Time magazine called it one of the most shocking judicial scandals in U.S. history.

In the mid-1960s, three Oklahoma Supreme Court justices were implicated in a far-reaching bribery and corruption scheme. Two of them resigned. The third was impeached. 

Hoping to restore public trust in the judicial system, Oklahoma lawmakers proposed an overhaul. Instead of running for election, judicial candidates would apply for the bench via an independent Judicial Nominating Commission. The commission would then vet candidates and forward its top three choices to the governor for a final decision. 

Oklahoma voters approved the idea, via State Question 447, in July 1967.

Nearly 60 years later, the Legislature is asking voters to consider changing the state Constitution to restructure the Judicial Nominating Commission. State Question 845 proposes eliminating party-balancing requirements and restrictions on certain members being an attorney, or having an immediate family member who is an attorney, among other provisions. The measure will appear on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. 

To assist Oklahoma voters with research ahead of election day, Oklahoma Watch compiled the following information about SQ 845 through interviews, research and public statements.

What Does the Judicial Nominating Commission Do?

The 15-member Judicial Nominating Commission vets candidates seeking to fill vacancies on the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals and Court of Civil Appeals. It also considers applications for district court judgeships when a vacancy occurs outside of an election cycle. 

Following interviews, the commission submits three names to the governor for a final decision. If they do not act within 60 days, the chief justice of the Supreme Court decides. 

Appointments to the Judicial Nominating Commission are split as follows: 

• The Oklahoma Bar Association elects six attorney members, one from each of the state’s six congressional districts as they existed in 1967. These members serve six-year terms, staggered at two-year intervals. 
• The governor appoints six members to serve staggered six-year terms. These members cannot be a licensed attorney or have an immediate family member licensed to practice law in any state. No more than three of them may belong to the same political party. 
• The House speaker, Senate president pro tempore and at least eight commission members each select one at-large member to serve a two-year term. No more than two of three at-large members may belong to the same political party. 

Additional rules look to mitigate conflicts of interest. Members may not succeed themselves and cannot hold any elected or appointed position within a political party. They are also barred from seeking nomination as a judge within five years of serving on the commission. 

Meetings are closed to the public, though the commission announces when candidates are considered and accepts public comment. 

Do Other States Have a Similar Judicial Selection Model? 

Yes. At least 30 states and the District of Columbia utilize a judicial nominating commission, according to the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, though the structure of these commissions varies. Some states do not require the governor to select a commission-referred candidate, while others only fill vacancies in between elections. 

What Changes Does SQ 845 Propose?

SQ 845 removes all political party balancing restrictions, as well as the prohibition on attorneys and immediate family members of attorneys from filling at-large and lay member vacancies. 

The measure also allows commission members to succeed themselves, with a maximum consecutive term of 12 years. 

Finally, SQ 845 requires the Oklahoma Bar Association to select its six members using congressional boundaries at the time of appointment, rather than those in effect in 1967. Oklahoma currently has five congressional seats, meaning one district would be allotted two members. 

Who Supports SQ 845, and Why? 

Republican members of the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of sending SQ 845 to the ballot. They say that SQ 845 would expand the pool of eligible candidates and improve political balance on the commission. 

While presenting the measure on the Senate floor, Sen. Todd Gollihare, R-Sapulpa, said political party balancing restrictions have put Republicans at a disadvantage. He said the Oklahoma Bar Association tends to lean left, a sentiment the organization denies but many Republican lawmakers hold true, prompting the need for change. 

“In a supermajority state, where Republicans have the governorship and a majority in the House as well as the Senate, the third branch has influence that’s not really equitable to the majority party,” Gollihare said. 

Sen. Julie Daniels, a Republican from Bartlesville who has supported unsuccessful efforts to eliminate the Judicial Nominating Commission, described SQ 845 as mild reform. 

“We have very few boards and commissions that have these party limits,” Daniels said on the Senate floor. “And I believe the idea that attorneys could stack the deck is far-fetched.” 

Who is Opposed to SQ 845, and Why? 

Senate Democrats voted against sending SQ 845 to the ballot. They say the proposed changes threaten to inject more partisanship into an institution that’s proven reliable over several decades. 

Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, said SQ 845 chips away at the integrity of Oklahoma’s judicial selection process. 

“Allowing for complete domination by one party is concerning,” Kirt said. “I think we know that government needs to at least be bipartisan, if not also inclusive of independents and folks from other parties. That [political party balancing] was built into it on purpose.” 

Debating against SQ 845 on the Senate floor, Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, also took issue with removing the attorney-affiliation restrictions. 

“This makes it easier for a small group aligned by party or profession to control who is nominated for the bench,” Hicks said. “We’re not arguing against modernizing language. We are arguing against weakening protections meant to ensure Oklahomans can trust their judiciary to be fair, impartial and independent.”

Have Oklahoma Voters Ever Modified the Judicial Nominating Commission? 

The structure of the Judicial Nominating Commission last changed in 2010, when voters approved adding two at-large members and prohibiting nonlawyer members from having an attorney in their immediate family. 

In 2022, Oklahoma lawmakers considered a constitutional amendment to abolish the Judicial Nominating Commission and replace it with a federal-style appointment model, but the measure stalled in the final weeks of the legislative session. 

If Approved, When Would SQ 845 Take Effect? 

SQ 845 would take effect as commission terms expire. 

For instance, the terms of two governor-appointed commission members expire in October 2027. If SQ 845 passes, the governor would not be bound by political party or attorney affiliation restrictions when selecting a commissioner. 

Has Anyone Started Lobbying For or Against SQ 845? 

As of Sept. 18, no committee had filed with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission to advocate for or against SQ 845. Independent expenditure groups had also not reported any spending on the measure.

Keaton Ross covers democracy and criminal justice for Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at (405) 831-9753 or Kross@Oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter at @_KeatonRoss.

