Archive for the Week of October 19, 2008 - October 25, 2008
News Archives (Week of October 19, 2008)
Oklahoma health insurance premiums up
10/24/08, 11:50 a.m.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A new report shows family health-care premiums for Oklahoma jumped 62 percent from 2000 to 2007. Median income rose only about 20 percent during that period. The report was released Thursday by the national nonprofit group Families USA which promotes affordable health care for families.
The numbers are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Health and Human Services. The report says family health premiums nationwide increased about 78 percent between 2000 and 2007 while median earnings climbed only about 14 percent. About 640,000 Oklahomans remain uninsured.
Jury in Erwin trial set to begin deliberating
10/24/08, 9:12 a.m.
MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) - The jury in the federal corruption trial of former state Rep. Randall Erwin could begin deliberations today. Testimony in the case ended Thursday as Erwin, the former chairman of the House natural resources committee, testified in his own defense.
The 57-year-old Erwin faces a seven-count indictment alleging he took kickbacks from businessman Steve Phipps and disguised them as legitimate consulting fees. His trial started Monday. Prosecutors believe Erwin took the kickbacks in exchange for $1.1 million in taxpayer money, which Erwin earmarked for Phipps' businesses in 2003 and 2004.
Erwin has said he received $6,853 from Phipps in 2004 for consulting work the former lawmaker performed for a gambling machine company. Earlier Thursday, former state Rep. Joe Hutchison testified that he introduced Erwin to an official from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, which was a main source for Phipps' gambling machines.
Study shows higher ed dollars create jobs
10/23/08, 4:48 p.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A new study shows that every $1 appropriated by the Legislature for higher education produces an extra $5.15 for Oklahoma's economy. The analysis indicates that 23 percent of the state's economic activity is directly or indirectly generated from the campuses of colleges and universities.
The study was conducted for the state regents by Regional Economic Models Inc., a leading economic forecast company founded in 1980. Oklahoma Higher Education Chancellor Glen Johnson says the report shows the higher education is invaluable to ensuring the state's economy remains strong.
State to print more driver's manuals
10/23/08, 3:42 p.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A new batch of driver's instruction manuals are being printed and should be available by late November or early December. Department of Public Safety officials say a budget crunch
prevented them from spending the $53,000 for 100,000 additional copies.
Public Safety Commissioner Kevin Ward says he's working with the State Highway Safety Office to get federal funding to cover the cost of printing the manuals. Parents, tag agents and driving school owners have complained DPS ran out of the manuals several months ago. The agency has told the public to access the manual online.
Boren: OU won't sell bonds until market improves
10/23/08, 9:16 a.m.
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - University of Oklahoma President David Boren says OU won't sell bonds to fund projects until the current credit crunch in the nation's banking system eases.
Boren told OU regents during their meeting yesterday that the university likely will have to slow down some of its projects. On the agenda for the meeting was a proposal for regents to approve the issuance of $63.46 million in bonds, which would fund various construction and infrastructure projects on OU's main campus in Norman.
Boren says that while you don't do away with a plan or goals, that it is wise to be prudent. Boren says OU will continue with projects that have already gone out for bid or have already started, but didn't elaborate on specific projects.
OSU projects affected by donor's losses
10/23/08, 8:48 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Oklahoma State University officials cheered when oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens gave a record-setting gift of $165 million to his alma mater two years ago for athletic programs. Pickens invested that money in his BP Capital hedge fund so that it would grow even fatter. But now the fund has dropped so low amid the national economic downturn that OSU officials won't say how much is left.
The athletic village it was supposed to pay for has been put on hold. A spokesman for Pickens says he has lost more than $1 billion as oil and natural gas prices have plummeted. In 2007, OSU athletic athletic director Mike Holder trumpeted growth in the school's athletic facilities construction fund, which had grown to $288 million.
OSU spokesman Gary Shutt today declined to say how much is left. Shutt says construction on the facilities in the athletic village area will begin when the economic climate improves.
ORU settles with 2 former professors
10/23/08, 8:26 a.m.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Oral Roberts University has reached a settlement with two former professors who brought a lawsuit last year claiming they were forced out after alleging financial and ethical wrongdoing by the school's former president and family.
The confidential settlement with Tim and Paulita Brooker came late Wednesday at the end of a court-ordered mediation session. It brings to a close a financial scandal that rocked the evangelical school founded in the 1960s by televangelist Oral Roberts and led to the resignation of his son, Richard, as president.
