From The Daily O’Collegian:

Debate arose at Monday’s City Council meeting about whether Stillwater’s mayor should have an office, a measure eventually rejected after debate was exhausted.

“I think it would be nice to provide a space for all of us to represent Stillwater at a designated location at any time,” Stillwater Mayor and OSU student Nathan Bates said.

The 2007 City Hall renovations converted the traditional mayor/council office to space for the Downtown Stillwater Business Improvement District coordinator. Councilors have since worked out of conference rooms scattered across Stillwater and in various coffee shops and cafés.

Read the rest.

From The Journal Record:

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has joined the attorneys general of 23 other states to support creation of a federal consumer financial protection agency.

Edmondson said the new entity should oversee large financial institutions, not local banks.

“Local Oklahoma banks did not cause the financial collapse and should not be subjected to the additional burdens imposed on the institutions who played with fire and ended up getting burned,” the attorney general said.

Read the rest.

From The Tulsa World:

Oklahoma’s unemployed continue to have problems filing for benefits.

The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission’s online filing system went down from 3 to 7 a.m. Sunday.

Meanwhile, callers were told that because of a high volume of calls, all of the lines were busy.

“We have 392 phone lines going into the call center,” agency spokesman John Carpenter said. “That kind of gives you an idea of the kind of volume we are dealing with.”

Read the rest.

From NewsOK:

Oklahoma City is the latest government agency refusing to release employee birth dates, despite arguments they are open records under state law.

Open government advocates say birth dates are on the front lines of the national battle for open records partially because of fears over identity theft. Those fears aren’t backed up with statistics or even anecdotal evidence showing public records are a source for identity thieves, experts said.

The city denied a request from The Oklahoman last week for the birth date of Ed Martin, director of the city’s Weed and Seed program.

Read the rest.

From The Tulsa World:

Tulsa International Airport is one of 10 additional airports across the country selected to receive stimulus dollars for a state-of-the-art baggage system, but officials said Thursday final details were not available.

Alexis Higgins, the airport’s director of marketing, said officials have not been provided with details on how much federal money will be provided for the project.

Earlier, officials submitted figures indicating the project would cost $5.5 million with the federal government picking up all but $512,480.

Read the rest.

From The Journal Record:

Individuals whose full-time occupation is “legislator” overtook attorneys among lawmakers across the country for the first time in 2007, according to a new study released Wednesday by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The average age of a state legislator rose slightly to 56.

In Oklahoma, attorneys make up about 17.6 percent of lawmakers in the House and Senate, compared with 15.2 percent overall, the study found.

Read the rest.