Stan Geiger

Three Counselors Refused

KOTV reported last night that certain Tulsa city councilors have volunteered to take minimal pay cuts this year. Three councilors---Henderson, Turner and Eagleton---refused to take part, arguing they only make $18,000 a year.

I can understand the 18k posture. And I will concur with what Emory Bryan of KOTV noted: the amount of money involved relative to the city's budget is "chump change."

On the other hand, the city is shutting down rec centers. The city has grounded the police helicopters and done away with the mounted patrol. I hear some 4,000 street lights have gone dark. Cops have been laid off; firefighters have taken pay cuts. Yet we have three councilors that won't take a pay cut of the slightest magnitude---even if the move would amount to nothing more than symbolism.

The word is "leadership."

Councilor Jack Henderson's rejection of any notion that he should get less doesn't surprise me at all. It wasn't long ago that he was bitching about being underpaid, and calling for a tripling of his pay with the stroke of a pen.

I disagree with Jack's view that he is so greatly undervalued. I figure you could go into just about any household in town and find his replacement.

But the one that really pisses me off is Eagleton. If I have the wrong guy, set me right. But I'm pretty sure Eagleton has been shooting lip about cops not writing enough traffic tickets for some time now. He wants the money to feed the city's coffers.

Eagleton---though I'm sure he has other sources of income---complains of only getting paid $18,000 on his city job. Well, there are a lot people in Tulsa that only make $18,000 a year. There are a lot of people in this city that make less than that. Still, Eagleton advocates having cops forget about real crime and go looking for someone doing 45 mph in a 40 mph zone or making a lane change without a turn signal and writing them up.

Politicians recently set the minimum moving violation fine in Tulsa at $150. I've written that when I first got my driver's license, in 1974, the minimum moving violation fine was $15---and it stayed there for a number of years after. Today, the typical traffic fine in Tulsa is 10 times what it was when I first started driving---way exceeding an inflation adjustment.

Cops have seemed reluctant to issue the fines. I applaud the cops for that. The fines constitute usury; they are excessive. Eagleton, however, could care less. He wants the money.

But when Eagleton had the opportunity to offer up even a mere $150 annual cut in his pay for the good of the city, he declined.

Given that, Councilor Eagleton, as far as I'm concerned, may now shut his fat pie hole when it to comes to traffic fine revenue.

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