

Whoever wins the special election for Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners District 1 will serve at a critical juncture as the three-member board grapples with a problematic county jail, a massive funding chasm to build a new one and the political fallout of whatever decisions are ultimately made to bridge that gap.
Midwest City Councilwoman Sara Bana, Rep. Jason Lowe (D-OKC) and former Sen. Anastasia Pittman (D-OKC) are the Democrats vying to replace former District 1 Commissioner Carrie Blumert, who resigned in September to become executive director of Mental Health Association Oklahoma. Pittman lost to Blumert in 2022 by just 120 votes.
Because the county commissioner race is a special election, Bana, Lowe and Pittman are competing in a winner-take-all Feb. 11 Democratic primary, and the candidate receiving the most votes will face independent Jed Green in the April 1 general election. No Republican candidate filed for District 1, which covers a central part of Oklahoma County bounded by Jones, The Village, Del City and a portion of southwest OKC.
The ongoing problems with the existing county jail and the $400 million funding gap to replace it are the most pressing issues facing Oklahoma County in the months and years ahead. Voters approved a $260 million bond in 2022, but after legal delays and climbing construction costs, that amount falls well short of paying for what now is expected to be a $700 million facility.
To get it done, commissioners are considering a possible first-time-ever sales tax for the county, an increase in property taxes or funding some of it — or all of it — through loans.
All three Democrats participated in a pair of forums Jan. 16 and Jan. 23, videos of which are embedded below. During those forums, Bana drew contrasts from her opponents with her long-standing opposition to both the 2022 bond and the construction of a larger new jail.
Meanwhile, Lowe has touted his experience as a legislator and a criminal defense attorney who regularly visits the jail on behalf of clients.
Pittman has gone in a different direction, making economic development in District 1 among her biggest priorities if elected.
The following information on the candidates in the Democratic primary has been compiled from forums they have participated in during the election cycle. Candidates are listed alphabetically.
Midwest City Councilwoman Sara Bana

Sara Bana, 39, has worked in victim advocacy for years, successfully exposing neglect at Okfuskee County residential care homes on behalf of a client in 2019. Elected in 2022, Bana is also the Ward 5 representative on the Midwest City City Council.
But Bana is best known for her criminal justice and human rights activism. She is a regular speaker at Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority and Board of County Commissioner meetings. Bana opposed the creation of the jail trust and has heavily criticized operations at the jail and plans for a new one.
That work has taken center stage in her campaign. During a Jan. 16 forum, she outlined what she sees as differences between her work, and the work of her opponents when it comes to incarceration.
“Unlike my three opponents, I’m the only one here that has been actively invested and engaged at the county government level,” she said. “It’s not because I’m running for office that I decided to care about the county jail, but rather I have invested, I would argue, nearly 15 years of my life. When I came across atrocities and the inhumanity and the unconstitutionality that I saw, I assisted those individuals being killed and marginalized in the facility by filing health department reports. I picked up my pen and keypad and reported to the [U.S. Department of Justice] Civil Rights Division. The county jail isn’t a place where people are going to die, it’s a place where people are dying.”
The jail has seen 56 deaths since the jail trust took over in 2020, including two so far this year. Former trust CEO Brandi Garner resigned earlier this month, and the position remains unfilled.
Besides opposing the jail, Bana has also spoken out against a behavioral health center to be built alongside the new jail planned for 1901 E. Grand Blvd., which appears cleared for development after a legal opinion issued by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond signaled county superiority over city zoning decisions. Despite major behavioral health intervention needs in Oklahoma County, the mental health facility has generated controversy not only because it’s next to the jail, but because it will only serve those who have been arrested by police.
“We could build a smaller county jail and instead invest in turning around the most dilapidated buildings across the county into mental health care facilities,” Bana said during a Jan. 23 forum hosted by the Black Chronicle. “All over the county, there are government entities that we could rehab and turn into mental health facilities and bring in community partners to run those facilities.”
The idea of offering mental health care only to people who have already been arrested makes little sense, in her view. Bana said the focus should be on preventative care.
“This concept of building a behavioral health center, what it does is puts access to care on the back end,” she said. “In other words, you have to first enter the criminal justice system. You need to go to the county jail first, and then we will give you access to care. I am absolutely opposed to it.”
Bana has assailed county leaders for the price tag of the new jail, and how it would be paid.
“They told us they needed $260 million to build us a larger jail, when in 2021, the jail that they were proposing was going to end up costing $700 million,” she said. “Now that we’ve given them the money, they’re being more honest and truthful and explaining to us that they need more money, and so now they’re looking at adding a first-ever county sales tax or increasing property taxes.”
Housing infrastructure is another issue Bana has championed during her campaign. Oklahoma County is the most populous county in the state, and it continues to grow steadily and with that growth has come an increase in housing costs.
“We need to address the unhoused population and those who are having trouble paying for housing,” she said. “We could build tiny home communities with the money we would save from having a smaller jail. We could bring in federal grants to improve infrastructure, building sidewalks and making other buildings more  [Americans with Disabilities Act]-compliant.”
Oklahoma Rep. Jason Lowe

