CVB director made a difference

One mark of an excellent employee is that he or she makes a difference during their term of employment. Mike Carrier has certainly done so at the Oklahoma City Convention Visitors Bureau.

During Carrier's 13 years as president of the CVB, the number of hotel rooms in Oklahoma City has grown by 31%, according to the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber. The chamber says tourism's impact on the city has increased to $2.45 billion from $2.1 billion.

Carrier recently announced he plans to retire Sept. 30, about the time the city's new convention center is set to open.

As The Oklahoman's Steve Lackmeyer wrote, Carrier has spent the past 10 years pushing for construction of the convention center and adjoining hotel, the 605room Omni, which were central to making the city a Tier 2 market competitor with cities such as Kansas City, Indianapolis and Tampa.

“His extensive background combined convention sales and facility management and made him the ideal candidate,” said Roy Williams, chamber CEO. “He has proven to be a leader that could dig in and bring our community's vision to life.”

The next CVB director will face many challenges brought on by the COVID19 pandemic, which has pounded the travel industry and cost the bureau onethird of its workforce. But Carrier is owed a debt of gratitude for his long and distinguished service.

Labels didn't apply in court's landmark ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 majority of conservative justices makes progressives uneasy. Yet the court showed again this week that those labels don't always matter. Conservative justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch joined the court's four liberal justices in a landmark ruling that a 1964 federal law banning sex discrimination in the workplace also applies to gay, lesbian and transgender employees. Gorsuch said Congress used broad language in its original law. “We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law,” Gorsuch said. The ruling drew criticism from conservative groups (and the three dissenting conservative justices) who said the court was legislating from the bench. “Under the Constitution and laws of the United States, this court is the wrong body to change American law in that way,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. Yet change it, it did, with conservatives' help.

DACA recipients get good news from SCOTUS

A ruling Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court gave about 700,000 immigrants — roughly 6,900 in Oklahoma — reason to celebrate. The high court said the Trump administration cannot halt the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by former President Barack

Obama in 2012, who tired of waiting for Congress to act. The current administration announced in 2017 that it was rescinding DACA. But in a 5-4 ruling led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court called that effort “arbitrary and capricious.” DACA protects from deportation immigrants who were brought to this country illegally as children. Called “Dreamers,” they may work, attend school and qualify for a driver's license if they stay out of trouble. Congress still needs to address DACA. For now, though, the court has provided some peace of mind to Dreamers who have feared deportation.

Erecting a contract-tracing hurdle in Big Apple

Scientists and health experts say contact tracing is an important piece of trying to get our arms around the COVID-19 pandemic. Tracers ask those who test positive for disease to try to remember “contacts” they have had with others. At least, that's what they're supposed to do. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered contact tracers not to ask those who test positive whether they recently attended Black Lives Matter protests. “No person will be asked proactively if they attended a protest,” a de Blasio's spokesman said this week. There's been no hard evidence of spikes in cases resulting from the protests over George Floyd's death. Even so, it's odd to create a contact-tracing task force, as de Blasio did, and then remove one way of potentially helping it do its job.