Several members of Tulsa’s City Council have faced questions in recent weeks about whether their business dealings or work outside of their government positions pose conflicts of interest. All of them have denied any conflict.
Members of the council are mandated to follow the City of Tulsa Ethics code (title 12, chapter 6 of the Tulsa revised ordinances). The code negates an official’s ability to participate in any personal, financial or organizational conflicts of interest.
Councilors must also file financial disclosures every year with the municipal clerk. If anything is flagged, then it is discussed with the city’s attorney.
Last month, when the Tulsa City Council voted on a moratorium on building new data centers, several advocates of the measure called on District 9 Councilor Carol Bush to recuse herself from a vote because she is a government relations specialist for AAON, an HVAC company that works closely with data centers.
Bush declined, but others have recused themselves when faced with potential conflicts of interest.
Hall-Harper recuses self from conflicts
District 1 Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper faced questions this month surrounding the sale of the old Rudisill Library. Hall-Harper is a founder and board member of the Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce. She is also the registered agent of The Power Group Community Corporation, which serves as the economic development arm of the BWS Chamber.
The Power Group bid on the library, which critics said was a conflict, but Hall-Harper and the council disagreed because she recused herself from voting on the $1.4 million sale.
In an interview with the Tulsa Flyer, Hall-Harper insisted she regularly addresses any questions about conflicts of interest.
“When I have a conflict — I probably have one a year — and they pounce on it and try to insinuate that I’ve done something illegal. I am following the law,” she said.
“Everyone has them. (District 8 Councilor) Phil Lakin has a conflict weekly because he’s the head of the Tulsa Community Foundation,” she added. “So you can imagine how many conflicts he has.”
Lakin and the Tulsa Community Foundation
The Tulsa Community Foundation, where Lakin has been CEO since 1999, is one of the largest tax-exempt foundations in the country. TCF provides endowment services locally to multiple nonprofits. In an interview, Lakin batted back at Hall-Harper’s claims, saying the notion of him facing conflicts weekly is not true.
“No, I don’t have conflicts that come up on a weekly basis. That would be entirely incorrect. But for any of us, wherever we do have conflict, we have an ethics code and we abide by an ethics code,” Lakin said.
He expects all councilors to abide by their ethics code.
“So that’s what I’d expect her to do,” he said in reference to Hall-Harper. “That’s what she expects me to do, and that’s what we expect of the seven other councilors that we have.”
‘Full-time work, part-time pay’
Historically, almost all of Tulsa’s city councilors have had other jobs. In many cases councilors take positions to stay involved in their community. In others, they need second jobs for income.
In 2024, a charter amendment was approved to raise councilors’ salaries from $24,000 to $32,000 per year.
District 2 Councilor Anthony Archie described being a city councilor as “full-time work and part-time pay.”
Archie is a local business owner. He and his wife, Chelsea, operate the Oklahoma Toffee Company. It’s a small candy business in which employees sell their products at local events and use the funds to support local educators.
“If you’re going to be a councilor, you either have to be independently wealthy, have a spouse that helps you or have another job that helps you,” Archie told the Flyer.
Archie said the Oklahoma Municipal League (OML) is helpful in giving people the foundation in understanding and following ethics rules.
“The day you are elected, you have one year to take the OML training. Me and (Mayor) Monroe Nichols took it together, along with (Councilor) Jackie Dutton,” Archie said.
When District 7 Councilor Lori Decter Wright was first elected to the City Council in 2018, she was the executive director of Kendall-Whittier Incorporated, a community-based nonprofit where there was not much concern about running into a conflict. Then she was selected to be a trustee on the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust. She served while maintaining her seat on the council.
When she took her now-current job as the CEO of Tulsa Opera in 2023, Decter Wright resigned from the TPAC Trust. She said if someone ever perceives there is a conflict of interest, it is enough for her to not straddle the line.
“I resigned from the TPAC Trust because the Tulsa Opera contracts venue space with the TPAC. she said. “And since I have been serving as CEO of Tulsa Opera, I recuse myself from Arts Commission appointments, anything that has to do with publicly funded art, I just do out of an abundance of caution.”
Bengel and Lumen Technologies
District 6 Councilor Christian Bengel works as an implementation specialist for Lumen Technologies, which provides cloud based communications integrated with artificial intelligence. Bengel told the Flyer the company works closely with hyperscale data centers, securing a total of $5 billion in deals with centers. But none of these centers are in Tulsa.
“We don’t build data centers, that is actually what other people do. We provide the bandwidth and the services,” he said. “When we are talking about bandwidth, we are talking about fiber.”
Bengel told the Flyer companies will always have to operate under local, state and federal laws, and he is not aware of his company investing in any companies locally. It takes discipline to balance both and is not an easy task, he said.
Bengel said it is obvious when a councilor has a conflict or not. There will be an obvious personal benefit from what that official will be voting on, he explained. In many cases, he added, they will use city legal advice to navigate the waters of what is a conflict of interest and what is not.
The Oklahoma Eagle business reporter Ismael Lele contributed to this story.
News decisions at the Tulsa Flyer are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to show Christian Bengel is the District 6 councilor, not District 7.