Richard Roberts stepped down last November amid allegations he and his wife dropped university money on shopping sprees, home remodels and a stable of horses for their daughters at a time when ORU was more than $50 million in debt. He and his wife have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
OU gets $3.8 million grant
10/23/08, 8:22 a.m.
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - University of Oklahoma researchers will use a $3.8 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to study climate risks in the South. OU officials say through NOAA's Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, OU scientists will team with researchers from Louisiana State University to develop tools and resources for use by local and regional community managers in their long-range planning.
The study will fall under the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program, which is designed to increase knowledge and application of drought risk assessment, forecasting, and management within the context of numerous other climate-related hazards. Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee will be the focus of the research.
The Oklahoma Climatological Survey and Louisiana State's Department of Geography and Anthropology are the lead research groups responsible for establishing the project in the U.S.
Report finds lack of prenatal care
10/22/08, 11:45 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A study by the state Health Department has found 20 percent of black women face barriers to starting prenatal care. The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System report says many black women have trouble getting transportation, getting an appointment when wanted and not being able to start prenatal care as early as wanted.
The result is blamed in part for an infant mortality rate among black women of 13.6 per 1,000 live births. Infant mortality for white women is 5.7 per 1,000 live births and the overall national rate is 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. Public health officials say early and routine prenatal care is important in diagnosing and treating risks like high blood pressure and diabetes that can affect healthy births.
Several Oklahoma banks get notes
10/22/08, 10:00 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - It was business as usual at Chase banks in Oklahoma yesterday. On Monday some Chase branches received threatening letters warning recipients that a white, powdery substance enclosed could kill them.
The FBI says initial testing indicates the powder is harmless Authorities say letters were also mailed to Chase branches in or near Atlanta; Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Denver; Newark, N.J.; New York City; Oklahoma City; and Washington. There are no reports of injury.
FBI Special Agent Gary Johnson says eight notes were sent to Chase branches Oklahoma City, Norman, Edmond and Yukon. He says one of the letters was intercepted by the postal service. Johnson declined to specify the threat in the notes but says the letters were aimed at the bank and implied that the person who opened it was going to die.
Federal inspector rules Tulsa must repay $1.5M
10/22/08, 9:38 a.m.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A ruling by a federal inspector that the city of Tulsa must repay $1.5 million in misspent grant money has one city council member calling for accountability. The inspector general for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that the Tulsa Development Authority improperly spent money from the Community Development Block Grant program for land acquisition, clearance and relocation activities from October 2005 to September 2007.
Councilman Bill Christiansen says taxpayers deserve to know the city official was who was, quote, "playing loose" with taxpayer dollars. Susan Neal, a member of Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor's staff, says the problems outlined in the HUD inspector's report have been systemic in local government for 30 years. Neal says the best thing for the city to do is to fix the problem and move on. The authority violated HUD requirements by monitoring its own implementation of grant programs. The city since has created an independent oversight department.
OU regents to consider issuing $63M in bonds
10/22/08, 8:56 a.m.
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - University of Oklahoma regents will consider approving the issuance of $63.46 million in bonds, even as the nation's banking system is in the throes of a credit crunch. According to an item on the agenda for today's meeting, money from the bond issue would be used to pay for various construction
and infrastructure projects on OU's main campus in Norman.
The largest item is $26.35 million for a planned steam and chilled water plant. The agenda item does not note when the actual sale of the general, limited and special obligation bonds would occur. But it does note that that because of current market conditions, the bonds may be issued in a two-step process, which would utilize interim financing in the form of short-term obligations, which would be payable from the bonds' financing and revenues.
Regents also will consider naming OU's College of Education after Jeannine Rainbolt, a 1951 alumna who died in September 2007. The college would be the first at OU named after a woman.
Tobacco tax-case figure freed
10/21/08, 5:33 p.m.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A tobacco wholesaler in Kansas is accused of masterminding a $25 million dollar scheme to defraud Oklahoma and Indian tribes out of tobacco tax revenue. Gary Hall was released on $100,000 recognizance bond after he and seven other people were charged in a 43 count indictment in federal court in Wichita, Kansas.
They're accused of conspiracy to divert cigarettes, money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, interstate transportation in aid of racketeering, and violating the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act. The other defendants include Jeremy Hooker of Salina, Oklahoma, three Missouri men and three Kansans.
