| Updated: 2/11/2009 9:53 pm |
Published: 2/11/2009 9:21 pm
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Two Tulsa city councilors are in the spotlight after a citizen files an ethics complaint against them. FOX 23's Douglas Clark uncovered the details.
At the center of the complaint is a proposed bank to be built at the corner of 13th and Lewis. The complaint questions the role of two city councilors who approved the project.
A St. John Credit Union is slated to be built at the corner of 13th Place and Lewis Avenue. The city council approved the project on October 30th.
Now an ethics complaint has been filed against two city councilors who voted in favor of the project. The author believes the two “are receiving some sort of compensation from the credit union.”
The author of the complaint also raises questions about a stack of letters written to the council in support of the project, handed out during the council meeting. He says one was written by someone who is “not a resident” in the area. He also says an address on one of the letters “does not exist.”
The author of the ethics complaint speculates the “real estate company or the credit union company are the ones who wrote these letters” supporting the project.
The complainant wants to know why, as he alleges, one of the councilors in question went door to door telling residents “how good this project was for them.”
At the time of the council vote, seven citizens came forward to voice their concerns about the project. And the author of the complaint wants to know why, as he puts it, “people that did not attend the meeting have more say on this project than the parties that did attend.”
The city auditing department will hand the complaints off to the city clerk, who will then forward the matter to the city council. In such matters, it is the council’s responsibility to investigate whether there was any wrongdoing. The councilors in questions can recuse themselves from the investigating committee.
FOX 23 News has chosen not to identify the councilors named in the complaint until more evidence is presented and the council decides whether to take action.
