Bad news, everyone – Governor Kevin is bored again and wants some attention.
Late last week, in a desperate attempt to steal headlines, attack a Democrat and emulate Comrade Trump’s military occupation of American cities, Governor Stitt rounded up the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and sent them to Tulsa to clean out homeless encampments on state property.
To showcase his team’s lack of creativity, they’re calling it Operation SAFE:
Governor Kevin Stitt today announced the launch of Operation SAFE (Swift Action for Families Everywhere) to restore order and safety to Tulsa by clearing homeless encampments, trash, and criminal activity from state-owned property inside the city…
Under the Governor’s direction, State Troopers are offering homeless individuals two clear options:
A ride to a treatment or housing facility.
A ride to jail and face prosecution if they refuse help and continue breaking the law.
That’s great. Back when Kevin Stitt claimed Oklahoma for Jesus, I bet the first thing on the Lord’s mind was rounding up all the homeless, meek, and maybe a couple of lepers and sending them to jail. Nice to see he's getting that job done!
Anyway, if sending the Oklahoma Highway Patrol – an agency that claims it’s too understaffed to patrol our state’s rural highways – to round up vagrants, addicts and other people scraping the bottom of the societal barrel seems like an irresponsible use of taxpayer money and power, it is.
But, I guess that’s all okay because Tulsa’s run by a Democrat now:
Governor Stitt has had numerous conversations with Mayor Nichols in recent weeks urging the city to gain control of the situation, but progress has fallen short of Tulsa residents’ expectations.
“Tulsa is a beautiful city. I lived there for years. But today, everybody can see the disaster it’s turning into—homeless people on every corner, trash piling up, and Oklahoma families are being forced to live in fear,” said Governor Stitt. “This is the city’s job, but Mayor Nichols and Tulsa leadership haven’t met the level of action needed to keep neighborhoods safe. Oklahoma is going to step in to do our part and clean it up. Once we’ve done so, it’ll be on the City to keep Tulsa clean and safe. If they refuse, then we’ll be forced to take further action to protect Tulsans.”
This might be a good time to point out that Monroe Nichols has only been Tulsa’s mayor for about 10 months. I may not be a dopey Governor with no real solutions to any problems who, as a result, regularly engages in petty political theater, but that’s not enough time to saddle him with blame for the city’s homeless crisis. Wouldn’t most of that fall on the last guy, GT Bynum? Oh, right—he was a Republican, so it didn’t matter back then.
Petty politics aside, the most irritating things about Stitt’s OHP occupation of the city’s IHOPs are that…
A) Not only does it waste resources, but it doesn’t solve the problem. The homeless who don’t comply will just move somewhere else. Stitt isn’t cleaning up the mess — he’s just sweeping it into the next room, or better yet, the next city.
B) It’s obviously emulating Trump.
Friendly reminder – as the President of the United States begins to occupy American cities in the long lead-up to midterm elections, instead of criticizing or standing against Trump’s dictatorial overreach of power, Kevin Stitt has copied it. I hope they teach that in some chapter of history books someday. Well, if we have history books someday. With the way things are going, Stitt may send the OHP after them next.
I guess we'll continue to monitor Operation SAFE.
Because we have a sneaker-wearing, Republican-lite Mayor in power right now, it looks like OKC is immune to Stitt's theatrics. Then again, he seems to love making bad decisions, so maybe you'll see troopers running the corner of NW 23rd and Penn very soon.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