30 powder-laced letters sent to banks
10/21/08, 5:25 p.m.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal authorities are investigating at least 30 letters containing suspicious powder that have been sent to banks in the Oklahoma City area and six other cities. The FBI said initial tests on the powder have come up negative for dangerous toxins. Additional tests are ongoing.
A law enforcement official said today the letters were mailed to Chase bank branches in Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Newark, New Jersey, Oklahoma City and Washington. The letters all appear to be from the same source and began showing up at the banks on Monday.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. An FBI spokesman in Oklahoma says the letters sent there indicated the threat was "based on past actions of the bank."
Phipps testifies in former lawmaker's corruption trial
10/21/08, 5:20 p.m.
MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) - Businessman Steve Phipps testified today in the corruption trial of former state Rep. Randall Erwin that he paid Erwin a $6,000 bribe. Erwin has said the money was for legitimate consulting work.
Phipps told jurors in the federal trial in Muskogee that he paid Erwin in 2003 and in return Erwin earmarked $10,000 in state money to Phipps' phony nonprofit foundation. Phipps said meetings about the kickbacks also included then-Representatives Mike Mass and Jerry Hefner.
Phipps and Mass have pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the case and are awaiting sentencing while Hefner hasn't been charged.
School funding petition signatures delivered
10/20/08, 11:26 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A petition drive to force extra spending on public schools collected more than 238,000 signatures and is now on file with the secretary of state. Petitions were filed Monday bearing almost 100,000 more signatures than the 138,970 needed to place the Helping Oklahoma Public Education issue, known as HOPE, on a statewide ballot in 2010.
The proposed state question is a constitutional amendment requiring the Legislature to fund public education at the per-pupil average of neighboring states. Supporters of the drive include education officials and parents. If approved by voters, it is estimated the proposal would increase funding for schools by $850 million.
Survivors of riot see film tell their tale
10/20/08, 10:35 a.m.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Twenty-five of the 66 known living survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot were honored in Tulsa at the premiere of a documentary film about the riot and the aftermath. The film "Before They Die," not only reflects on the 1921 riot but also the survivors' struggle for reparations.
The oldest known living survivor - 105-year-old Otis Clark of Seattle - says he hoped the film reminds everyone of what happened so people can learn from it. The documentary will be shown in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and several other cities to raise awareness and money for the survivors.
Local governments can't sell bonds
10/20/08, 10:18 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The timing was perfect for a recent Oklahoma County bond sale to pay for the purchase of the General Motors plant. The county sold millions of dollars in bonds in July as part of a voter-approved measure to buy the plant for use by Tinker Air Force Base.
County treasurer Butch Freeman says given the current freeze in credit markets there would be no way to sell the bonds today. Until the market for municipal bonds begins moving again there could be delays nationwide in government projects as basic as road repair and replacing water pipes.
Chris Cochran of Capital West Securities represents many local governments when they have bonds to sell and says he doesn't expect any changes in the market before the presidential election. But he says he has hopes things will stabilize by the new year.
Trial of former lawmaker to begin
10/20/08, 9:38 a.m.
MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) - The corruption trial of former state Rep. Randall Erwin is set to start in federal court in Muskogee. Prosecutors say Erwin accepted bribes from southeast Oklahoma businessman Steve Phipps to funnel state money to Phipps' businesses.
Erwin says the money was payment for legitimate consulting expenses. Phipps has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the case and is expected to testify. As part of his guilty plea Phipps said he paid bribes to Erwin and other former lawmakers.
Lottery seeking more prize money
10/20/08, 9:12 a.m.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - State lottery officials may ask the Legislature to put more money into prizes but a House leader doesn't expect they'll have much success. Oklahoma Lottery Executive Director Jim Scroggins last week suggested the commission approach lawmakers after the Nov. 4 elections. A similar idea didn't win much support in this past legislative session and likely faces long odds this time around.
House Speaker Chris Benge says he's willing to listen but doesn't think the idea will get any traction. Scroggins contends sales would go up substantially if lottery winnings were increased. Sales of lottery games are down about $9.6 million in the first 3½ months of the 2009 fiscal year.
Education initiative petition to be delivered
10/20/08, 8:56 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The group circulating an initiative petition for a statewide election on increasing education funding will deliver their signatures to the Secretary of State this week. Helping Oklahoma Public Education, HOPE, officials plan to present the proposal at 10 a.m. tomorrow, days before the November 3rd deadline.
