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District 1 City Councilor Jack Henderson has served on the Tulsa City Council for eight years and been a leader in north Tulsa for many more, including urging for representation that resulted in the creation of the city council in 1990. As the council started a new year, Henderson sat down with TulsaPeople at City Hall to discuss the recent changes the council has made and his goals for his district in 2012 and beyond.
You supported the city manager-council structure change that was included on the November ballot. What were your thoughts when you heard that measure did not pass?
I really just thought people really didn’t understand what we were trying to get them to see. I think that the form of government we have now has been tried, tested, and it’s time for us to move on to a better form. Rodger Randle, who was mayor at the time, actually wrote the charter change. ... Now, in retrospect, he looks back on it and he came to the council meeting and told us, “Look, the city manager form of government is one that can work here in Tulsa,” and is one that probably needs to be tried and tested and he was for it. … Every mayor we’ve had in the past since that form of government came into existence, there’s always been a little friction between the administration and the council as far as power … (and) it leads to us having that attitude that we are kind of at each other. But this form of government, the city manager would be working for everybody trying to please everybody. … Hopefully down the road the citizens will have another opportunity to see it.
It’s been a few weeks since the new councilors have been on the job and there have already been changes made, including the workday consolidation*, which you were opposed to. In your mind, how are things going so far?
Being on the council as long as I have, (the schedule) was set up the way it was set up for a purpose. It worked all of these years and for somebody to come in and think they have a better way of doing business when they haven’t really been here yet to even try the old way, I think that’s premature. …You should adjust your schedule to meet the council’s schedule and not the reverse. … I think that once they see how much of a workload it’s actually going to be to be a good city councilor, then they’ll say, “Whoa, let’s reverse this thing and let’s go back,” because you’ve got a lot to learn in a short period of time. … I think you should learn your job — take six months at least to learn, to see what this is about before you vote to change it.
Describe the atmosphere at City Hall and council meetings since the new councilors have come in.
I think it’s one of energy. People are willing and wanting to learn. They are excited. Some are apprehensive about taking votes and don’t know if they need to do this or that yet, but that’s any councilor when they first come on board.
Do you remember what it was like your first day as a councilman?
Oh, yeah. Overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed?
And I had the attitude that I had been involved in NAACP, I had been in public speaking and really thought I knew what the community wanted. I tried to run for state representative and they kept picking the guy who was there before me. The incumbent’s always got the edge. I didn’t know that at the time. So I said, let me try this city council thing. But when I actually got on, I thought, well, I’m going to change this. … But one thing I was smart enough to do was sit back and watch before I tried to make some decisions to change anything. … The budget was probably the biggest challenge, and that’s going to be the biggest challenge for them. And then the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) process. …That’s probably going to be the biggest hurdle that these new councilors will face is that daunting process of those two.
Have you given any advice to the new councilors, officially or unofficially?
I told them what I thought about changing the two-day-a-week deal*. They listened — they went the other way. I hope that’s no indication of what’s going to happen the rest of the time. I’ve been around a long time, probably longer than any other councilor here now for sure. I would hope they would take some of that wisdom and run with it instead of running away from it. Experience is a great tool to use. … Experience is something that everybody should take and gain from it, learn from it.
What is it like to be one of three representatives with past council experience?
It’s going to be a challenge because in the past you could always count on most of the people being there who are knowledgeable enough that you knew (what) the end result was going to be, one that was going to be a true value to the people because you had a lot of input from everybody. … I’ve never sat on a council with six brand-new people, so that’s going to put more of a burden on those three to stand up and try to help these other people get on board to where they’ll be able to feel more comfortable.
Have you already tried to do that?
Yes. I‘ve had a couple of people that came to me and asked my advice on this or that, how to deal with certain things. And I just tell them what I do. I represent my district first and then I represent the city next. It works. The people that sent you to the office are the ones that you have the most allegiance to because they can take you out. … You have to stand for them first and let them know you stand for them, and then you’re a city councilor, so that means you take care of the whole city as well. I think once they get that idea in their head, that’s going to help them out, really, down the road to understand the true big picture.
What do you want to do for District 1 in 2012?
I have about four projects that are under way that were started back in the past administration that need to happen to make District 1 more like the rest of the city. My goal when I first took office was to increase the property value of the properties in north Tulsa, to bring them up, and that’s always been a stickler. … To get the crime rate down, to create some jobs and bring some business in. … That’s my goal, is just to create the climate in north Tulsa to make it look like the rest of the city. I think that’s always been my goal, and probably when I leave office, I’ll still be trying to do that.
As a councilman, how do you make those goals a reality?
It’s changing the mindset of not only the rest of the public but also the mindset of the people that live in north Tulsa. … You educate the citizens that live in the area that, that area is worthy of new ventures, new economic development opportunities, but a lot of times people in north Tulsa have the idea that we really don’t matter, we’re not going to get anything, we haven’t gotten anything, they’ve always managed to go around us and keep us from getting things — and that attitude needs to change. The citizens need to understand that north Tulsa is a jewel. It’s the best land, the cheapest land and Tulsa has grown such that it’s north Tulsa and west Tulsa’s time. … Here we are waiting, so open our arms and invite them in and know that this is the area for growth. It’s going to happen.
The (University of Oklahoma) Wayman Tisdale (Specialty Health) Center — 200 new jobs are going to come there. They need cleaners, they need gas stations, they need places to eat. … The soccer fields that are going to be out there by the Mohawk Park area, that’s going to … bring a lot of people to the area. No motels there. No grocery stores in that area. No theaters. … The area is wide open for growth, so they have areas that can be developed, and that’s what I’d like to see happen and I think that’s what’s going to happen.
Besides it being your home, what makes District 1 unique or stand out to you personally?
The opportunities that I can see. I can look at every area of the city and I can see how they developed and what happened to make them develop. At one time north Tulsa had skating rinks, bowling alleys, grocery stores — all of those things that went away because people felt it’s greener on the other side, so we’re going to go spend our money outside our community. I want to see that money turn back over in our community again, over and over and over before it leaves, and that’s when we’re going to get back the Greenwood-type area we had back then. I want to be a part of making that happen, and when I’m sitting back in my rocking chair and looking back at what happened and how north Tulsa changed, I want to say I helped make that happen.
How can Tulsans get to know District 1 and its citizens better?
I go to First Baptist North Tulsa, and we’ve always partnered with other churches. … It’s a thing where we go in and we have dinner with them, and we go to their church and we bring them to our church, and they have dinner with us and we fellowship with each other. The only way you’re going to get to know me is you got to know what I do and how I live. I bleed just like you bleed. My kids dream about having things just like your kids, and when we see that there’s not that much difference between north and south and east and west and our dreams and goals are the same, I think that people get a different outlook and a different perspective of people. … The same way we go to the south side and shop and do things, but we always come back to our community after we spent our money outside. We need to attract people to spend money in our community just like they have attracted us to spend money in theirs.
* Beginning Feb. 16, all council committee meetings will begin at 1 p.m. on Thursdays, says Megan McCann, Tulsa City Council video/media specialist. This is a change from committee meetings being held on Tuesday, which had been a practice of the city council since the early 1990s. The committee meetings will take place a week before the council meeting, where the items will be discussed.
