Quotes of the Day

“It’s easy for us to look at voting as simple, natural, and important. But most of us are also well-educated and well-informed about politics and policy. We know at least a little about the offices that are on the ballot and what these officeholders do. There’s a good chance that we personally know at least some of the candidates we’re voting for (and against). Most of us have stable work and family situations and reliable transportation. We know where to vote, or which websites to check if we don’t. Most of our family members and friends are also reliable voters, and our inboxes and Facebook feeds are filled with reminders and exhortations from them to get to the polls. These conditions simply don’t apply for a substantial share of the population.”

– OK Policy Executive Director David Blatt, on why voter turnout in Oklahoma has fallen to near the lowest in the nation (Source: bit.ly/1tGwz63)

“This year, I’ve been asked to present to the Legislature a plan on how OETA could operate — I think the operational word there is could operate — without state funding in a three-, five- and seven-year plan. Short of an $80 million endowment, we’re going to need the help of the state of Oklahoma, in order to operate the state network.”

-Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) Executive Director Dan Schiedel, speaking to a Rotary club on Monday. State funding currently comprises about one-third of OETA’s budget (Source: bit.ly/10nbpy0)

“I don’t know about the individual circumstances, and I’m not trying to politicize this, but if it had been 17 foster children, people would be outraged. I certainly hope Attorney General Pruitt will agree to look into the situation and report his general findings.”

– State Sen. Patrick Anderson, R-Enid, speaking about the recent deaths of 17 adults with developmental disabilities who had recently been transferred out of large, state-run institutions into smaller, private facilities. (Source: http://bit.ly/1Ed5RoF)

“In the last 16 years, only three initiative petitions qualified for the statewide ballot. Every other state question reached the ballot via action by the state’s elected powers that be – the Legislature. This begs the question: Is it too difficult – nigh on impossible, really – for rank-and-file Oklahomans to take matters into their own hands when they can’t get lawmakers to act?”

-Journal Record columnist Arnold Hamilton (Source: http://bit.ly/1wNeNyQ)

“You’ve got two facilities (where) you should be questioning what has been going on, and you’re going to turn around and fill it back up and not say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, maybe we need to step back?’ I don’t see enough supervision.”

-Lynn Powell, director of the prison reform group OK-CURE, speaking about Oklahoma’s move to return prisoners to halfway houses operated by the private prison company Avalon. The state had pulled inmates out of the facility due to numerous reports of drug use and inmate fights allowed by guards (Source: http://bit.ly/1p6gR4e)

“Yet as Oklahoma’s prison population has grown through the years, and as lawmakers have added more statutes to keep people locked up longer, the state’s violent crime rate has decreased only slightly. In his audit of the DOC, state Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones said lawmakers need to either ‘act responsibly and commit sufficient financial resources’ to fund the prison system’s operations and programs, ‘or find ways in which to be smart on crime, keeping in mind the ever increasing cost to Oklahoma taxpayers.’”

The Oklahoman Editorial Board

“So as once we talked about getting [coal] from McAlester to Muskogee, now we’re talking about getting it from Sallisaw to Peking. But the dynamics are the same. What does it cost to get it? What’s the cost to get it from here to there? And what is the market? Is the demand high enough to cover what it costs to get it?”

– Bob Blackburn with the Oklahoma History Center, on a stalled mining project in eastern Oklahoma. Developers originally planned to sell coking coal to steel manufacturers in China, but a drop in the price of coal has suspended activity at the mine (Source: n.pr/1FM5p2z)

“It’s basically setting Oklahomans up for failure, which is just a travesty. People who gather these signatures are taking their own time. They’re taking off work. They’re using their own gas money.”

-Medical marijuana advocate Amy Hilterbran, speaking about Oklahoma’s initiative petition laws. Compared to surrounding states, Oklahoma require substantially more signatures to be gathered over a shorter period of time to get a petition on the ballot (Source: http://bit.ly/1tkrlMZ)

“We’re investing our own time and our own money in this product. Why shouldn’t I be able to sell it here to who I want to? Every state that touches our state has that advantage. Why not Oklahoma?”

– Chase Healey, co-owner of Prairie Artisan Ales. Healey is one of a number of local brewers fighting an ordinance that relegates breweries to industrial zones and forbids breweries from selling their product on-site (Source: bit.ly/1w6NZuD)

“Teachers that can speak in two languages are a tremendous asset. It creates a special bond between the teacher and the student which helps in the learning process.”

-Shannon Freeman, the Oklahoma City Public Schools’ director of recruiting, speaking about why district officials are conducting interviews in Puerto Rico to fill vacant teaching positions. Almost half of the students in the district speak a language other than English at home (Source: bit.ly/1s0vekI).