The post State Question 845: What Oklahoma Voters Need to Know Before November 3 appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Peter Martin went missing two years ago from the Fond du Lac reservation in Minnesota. His family hasn’t stopped looking, but they say the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs investigation into Martin’s disappearance has stalled since the agent assigned to the case left the role in early 2025.

“They’ve never had a person take his space for this region and yeah, we haven’t heard from them since,” said family friend Kayla Jackson.

In February, the Missing and Murdered Unit assisted in recovering and identifying two sets of remains on the Chickasaw Nation, closing a missing persons case that had run cold more than a decade before.

The bureau’s Missing and Murdered Unit was created in 2021 to address the crisis of violence against Native Americans and put new resources toward solving cold cases. But a recent federal audit by the Interior Department’s internal watchdog found staffing issues have plagued the unit since its formation during President Joe Biden’s administration, creating a backlog of cases and leaving families without required victim services.

Federal spending on the initiative grew from $12 million to $17 million between 2021 and 2024. During the same period, the audit found that 39% of money for the Missing and Murdered Unit was redirected toward other Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement costs, including upgrading vehicles. Nearly half the unit’s posts remained unfilled as of last year, even as the bureau overall has lost a third of its workforce due to staffing cuts under President Donald Trump.

The bureau says it has adopted many of the report’s recommendations, from streamlining its case referral pipeline to training staff on victim services requirements. But federal auditors say weaknesses in its hiring process remain. And some families are still in the dark about their loved ones’ cases.

“It is nothing but heartbreaking just to see how inadequate the response has already been for so many of these situations,” said David Adams, an Albuquerque, New Mexico-based attorney, former federal prosecutor and member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

Hundreds of Cases Languished for Years

The Missing and Murdered Unit had 83 open cases and nearly 400 pending referrals as of November 2024, according to the audit released Sept. 9 by Interior’s Office of Inspector General. The unit did not have a time frame for assessing referrals.

The audit also found agents had unmanageable caseloads, with some assigned administrative duties, like conducting research on referrals, on top of their active investigations.

Relatives of Kaysera Stops Pretty Places were hopeful when, in 2022, a Bureau of Indian Affairs agent was assigned to her still-unsolved case. Stops Pretty Places had just turned 18 when her body was found in a town bordering the Crow Reservation in 2019.

Her aunt, Grace Bulltail, said the agent was difficult to reach and provided few updates. Last year, Bulltail learned the agent never had full access to the files of local investigators before the agent was reassigned to other duties.

The Associated Press emailed bureau officials Monday seeking comment about the case.

Sarah Deer, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Law, said delays and dysfunction among federal investigators are compounding families’ grief.

“These are families who have often experienced institutional failure already,” she said. “A system designed as a response to that history cannot ask families to keep waiting.”

Victims’ Families Fell Through the Cracks

In 8 of 13 cases reviewed by the Inspector General’s Office, the assigned agent did not contact bureau staff who specialize in helping victims’ families. One staff member said they referred families to outside programs because the unit had only two victim specialists nationwide.

Martin was 31 years old when he was reported missing after a welfare check on the Fond du Lac reservation in 2024. Relatives described him as an outgoing man who played sports with kids and took his nieces and nephews out trick-or-treating. Family members said they get periodic updates from the Fond du Lac Police Department, but were never connected to BIA victim specialists.

The BIA website does not list a case agent in Martin’s case. The Associated Press emailed bureau officials Monday seeking comment about the case.

Federal Efforts on Missing and Murdered Cases

The Trump administration says it has been ramping up efforts to address high rates of violence against Native people. Last month, the FBI announced it would set a minimum reward of $25,000 for public information in dozens of cold cases on tribal land.

Bureau of Indian Affairs officials said in a statement they have taken steps under Trump to improve case processing and make sure families get support. They said most of the recommendations from the audit had been acted upon.

“The deficiencies identified in the OIG audit reflect operations under the previous administration that were inconsistent with the objectives outlined in Operation Lady Justice,” the statement said, referring to a presidential task force established by the first Trump administration in 2019 to address the crisis of missing and killed Indigenous persons.

Deer said new federal and state task forces and specialized law enforcement initiatives have increased public awareness of the crisis.

“The government has stepped up in some ways to appropriate resources, but implementation matters,” she said.

Meanwhile, tribal police departments, which are often the first to respond to cases involving Native people, remain underresourced with limited capacity to investigate complex crimes, she said.

“What I always come back to is whether or not this money could be better utilized by tribes themselves,” Deer said.

As KOSU reported, a state-led group dedicated to combating the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples crisis is sharing its recommendations in a report released last month. Better data, collaboration and more law enforcement resources were among the top priorities.

This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.

The post Staffing Problems Stall Federal Investigations of Missing and Killed Native People appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

After a regulatory settlement over unpermitted dams, the fight over water near Cedar Lake in Canadian County now moves to who can use water from streams that feed the lake.

The Oklahoma Water Resources Board on Tuesday approved a dam safety consent order with companies connected to former lawmaker Glenn Coffee and his family. The settlement stemmed from a complaint by Cedar Lake residents that Coffee’s family built several unlicensed dams that they said affect lake levels and domestic water wells. 

Coffee and his father, Virgil, own neighboring land through two companies, C&F Ranch LC and Coffee Grounds LLC. In March and April, they filed applications for stream permits to take water from an unnamed stream that feeds several Coffee farm ponds and Cedar Lake. 

The stream applications kicked off a separate regulatory review process from the dam complaint and resolution. 

Western Sportsman Club, the private company that owns Cedar Lake, already has a permit to take water from the stream that dates to 1960. The club was among more than 400 landowners downstream of the Coffee farm ponds who must be notified of the new stream permit applications. 

Two of the Coffee water permit applications are upstream of Cedar Lake. OWRB officials said they are still waiting on additional information from Coffee’s representatives before an official public notice goes out about his pending applications for stream surface water. That would start the clock on any protests by other landowners. 

