Oklahoma County has a mix of every stupid little thing America brings to the table. To live here is both thrilling and exhausting.
From withers to brisket, we have cattle, cowboys, corruption, idiocy, irony, ill-gotten gains, luxury, petroleum, poverty and problems so complicated I make a living trying to explain them.
We’ve got good art, great food, professional sports, higher education, lower education outcomes, a housing shortage and a lingering legacy of racism.
An American Indian tribe operates a casino at a race track built by an NFL owner with rumored mafia ties.
We’ve got big highways, 882 cannabis companies, water agreements with Little Dixie and organized crime on a few different fronts.
A federal courthouse sits across the street from a national tragedy. Jurisdictions overlap to ensure there’s more government than you can track and more politicians than the fire marshal should allow.
We’ve got good music — if you know where to find it — plus power companies, parks, pollution, Pride and pulchritude.
I mentioned poverty before, but it’s worth mentioning again, because this is a Birthday Rant, and while it’s been more of an Observation Epistle heretofore, fore to here I’ve got two things to say, which is 38 fewer than last year. (Fuck your leaf blower until the end of time, however.)
First: Embrace sunlight, federal courthouses
There’s a general rule at the three U.S. District Court courthouses in Oklahoma: Members of the public and journalists are not allowed to carry electronic devices in the building. We live in a dangerous digital world where bad actors like hackers use high-tech tactics to achieve low-brow outcomes, so the rule makes some sense on its surface.
But for media trying to chronicle and cover an expansive list court cases, issues, trials and topics, the inflexible anti-device policy chills the thinly spread fourth estate and leaves fewer eyes on our federal judicial system, perhaps the most critical branch of American government.
Locking up reporters’ cell phones and laptops only disincentivizes editors from assigning them to cover federal court. Without electronics, journalists cannot communicate with their coworkers about what’s going on, what to expect or what background needs to be understood. They cannot look up case filings being discussed by attorneys and the judge, nor can they make use of down time at trials during recess, jury selection or deliberations. In at least the Western District’s courthouse, even the pay phone bank has been removed, meaning journalists of today can’t even step into the hall and relay notes back to the newsroom like you might have seen in movies.
With a firm prohibition against electronic devices for journalists, the federal court system sends a simple message to the public: We don’t want people to know what’s happening here.
Of course, solutions to this dilemma can be found. Journalists could be credentialed by presiding judges, and reasonable rules could outline approved devices and uses. For instance, posting on social media while court is in session could be a violation, or device connectivity restrictions could be strictly enforced.
If phones themselves are deemed outright dangerous, other technological options could help. The reMarkable Paper Pro tablet requires old-fashioned scribbling, but it can convert those notes into digital text and share the results via — gasp — email. If judges would like us to quote them and their litigants most accurately, the reMarkable even offers a keyboard option for speedier note taking.
Whatever workable options might exist for the good of civic society, Your Honors, I believe Oklahoma’s journalism leaders would work with you to identify them. Please let us carry modern tools of our trade in the hallowed halls where you work for the American people.
Second: Help solve the jail crisis, City of OKC
For all our godliness and glory, the City of Oklahoma City and its leaders sure seem to get a free pass when it comes to how we detain, treat and adjudicate people accused of crimes in the metro.
Unlike any other Big League City in this nation, OKC avoids carrying the financial burden of building and operating a jail. Instead, the city outsources all detention services to Oklahoma County through a contract, which often becomes disputed and currently sits expired.
Of course, the Oklahoma County Detention Center stands in the middle of downtown OKC as the city’s nastiest albatross. From some windows, visitors can see the current home of the OKC Thunder, as well as demolition at the site of the $1 billion new arena that OKC’s MAPS sales tax will fund for six years. Meanwhile, on the current county jail’s caged roof, detainees can shoot hoops with the shabbiest basketballs you’ve ever seen.
Theoretically, we as county residents have a plan to address what is often called the “deadliest” jail in America, a sad superlative based on a shaky statistic that underscores what we all know, whether we’ve been there or not: The Oklahoma County Jail at 201 N. Shartel Ave. needs to be replaced.
In 2022, voters extended a property tax to generate $260 million for this endeavor, but poor planning, pandemic inflation and litigation delays have ballooned the budget to $725 million — a staggering total only growing amid inaction.
County leaders and realists in the room are finally saying what no one wanted to 10 years ago: A sales tax needs to be approved in 2026 to pay for the new jail’s construction and its ongoing operations. Such a vote is expected to arrive this year, and it could very well fail without strong support from OKC leaders. I understand why those leaders remain wary of anything that could jeopardize future votes to extend MAPS — the city’s golden political goose — but at some point moral imperatives should matter more.
With voters extending the MAPS sales tax for the city’s new arena (December 2023) and also extending a property tax for general obligation bonds (October 2025), it would seem to be the county’s turn to bat at the ballot box in 2026. As such, county leaders must come together with their ducks in a row and present a clear plan to the public.
At that point, OKC elected officials and the broader business community should find few excuses to pass the buck as they have in the past.
“I and other people who are sort of bystanders to discussions just await a new proposal,” OKC Mayor David Holt said when asked about the Oklahoma County Jail at an Aug. 27 press conference. “And I read the paper like everybody else. I mean, I know there’s lots of things that get run about it, but nothing with any formality has yet to emerge. So people often want others to be involved, but I don’t have any kind of entrée into that conversation. It is, you know, as we know, a responsibility of the county government, and so I try to stay available, but ultimately, I am a bit of a bystander, like everybody else, to that. But I did publicly lend my support to the last vote, and we’ll see if something else emerges.”
That may have been a fine position to take in a vacuum over the years, but it has not saved any lives or solidified any solutions.
Residents need Oklahoma City leaders to engage on this important issue instead of hiding behind public ignorance about how city and county governments intersect.
