Garrett, however, contends the report actually showed the opposite: that the department took steps not to illegally comingle private and public funds in order to pay for its annual leadership conference and other events. The report, released March 7, came about after Superintendent Janet Barresi asked Jones to look into questionable travel expenses by former […]
Clifton Adcock
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Presidential visit
Obama is scheduled to travel to Cushing on Thursday as part of a four-state tour that includes New Mexico, Nevada and Ohio, according to a White House media release. While in Cushing, Obama will discuss how his administration hopes to improve and support infrastructure to help leverage domestic resources while ensuring those projects are developed […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Conspiracy theory
When it comes to his insistence that man-made climate change is not real, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe has no apologies. When it comes to how and why man-made climate change is an issue, he takes no prisoners. Inhofe’s new book, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, could be considered the […]
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Looking ahead
Better Block OKC essentially takes a block or two of underutilized or blighted streetscape and inexpensively transforms that area using art, culture, pop-up businesses and other methods. For example, vendors set up shop in an urban section for a night, while the appearance of the area is transformed with transitory improvements, such as trees, benches […]
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Open books
Last year the city saw unprecedented spending on City Council elections on behalf of independent expenditure groups that attempted to shield their financial backers, a situation made possible by the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case, Federal Election Commission v. Citizens United. The proposal, passed on to council from that body’s legislative committee, supported a state […]
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Dogged park
Bicentennial Park, located between City Hall and the Civic Center Music Hall, is home to a number of historical monuments and sculptures. Its renovation is part of Project 180, the massive downtown green space and streetscape redesign funded by the tax increment finance district surrounding Devon tower. But renovation plans for Bicentennial Park hit a […]
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Fade out
Senate Bill 1623 has made it past the state Senate Finance Committee and is awaiting further action in the Senate. Authored by Sen. Mike Mazzei, R-Tulsa, it would eliminate a number of special tax credits and subsidies in order to compensate for revenue lost by reducing the state’s top marginal income tax rate from 5.25 […]
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Stunning discrepancy
Amnesty issued a Feb. 15 news release to bring attention to the national death toll from Tasers hitting the 500 mark. It indicated OKCPD as being responsible for seven deaths by Taser over the last decade. However, OKCPD Capt. Dexter Nelson said that since 2003 there have been six recorded deaths that occurred after a […]
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Primary prepping
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich visited Tulsa and Oklahoma City on Feb. 20 and addressed the Legislature the following day. Texas Congressman Ron Paul came to Oklahoma City for a Feb. 25 appearance outside the state Capitol. Thus far this campaign season, the state has been visited by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Utah […]
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Drug-testing for dollars
According to the state Department of Human Services, 3,922 adults and 17,233 children received TANF funds in January. Most of those households are single-parent homes with low or no earned income, and the maximum time a person can receive TANF is five years over an adult’s lifetime. While only two such measures were introduced in […]