Western Sportsman Club’s permit gives it the right to 163 acre-feet of water per year for recreational, fishing and wildlife use. An acre-foot of water is enough to cover a football field with a foot of water, about 326,000 gallons. 

Among the outstanding issues is whether the federal government has jurisdiction over so-called blue-line streams that affect Cedar Lake and ponds on Coffee property. The OWRB notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the dam complaint in December. The federal government has not yet made a determination. A spokesman for the Tulsa district said it doesn’t comment or provide estimated completion dates for jurisdictional determinations.

Coffee, speaking publicly about the case for the first time on Tuesday, said he was willing to help solve longer-term water infrastructure needs that could help Cedar Lake residents. 

Coffee offered $100,000 in seed money, which Cedar Lake residents would match 3-to-1, to start forming a rural water district. That lengthy and expensive process, if successful, would allow the water district to apply for grants and loans to fund water infrastructure projects. 

Coffee said he’d also be willing to help Cedar Lake raise the money for their side of the match. In return, Cedar Lake would stop threatening legal action. The group recently parted ways with the attorney who handled their dam complaint. 

“I’m not proposing a formal settlement,” Coffee said at a press conference at his attorney’s office. “I’m just proposing that we’re all going to stand down and not proceed with litigation. We’re willing to set up a fund to proceed in this manner. I’m not asking for any waivers or anything like that. I’m just saying let’s start the process of going in the right direction.” 

Sarah Harrington, a member of the Cedar Lake dam committee, said residents were willing to start negotiations but needed additional information from Coffee and his attorney, George Corbyn. Even so, that effort wouldn’t address any of the immediate needs of lake residents regarding their water wells and lower lake levels. 

Residents Unhappy With Board Decision 

Dozens of Cedar Lake residents attended the OWRB meeting on Tuesday, but they were not recognized to discuss the dam consent order. The board approved the Coffee dam consent order as part of a unanimous vote on its summary disposition agenda, which doesn’t require separate votes. 

The meeting was moved from OWRB’s offices to a theater inside the Oklahoma Justice Center near the Capitol to accommodate a larger-than-usual crowd. Scores of Cedar Lake residents attended a previous OWRB meeting in July.

Mark Sullivan, a spokesman for the Cedar Lake residents, tried to get OWRB Board Vice Chairman Bob Latham to recognize him so he could ask the board to consider the Coffee dam consent order separately. Latham said he didn’t hear Sullivan, leading to a four-minute break in the proceedings, during which disappointed residents asked for clarification about the meeting process and shouted their frustrations at the board. 

“I wasn’t even allowed to make the request,” Sullivan said after the meeting. “I was told that, ‘too late, we’ve already voted. We’re moving to the next item.’ And that was it.” 

OWRB board members declined to comment after the meeting. 

In the week leading up to the meeting, a group of Cedar Lake residents asked to address the board. But they were told they weren’t a party to any business before the board and it doesn’t allow public comment at its meetings, according to an email from Andrew Price, OWRB’s assistant general counsel.

Sullivan said he still doesn’t understand how the board could vote on a consent order for dams that are holding back water that would normally flow downstream to Cedar Lake. 

“For this board, their vote today about this consent order was a crossroads for them,” Sullivan said. “They had the opportunity to tell all Oklahomans, tell all of us that we matter, that they’re listening to us. Well, clearly we don’t, and they weren’t.” 

In a written statement Tuesday, OWRB spokeswoman Darla Whitley said the board regretted reports from audience members about the meeting’s audio quality. She said the agency followed its procedures for a consent order under the Oklahoma Administrative Procedures Act. The Coffee family’s companies were fined $2,500. 

A staff presentation on the Coffee dam case said the agency has found no evidence of interference with Cedar Lake’s stream water right. It based that conclusion partly on a review of historic hydrological data more than 15 miles away. The unsigned presentation said lower water levels around the lake could also be due to a reduction in the nearby Rush Springs aquifer. 

Cedar Lake residents released a point-by-point refutation of the OWRB presentation last week. They said an independent groundwater hydrologist, Carol Becker of Johnson-Becker Water LLC, reached a different conclusion than OWRB staff. 

“Because Dams 5 and 6 capture runoff from almost 40% of the watershed, the decline in lake levels and well yields reported after 2021 corresponds with the period following the construction of Dam 6,” Becker wrote in her report. “With less streamflow reaching Cedar Lake, less water is available to maintain lake levels and recharge the underlying aquifer that supplies water to domestic wells.” 

State law gives dam owners a process to bring unlicensed dams into compliance if an investigation shows the dams fall under state jurisdiction. Whitley said OWRB has 12 active enforcement orders and 39 dams subject to warning letters or notices of violation that could become active enforcement orders if the owners fail to respond. 

“The consent order approved by the OWRB today is an agreement between the dam owner and the OWRB, and it relates strictly to the dam owner’s responsibilities,” OWRB’s Whitley said in the agency’s statement. “The dam owner agreed to the terms of the order, including established deadlines and a penalty for failing to obtain a construction permit from the OWRB and failing to bring the dams into regulatory compliance.” 

Paul Monies has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2017 and covers state agencies and public health. Contact him at (571) 319-3289 or pmonies@oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter @pmonies. 

The post Cedar Lake Water Fight Deepens After State Approves Dam Settlement appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

1,566,173 Oklahomans voted in the 2024 presidential election, which is about 39% of Oklahoma’s total population – but that includes children and others ineligible to vote.

53% of the voting-eligible population and 64% of those registered to vote participated in the 2024 presidential election. Both rates are markedly under their national counterparts of 64% and 89% – consistent with historical trends. The average eligible turnout rate from 2002-2024 in Oklahoma was 46%, compared to 52% nationally.

The voting-eligible population is determined by subtracting noncitizens and felons from all citizens 18 and older residing in the United States. The size of this ineligible group varies by state, depending on each state’s disenfranchisement laws. Almost every state – including Oklahoma, where voting rights are restored upon completion of a sentence – restricts voting rights for those with criminal convictions.

