Oklahoma ScissorTales: Assessing next steps for OK County jail

Per a vote last month by county commissioners, a nine-person trust now oversees finances and operations of the Oklahoma County jail. The trust’s to-do list is significant.

After being elected chairwoman of the trust this week, Tricia Everest said: “For now, our priorities will be understanding what our authority is, making sure that we work well with the county and the sheriff’s office and with the commissioners to determine how best to proceed, and to certainly fix any of the immediate needs presented to us.”

As to the last point, the Oklahoma County engineer outlined the jail’s most pressing problems, among them poor ventilation, mold and bursting pipes. Work is being done to address those but “no solutions are simple and are always very costly,” he said.

The trust will need to decide who will manage the jail — the sheriff’s office, an administrator or a private company. It also will need to decide whether to build a new jail and deal with funding issues.

Everest, who has long been active in the city’s civic and philanthropic affairs, is a former assistant attorney general. “I look forward to working with the county budget and putting together the puzzle the best we can,” she said. It’s a good attitude for what figures to be a difficult job.

What’s in a name? In this case, emotion

Concerns about the Oklahoma City school district’s realignment plan involve, in one case, the new name of one of the schools impacted. Classen School of Advance Studies is being merged with Northeast Academy, 3100 N Kelley, and the site is to be renamed Classen School of Advanced Studies High School. Northeast patrons and alums don’t like that idea, and are urging the district to come up with a name that includes Northeast. One woman who graduated from Northeast in 1971 and has a daughter who graduated from Classen SAS made a good point to the board at a recent meeting. She noted that Classen SAS is “a world-class school” but that some compromise was needed. “I think we have the opportunity for a small and significant win-win to have both names, Northeast Classen.” That seems reasonable, and simple, and is something the board should consider.

Some good deeds don’t count for much

Devon Energy Corp. announced this week that it plans further cuts to methane emissions from its oil and gas operations in the United States. The aim is to reduce detectable emissions by at least 12.5 percent in six years. Devon plans to track emissions across all its operated assets, even those where reporting isn’t required by the federal government. It’s doing so voluntarily, to reflect one of its core values of being a good environmental steward by managing climate risk. At least one environmental group, though, downplayed the announcement. The head of the Oklahoma Sierra Club said he was pleased by the news, but that “continuing to extract fossil fuels — including natural gas — is not how to address the climate crisis.” Such organizations won’t be pleased until all fossil fuel use, and the jobs they provide, are eliminated.

Fort Sill called on to help with border crisis

The continuing surge of migrants at the southern border of the United States is now impacting Oklahoma. The government announced this week that Fort Sill would be used to house detained migrant children. The number of children coming to Lawton isn’t known, although Gov. Kevin Stitt said he heard it would be about 1,000. This move is being taken because space elsewhere is becoming unavailable. Fort Sill has been through this before — in 2014, it served as a temporary home for roughly 1,800 unaccompanied migrant children fleeing Central America. U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, whose district includes Fort Sill, said the government’s decision “certainly highlights the dire need for a permanent solution to manage the border crisis.” Cole is right, but immigration reform remains on high center in Congress and shows no sign of getting off it any time soon.

Making it a “snap” to support adoption

The Wendy’s fast-food chain is teaming with Snapchat to help foster children find permanent homes. Wendy’s late founder, Dave Thomas, was adopted as a youth and later put considerable effort into helping foster children, including creating a foundation for that purpose in 1992. In 2004, two years after Thomas’ passing, his foundation began its Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Initiative, which funds professionals who help foster kids find families. In an expansion of that initiative, Wendy’s patrons can “Support adoption in a snap” by taking a picture with Wendy’s new fundraiser “Cause Cup” and posting it to Snapchat. For each one, $5 is donated to Thomas’ foundation. This is a nice change of pace from the increasingly bitter arguments over abortion in the United States.

Some common sense from the Golden State

Attention coffee drinkers: Regulators in California ruled recently that there is not a significant risk between coffee and cancer. Last year, a judge ordered coffee retailers to post warning signs about cancer’s risk as mandated by a proposition approved by state voters in 1986. Proposition 65 requires warning labels on any product known to cause cancer; among the 900-plus chemicals now on the carcinogen list is acrylamide, a byproduct of roasted coffee beans. However, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment now says coffee is in the clear. The regulators based their decision on the results of more than 1,000 studies that found no substantial link between coffee and cancer. Now retailers can take down the warning signs and raise an espresso to a little common sense.