Safety officials discuss Tulsa Independent Review and Oversight of Public Safety committee

TULSA, Okla. — The idea of oversight for public safety entities continues to build for the city of Tulsa.

City councilors met with safety leaders from the Tulsa Fire Department, Tulsa Animal Welfare and code enforcement to get their thoughts on the committee, days after councilors were split on the proposal from Lori Decter-Wright and Vanessa Hall-Harper.

Tulsa fire Chief Michael Baker says the oversight committee, which would be made up of two directors and an 11-member civilian board, would duplicate what the department already does.

"I feel like that we have a fairly robust system of oversight, and I think that we're adding to and not really supporting the processes that we really need to fix," Baker said.

Sherri Carrier with Tulsa Animal Welfare agreed.

"Adding additional entities or departments that would need to be coordinated with, briefed, updated, and consulted with may result in delays for addressing complaints in a timely manner," Carrier said.

Councilor Decter-Wright says it's about adding another layer of transparency for the public to see how investigations and incidents are handled.

"I think a lot of times constituents are like, oh, and sometimes they might be like, I still don't like it, but I understand why," Decter-Wright said. "And sometimes if we get a bunch of I don't like it, then we as a body start going like, what do we need to do for systems change."

As for Carrier?

"If we have an extra layer on top of an extra layer, I mean that does kind of have us questioning how are we going to do all of this?" Carrier said.

The other three organizations, police, city security and emergency management, meet with city council on October 14.