6.5% of Oklahoma’s 2024 ballots were absentee.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Oklahoma Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.

Sources

• OK Election Results ELECTORS FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT – 2024
• U.S. Census Bureau Oklahoma
• UF Election Lab 2024 General Election Turnout
• Oklahoma State Election Board Oklahoma Voter Registration Numbers Surpass 2.4 Million Ahead of the General Election
• U.S. Census Bureau 2024 Presidential Election Voting and Registration Tables Now Available
• Ballotpedia Voter turnout in Oklahoma
• Brennan Center for Justice Disenfranchisement Laws

The post Do Fewer Than Four in 10 Oklahomans Participate in Presidential Elections? appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Since 2021, the Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector has identified more than 3,000 items unaccounted for in sheriff’s departments statewide.

Brenna Witchey’s story, “Missing Guns, 17 Vehicles and a Meat Slicer: What Oklahoma Sheriff Turnover Audits Are Finding” can be read here.

The post Eye on Oklahoma: Missing Guns, 17 Vehicles and a Meat Slicer appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

With her long, wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail, the young mom sat alone outside courtroom 6 at the Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice in early May, checking her phone and anxiously waiting for a court official to call her name for an eviction hearing.

“I’ve never been through this,” Courtney said. Her two kids, ages 5 and 6, were staying with her mother out of town while she tried to catch up on rent or find another place to live. It was the best for the children, she said, but “they want to be with me.”

Between losing one job and starting another, she feared she’d still come up short of the  $1,004 she owed.

She didn’t have much time.

In Oklahoma, the eviction process moves faster than the ability of most renters to respond. State law gives tenants five days to pay their debt or move out. A tenant has to appear in court just three days after a summons arrives. 

Tulsa has one of the worst eviction rates in the country — the 11th highest as of a decade ago. Since then, the rate has grown from 8% to roughly 13%. Last school year, landlords filed evictions affecting more than 600 children in the state’s largest district, the Tulsa Public Schools. 

Her kids’ schools, Courtney said, didn’t ask why she withdrew them with a month left in the school year.

That’s hardly surprising, experts say.

“They’re looking for, ‘How do I find a place where my kids are going to sleep?’ ” said Eric Hallett, a staff attorney at Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma. “They’re not thinking ‘What can a lawyer do for me?’ or even ‘What can Tulsa Public Schools do for me?’ ”

But in a state with one of the fastest eviction timelines in the nation, that’s something the district is trying to change. Since 2020, leaders have worked with ImpactTulsa, a nonprofit, to prevent disruption in kids’ education and quickly direct parents under threat of eviction to resources like legal aid and rental assistance. When a student’s address appears in an eviction filing, the parent receives an email from the district offering help.

The alert is a promising example of schools being “first responders” in a housing emergency, said Barbara Duffield, executive director of Schoolhouse Connection, a national advocacy organization focused on students experiencing homelessness. Tulsa’s system has caught the attention of organizations doing similar work from Dallas to Dayton, Ohio. But the resources available to families fall far short of the demand, and the threat of eviction itself can be so traumatic that parents are often too overwhelmed to respond   

“There is a culture of defeat,” said Ana Barros, the director of collaboration and partnerships for ImpactTulsa. If the eviction seems like a “done deal, why would I reach out for help?” 

Roughly 3 million kids nationally are caught up in evictions each year, with housing instability landing heaviest on families with young children under 5. A federal program provides homeless students with educational and transportation services. But families who are evicted don’t immediately qualify for the same support, and the damage to students’ learning is clear.

“The gaps in children’s education are huge,” said Emily Turner, an attorney who is part of ImpactTulsa’s eviction prevention team. Missing days and weeks of school because of an eviction raises concerns about kids’ safety, she said, and the more they miss, the harder it is to come back. “They feel behind or they feel scared or they feel like this isn’t my space anymore.”

In the Oklahoma City schools, 65% of students whose families received an eviction notice were chronically absent, almost as many as those who were actually evicted, according to Shelterwell, part of Mental Health Association Oklahoma. On state assessments, students with an eviction notice or judgment had 25% lower proficiency rates in math compared to their peers. In reading, the academic impact was more than twice as much — 56% lower. 

“We have slipped to the bottom in education rankings,” said state Rep. Amanda Clinton, a Democrat who sponsored a bill this year to give tenants facing eviction access to free mediation before a judge heard their case. The bill passed the House, but died in the Senate. She agrees with Republicans that the state should focus on turning around its dismal performance in reading. “But we cannot be serious about improving student outcomes unless we get serious about keeping kids in the classroom to start with.”

At Kerr Elementary, on the east side of Tulsa, Principal Jennifer Thomas sees the academic impact of evictions every morning. Students with unstable housing are frequently absent, and when they do come to school, they often arrive at least an hour late and hungry. 

“We have students who have been at four different schools within a month,” she said. As with Courtney’s kids, Thomas said it’s not unusual for grandparents to provide backup, but that adds to the learning disruption. “Grandma doesn’t know where the school is, or Grandma’s not used to having to get the kids up at 7:30.” 

Lawmakers took up the issue last year and worked to pass a bipartisan bill that would have given tenants a few more days to show up in court — a rare development in such a deep red state. But Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, vetoed it. With a background in real estate, including rental homes in Florida, he argued that the extension would be too “burdensome” for landlords. This year, a similar bill died in committee. 

“This is a very, very landlord-friendly state,” said Delia Kimbrel, the director of research and policy at ImpactTulsa. “The scales are really stacked up against the family.”

‘Human Realities’

Corporate landlords are the most likely to evict, research shows. Those include Vesta Realty, which owned Barcelona Apartments, the Spanish-style complex at a busy intersection in southeast Tulsa that filed the case against Courtney.

Hannah Remick, a former administrative assistant for the company, who herself was evicted from one of its 40 complexes, estimates that Vesta files about 25 evictions a week. Whether tenants have kids doesn’t make landlords any less likely to force them out, she said.

