Tulsa County assessor makes property records available online for free searching

Tulsa County property records can be searched online for free on the county assessor's new website unveiled this week.

Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel noted that the records could previously be searched only at public terminals in the assessor’s office and at public libraries.

The website also includes a calculator for estimating property taxes for individual properties.

The changes to the assessor's website were approved by the Tulsa County Budget Board on Monday.

Yazel is seeking his third term as assessor and has signed FOI Oklahoma's Open Government Pledge.


Joey Senat, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
OSU School of Media and Communication

Tulsa County assessor signs Open Government Pledge

Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel has pledged that he and his office "will comply with not only the letter but also the spirit" of Oklahoma's Open Records and Open Meeting laws.

Yazel, seeking his third term, has disagreed with fellow county officials over open government issues.

In March, Yazel cast the dissenting vote when the Tulsa County Budget Board voted to require its members to complete a public records request form when they request information related to their meetings.

He also opposed a bill that would have allowed county commissioners to employ the same top aide. Yazel said the bill would open the door for scandal and likely lead to violations of the Open Meeting Act.

In signing FOI Oklahoma Inc.'s Open Government Pledge, Yazel promised to "support at every opportunity the public policy of the State of Oklahoma that the people are vested with the inherent right to know and be fully informed about their government so that they can efficiently and intelligently exercise their inherent political power."

FOI Oklahoma began the Open Government Pledge in spring 2008 as part of a national effort to spur public commitments to government transparency from candidates for president down to city council contests.

Signers are listed on the FOI Oklahoma Web site, where the pledge form is available for download.

Joey Senat, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

OSU School of Journalism

Tulsa County budget officials vote to require written requests of themselves for public records

The Tulsa County Budget Board voted 6-1 on Monday to require its members to complete a public records request form when they request information related to their meetings, the Tulsa World reported today.

The dissenting vote came from Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel, who had refused to fill out the form to obtain from the County Clerk's Office an audio recording of the board's February meeting.

So why did County Clerk Earlene Wilson want her fellow elected officials on the board to use the form?

"We want to make sure we provide these records as requested in a timely fashion," she said. "This would (help) solve our problem."

Yazel worries that filling out the form and giving it to the clerk will just slow the public's business.

Previously, all it took was a phone call or e-mail to receive a document, Yazel said.

Requiring public officials to file a written request to obtain records related to their own meetings and public bodies seems counter-intuitive at best and obstructionist at worst.

Those written requests will be public records. That could make for some interesting stories on which documents Tulsa County officials request from each.


Joey Senat, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
OSU School of Journalism

Tulsa County assessor balks at making written request for recording of public meeting

Tulsa County's assessor says he shouldn't be required to fill out a form to obtain the audio tape of a meeting of a public body to which he belongs, the Tulsa World reported Monday.

Ken Yazel said that as a member of the Tulsa County Budget Board, "I ought to be able to get an audio unless there is something else going on I don't know about.

"In the past, we have gotten things verbally, we've done it with an e-mail, now all of a sudden they've taken it one degree more," he told the Tulsa World.

The newspaper found that none of the other members of the board, all of whom are elected county officials, have been asked to fill out the county's request form to receive documents from the County Clerk's Office.

Yazel's complaint raises the larger question of whether government agencies in Oklahoma may require such forms to be filled out to request records.

The answer is yes, according to state Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

In 1999, Drew Edmondson noted that the Open Records Act "sets forth no specific provisions on the mechanisms that a public body must use in the implementation of the Act." (1999 OK AG 55, ¶ 12)

Public bodies may establish procedures for access to public records but “such rules must be consistent with the letter and spirit of the Open Records Act,” Edmondson said. (Id. ¶ 25)

“The standard for such rules is that the rules be necessary to ‘protect the integrity and organization of its records’ or ‘to prevent excessive disruption of the essential functions of the agency,’” Edmondson said. (Id. ¶ 13 (quoting OKLA. STAT. tit. 51, § 24A.5(5))

"[A] public body could require a request for access to records to be put into writing. This would help the public body ensure the request is responded to fully and competently," Edmondson said. (Id. ¶18)

But the information the government can require from the requester is limited.

The requester can be asked for enough information to determine if a search fee should be charged because the records request is for a commercial purpose, Edmondson said. (Id.)

The official could request a name and mailing address if the requester asked that the records be delivered via mail. (Id. ¶ 20)

“It may also be reasonable to request the name and telephone number of a requestor … where it will take … until at least the next day to respond to a request," Edmondson said. "This would allow the public body or official to contact the requestor if a problem developed or, for example, if the requestor had asked for an estimate as to the fee once the public body or official determined such fees.” (Id. ¶ 20 n.3)

His emphasis on “request” indicates that, absent statutory authority to do so, the official may not require the requester to provide a name and telephone number.

