Quotes of the Day

“Our university has been operating in the red the last couple of years. One would think it might be wise to go in and increase tuition. Frankly, we’ve been asking our students to pay increase after increase after increase.”

-University of Oklahoma President-designate Jim Gallogly, who said the University will hold tuition flat this year while assessing its financial situation [Journal Record].

“I’ve never even received a traffic ticket. It’s like I’m still being punished.”

-OKC non-profit director Robin Wertz, who is barred from voting in Oklahoma until 2024 despite being out of prison for 11 years [Oklahoma Watch].

“The recent auditing ideas are just a ruse to avoid spending money on Oklahoma’s needs, and they spend more money doing it. Education, prisons, roads, human services — these are services that the vast majority of Oklahomans believe the state should be providing. By auditing them only to identify cost savings, the Republicans are violating all the rules of effective auditing.”

-Adam Kupetsky, a Tulsa resident and senior auditor at Phillips 66 [Tulsa World].

“This is the biggest election day in my lifetime as far as public education is concerned. And I want everybody to know it.”

-Ada City Schools Superintendent Mike Anderson, speaking about if SQ 799 gets on the ballot to repeal the revenues needed to fund a statewide teacher raise [StateImpact Oklahoma].

“You (Mayor Bynum) made it your charge as mayor of this city that you would seek justice for my family and community, that what happened to my son would never happen again on your watch. We believe that tragedies like this will continue to happen if you don’t make some major changes.”

-Rev. Joey Crutcher, the father of Terence Crutcher who was fatally shot by a Tulsa police officer in 2016, speaking to the Tulsa City Council. A coalition of community leaders and activists have outlined requested reforms to the city’s police training and practices [Tulsa World].

“What people in the community and historians are trying to raise up is what happened in Tulsa is a deliberate, coordinated, systematic assault on a community that resulted in that community being completely destroyed, and there are estimates that as many as 300 people were killed. That is not a race riot. This was a massacre.”

-Karlos Hill, chair of the African American studies department at the University of Oklahoma, who is leading a “Tulsa Race Massacre Institute” to help Tulsa Public Schools teachers learn about the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street by a white mob and how to teach it to students [Tulsa World].

“At best, to me, this is sloppy. And at worst, it’s intentionally misleading. It’s deceptive.”

-Oklahoma Supreme Court Chief Justice Douglas L. Combs, speaking about errors in the petition being circulated to repeal the tax increases passed to fund a teacher raise in Oklahoma [NewsOK].

“We know how serious the issue of suicide is and how prevalent it is becoming across the country. It is important for us to be proactive to empower our teachers and staff with the best training we can as opposed to pretending this isn’t a problem our students and families struggle with.”

– Charlie Hannema, Broken Arrow Public Schools spokesman, speaking on a district initiative that aims to help administrators and teachers learn how to prevent suicides [Tulsa World].

“As a result of Defendants’ policies, people too poor to pay for their release are jailed for days, weeks, or months. This automatic pretrial detention of poor people has devastating consequences: people who are arrested lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, endure separation from their children and loved ones, and face pressure to plead guilty as soon as possible because that is often the quickest way to terminate their unlawful confinement.”

-A lawsuit against Tulsa County  filed by local and national civil rights organizations, which alleges that the county’s monetary bail system is unconstitutional because it indefinitely holds poor people behind bars before trial [Tulsa World].

“All of the sources of revenue are showing growth. That includes income tax, gross production tax, sales tax, motor vehicle taxes and then all the other miscellaneous stuff grouped into one. Everything is in positive territory.”

-Oklahoma State Treasurer spokesperson Tim Allen, speaking about Oklahoma’s gross revenue collections in May that were up by 13.6% from the same month last year [KGOU].