New OKC resource staying busy
W HEN Oklahoma City opened a family justice center in February, we expected it would be of considerable use to victims of domestic violence. This is proving to be the case.
The center at 1140 N Hudson, called Palomar, houses several agencies to assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. It follows a model created as a pilot program 15 years ago in San Diego, which since then has seen a reduction of nearly 90 percent in domestic violence homicides.
Police Chief Bill Citty told the city council this week that the Oklahoma City facility has had more than 1,400 walk-ins since it opened. “The word’s getting out,” he said.
This word needs to continue to spread. Last year, the city’s 911 dispatch center received more than 35,000 domestic violence-related calls. During the past five years, the police department says, 20 percent of city homicides have been domestic related, on average. These traumatic events impact not simply the victims but family members, especially children.
More than a dozen agencies are partnering with Palomar to provide services. These include the police department, the YWCA battered women’s shelter, the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office and DHS Child Protection Services.
This center is doing important work. For more information, call (405) 552-1010 or visit www.palomarokc.org.
Attractive job
Oklahoma City is a bustling and attractive fine arts community. That’s underscored by the fact that 225 people applied to become music director of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Ultimately, 46-year-old Alexander Mickelthwate won the job to replace maestro Joel Levine, who has led the philharmonic since its inception 28 years ago and will retire after conducting the Classics Series season finale in May 2018. Mickelthwate, a native of Frankfurt, Germany, was picked from among six finalists for this post. He has spent the past 12 years as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and before that worked with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Oklahoma City, he said, “was really the place that I wanted to be. The musicianship of the orchestra is terrific.” We congratulate him on his selection and look forward to him continuing the tradition of excellence Levine has established.
Student crime fighters
A field trip this week to the Oklahoma City Police Department’s dispatch center had special significance for fourth-graders at Stand Watie Elementary School. The trip allowed them to see what goes on at the other end of the phone when someone calls 911. They know all about the front end — earlier this month, they and their teacher helped police nab two men they saw breaking into a house across the street from their school at 3517 S Linn. As the men took items from the house and loaded them into a pickup truck, the kids gave the details to their teacher, who relayed that to 911 dispatcher Anna Reisman. It was “one of the best calls I’ve ever taken, and I’ve been here more than five years,” Reisman said. Police were able to arrest the suspects and return the stolen property to the victim. These kids deserve an A for their efforts.
Straight shooting
President Trump’s “shoot from the lip” style often creates self-inflicted wounds. But there are times when he expresses public sentiment far better than the pre-fabricated sound bytes offered by many other politicians. Such was the case this week when Trump responded to the terrorist attack in Manchester, England, where a bomber killed more than 20 people at a concert. “So many young, beautiful innocent people living and enjoying their lives, murdered by evil losers in life,” Trump said. He declared, “The terrorists and extremists and those who give them aid and comfort must be driven out from our society forever. This wicked ideology must be obliterated.” Notably, Trump made those comments in the Middle East, a region that has fostered much terrorism, while standing next to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. It’s to Trump’s credit that he didn’t sugar-coat his words to appease his immediate audience.
A victory for long-laterals
Following previous passage by the state Senate, the House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 51-46 for Senate Bill 867, which will allow longer horizontal drilling in non-shale formations. Oklahoma is the only state where energy companies are restricted to drilling these “extended lateral” wells only in shale formations or in formations with shale-like characteristics. SB 867 was the subject of intense lobbying on both sides. The House vote was held open for more than half an hour, during which time three Republican members switched to the “pro” side and thus secured its passage. The Oklahoma Tax Commission says SB 867 could generate another $19 million in gross production tax revenues in fiscal year 2018. This bill is good for business and will help the state treasury, and stands as a highlight of what was largely a disappointing session.
High price of ‘protest’
University of Missouri officials are learning there’s a literal price to be paid when radical student protests are allowed to run wild, as occurred there in 2015. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports freshman enrollment at the university is down 35 percent from 2015. In April, Mizzou officials began discussing budget cuts of 8 percent to 12 percent. Earlier this month, the university’s interim chancellor said up to 400 jobs may be cut. The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that school officials previously blamed declining undergraduate enrollment on “a combination of smaller high school graduating classes in Missouri, better recruitment by schools in other states and the aftermath of the November 2015 demonstrations …” But now officials say it is “almost all” due to negative publicity tied to the demonstrations. It turns out student radicalism, weak institutional response and campus chaos aren’t selling points. What a shocker.
Pointless
U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, recently announced on C-SPAN that he is having articles of impeachment drafted to remove President Trump from office. Green argues Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey. One wonders if Green bothered to run this idea by any credible legal experts who aren’t rabid partisans. Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz (no right winger) has said Trump’s action was perfectly legal. In a column for the Washington Examiner, Dershowitz wrote, “Whatever one may think of the president’s decision to fire Comey as a matter of policy, there is no legitimate basis for concluding that the president engaged in a crime by exercising his statutory and constitutional authority to fire director Comey.” Dershowitz noted that firing can be for “any reason or no reason.” In short, Green and others like him are grasping at straws, wasting congressional time on a pointless endeavor.