Otherwise, he emphasized, “In no event could a public body or public official ever require a requestor to provide the reason for a request for access to records besides that ... concerning the authority of the public body or public official to charge a search fee if the request for records is for a commercial purpose.” (Id. ¶ 19)

Edmondson emphasized that under the Open Records Act, "a search fee cannot be charged when release of public records is in the public interest, such as release to the news media, scholars, authors or taxpayers seeking to determine if government affairs are being properly performed." (Id. ¶ 15, citing OKLA. STAT. tit. 51, § 24A.5(3))

Tulsa County's request form does not indicate that a search fee may not be charged in such instances.

Instead, the form states, "This request is made for business or personal need. ( Circle one ). I have been advised that a charge for copying public records is authorized by state law."

In a section for "internal use," the form indicates whether a search fee was charged and for how much time.

Perhaps "personal need" is meant to indicate that the requester is seeking the records in the public interest" and is, for example, a taxpayer "seeking to determine whether those entrusted with the affairs of the government are honestly, faithfully, and competently performing their duties as public servants.” (OKLA. STAT. tit. 51, § 24A.5(3))

The public would be better served if "personal" was replaced with "public interest" and the form explained when search fees could be charged.


Joey Senat, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
OSU School of Journalism

Legislative Alert: Letting county commissioners employ same aide could lead to violations of Open Meeting Act, says county assessor

State legislation allowing county commissioners to employ the same top aide would open the door for scandal and likely lead to violations of the Open Meeting Act, says Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel.

Yazel has sent an e-mail to all House members in which he opposed HB 3055.

The bill was originally authored by House Speaker Chris Benge, R-Tulsa. Last week, Rep. Dan Kirby, R-Tulsa, was substituted for Benge as the principal author.

The bill would allow "two or more county commissioners of the same county" to employ "the same person as their first or chief deputy or assistant.”

In his e-mail, Yazel said:

Where this has been done in the past, there is a clear pattern and history of abuse. And that abuse led to the first deputy being forced to resign in the midst of a scandal.

1. The people elected three county commissioners, not one first deputy?

The commissioner’s first deputy represents him at various meetings. If this law passed, how can the public possibly know which commissioner district that first deputy is speaking for?

How can a single first deputy, when acting as the commissioner, possibly represent the values of three different commissioners, commissioners who may be from different parts of the county, from different political parties, each of whom having made specific and differing representations to their constituents when they ran for office?

How can any public minded legislator think that the public is being fairly served by this?

2. A single person can’t be two people at the same time.

The AG’s opinion states that when a county commissioner is out of the county or becomes incapacitated, his first deputy “automatically” becomes the acting commissioner. So when two commissioners sharing the same first deputy are out of the county, that first deputy
becomes two county commissioners. How does this make any sense? How is this serving the public interest?

3. A quorum exists in violation of the statute.

The law says two commissioners can’t discuss public business unless it is done in a properly called public meeting because two commissioners represent a quorum. So if three commissioners employ a single first deputy to work for them, and a commissioner goes out of the county, then the first deputy (the employee) instantly becomes the acting commissioner (the employer). He is their employee, but he can’t talk to either of the other commissioners - he can’t email them and can’t talk to them on the telephone. To do so constitutes a quorum and a violation of the open meeting act.

Let me emphasize again. Where this has been tried before it led to abuse and scandal, and the first deputy was forced to resign. Why, in light of a clear history of abuse, would any legislator go out of his way to allow that to happen again?

Yazel's concerns regarding the Open Meeting Act reflect what Oklahoma County commissioners were told in 2005. The prohibition on obtaining a consensus through informal discussions applies to the assistants of members of public bodies.

While there was “nothing inherently wrong with [the commissioners’] chief deputies getting together with one another in order to acquaint themselves with” agenda items, “there is a clear prohibition of any chief deputy binding his or her commissioner to how he or she will vote on the matter,” District Attorney C. Wesley Lane II told commissioners.

Chief deputies cannot promise, bind or commit their commissioner to any action on any particular agenda item or public business decision. To do so would be in violation of the [Open Meeting] Act. Thus, no chief deputy can announce at any gathering held between other chief deputies that his or her commissioner will vote a particular way on an issue.

(Letter from C. Wesley Lane II, Oklahoma County District Attorney, Oklahoma City, to Jim Roth, District 1 Commissioner, 2-3 (Mar. 14, 2005) (on file with the Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners))

Joey Senat, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
OSU School of Journalism