Stan Geiger

Tulsa's Car Lot

Recently, KOTV reported the City of Tulsa will sell over 200 automobiles because they are, for the most part, sitting around collecting dust. The report said the move will save $235,000 in annual costs associated with maintaining the vehicles, and raise $300,000 in cash.

I have no problem with the city actually doing something that makes sense, like dumping needless rolling stock, but that’s where my like of this story ends.

The “decider,” the guy that did a survey and determined which vehicles were needed and which were not, is the fire chief. Yeah, that’s right, the fire chief. He took on the assignment, reportedly, at the request of Mayor Kat Taylor.

The fire chief, I’m quite certain, draws a salary that easily makes it into the six-figure range. The fire chief, most certainly, is the highest-paid employee in the fire department. The fire chief, most certainly, is one of the highest-paid employees on the city payroll.

Why? Well, because he’s da man. He’s running the show. He’s calling the shots. Without him the fire department would have to shut down. Yet, it appears the chief can spend his time wandering through the city’s numerous departments counting cars. Fascinating.

Do we need a high-paid fire chief? If the chief can go off on a car-counting tangent while the department does just fine without him, apparently not. That tells me the chief has no particular duties. He kicks everything down the ladder, then those guys kick it down the ladder, then those guys kick it down the ladder, and that tells me there are too many management jobs in the department.

That point aside, if the city wanted to know if it owned too many cars, why the fire chief? I mean we have a mayor with a bloated, overpaid, staff. What were they doing? Every department has a department head. What were they doing? We have 9 city councilors. What were they doing? We have a city auditor. What was he doing?

I guess they were all too busy to do the jobs for which they get paid.

And then comes the question of how.

Again, we have a mayor, a mayoral staff, department heads galore, a governing council and an auditor, all whom have a duty to manage the city’s business. Still, with all that management and oversight in place, the city managed to accumulate 200 cars that can’t even be justified with some BS excuse. How in the hell did that happen?

Since the fire chief is the designated “needless finder,” and since the fire department doesn’t seem to need him, I say we should put him to work on another project. Let’s put him to work looking for city jobs that don’t need to exist. I mean needless cars are nickels and dimes compared to needless payroll.

---