Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers later arrested Roberto Salvador Alvelais-Torres — a man they described as an illegal immigrant. An affidavit for a warrant to search Alvelais-Torres’ Chevrolet Suburban states that he admitted to a state trooper that he was the driver who hit Duffield.

The affidavit, signed by Trooper Randall Clark, indicates that Trooper Joel Franks located the Suburban — which had a damaged front-end — in a Sinclair Refinery parking lot near 31st Street and Southwest Boulevard. Franks then found Alvelais-Torres at work at the refinery, the document says.

I was hoping that the Tulsa World would follow up and hold Sinclair to the fire as to why a purported illegal alien – now alleged murderer – was working for them.  Surely they know that Oklahoma recently passed HB 1804 which strictly tightens down on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

This is really sad for the Duffield family and my heart goes out to them.

Were this my relative, I would definitely be inquiring of Sinclair why this man was working for them.  Had Sinclair not enabled this person to work here, Mrs. Duffield would still be here with us today.

Contact Sinclair and ask them what the deal is.  I’ve used their contact form, but have not yet received a response.  When I do, I will post here for you to read.

I’ve watched two mayors come and go (yes, Taylor is going…or not) the last 8 years.  When LaFortune took office he brought with him his own agenda, applied said agenda, wrecked some long-standing processes, and then he was gone.  In come Taylor who brings her own agenda, applies said agenda, and now she will soon be gone.  Guess who is left behind to clean up the mess?  We citeewurkors who have committed ourselves to the citizens of Tulsa as a long-standing career.

For some reason, this reminds me of a science fiction book by Larry Niven.  He wrote a book called the Mote in God’s Eye.  In this book Niven describes an isolated civilization called the Moties.  The Moties have this serious problem where they will die an agonizing death if they do not give birth to offspring.  Not wishing to have an agonizing death, this results in cyclic population explosions for the Moties that always result in wars and essentially near-extermination back to their stone age days.  Then they begin again.  The Moties have tried and tried to stop these cycles of the rise and fall of their civilization.  They always try to figure out solutions toward the end of a cycle but always fail.

The city of Tulsa is like this in some ways.  We have cycles that repeat generally every four years.  For the most part, department managers are able to keep a good semblance of normalcy and can protect established civil services from meddling by the ever-changing administration in the form of the Mayor.  But sometimes the head honcho inflicts damage that is difficult to recover from.

Take for example Taylor’s policy of furloughing city employees.  While I wish these were not necessary, I understand that they are and will adjust my budget accordingly.  However, the last time this happened under LaFortune the city incurred massive expenses in the form of a lawsuit from certain citeewurkors just because of the way the furloughs were implemented.  One astute worker pointed out to the mayor when she gathered us all together with a question:  “Why are we going down this road again?”  One astute city attorney responds by saying a certain judge overturned a certain judgment.

Why risk it, Mayor?  While I hate to even say this, the solution provided for in the Charter appears to be layoffs in the affected fund area.  I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand.  Perhaps I do not fully comprehend the black and white rules that we all live by, but I’d say I’m pretty sure of what I read.  Somebody please enlighten me if I’m wrong.

Surely with all the brains we have working for the city, there is a way to come up with a solution that will not appear to violate anything.

All that said, I will have to concede one point the Mayor made.  Funding city government via sales tax has the disadvantage of being subject to a poor-performing economy.  I have no illusions of proposing solutions to this except maybe to figure out a better way to fund those areas of city government that rely upon sales tax revenue.  How that could come about is for those with bigger brains to discuss.

In any case, this brings me to the title of this post.  I submit to you that Tulsa would benefit from hiring a city manager.  This city manager would not be subjected to political whims every four years or influenced by lobbying interest groups and yes…  unions.  He or she would be concerned with one thing:  operating the various city departments in the most effective and efficient manner.  As a hired hand, it wouldn’t matter if he or she were a Donkey or an Elephant.  He or she would also have no need to hire a “cabinet” or create positions of vague description with high salaries.

Then we could just kick the mayor into a figurehead status instead of a jumping ramp to another political office.

Mayor Taylor had a meeting with city employees today at 9:30am (05-01-2009) regarding furlough days and/or pay reductions.

Full Playlist Here, or watch in sequence below after the jump.

NOTE: Comments are welcome, but remember this is a public web site and comments are visible to anybody in the world with an Internet connection.

http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=10287641

original video files cut up with PiTiVi

KOTV coverage

KOTV video:

Fox23 Video

Fox23 coverage
Fox23 coverage 2
Fox23 coverage 3
Fox23 coverage 4

Tulsa World
Tulsa World 2
Tulsa World 3

I think I found the suspect today. (see video below). If I’m not mistaken this little fellow is a gray tree frog.

