your Health care WILL be rationed.
•   pg 124: No company can sue Government on price fixing and there can be no "judicial review" against Government Monopoly.
•   Pg 145: An Employer MUST auto-enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE.
•   Pg 126: Employers MUST pay for healthcare for part time employees AND their families.
•   Pg 149: ANY Employer with payroll $400k & above who does not provide public option pays 8 percent tax on all payroll.
•   pg 150: Businesses with payroll between $251k & $400k that don’t provide public option pay 2-6 percent tax on all payroll.
•   Pg 167 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable HC according to Government will be taxed 2.5 percent of income.
•   Pg 170: Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay).
•   Pg 195: Officers & employees of the Healthcare Administration (the GOVERNMENT) will have access to ALL Americans’ finances and personal records.
•   Pg 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it says that.
•   Pg 239: Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.
•   Pg 241: Doctors – doesn’t matter what specialty – will all be paid the same.
•   Pg 253: Government sets value of Doctor’s time, professional judgment, etc. – literally, the value of humans.
•   Pg 272: TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing!
•   Pg 317-318: Government will mandate that hospitals cannot expand.
•   Pg 354: Government will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people!
• PG 425: Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consultations for seniors… end-of-life prodding.
•   Pg 425: Government will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
•   Pg 425: Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in how to die.
•   Pg 429: “Advanced care consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from the Government to end a life!
•   Pg 430: The Government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life.
•   Pg 469:  Community-Based Home Medical Services/Non-profit orgs. (ACORN Medical Services here?)
•   Pg 494-498: Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, and rationing those services.
 
Why rationing? Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York State,  explains that the “$1 trillion to $1.6 trillion health bill, with new taxes and a $500 billion cut to Medicare, will come just as baby boomers turn 65 and increase Medicare enrollment by 30 percent. Less money and more patients will necessitate rationing.” It’s an “assault against seniors,” she says.

After reading the 1,018-page Obama-Pelosi-Reid Bill, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Dave Janda wrote, “it should be clear that the same warning notice must be placed on The ObamaCare Plan as on a pack of cigarettes: Consuming this product will be hazardous to your health.”

“If you are over 65.” Dr. Janda continues, “or have been recently diagnosed as having an advanced form of cardiac disease or aggressive cancer…..dream on if you think you will get treated.  Pick out your coffin.  After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner.”
 
THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY

As the Executive Director of Traditional Family Coalition, Andrea Lafferty said, “It took President Obama six months to pick a dog for the White House, but he wants Congress to pass a massive health care reform bill in two weeks! This is insane.”

But why the escalating opposition to Obama’s grand vision? Well, for one thing, Americans are a very smart people, notwithstanding an occasional lapse into a Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama. They “get” the scam of socialized medicine, they see people from Canada and France (in fact from all over the world) flocking to our shores for treatments that they can’t get in their “progressive” systems. And then there is the sticky reality of the non-partisan, putatively objective Congressional Budget Office, whose director Douglas Elmendorf said last week that the White House’s health-care proposals would result in a “net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion” over 10 years.

Forthwith, Obama “invited” Mr. Elmendorf to the White House, clearly not for tea and crumpets! Can you just imagine the tongue-lashing this watchdog received, or the threats? It remains to be seen how objective Mr. Elmendorf remains in the coming days and weeks.

Historian Victor Davis Hanson puts it this way: "There is a growing collective recognition that things simply do not work the way Obama thinks they do. They may in the hothouse at Harvard Law School or in the charade of Chicago politics, or among young, hip bloggers right out of Yale, but not necessarily in the larger American landscape or the real world abroad."

The American people sense this. They assume that what goes up must come down… Americans are waking up to the fact that their president says, promises, and does things that simply do not make sense…

And as an article in Reuters stated about Obama’s stimulus package: “The economy is shaping up to be Barack Obama’s Katrina. The difference [between Pres. Bush’s Katrina and Obama’s], of course, is that Katrina afflicted a city and a few states, while the recession afflicts the whole country.”

ACCORDING TO PLAN

Vice President Joe Biden recently admitted that all the “experts” Americans entrusted with their money “misread how bad the economy was.”  Leftists like Biden have only a one-solution strategy for the problems they create: throw more money at it! Sure enough, Congressman Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House, suggested that a second "Stimulus" package may be coming!

But the dirty little secret liberals take great pains to conceal is that their massive spending and taxing is all part of the Left’s grand plan to bring big bad America to its knees, annihilate free-market capitalism, widely expand the role of government, and tax people into economic oblivion –all to fulfill their childlike, utopian goal (1) leveling the playing field to the lowest common denominator, and (2) exerting total control over the masses they consider so stupid.

In the last six months, they’ve seen the light of Socialism at the end of the democracy tunnel they’ve loathed for decades. But they’re not there yet! Americans have now caught on to the scammers and their thug tactics and are pushing back hard.

Note to Obama & Company: We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!

About the author:
Joan Swirsky (http://www.joanswirsky.com/) is a New York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 26 July 2009 )

Tulsa’s budget crisis

Tulsa City Councilor Bill Martinson

Thursday, 25 June 2009
Councilor Bill MartinsonOn Saturday, Phillip Evans, President of the Tulsa Fraternal Order of Police, issued a press release challenging the presentation I made to the City Council on Thursday, June 18th concerning the City’s budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

I found the content disturbing, especially considering the importance and sensitivity of Public Safety to the community.

