OKC MAYOR’S RACE

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

++ ELECTIONS ON TUESDAY, MARCH 2ND

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

++ ACTION ITEM

++ REPRESENTATIVE STEELE’S RESPONSE

++ HELPING THE OKLAHOMAN UNDERSTAND GOOD GOVERNMENT

++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, March 3rd will be held at Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. This Wednesday, we begin the process of interviewing candidates for state wide and congressional races. This week’s meeting will feature the 3 Republican candidates for the State Labor Commissioner’s office. Brenda Renau had held that seat for 12 years before losing it to a former Democrat lawmaker 4 years ago. This is a seat that labor unions have wanted to control, so it is important that the Labor Commissioner, understands the job, is fair minded and not controlled by labor unions or big business for that matter. The candidates are in order of their announcing for this office, Jason Reese, an attorney, State Representative Tad Jones, and businessman Mark Costello. Please try to arrive early as we will start our meeting at 12:05 sharp and move into the interview process quickly. All of those having their dues paid as of February 17th (2 weeks prior to any vote) will be given a ballot.

Depending on the vote of our members, we will either endorse one of these candidates or vote to make no endorsement in this race.

++ ELECTIONS ON TUESDAY, MARCH 2ND

I want to address only 2 elections, though there are more in the state. These comments are my own and do not represent an official position of OCPAC. These are just my thoughts, you may have a different opinion and that is fine.

+ TULSA SCHOOL DISTRICT - Any registered voter who lives in the

Tulsa Public School district is being asked to vote for a $354 million dollar school bond. If the voters approve this more than one third of a billion dollar property tax increase then they need their heads examined by a shrink as loony tune as they are. This will be a huge burden on people in a depressed economy as property taxes pay no attention to the prosperity of those upon whom these taxes are assessed. It is more than twice the size of any previous TPS bond issue and reportedly the largest in state history. A good deal of this money will be wasted on early childhood education facilities. Wasted because these programs don’t produce positive long term benefits for our children as they progress through the system. VOTE NO on this bond increase and require the TPS to come back with a reasonable bond issue for only the most pressing needs.

+ OKC MAYOR’S RACE - Mayor Mick Cornett will face Steve Hunt in his

second re-election bid since winning a special election 6 years ago to fill the seat then vacated by then Mayor Kirk Humphrey who ran in a losing effort to replace Don Nickels.

Anyone who knows me well or follows my e-mails will surely know that I don’t care much for Mick Cornett as I believe he is little more than a useful front man for the local central planners who see the various levels of government as little more than useful entities to help them achieve their wants and desires.

Therefore, I would be most willing to see Mayor Mick replaced as long as the replacement was an improvement. I guess there are many ways to define what an improvement would be, but with Mr. Hunt, I am not so sure he would be an improvement.

Here are my concerns. The first time I met Steve Hunt was at a press conference called by Paul Jacob. Mr. Jacob is an advocate of people having access to referendums or the petition process to redress their government. He had been involved with the Tax Payer Bill of Rights

(TABOR) petition as well as a petition to tighten up the loose ends of our eminent domain laws. Oklahoma’s Attorney General Drew Edmondson had filed criminal charges against Mr Jacob and two others in what I believe was an attempt to make an example out of them for trying to put some clamps on the ability of government to grow and abuse people.

During the time Mr. Jacob was speaking Steve Hunt tried to crash the press conference by yelling at the top of his lungs about something he claimed Mr. Jacob had done to him in years past. Fortunately several people held their signs up and moved in front of Mr. Hunt to keep him from further interruptions. After the press conference was over I went up to him while he was being interview by one of the local TV stations and told him I believed he was a horse’s “rear” for what he tried to do. I told him he had a right to the interview with the reporter but he had no right to interrupt Mr. Jacob. He suggested we drop our differences and work together to defeat the corporate welfare program for the 5 millionaires and billionaires who then owned the Sonics, now the OKC Thunder.

In recent days he has had some air and press time. I have to believe he is trying to sound like a perfectly reasonable fellow who would make a good mayor for OKC. However, he sounds to me more like someone lacking in sound economic principles and a commitment to obligations.

Don’t get me wrong, I was against MAPS III for a variety of reasons, most of which was that some of the projects should be done by the private sector and that some of the other projects would cost the city more than they would directly generate in revenues or even generate in ancillary revenues to the city.