“They would just say ‘units.’ They wouldn’t think about who is living in that unit,” she said. The process, she said, is “very separated from the human realities of what’s going on there.”

When ImpactTulsa identified management companies evicting families with school-aged kids, some of the affected properties had maintenance issues and code violations that had gone unaddressed for months. In 2024, one mom of a kindergartner told reporters she was evicted after complaining to the media about a lack of hot water and cockroaches in her apartment. 

Poor living conditions for renters are not unique to Tulsa. A recent nationwide survey showed that 13% of renters moved in the past two years because their home needed repairs. Five percent said they were either evicted or trying to avoid eviction.

Remick described Barcelona as “one of the worst,” with workers instructed to layer coats of Kilz primer over walls with mold. Courtney told The 74 she had six work orders pending, including one for a leaky water heater, when she was evicted. Because an eviction can prevent a tenant from getting another lease and affect future employment, she asked The 74 not to use her last name. 

The company’s financial condition was likely one reason for the backlog of repairs. Vesta’s owner, Marc Kulick, is facing multiple lawsuits. In February, Fannie Mae, the mortgage lender, initiated foreclosure proceedings against the company, and in July, as a result of litigation, a different company, YSA Investments, took ownership of multiple Vesta properties, including Barcelona. Vesta was also among the Tulsa landlords that fell months behind on city water bills. 

“We all got letters on our doors saying they were going to charge for water,” Courtney said, even though that cost is supposed to be part of the rent. 

According to a city official, the company caught up with water bills, and Vesta issued a statement saying that because of a pending “ownership dispute,” all questions about conditions, staffing or maintenance at Barcelona should go to the current operator. 

YSA spokesman Parker Detweiler said his company is “doing everything humanly possible within the law to get living conditions where they should be.”

Sherri Daley, executive director of the Tulsa Apartment Association, said while it’s important to address the “underlying causes of housing instability,” landlords have to worry about their bottom line.

“Property owners and managers typically focus on the lease obligations, payment history, and compliance with the rental agreement rather than whether a household includes school-aged children,” she said. One of the arguments against extending the eviction timeline was that it would hurt small, independent landlords. “Even one missed payment can create a ripple effect, leading to deferred maintenance and other financial pressures for the owner.”

Tenants falling behind on rent can sometimes avoid an eviction if they communicate with their landlords, said Amy Coldren, who launched Shelterwell in Oklahoma City in 2023.  As part of its eviction prevention work, the organization provides nonprofits and schools with a free, tenant education program called LiveSteady. It covers topics like how to understand a lease and manage a budget.

Coldren said one of the first women she met after starting Shelterwell was facing eviction because her children, who had previously been in foster care, were considered unauthorized occupants.

“I’m a former foster parent, so I know the work that she did to get her children back,” she said. “A simple solution would have been for her to have a conversation with her landlord and put her kids on the lease.”

‘A Sensitive Manner’

ImpactTulsa’s work began with a disturbing realization.

Property owners most likely to evict are also concentrated in the same neighborhoods as schools with the highest chronic absenteeism. That’s what the organization found when it began scraping the eviction court docket six years ago for addresses that match those of district students.

Between 2020 and 2023, Kimbrel identified eviction filings affecting roughly 4,400 Tulsa students. The disruption wasn’t brief. A year after a district family’s eviction showed up on their radar, nearly three-fourths of those students were still chronically absent. 

“That just slapped everybody in the face,” she said. 

But even the most sophisticated of district data systems can’t stop families from being displaced. The district’s homeless education staff this year emailed all 621 families identified through the alert system, said BreAnna Shine, director of student engagement. Less than 100 ultimately received support through the district. Most didn’t respond. They might have landed somewhere else, ignored the message or resolved the issue with their landlord.

The other half of the system is a resource hub in one of the district’s most heavily impacted clusters of schools, East Central. The schools on that side of town draw from apartments like Eastgate, which filed eviction notices during that 2020-23 period affecting 47 students at Cooper Elementary and 26 students at East Central High School, Kimbrel’s analysis showed.

The hub at East Central Middle is two offices near the front entrance where Angeles Gonzalez, the family “navigator,” and Turner, an attorney for the YWCA, meet privately with parents to triage their immediate needs — things like rental assistance, a free hotspot or food stamps. But district staff initially wrestled with whether they even wanted to know which families had been evicted. 

“It’s a sensitive matter,” said Stephanie Andrews, executive director of student and family support services. It’s uncomfortable to contact a parent who might not want anyone to know they’ve hit such a low point. “It’s not been without some bumps.” 

The district can guide a family to a nonprofit offering short-term rental assistance or temporary housing, but that often means they end up on a waiting list for services. Restore Hope, a nonprofit, spends about $100,000 a month in rental assistance, but those funds only cover about 30% of the eviction cases, said Josh Geppelt, executive director. Plus, to qualify, applicants have to show they have “means to maintain the rent after we do the assist.”

Living in limbo during that application process, while also bouncing from one living situation to the next, is draining, said Aspen Allen, a mother of three.

“You’re waiting for them to call you, and if nobody answers, they move to the next person,” she said. 

She leaned on the district last fall for clothes and backpacks for her kids in between leaving a rental home with plumbing problems, spending time in a former hotel run by a local church and moving into Parkview Terrace on the west side of town, a public housing development known for gun violence. It’s the same complex where she’s currently waiting for a subsidized apartment. 

“I haven’t been able to have my own spot for my kids to be happy, go to school, go on vacation and just have a good life,” said Allen, who works as a DoorDasher and was waiting to hear back about a part-time FedEx position. “I’m trying to keep them in school, not missing any days, which is very difficult at times.”

‘They Grab What They Can’

Inspired by Tulsa’s example, nonprofit leaders in other cities nonetheless face the same obstacles in trying to serve families with scarce resources. 