Jason Lowe, 50, has also made the jail one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Lowe, who supported the $260 million bond in 2022, told the audience at the Jan. 16 forum his experiences as a criminal defense attorney visiting clients at the county jail have laid bare the facility’s many problems.
“The reason I am running for Oklahoma County District 1, which I never planned on running for, is the Oklahoma County Jail,” Lowe said. “It is a mess. It is a place where people are actually going to die. I see every single day what is going on. I have seen first hand the bed bugs. I have seen the lack of mental health care. I have experienced the lack of heat. Not seen it on the news, I have experienced it. I am at the Oklahoma County Jail every other week.”
Lowe, along with former city councilwoman and current Sen. Nikki Nice (D-OKC), organized opposition to the jail being built on OKC’s east side. The consideration of such options drew widespread opposition from community leaders and residents.
“We marched from Coltrane (Road) all the way to the county courthouse because they wanted to build the jail in northeast OKC,” Lowe said. “They wanted to build the jail in Forest Park. They wanted to build the jail in Spencer. They wanted to build the jail on Northeast 50th Street. And guess what, I fought against it ,and there’s no jail in northeast OKC. And I don’t want a jail in Del City, either. That’s what I do. I organize.”
Beyond criminal justice issues, Lowe believes District 1 needs infrastructure improvements. He said a man he met in a rural area of the district reported the roads by his house have not been paved in 40 years.
“Roads and bridges would be No. 1,” Lowe said when asked about infrastructure. “We also have to make sure our jail is fully funded. (…) We also have to tackle homelessness through affordable housing.”
As one way to combat homelessness, Lowe focused on housing programs in the county.
“I would like to expand the Oklahoma County Housing Finance Program,” he said. “I think that’s something we have to do. We also have to educate folks on how to freeze their property taxes. I also believe that we have to educate, and the way to do that is to have forums and a dialogue where we go across the district and let people know about the programs that are out there. There are so many federal programs out there that would help individuals get housing or repair their credit.”
Lowe said alternatives to incarceration are another area that would receive his focus if elected.
“We need more diversion programs,” he said. “I see individuals being arrested for nonviolent offenses, and they’re in jail for 10 or 12 days. They’re usually Black or brown individuals — people with mental health problems.”
During both forums, Lowe told the story of a 19-year-old University of Central Oklahoma student arrested for a small amount of marijuana who languished in the facility for days after her bail was posted. The student ended up being fired from her job because of the delay in her release.
“That’s why I’m running. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen to any young person again,” Lowe said.
He said the process of how people enter diversion programs must change to be effective.
“Right now, the [district attorney’s] office makes the determination whether a person gets into a program,” he said. “We have one person, or one body, determining whether people get treatment. We have to open that up. I propose a board where there’s a defense attorney on the board, there’s the DA’s office, and also a private citizen. Right now, the DA’s office is the gatekeeper.”
Seminole Nation Rep. Anastasia Pittman

Anastasia Pittman, 54, served 12 years in the Oklahoma Legislature is a member of the Seminole Nation General Council representing the Dosar Barkus Band. She previously ran for the District 1 county commissioner seat in 2022, forcing a runoff with Carrie Blumert that she ultimately lost.
A former teacher, Pittman has made economic development in the district her top priority if elected. She cited economic development successes, including Flix Brewhouse, as examples of projects she helped make happen as a legislator.
“I spent 12 years of my life writing policy from birth to death,” she said. “I leveraged state dollars. I leveraged millions of dollars that we brought into the state to publicly fund what we needed. I also do that on my tribal council serving as one of three Finance Committee members. The jail is an issue. It is inhumane. Yes, we need to build a new one. But at the end of the day, we also need infrastructure. We need housing, access to mental health care.”
Pittman said Oklahoma County is hamstrung by its lack of a sales tax, and while building mental health centers and expanding housing programs are issues the county needs to tackle, she said those things do not come cheap.
“The things that we are proposing cost money,” she said. “And Oklahoma County, out of all 77 counties, does not have a county revenue stream. It does not have a sales tax base for this county. All of these things sound good, but Cleveland and Canadian counties, they have that tax revenue stream. Oklahoma County does not.”
Focusing on what’s achievable should be a priority, she said.
“There are some things that we cannot do,” she said. “But there are things that we can do. We can promote public-private partnerships so that we can create affordable housing — projects that meet the needs of our low-income families and veterans. We can do that by collaborating. There are housing-first programs that can educate people and provide stable housing for the homeless. There is transitional housing that we need to be committed to. We need to invest in long-term solutions. When we do build homes, we need to make sure that we aren’t pricing people out of their communities.”
Pittman sees the jail as just one of many problems with criminal justice in Oklahoma County. A new building, even one that is modernized, may not necessarily solve all the problems, she said.
“We can advocate for a new building, one that is more modern, but until we get the diversion programs to meet those needs — the drug courts to reduce the jail population — and address the root causes of incarceration, it really doesn’t matter what we build,” she said. “Transparency and accountability should also be one of the priorities. The staff has to have training. The people dealing with detainees should also have some kind of training in recognizing mental health problems.”
Pittman believes she is uniquely qualified to be on the board of county commissioners in part because of her legislative experience, and also her reputation for getting things done.
“I do budgets on a regular basis,” Pittman said. “Not only did I do it in the Legislature, I’m doing it currently for the Seminole Nation. So, three things that a county commissioner has had to do: maintain a budget, monitor the budget and audit the budget. If we don’t do those things, we will not be able to tell you where the money is going.”
Watch the Jan. 16 forum
Watch the Jan. 23 forum
