Tulsa City Council Rejects Mayoral Reappointments

By Emory Bryan, The News on 6

TULSA, OK -- The Tulsa City Council turned down three of Mayor Dewey Bartlett's reappointments to a city board Thursday night and refused to publicly explain why immediately after the vote.

In the council's public meeting where the reappointments were rejected, Bartlett stood up to ask councilors why they voted as they did, but the councilors did not respond.

The three reappointments were to the Tulsa Authority for the Recovery of Energy. The rejected appointees are William Bowles, Stephen Schuller and Steven Powell. All three would have had terms that would expire in July of 2013.

The council has been at odds with the TARE board over the use of a reserve fund held by the board that the council wants to access for use in the general fund.

6/30/2010 Related Story: Tulsa Trash Board Reluctant To Transfer Money

After the vote, Bartlett said each of the three appointees were good people, who deserved to be reappointed and were willing to serve. Bartlett said he had no idea why the councilors voted as they did.

The council approved nine other appointments from the Mayor to other boards.