Tulsa is facing a budget crisis.  Our sales tax collections for the last three months are $3.1 million less than during the same period a year ago.  Should this trend continue, Tulsa will be facing a revenue shortfall of $10 million to $12 million compared to the budget the Mayor submitted to the Council on April 28th. The proposals the Mayor presented to deal with this situation fall well short of the mark.

As I stated to both Chief LaCroix and Chief Palmer on Thursday night, my intent was not to attack, but rather to prepare both departments for a drastic decline in funding dictated by economic reality.  Since Police and Fire have managed to consume 100% of our sales tax operating revenue, I feel they must be prepared to adjust their operating structure to keep expenses in line with those revenues. My proposal Thursday night accomplished just that.  The choices were theirs to make and, despite the budget approved by the Council and their hopes to the contrary, they may still face those choices and sooner than they think.

We have a system run amuck when our two public safety departments operate with impunity when it comes to their union members; deciding which laws to obey or what information they feel inclined to disclose.

The public safety unions have done a masterful job of dictating policy. This needs to stop and elected officials must assume responsibility for the Citizens.

The unions, Administration, and certain City Councilors argue that the only option in reduced funding is to reduce staffing.  This is true only if they wish it to be.  They, not I, nor the other three Councilors voting against the Mayor’s budget view the issue with such limited perspective; a limited perspective certain to instill fear in the citizens and union members and sure to divide the City.  

Extreme measures can often be avoided with sufficient planning.  For example, it is not unusual for the City to re-negotiate contract terms, and while I have not been a party to any of the pending contract negotiations, prudent business practice would be to include language allowing for a revision in compensation structure, including perks, should conditions so dictate. If a relief provision is not incorporated in the agreements, one must wonder why, or one must ask why protecting certain union paychecks is more important than protecting the City. This intransigent position also protects some union members at the expense of others – so much for the concept of brotherhood.  

The issue is with the unions, not with the individual cop or fireman.  Appropriately, the rank and file focuses on fighting crime or fire, not reading financial statements.  However, when they are misled, all are done a disservice.  Look at the fates of the railroads, steel industry, certain airlines and automobile manufacturers, and the recent bankruptcy of city of Vallejo, California, if you doubt the catastrophic potential of uncompromising union leadership and weak management.

Before addressing the issue of compensation and staffing, I must respond to the charge that available data were “hidden” from my presentation.  We attempted to conduct a thorough analysis and began gathering data several months ago and focused on information that was objective and in the public domain.  Since we considered transparency and objectivity paramount, one of our sources of information was the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports that seem to provide the most reliable and consistent reports.  The statistics for 2007 were the most recent available when we assembled that portion of our analysis.

Mr. Evans states in his press release that the data for 2008 were available, and that in 2008 Tulsa experienced 4,992 violent crimes.  Granted, preliminary 2008 data were just released by the FBI on June 1st but they differ from the data cited by Mr. Evans.  Although common sense would dictate some inverse correlation between crime rates and staffing levels, that is one analysis we could not run since manpower levels have remained relatively stable despite significant funding increases.  

Mr. Evans and the FOP consistently and conveniently refer to the “universe of comparable cities” as the benchmark for determining compensation.  For years, this approach has enabled the FOP in Tulsa and the unions in the other participating cities to leverage off each other to increase compensation for their members. Mr. Evans refers to this comparison as a tactic and indeed, it is just that, a tactic to influence compensation levels for HIS union members to the detriment of all other city employees and the public.

The FOP allegation that a substantial reduction in funding is an active “attempt to get rid of 20% of public safety officers from both Police and Fire service” is inflammatory, untrue and self-serving.  Police and Fire budgets have consumed an increasing share of our operating revenue.  Funding for those two departments has increased over $37 million per year from 2000 to 2009.  

In the Mayor’s budget approved by the Council last Thursday, they will now consume more than 100% of the 2 cent sales tax Tulsa depends on to fund many other services including code enforcement, maintenance and parks.  Contrary to their persistent cries for more manpower, the Police and Fire unions have parlayed this unabated 35% increase in funding into fewer positions rather than more.  

Not only have the unions successfully negotiated with the Administration to utilize the additional funding to enrich their members rather than increase staffing to serve the City, but the Mayor, Chief Palmer, and the FOP have all ignored Tulsa’s ordinance pertaining to take home vehicles. With a take home car for every officer, coupled with their 4 day work week and the fact that less than 50% of our Police officers live in the City, the total cost and potential savings relating to vehicles alone is staggering.  How many officers are patrolling at peak times? We know the 4-day workweek increases the number of necessary vehicles.   How are Tulsa citizens any safer with our patrol cars parked in Owasso, Collinsville, Bixby, Broken Arrow, etc, etc, etc?

Firefighters receive premium pay for EMT certification.  Following a report from the Oklahoma State Department of Health that cited falsification of EMT training records, the City Council directed the City Auditor to investigate the implications, including those relating to funding and compensation.  

In a report dated yesterday, June 22, 2009, the Auditor, states that the president of the Firefighters’ Union informed the Office of the City Auditor that his membership was instructed not to respond to the Auditor’s questionnaire except to state whether or not they were an EMT.  As a result, “The City Auditor is effectively obstructed from efficiently gathering information necessary for completion of the Special Project.”  

So much for accountability.
Last Updated ( Saturday, 27 June 2009 )