While there is no guarantee that a new convention center will be successful, it is the one project that stands the best chance of bringing a large increase of revenues to the city and Mr. Hunt wants to try and shelve that project. If Mr. Hunt was running for any seat on the council other than Brian Walters’ seat, I would take a chance and endorse him. But he is running for Mayor, the face of the city and I am afraid he might be a huge embarrassment to the citizens of OKC in that capacity. Therefore, the choice is yours, if I lived in the city I would find it a most difficult decision.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

+ TULSA AREA - This Thursday evening, March 4th, Oklahomans For

Sovereignty and Free Enterprise (OK-SAFE) will hold their monthly action forum meeting. The time will be 6:45 to 8:15 p.m. at the Hardesty Regional Library, 93rd and South Memorial in Tulsa. The speaker will be Kenneth Rice II talking about Constitutional economics. OK-SAFE is an excellent organization and I urge people in the Tulsa area to get involved and participate.

++ ACTION ITEM

There is a really bad idea being proposed at the Corporation Commission. If approved by the commissioners, it would make all long distance calls made within the state of Oklahoma toll free from land lines. However, to make up for lost long distance revenues the proposal is to add yet another fee to all phone services, especially noteworthy would be to cell phone users. That’s right, the hair brain idea would have cell phone users paying for the long distance phone calls for people who have land lines. This is just another immoral re- distribution of wealth scheme. Commissioner Dana Murphy is against the proposal. Please call the other two Commissioners and tell them to oppose this measure. The office number for Jeff Cloud is (405)

521-2264 and the number for Bob Anthony is (405) 521-2261. If people with land lines want free long distance calling they need to pay more for their basic service, not use the sword of government to take money from cell phone users to subsidize their land line service.

++ REPRESENTATIVE STEELE’S RESPONSE

In last week’s e-mail I had a section urging State Representative Kris Steele to beware of fascists. I received a call from Representative Steele about 2:00 p.m. on the same day the e-mail went out to explain his legislation and to assure me he would not vote for legislation to mandate private property owners from being able to have a restaurant with a smoking area or prohibit smoking in a bar or club.

He informed me that several years ago there were 122 restaurants across the state that chose to spend money to section off a special smoking area with a separate ventilation system from the system that served the non-smoking areas of the restaurant. Since that time several of those restaurant owners had expressed an opinion that they wished they had simply become non-smoking facilities.

Therefore Representative Steele is sponsoring legislation to pay for half the cost, less depreciation, that the restaurant owners had originally spent to segregate their facilities to now become non smoking facilities. Where I was wrong is that the monies to used to help pay for the conversion does not come from the taxpayers as I had suggested, but rather from interest earned from the tobacco settlement fund. This would legally fit into the limited uses for those funds.

While I don’t believe there should have ever been a tobacco settlement fund in the first place, it does exist this would be a proper use of that money. Again, this does not mandate anything, it is simply an option for those restaurant owners to make the switch today.

++ HELPING THE OKLAHOMAN UNDERSTAND GOOD GOVERNMENT

In last week’s e-mail I suggested the Oklahoman really practiced hypocrisy. Based on a couple of editorials this past week, my I suggest they really need help in recognizing good legislation from bad.

Last Tuesday, the Oklahoman ran an editorial titled “Off Key: Lawmaker wishes state stood alone.” Of course they started off by dredging up some of their tired old attacks upon Representative Charles Key before they labeled those of us who are concerned about the States Rights issues as being “extremists.” Coming from the Oklahoman’s editorial page I take that with a grain of salt and a badge of honor. I really want to thank Senate President Pro-Tem Glen Coffee for his public pronouncements about the validity of debate on at least the health care aspect of these 10th Amendment issues. His statement was something like: The federal government has thumbed their noses at the states so it is proper for this debate to be going on at the state level.

Of the many “states rights” pieces of legislation introduced this year they aren’t necessarily random, but rather intended to work together.

In a recent article in the Oklahoma Gazette about the Health Care Freedom of Choice legislation by Representative Mike Ritze (R-Broken Arrow), the article ended with input between two attorneys giving their opinions about the constitutionality of some of these measures.

One attorney seemed to believe the states might succeed if they were ready to risk losing federal dollars. That is why Representative Key’s legislation to first impound federal taxes collected by the state is so important. Under certain circumstances those dollars might not be sent to the feds, which would mitigate the effect of funds not being sent back to the state.