“There is no system,” said Aqua Porter, executive director of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative in New York. “There are just things that people have to navigate through, and they are not connected.”

Most of those other nonprofits have something Oklahoma does not — a longer timeline between eviction notices and court appearances.  In New York, for example, nonprofits have roughly 30 days from an eviction filing to help families find legal aid, point them toward sources of financial support and encourage them to attend their first court appearance.

Because Oklahoma’s system is designed to get renters with delinquent payments out as soon as possible, it’s often too late to prevent eviction. Those with nowhere to go may stay in the apartment after they’re evicted until they’re forced out by the sheriff’s department, said Melissa Vowell, a homeless education program specialist for the district.

They usually have about an hour to collect belongings. 

“If it’s a sheriff’s eviction, they grab what they can in the time a sheriff will allow,” she said.

Their next stop might be Vowell’s office, which connects to a storeroom packed with school uniforms, socks and underwear, and personal hygiene products.

She also maintains a detailed spreadsheet filled with organizations offering food, transportation and housing. One nonprofit on the list is Family Promise of Tulsa, tucked into a serene, wooded area west of downtown. Out of a small white cottage, Executive Director Tina Massey runs an eviction diversion program that provides one-time payments of up to $1,000 for those who have fallen behind on rent. Massey estimates that the program reached close to 90 district families last school year.  For those who lose their housing, a shelter on the same property offers fully furnished apartments for up to three months.

Brooklyn Cloud found Family Promise on Facebook last year while living in a Mazda SUV with two daughters, one in preschool and another in second grade. After an eviction from Harmony Glen, a 74-unit complex owned by a Texas-based company, they spent six months sleeping under the lights in Walmart and QuikTrip parking lots. 

“I didn’t even know a 7-year-old could get depressed,” Cloud said. “Her grades started to slip, lack of appetite. She wanted to sleep all the time.”

While staying in one of the apartments, Cloud and her husband paid off the eviction and saved for a new home. Their oldest now “has her own space.” 

“She’s more bubbly and her personality is back,” she said. “She’s not so down-in-the-dumps and snappy.”

‘Legal First Aid’

Most parents in a crisis like Cloud’s don’t even show up to court. 

“They can’t get time off work or child care,” said Hallett, the legal aid attorney.

That was clear the day Courtney’s case appeared on the docket. Of the 89 eviction filings before Judge Tammy Bruce, who hears about 13,000 eviction cases a year, less than half of the tenants showed up. 

If they do appear, they’re unlikely to have legal representation. In nearly every case, Judge Bruce told them they could either meet with their landlord’s representative or see if they qualified for legal aid. Court documents show Courtney represented herself, while a Vesta employee appeared for the company.

Courtney was evicted two weeks later. Attempts to reach her by phone and text since then were unsuccessful.

Last year, Hallett began asking tenants if they have children in the Tulsa schools. It’s his contribution to the district’s effort to identify more families. 

On the district side, about 40 teachers at East Central Middle learned how to offer “legal first aid,” like helping parents construct timelines of the events that led up to eviction. Missed or partial payments, maintenance issues reported, and messages to landlords and property managers are important to document because when apartments change ownership, new managers don’t always honor previous attempts to pay. 

Barros, with ImpactTulsa, expected some resistance from staff to the training. She’s a former social studies teacher at East Central Middle.

“Teachers are like ‘Whoa, that’s not my job. You’re adding something else to my plate,’ ” she said. But schools play a unique role in eviction prevention, she said. “Kids are legally required to be here. So let’s take advantage of that.”

Linda Jacobson is a senior writer at The 74, a nonprofit news organization covering America’s education system from early childhood through college and career, where this story first appeared. Reach her at @lrj417 or Linda@The74Million.org

The post Evicted Students Miss Class and Fall Behind. Tulsa Schools Want to Change That. appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Andrea Eger examines an unusually public battle brewing between faculty and administration at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, while reporter Jennifer Palmer reveals significant oversight gaps in a state tax credit program that is now serving as a federal model. Plus, Raynee Howell looks into how sweeping changes to the Department of Education’s loan repayment system are hitting home for Oklahomans. Catch these stories and more on the latest Long Story Short with Shaun Witt.

The post Campus Conflicts, Tax Credit Gaps and Student Loan Fallout appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Bart Perrier began his first term as Osage County sheriff in 2025 in shock. An audit found 796 unaccounted-for items and a mismanaged evidence locker. 

The missing items included 17 vehicles, 27 guns of varying sizes, 16 Flock cameras, and 20 Tasers. Auditors deemed the evidence locker uncontrolled because there were multiple master keys. 

“The first few months, my mouth was wide open every day,” Perrier said.

The audit wasn’t the first to find a large number of missing items at the Osage County Sheriff’s Office. In 2017, 590 items went unaccounted for under Sheriff Ty Koch. His successor, Eddie Virden, didn’t change much when he took over, including the evidence locker protocol. 

“I didn’t even have a key to the evidence locker,” Virden said. 

Since 2021, the Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector has identified more than 3,000 items unaccounted for in sheriff’s departments statewide. Missing body cameras, Tasers, laptops, printers and radios are common. Dishwashers, cars, refrigerators and meat slicers are some of the stranger lost assets. 

In two cases, guns were completely lost with no way to tell how long they’d been missing.

Sheriff turnover audits aren’t like typical government entity audits; they happen only at the request of the sheriff’s office and, according to State Auditor Cindy Byrd, are often requested after a contentious electoral race.

Oftentimes, the items aren’t truly missing, but weren’t inventoried properly. 

In 2024 and 2025, the auditor’s office completed turnover audits at the sheriff’s departments in Atoka, Beaver, Kingfisher, Pawnee, Woods, Lincoln and Coal counties. 

Atoka County Sheriff Kody Simpson said if an elected official is retiring and someone they trust is taking over, an audit may not be called. Only 47 of the 77 county sheriff’s offices have gone through a turnover audit, according to the auditor’s website. 