With a white spot under both eyes, a white belly and yellowish-orange markings on the inside of its hind legs, the gray tree frog is a handsome and exotic-looking amphibian. Closer examination reveals large adhesive pads on the end of its toes, which allow it to cling to vertical surfaces. But, certainly, this amphibian’s most curious feature is its ability to change colors much like the more-famous lizard with the same trait, the chameleon.

I think the description is dead on for this guy. He’s still out there hanging on to the side of my house. Don’t know what he’s up to, but I hope he eats some mosquitoes tonight!  Video after the jump.

W.R. Holway designed the Spavinaw System in the early 20s to bring clean water to Tulsa. Mr. Holway’s sons, Don and Bill, talk about their father and the historic Spavinaw project which still brings water to Tulsa.

Video after the jump.

This first part is about 8 minutes of video about the history of Tulsa’s water system.  You should find it very interesting.  The video was created by the Tulsa Municipal Utility Authority. (video after the jump) enjoy..

I got to messing around with Google’s advanced search features and ended up with this query to see how many hits (pardon the pun) I could end up with:

meth AND tulsa site:tulsaworld.com OR site:kjrh.com OR site:newson6.com OR site:fox23.com OR site:ktul.com

Not that I particularly endorse any of those news sites, I just used them as cute little lab bunnies for my experiment.

The above query returned about 20,000 hits.  Ok, granted there are not that many news articles alone for meth in Tulsa.  So I hit the “news” tab for the same query.  On the left side of the resulting page I chose articles from the “past month”.  That gave me about 50 generic results, most of which contained quite a few news articles.

Hitting the image search tab made for some amusement.

I didn’t watch any, but the video results page was good as well.

Now to the meat of the article.  I clicked the “shopping” tab to see just where one can purchase meth.  I was disappointed.

I’ve come up with some ideas that could help those that have this issue.

First, obviously, is there an existing dwelling or structure on the property that will become a community garden?  If so, it is likely that the structure has an existing water faucet or spigot that could be used to attach a water hose.  Get with the property owner and work out a deal to have water supplied to the address.  There is, more than likely, already a water tap that serves the address.  You’d have to work out a monthly payment process with the property owner, of course.

The second idea applies if there is no existing structure on the property.  However if there is water service to the property (call the City and inquire about this if you can’t find a water meter).  If there is look into installing a stand-alone water spigot.  Be sure you install everything to code and get a permit and inspection if necessary.

Another idea that can alleviate the problem is building a water collection system.  Can’t beat free water, eh?

Other than that, you can take your chances by “borrowing” water from a neighbor if they give you permission.  Will the city really enforce this rule when it pertains to a community garden?  Seriously, if the neighbor agrees to the usage of the water and has no issue with it, I don’t see the problem.

Of course, you can get around the wording like so:  (my opinion only).  If some inspector actually takes time out of their busy day to investigate a complaint that probably won’t happen, try this:  Well, sir, I didn’t buy it from them.  He was just storing the water in these 50 gallon drums and got permission to place them on the community garden property.  It’s been sitting here all winter, and he asked me to dispose of the water for him as a favor.  I obliged him and instead of dumping it down the street, I used it in this here garden.  If you don’t like lying, just have your neighbor say out loud, “Friend, will you store some water for me in these fifty gallon drums and store them on the community garden property?  I’ll use the water in my flower bed here as I need it.  That ok with you?”  You respond, “Sure, Fred, you bet! What are neighbors for?”

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. 

Personally, I believe this agreement is in place to address people who have their water service terminated for non-payment and then hit up their neighbor for water, or simply outright steal it without their knowing.  Seriously, I don’t think I or any of my coworkers are going to be busting you for using a water hose graciously provided by a neighbor willing to pay for the water consumption.  Besides, this is a “community” garden, right?

Good luck to all those folks that are looking into starting a community garden.  I think it’s an awesome idea!

Don’t get me started, Mayor.

Irritated Tulsan has a funny post which he claims I assisted in co-authoring.  I did, but he cut the suggestion I had about using waste copier paper for toilette paper instead of the real stuff.  Jerk.

Go give him your suggestions.  I’ve decided to direct you over there so you can do just that.  However, there is only one stipulation.  The comments on his post must make me laugh so hard, I go pee pee.

The citee’s IT dept has taken the first steps to unionize.

