MuskogeePhoenix.com, Muskogee, OK

Oklahoma News

Discussion

July 29, 2010

Tulsa mayor wants council attorney's resignation

Associated Press

TULSA — The Tulsa City Council is not authorized by the city's charter to have its own attorney, and Mayor Dewey Bartlett has demanded the current attorney's resignation.



A letter sent by Bartlett's attorney to city council attorney Drew Rees also questioned whether city funds were misappropriated in to pay for him.



The letter said the mayor wanted to invalidate the council's actions concerning its probe into whether Bartlett and his chief of staff, Terry Simonson, lied to councilors about a federal police grant.



Rees, who was not in the City Council office when the letter was delivered Wednesday, said he has no plans to resign.



Council Chairman Rick Westcott, an attorney, said the letter was without any factual or legal basis.



"This is a pathetic attempt by Mayor Bartlett to interfere with the City Council's employees," Westcott said.



"It is sad that the mayor continues to attack the council on almost a daily basis and out of the other side of his mouth makes statements about wanting to work with us," he said.



The letter said the council failed in 1999 and 2001 to secure an election on a City Charter amendment that would provide for a council attorney. It says that in 2003, then-Mayor Bill LaFortune "yielded to council pressure for its own attorney and without a public vote, established the position" by transferring a senior assistant city attorney position to the council.



The charter, however, requires that all legal services be supervised by the city attorney, the letter states, and that when the city's legal department recused itself from the council probe of the mayor and Simonson, the recusal should have applied to Rees.



The letter also said that the council recently discussed placing on the ballot a charter amendment creating a council attorney post, further demonstrating that the council recognizes that the position is not valid without a charter amendment.



___

Text Only
Oklahoma News