In another editorial I believe the Oklahoman took a gentle swipe at legislation by Representative Ritze to remove sales taxes from the purchase of gold and silver coins or ingots. Unfortunately, leadership seems to be so bent toward preventing any tax cuts that the bill never got a chance to be heard.

Several years ago when the Democrat led legislature passed legislation to put sales taxs on gold and silver it killed the coin shows other than a couple of small collector shows. No longer do traders and investors come to Oklahoma, paying ancillary sales taxes on hotel rooms, on meals and other items. Now Oklahomans have to leave the state for those shows, spending their dollars elsewhere. I talked with one local dealer that just before the end of the year, sent one of his friends to Houston because the fellow wanted to purchase a hundred thousand dollars worth of gold and silver. The Oklahoma sales tax would have cost him another $9,000 if he were to purchase here. A person can buy a lot of gold or silver for that $9,000 in Texas where they don’t charge sales tax on those items.

Since gold and silver are the basis of real money, removing sales taxes from money solves a moral problem as well as in the long run the ancillary taxes might just bring more revenues to the state by having shows here again than the state receives from the pittance collected from a decimated industry.

One of the really big 10th Amendment issues was authored by Representative Sally Kern, known as the Oklahoma Environmental Authority Act. The legislation establishes that Oklahoma’s Department of Environmental Quality and the State Corporation have authority over the federal EPA when it comes to water and air quality as well as the oil and gas industry. Without such authority Oklahoma is at the mercy of the tyrannical EPA who may require companies such as OG&E to install up to 1 billion dollars in equipment on their coal fired generation plants.

One of the reasons given was to improve air quality over the Wichita Wildlife Refuge just west of Lawton. To show what fraud and lunacy exists in the EPA ask yourself this question: where is the closest Oklahoma coal burning power plant in proximity to the refuge? How about Ponca City, about 200 miles to the North Northeast of the refuge or perhaps the Muskogee plant, probably 250 to the Northeast of Lawton. Can anyone answer how those evil coal fired plants pollute the air over the refuge since the prevailing winds in Oklahoma are out of the South or once in a while out of the North West?

I would suggest such 10 Amendment legislation would prevent Oklahoma’s utility companies from being forced to waste hundreds of millions of dollars to solve a problem which has for the most part already been solved. Preventing Oklahoma companies from having to waste dollars helps to keep down the costs of energy in Oklahoma which is good for consumers and good for businesses in Oklahoma. Hopefully the Oklahoman may someday understand the value of these 10th Amendment issues.

One more thing as the Oklahoman took another swipe at Representative Randy Terrill as he has legislation to require government schools to classify every student as either a citizen, a legal immigrant or an illegal alien. This again is a 10th Amendment issue as the federal government refuses to secure our borders. Knowing to costs of educating illegal alien children in our schools is important to understanding the enormous costs to have these people living in our state and nation.

Speaking of costs related to illegal aliens, the Oklahoman had a news story about an arrest of an alleged drug kingpin being arrested in Caddo County. Law enforcement claims he is the largest dealer in the county and if convicted will spend a long time in prison before being deported. The news article indicated he has already been deported 4 times in the past. As you can see, deporting without having the borders sealed is costly and ineffective. I don’t know that you could say this Mexican national was doing a job American’s won’t do, but I believe you could say he was doing the job better than any American, that is, if he is truly the drug king pin of the county.

All, I can say is the genie is out of the bottle and the 10th Amendment / States Rights issues and they aren’t likely to go away anytime soon. The Oklahoman would do good to re-think their slamming of some of Oklahoma’s finest lawmakers such as Charles Key and the high quality citizens in Oklahoma that love liberty and believe the federal government has grown way too large, way to intrusive, way too expensive and way way too tyrannical.

++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE

As the month of February draws to a close we are at 141 dues paying members in just 2 months. The support is so appreciated. There will be a lot of important races this year all over the State. The dues we collect and donate to the conservatives we spot during our interview process, sometimes makes the difference between victory or defeat in these important races. If you have not joined as yet, please consider doing so. We are slowly helping to make Oklahoma a more conservative state. Information as to how to join will follow my sign off.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows

Charliemeadows7@gmail.com