Tulsa Mayoral Candidate Monroe Nichols

Vastly different perspectives

On meeting Mayoral Candidate Monroe Nichols, it is easy to see how he has gained significant traction in this election contest. He is personable, knowledgeable, and intelligent. But even in casual introduction, it was obvious we hold vastly different perspectives on public policy.

Question: What do you want to accomplish for Tulsa different from other candidates?

I launched the campaign after being in the Oklahoma Legislature for eight years. I could have served four more years before terming out, but looking at this community, we have crisis we see every day. 

I do believe homelessness must be addressed.

I believe student outcomes are critical to our long-term economic viability. We must have better outcomes for kids. The mayor does have a role in student outcomes. For example, I know we have homeless students in some districts.

Business retention and expansion is something I have been involved with in my career. It starts with workforce development. We must hold the system and ourselves accountable. Are we getting the outcomes we need to produce the people we need to be employed in Tulsa?

Question: In education, the difference between single parent households and households with both parents participating is a huge factor. How do we make a difference in private homes?

My dad was a police officer and my mom a probation officer as I was growing up. They divorced when I was 4-years old. I was raised mostly by a single mother so I don’t think that is the single determinate. It does make a difference between one income and two and I am not discounting having a dad in the home. I just don’t know from a public policy standpoint how we can keep people together. We can help prepare kids for what opportunities may come.

Question: Past mayors focused on big box retail for economic development, but that disadvantages small local owner/operators in the community. Would you take a different approach?

Small businesses are the largest employers in Tulsa. We spend a lot of time chasing big economic deals but what money we provide [as incentives] escapes the community very quickly. What I have learned is that small businesses need basic things like dealing with homelessness on their doorsteps. While they try to deal with that with compassion, it is getting worse by about 10 percent every year. Public safety plays into that as well.

We also need to drop the cost of doing business with the city and there must be some accountability from the city on that front.

A mayor can also help businesses source their components locally. If you are ordering parts from other parts of the country and yet someone locally has the same part, the mutual advantage of doing business locally works. More than civic networking functions, there must be somewhere for businesses to go to find the local venders they need.

Finally, when the city puts contracts out for bid, we must make sure there is a local provision included. While the bill didn’t pass the Legislature, there was one attempted that required any project over $50,000.00 that hire local people could be awarded the contract even if their bid was a small bit higher. We can do that in Tulsa.

Question: The City of Tulsa is a large employer and some suggest bloated with mid-management. How would you approach streamlining city government?

Many would be surprised by my referencing Ross Perot [1992 candidate for president], but he once said, “When you see a snake, just kill it, you don’t appoint a committee on snakes.”

As Mayor of a large city, I don’t expect to wake any day to everything running perfectly. That said, there should be time frames and performance standards for most, if not all, activity and a process to get problems to the mayor’s office when needed.

The question of how to redesign workflow to be more efficient is difficult. It’s like building a bike while you are riding it. I have thought a lot about the operations of the city and the first thing is to establish an expedite team to review permitting. After 14 days of review, you bring everyone into a room to answer what questions are on the table then get that permit out the door.

The second thing would be to go to engineers and architects who have the qualifications to certify permits. They can read plans and understand the city specifications. To loosen up Tulsa’s backlog, we may be able to certify some of those folks to help thereby adding capacity to speed progress.

The third thing would be that after the departmental process is reviewed and improved (you don’t get rid of the other two), continue to expedite permits. It is our job to deliver permits as quickly as possible without risking public safety. After we have done these things, we can establish more exact standards and reasonably meet expectations.

Question: Should local Public Health officials be allowed again to self-declare crisis limiting Constitutional Liberty for others?

We must remember what COVID was like in the beginning. And the fear associated with it and that we didn’t know a great deal about it. We know a lot more now that can give us insights into how such a problem should be handled in the future. That is the only time in my life that I remember public health driving how we interacted with each other. It was unprecedented. Just like some say there was an overreaction with masks and lockdowns, there is also overreaction by those who say we must never again allow public health such control.

Question: As our rights come from God with government and law established to protect our rights, can we not put an emergency breaker on public health to prevent a second stampede of hysteria?

It’s a great conversation to have about how we approach these things and how we find the appropriate balance. That is a fair conversation to have. I do believe that the people making decisions were doing what they thought best. I think it was everyone’s best guess during COVID.

Question: When can Tulsa move beyond looking for victims of the 1921 conflict and begin race reconciliation in our city?

The way that you phrase that makes reconciliation very difficult. So let me ask you a couple of questions. How many black people died? Do you believe 37 victims is correct? Do you know how many white folks died?

Reporter: Not beyond official reports.

I ask those questions just to say that the comment about massacre versus insurrection from what we are coming to know about it that there was law enforcement and national guard involved.

Reporter: After destruction to organize relief, but not engaged in the battle. Today on Greenwood we have a plaque that begins, “On May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa.” That is not how the conflict started.

I hear what you are saying. My response to that is that I don’t know of another example of where you have that many instruments of government that use the weight of their resources targeted at a group of people. Today, we don’t handle riots that way. We didn’t handle insurrection at the capital that way. I do think there is a space where we allow a level of fragility to get in the way of us having a real conversation.

I also think that there is this thought that in some way or form, black folks want something in a way of a handout when I know that not to be true. I’m from Texas and not a massacre survivor, but I do think that if we approach this conversation in ways that put you in a corner, it is impossible to get out of that corner.

The path to reconciliation that you are talking about is important. It would be awesome if David Arnett and someone from North Tulsa who sees this differently actually took a deep dive into the facts. Then write from that experience.

Reporter: I would commit to that effort.

For more detail on Tulsa Mayoral Candidate Monroe Nichols, click here for the campaign website.

Edit Note: Following this formal interview, our talk about Tulsa continued. Monroe was surprised to learn of my objections to Sen. Landford’s proposed massive National Park proposal for downtown Tulsa and this writer surprised that the story on that topic has not been discussed in North Tulsa.

It is a shame the local newspaper doesn’t hire writers or editors of independent perspective nor allow dissenting opinions, even in letters to the editor. Further, there is no current call-in radio talk show or television broadcast with contrasting views on public topics in Tulsa. However, Tulsa Today (est. 1996) and Straight Up on Substack welcome contrary opinions, debate, your comments on public policy or this story below.