Have to be honest with you.  I’ve seen this coming for about two years.  While I do not work in the city’s IT department, I’ve come into contact with more than enough IT working stiffs to know that they definitely need to.

I’ve had mixed feelings about unionizing over the years.  The main turnoff for me has always been the political stances (always liberal) of unions.  I’ve never appreciated getting mail from the union endorsing one liberal candidate after another.  However, that said, this particular AFSCME local recently became a whole lot better with Mr. Bill Roland at the reigns.  Not that I had issues with past AFSCME presidents, I just happen to know Bill and know him to be one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met.

In any case, the city’s information technology department is vital to YOUR city, folks.  I will try to explain and defend why I think your city’s IT dept should join up with AFSCME and fight to keep this work internal.

My main concern with our IT folks is to keep this line of work as internal as possible.  Outsourcing this work is one of the worst things the city could do.  The city and management is so tuned in to cutting costs, they’re forgetting one very serious issue while running around slitting throats:

Security.  (and I’m not talking about job security, either)

Plain and simple.  Folks, your city IT department takes care of making sure that vitally important information stored in electronic form stays where it is supposed to be.    I cannot imagine how easy it would be for a social engineer, hacker, or whatever to gain access to extremely sensitive information simply by coming in through the back door of outsourcing.

Not making sense?  Ok, I’ll help you out.  Let’s pretend that the city outsources some kind of specialized service that is normally performed by a city employee who has already gone through the extensive background checks, pee pee tests, physical examinations, proof of citizenship, etc.  Let’s say it is something random like, oh.. I don’t know…  basic workstation technical support.  Maybe they could simply do this through a temp agency or something.  Who knows.  Well, what you have just done is open the door through this temp agency to allow in folks of what I call “unknown origin and motives”.  How do we know that this temp agency vigorously checks out the person they are offering to us?  We don’t .  We take their word for it in the form of a contract that specifies they do so (or do we?).  (Just like we take the word of other contractors that they are abiding by the law).  Are the people offered just folks wanting to work and work hard?  Probably.  But the unknown gap presents issues, in my opinion.

So, we’ve got this temp now who receives very many privileges with administrative rights to very many machines within the city’s network.

Let’s pretend that this person is a terrorist.

The terrorist has one specific goal in mind.  He wants to obtain detailed schematics of your city’s water distribution system.  Well, he finds it.  He snags it all into a thumb drive, works for a year, and then moves on.  Two years later, disaster strikes when the terrorist, with guidance from his stolen data, digs a hole very close to the source of your water after it is already in the city’s main infrastructure network.  He knows where valves are and how to operate them to isolate a section of piping.  He also knows how he can do this without service interruption to anybody so he can work in secret.  He modifies this section of piping.  He attaches a homemade explosive device.  He buries it.  He drives away.  Over the course of two years he does this in 10 different places.  One day he sets them all to operate.

Bam.  Your city is out of water.

Havoc ensues.

All because the city wanted to save money.

Is this overly dramatic?  I don’t think so.  My coworkers and I have talked about scenarios just like this.  In fact, we brainstorm sometimes trying to figure out ways a terrorist could try to physically harm the distribution system and what could be done to protect it.  We know this system like the back of our hands.  We know the nuances, the little tricks, random things that others wouldn’t.  This system is our baby.  We care for it, we’re invested in it.  It’s our life and we’re willing to protect it and yours, too.  An outsourced contractor has one thing on his mind:  how to bilk the city for as much money as possible, use cheap labor of questionable sources, and skimp on quality when it generates a bigger profit.  In other words, they don’t care about you or the job they’re doing like WE do.

The folks in information technology, in this sense, are no different than me or my coworkers.  Experience, dedication, and quality cannot be gained through cheaper inexperience, non-dedication, and the resulting substandard work.  Outsourcing and contracting within the city in most cases is a very bad idea.

The whirrrrrrrld article had many people claiming that the IT department in the city is unionizing to get more money.  Newsflash..  wages and promotions have been frozen.

I would say they are unionizing because they believe the same thing I do.  The city’s desire to cut costs will jeopardize security.  The turmoil created by outsourcing generates chaos as varying IT sections’ responsibilities become unclear.  Lack of clarity and clear objectives creates security holes that can be overlooked.

And security holes can have dire consequences.

As I stated earlier, I’ve had mixed feelings about unions over the years.  However, in my opinion and in this case, unionizing will halt this chaos and bring the level of security within your city’s information infrastructure back up to where it needs to be.  The work environment will become more peaceful and enjoyable.  This is when the workers will be able to concentrate on their vital jobs.

Just my two cents.

Good luck IT guys.