Oklahoma Education Association executive director Leta Odom says HOPE has collected 235,000 signatures, nearly 100,000 more than were needed. HOPE -- made up of educators and other supporters -- had to get at least 138,970 signatures.
HOPE attorney Kent Meyers says according to the petition, the group wants the issue to be on the general election ballot in 2010. The goal is to increase the per-pupil funding for schools from $6,900 annually to the regional average of $8,300. That would amount to $850 million. If the proposal clears all challenges and is approved by voters, the increase in money for schools would be phased in over a three-year period. To get on an election ballot, the petition must clear any challenges.
Health Dept. allowed restaurant to operate despite illness confirmations
10/20/08, 8:45 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A published report says a Locust Grove restaurant was allowed to remain open temporarily even though state health officials had confirmed that six food-poisoning victims had eaten there. The Oklahoman obtained health department e-mail records througn an Open Records request regarding the E. coli outbreak that killed one, hospitalized 72 and sickened 241 others before it was contained.
Health officials converged on eastern Oklahoma August 22nd after receving multiple reports of food poisoning. According to The Oklahoman, officials determined the next day that three of four people interviewed had eaten at the Country Cottage restaurant. By the 24th, it was six out of eight. One health official wrote in an e-mail that there wasn't enough information to implicate the restaurant as the likely source.
Documents show health officials let the owners close voluntarily August 26th. The establishment hasn't reopened. Health Department officials say there's no set threshold for closing a restaurant suspected of being the source of a rash of illnesses. Spokeswoman Leslea Bennet-Webb says there will be lessons learned in this incident that can be applied to future investigations.
Choctaw code talkers finally recognized
10/20/08, 8:39 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Tewanna Edwards remembers her late great-uncle as a gentle old man who fed her raisins and laughed as she grimaced while eating them. She had no idea as a child that the 6-foot-3 Choctaw Indian was one of the first American Indian code talkers. He was among 18 original Choctaw code talkers who never lived to see public recognition of their war deeds.
Legislation signed by President Bush last week authorizes congressional medals to be issued to the Choctaw Nation and family members. The law also recognizes members of Oklahoma's Comanche Tribe and other code talkers of World War II from tribes across the country. Code talkers is a term given to Indians who used words from their native languages to transmit strategic messages from the American military in the two world wars.
Soldiers finally home
10/19/08, 5:32 p.m.
BETHANY, Okla. (AP) - Some 325 soldiers from the Oklahoma National Guard are back, eating home-cooked meals, getting hugs from family and showering in their own bathrooms. Members of the 45th Infantry Brigade, Company A, 1st Battalion of the 180th Infantry Regiment based in McAlester and the 1245th Transportation Company in Madill got a head start on some of that yesterday when they returned after being in Iraq since January.
Specialist Kinnlee Khoury, who served as a combat medic at Camp Cropper near Iraq wept as she and her mother, Roxanna, embraced. While Khoury got to keep in touch with her family through e-mail instant messaging and telephone calls, it's nothing like the real thing, her father, James, said.
Kinnlee Khoury expected to do more hugging and then dig into a meal of roast beef, vegetables and green-bean casserole when she got home. Staff Sergeant Chad Broughton, who works with Khoury at Oklahoma
State University Medical Center in Tulsa, said taking a shower is the first thing he planned to do when he got home. After that, he planned to savor some steaks.
Larger site sought for sculpture
10/19/08, 3:22 p.m.
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Developers of a proposed 21-story, $36 million bronze monument of an American Indian warrior say it will likely move to a larger location. Tulsa city councilors learned this week that the 207-foot-tall
monument, initially proposed for Holmes Peak in Osage County, is moving to a larger, 300-acre site 3 1/2 miles away.
Plans to build "The American," one of the world's largest freestanding bronze monuments with an observation area, were first announced in March 2004. Melanie Gray, wife of Oklahoma sculptor Shan Gray, says moving the project to a new site was a "possibility" because the footprint of the project had grown. Gray says the topography of the Holmes Peak site is limited in space, making it difficult to ensure that the venue would work appropriately.
Lower energy prices cause concern
10/19/08, 10:29 a.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - State officials say that falling natural gas prices are of greater concern to the state than dropping oil prices. That's because much of the revenue from oil goes into earmarked accounts and is not used to fund general operations of state government.
Meanwhile, a high percentage of natural gas revenue goes into the state's General Revenue Fund. Prices for natural gas today are about $7 per thousand cubic feet, compared to about $13 earlier this year.