The Osage Audit 

On the morning of Dec. 31, 2024, state auditors showed up at the Osage County Sheriff’s Office to check their inventory. 

Virden, the former sheriff, said he didn’t know deputies had to be there with all their items for the audit. His team scrambled to get deputies who were on sick leave and vacation to show up. 

Some deputies couldn’t come in. Auditors marked their assets as unable to be located despite Virden claiming they were accounted for. 

It was Virden’s last day as sheriff. The audit continued without him. 

Auditors gave Osage County opportunities in the following weeks to have deputies appear with all their gear so it could be accounted for, emails from the auditor’s office show. 

By the time the audit concluded on Jan. 30, 2025, the long list of unaccounted-for items fell to Perrier, the new sheriff. 

What Was Really Lost 

When auditors mark an item “unable to be located” in a sheriff’s turnover audit, it doesn’t mean it’s completely lost. It could mean somebody stole it and nobody knows where it is. It could mean no one could find it on the day of the audit. It could also mean nobody cared enough to help the auditors find it. 

When the auditor’s team arrives, someone other than the sheriff, such as a deputy or secretary, typically leads them through the office. Audits can sometimes take days, depending on the size of the office. 

Byrd said her team doesn’t give up when they can’t find something. They send a list of items that could not be found to the sheriff and give them an opportunity to find them. If the sheriff finds them, the auditors go back and verify. 

In Kingfisher County, Sheriff Aaron Pitts requested an audit when he was entering office. A riot gun was missing. He later found it and attributed the loss to a misnumbered label. While his audit yielded fewer missing items than Osage County, he said the experience was exhausting.

Officials in Beaver and Osage counties said some guns flagged as unaccounted for still have not been found. 

Beaver County Sheriff Scott Mitchell said he accounted for some of the guns and added them to inventory. The ones that could not be found were deemed lost and put into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center Gun File, a database accessible to law enforcement to track stolen, lost or missing weapons and those used in the commission of a felony. Law enforcement can also enter recovered weapons into the database. The data is not public. 

Entering a lost weapon into the database is the only step Mitchell has taken to recover the lost guns, but he said that’s really all he can do. The guns haven’t been recovered. He said none of the guns went missing under his watch. 

Floating Guns 

The most common audit finding was guns the sheriff purchased but failed to add to the inventory list. 

Outgoing sheriffs sometimes give more specific explanations.

“The shotguns and pistols were taken off the inventory to be surplus but never were,” former Coal County Sheriff Jason Smith said. “I failed to add them back on the list.”

In Atoka County, 13 guns were found but were not on the inventory. Coal County had four guns, Lincoln County had nine, Woods County had two and Pawnee County had eight guns and one 37 mm launcher, which is similar to a flare gun. 

Pawnee County Sheriff Shawn Price, Lincoln County Sheriff Kevin Garrett and Coal County Interim Sheriff Bryan Jump did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

Simpson, in Atoka County, said his office added the guns to the inventory list and addressed all other issues in the audit. The office implemented an asset management system. Simpson called for the audit himself. 

“I knew what was being done in the office and it wasn’t right,” Simpson said. “It had to change.”

By calling for the audit, Simpson said he wanted to prevent being blindsided and ensure he wouldn’t be held responsible for the unaccounted-for items. 

Similarly, Woods County Sheriff Randy McCullough said the two shotguns found at the office that were not listed were promptly added to the inventory. 

Those floating guns are more than likely the result of clerical errors, McCullough said, such as a six mistaken for a nine in a serial number that gets written incorrectly in the inventory. 

The danger is that weapons not on the master inventory could be given to an employee and, if lost, leave no record of the weapon. The only way to track it then would be through county purchasing documents. 

Osage Now 

After almost two years in the position, Perrier, in Osage County, is constructing a new evidence building for enhanced security. He and his employees are still finding items that were unaccounted for. 

He said he was especially concerned about the unaccounted-for firearms, calling it unacceptable. He has since found 21 of the firearms in employees’ possession. He said poor record-keeping and inventory practices caused the discrepancy. The other six guns have been added to the NCIC gun file and are considered part of an ongoing investigation. 

“It’s disheartening how much unaccountability there’s been and how many thousands of dollars of taxpayer money has been lost,” Perrier said. 

Auditors’ records show the unaccounted-for items are worth about $1.8 million. 

“Taxpayers should be concerned,” Byrd said. “Every taxpayer expects a county official to properly steward the resources assigned to them in office.”

This story is part of the series, Unaccountable: Rural Justice in Oklahoma, investigating problematic law enforcement practices in the state’s 60 non-metropolitan counties. It’s a follow-up to our Justice in No Man’s Land series. 

Brenna Witchey is a reporting intern at Oklahoma Watch. Contact her at bwitchey@oklahomawatch.org.

The post Missing Guns, 17 Vehicles and a Meat Slicer: What Oklahoma Sheriff Turnover Audits Are Finding appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Available data show that small subsets of offenders account for large shares of some crimes, but these shares vary by measure and crime type and cannot be extrapolated to all crimes. No authoritative U.S.-wide finding shows that 2% of the total population commits 80% of all crime.

One Swedish study involving all people born from 1958-1980 found that about 1% of the study population were persistent offenders who accounted for 63.2% of all violent crime convictions. 

A study in the United States found street gangs, 15% – 20% of the study population, to be responsible for up to 85% of the violent crime in the areas in which they operated. 

When it comes to white-collar crimes, offenders are disproportionately white males, according to an FBI study. 

Federal crime statistics, which rely on voluntary reporting, underrepresent occurrences by nearly half in the case of violent urban crime reporting.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Oklahoma Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims.

Sources

• National Library of Medicine The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions
• EBSCO Violent Crime in the U.S.
• U.S. Department of Justice UCR White Collar Crime Measurement
• Pew Research Center What the data says about crime in the U.S.

