Former Tulsa City Councilwoman Maria Barnes and federal contractor Sarah Gray are both running to succeed the sole Democrat in Tulsa County office: District 2 Commissioner Karen Keith.
Democrats and Republicans alike will cast ballots in Tulsa County Board of Commissioners District 2 runoffs Tuesday, Aug. 27. In June, Gray and Barnes finished ahead of Keith’s chief deputy in a three-way primary, but neither received a majority of the votes cast.
While Barnes is a familiar face to the residents of the eastern portion of the district whom she represented on the Tulsa City Council in the 2000s, Gray has worked several campaigns in the area and has called for a temporary shutdown of the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice, which has seen abuse allegations surface that have drawn criminal charges and a federal lawsuit.
“We’ve had a massive breach of that trust that is supposed to be there between us as voters and people we put in positions of power,” Gray said. “It will take a lot of work to rebuild that trust, and I don’t feel like right now we’re doing anything of the sort.”
Barnes moved to Tulsa in 1982 and to the Kendall Whittier area in 1985. She said she first got into politics after getting involved with neighborhood associations.
As the community learns more about abuse allegations at the Family Center for Juvenile Justice, she said she wants to see more of the staff replaced.
“They are there to get help, and that’s not helping them,” Barnes said. “That’s not justice for those kids. Turn it around and get people out of there that don’t need to be in there and get the right folks in place. And there’s a lot of good people in this town that would be good to work there.”
Tulsa County’s District 2 runs from the county’s western boundary through downtown, Riverside and Midtown portions of Tulsa. The winner of the Aug. 27 Democratic primary will face the Republican nominee — either Rep. Lonnie Sims (R-Jenks) or Melissa Myers — in the Nov. 5 general election.
Tulsa County District 2 Democratic candidate backgrounds
Barnes won an election to represent District 4 in 2006, beating out a Republican who had withdrawn and won his primary without campaigning. She lost her first reelection campaign in 2008, but she won the seat back in 2009.
She lost her 2011 reelection campaign in the last Democratic primary before races for city council became nonpartisan, and she lost the House District 72 Democratic primary in both 2016 and 2020.
A Cherokee Nation citizen also of Muscogee and Kiowa descent, Gray said she has lived in Oklahoma her whole life except for four years she lived in Twentynine Palms, California.
She said she joined the Riverside County Young Democrats around 2016, and she cited her time in Southern California witnessing the effects the Donald Trump administration’s immigration policy as “reorienting” her interest in government.
Gray moved back to Tulsa in 2019. She currently works as a federal contractor managing federal agencies’ communications.
Gray said she had not endorsed any candidates, but “there are candidates who I support and think would be excellent in those roles,” such as Laura Bellis for Tulsa City Council District 4. She later endorsed Rep. Monroe Nichols’ campaign for mayor of Tulsa.
Barnes has endorsed Democrat Dennis Baker for U.S. Congress.
Gray calls for AG investigation into Juvenile Justice Center
The Tulsa County Board of Commissioners recently took control of the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice. Multiple former staff members of the facility are facing criminal charges, and a lawsuit alleges a “rape culture” at the facility allowed several children to be abused.
Gray said she wants regulators to have a “consistent presence” inside the facility until the issues are resolved, and she has called for Attorney General Gentner Drummond to launch an investigation from the state level.
Gray said the Tulsa County Board of Commissioners’ initial reactions to the scandal have made issues with declining trust in government worse. She said commissioners needed to take steps to increase transparency and public trust. She has also criticized Keith’s mayoral campaign for hiring the fundraising company of Jenna Worthen, who was appointed to the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs Board in 2019.
“It makes me extremely nervous to know that Karen Keith, who is the county commissioner, has a sitting board member of the OJA on her payroll for a campaign,” Gray said. “So we’ve been asking the attorney general to take over the investigation, we’ve been asking the OJA to shut down the facility pending the outcome of that investigation, and neither of those things have happened. And then we find out a board member is on Karen’s staff as her fundraiser. That board member’s husband works for the attorney general. (…) There is just so much that could be cleared up with some honest conversation.”
Barnes criticized current county leaders for initially eschewing responsibility. She emphasized that “those are kids in there and they deserve better.”
“I think the county commissioners are responsible for that facility,” Barnes said. “That’s something that was said at a debate by someone who worked for the county that they had nothing to do with it, they don’t oversee it. Well I disagree with that and I think we need to change it to make it better.”
