Tulsa Mayor Says He Has An Open Door Policy For City Councilors

Emory Bryan, News on 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett is refuting claims by the City Council that he is keeping them out of the loop on city matters and refusing to answer their questions.

The councilors made the charges again Tuesday, after placing several items on the agenda for their committee meeting and finding no one from the administration was available to discuss them.

Bartlett was in Washington, D.C. Tuesday for a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden.

"I make myself available to them if ever they call or come up with a question and unfortunately they rarely take advantage of that. I wish they would," said Mayor Dewey Bartlett.

He said he has an open door policy and invited city councilors to come up to his office at any time.

Tuesday, all nine of the Councilors noted their frustration with a lack of communication from the Mayor's office, on a variety of issues.

"I've been out of town quite a bit the last few weeks. I know they have been some meetings and they were thing on their agenda and I wasn't around to react to them. But I have a lot of staff members who can answer any question they have if I'm not available and I would suggest to them that that's a good option," said Dewey Bartlett.

Bartlett attended Thursday night's City Council meeting, which lasted almost three hours, along with his Chief of Staff Terry Simonson.

Simonson said Thursday his appearance at the city council would be the first in more than a year.

The city council had previously accused Simonson of lying to them in an official meeting, prompting Simonson to avoid their company.