The post Does 2% of the population cause 80% of crime? appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

In early July, Congress passed the largest housing affordability bill in decades with broad bipartisan support.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act includes 59 provisions aimed at increasing the nation’s housing supply and making homeownership more accessible amid an affordability crisis in which even low-income units are out of reach for some Americans.

Two months after the comprehensive bill passed, Oklahoma advocates and policymakers are looking to it as a tool to help solve the state’s affordable housing deficit. The ideas range from creating a statewide housing task force to ending single-family zoning, making it easier to build affordable housing developments.

Sabine Brown, a housing policy analyst for Oklahoma Policy Institute, said the bill is a first step and that Oklahoma leaders need to address the state’s affordable housing shortage and eviction rates.

One provision caps how many single-family homes big investors can buy. Other provisions allow developers to skip an environmental review if a house is built between two buildings already reviewed. One provision creates a grant program communities can use to develop a collection of preapproved housing designs. Manufactured homes also get a break. The law removes a requirement that they have a permanent chassis, making the homes cheaper and making more elaborate manufactured homes easier to build.

Oklahoma’s Affordable Housing Paradox

No state has an adequate housing supply for low-income renters, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. In Oklahoma, the coalition estimates the state lacks 84,125 units to house low-income families.

“There are a lot of different things that need to happen, and there are many different levers that policymakers could pull to increase housing,” Brown said. “For starters, one thing that would be really helpful is to form a statewide housing commission or task force and just develop a plan to address housing in the state of Oklahoma.”

In past legislative sessions, Sen. Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, and Rep. Daniel Pae, R-Lawton, have partnered to push the creation of an Oklahoma workforce housing commission, but the proposition ultimately failed.

Kirt said a commission is still needed.

“Right now, we really are relying on cities and local developers to come up with these solutions,” Kirt said.

Brown said a commission was needed because there must be agreement on what the problems are and how to solve them.

Joel Wilson, with Simple Property Management, said the bill reflects how the average American feels about homeownership, but he questioned whether it would do enough to incentivize affordable development.

He said manufactured-home builders may be more incentivized to make their housing affordable than traditional builders under the law.

“I think you’ll probably see more manufacturers solving this issue than asking traditional builders to revert to something that doesn’t make them as much money,” Wilson said.

A system is underway to develop units across Oklahoma, but the costs to build and maintain them are high, pricing out renters statewide. This paradox has no single solution.

Brown said one way to increase affordable housing development across the state could be to change zoning laws to allow duplexes, triplexes, and accessory dwellings.

“That is something that is also a part of the ROAD to Housing Act,” Brown said. “HUD will develop recommendations for what states should be doing as far as zoning.”

Brown said Oklahoma could follow the lead of other states, such as Montana, Texas and Washington, by ending single-family zoning. Research shows those policies drive housing costs down.

Wilson suggested tax incentives for developers who produce affordable housing.

Not Just Increasing Affordable Housing

Brown said the act does not fix Oklahoma’s broken eviction process or the lack of protections for tenants when dealing with bad-actor landlords.

Kirt and Pae each introduced bills last legislative session to add stronger protections for Oklahoma renters. Kirt’s bill would have excluded Sundays and federal holidays from Oklahoma’s eviction timeline, and Pae’s bill would have given tenants the ability to seek injunctive relief. Both bills failed.

“We don’t have protections and standards,” Kirt said.

Rachel Freeman, president and CEO of City Care, an Oklahoma City-based homeless shelter and affordable housing provider, said that Oklahoma’s eviction laws, combined with the lack of affordable housing, particularly harms extremely low-income Oklahomans.

Extremely Low-Income Renters

“I’m particularly interested in how the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is going to impact those who are extremely low-income, because that to me seems to be the most acute issue,” Freeman said.

Most renters considered extremely low-income are either in the labor force, seniors or have a disability, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. The extremely low-income group makes up 26% of Oklahoma renters.

“They are disproportionately over cost-burdened,” Freeman said. “It creates this very vulnerable state where, of those folks making that low income, 71% of them are extremely cost-burdened.”

The percentage of extremely low-income renters who are severely cost-burdened is actually higher, with the coalition estimating that 83% of extremely low-income renters are severely cost-burdened.

“They are one crisis or unexpected expense away from not being able to make ends meet,” Freeman said.

Freeman said the new federal law should focus on cost-burdened renters.

“I will never criticize an opportunity to build up housing stock, but my particular interest is, will there be units dedicated to 26% of renting households who are extremely low-income?” Freeman said.

That may not be a simple task.

Wilson said wages may need to take the lead to make housing more affordable.

“To keep good people and to have the type of business we want to have, I would rather see their wages appreciate more than I would like to see a 10% correction in the housing market,” Wilson said. “I don’t know that the group we’re worried about affording housing is going to even be affected (by the bill).”

Similarly, Freeman acknowledged that building dedicated housing for low-income families would be hard without a wage increase.

“It’s hard to build housing that is truly affordable for that 26%,” she said.

The coalition estimates that a $30,000 annual income is the average limit for a four-person extremely low-income household.

“I don’t know if this makes any effective change for our people that we want to be housed,” Wilson said.

Full Benefits Could Take Years

While housing advocates across the country praise the new law, it may take years to implement.

New research shows that the first few years of implementation will be handled mostly by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has already shed a significant amount of staff compared with last year.

That led experts to believe that the full benefits of the act for local governments could take years, according to an analysis from the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders and the Center for Affordable Housing Lending.

In that time, Oklahoma families are still at risk of being priced out of the housing market and rental markets.

“The bill does a lot, but it is going to take a while to build the housing that we need,” Brown said. “So, in the meantime, we still need to be protecting folks now and helping folks find and stay in stable housing.”

Jake Ramsey covers evictions, housing and homelessness. Contact him at (405) 370-3798 or jramsey@oklahomawatch.org.

The post Congress Passed the Biggest Housing Bill in Decades, but Oklahoma Advocates Say the State Still Has Work to Do appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.