The League of Women Voters program positions adopted on all levels (National, State, and Local) includes these steps:

- Identification of a public policy issue
- Discussion and recommendation by the members
- Selection by the appropriate Board of a Proposed Program based on these recommendations
- Consideration of the proposed Program by the members, and
- Adoption of a Position by the members or their delegates.

CURRENT NATIONAL STUDY
- Immigration Study

LOCAL POSITIONS
- Criteria for Good Government
- Criteria for City Design in Regard to Land Use Planning
- Criteria for City Design in Regard to Transportation
- Criteria for Tulsa’s Wastewater Management
- Criteria for Bond Issues for Capital Improvements, City of Tulsa
- Public Trust Position
- Stormwater Management Position
- Tulsa County Government
- Criteria on Revenue for the City of Tulsa & for Budgeting, City of Tulsa
- Comprehensive Plan
- Mental Illness


- Criteria for Good Government

Local government should be representative, responsive, efficient, flexible, and accountable. The structure of local government should be flexible enough to provide for increasing and changing needs.

Closer coordination of government is desirable. Piecemeal consolidation should be continued while an approach is being made toward a more comprehensive plan of government reorganization.

Overlapping of functions and duplication of services should be eliminated.

Local government should guarantee every citizen: - Equal access of legislative and administrative processes
- Equal and adequate service, equitable financed
- Geographic as well as at-large representation

The structure of local government should:

- Separate legislative and administrative functions and establish an effective set of checks and balances between the two.
- Vest final responsibility in a chief executive to assure priority setting, long-range planning, and coordination of departments.
- Provide for a merit system for government employees.
- Provide for the initiative, the referendum, and the recall of public officials.

- Criteria for City Design in Regard to Land Use Planning

The League believes that the City of Tulsa must have a comprehensive plan for growth and development. The plan should provide a mechanism for continuous updating to assure creativity and adaptability. Vision 2000 should be a part of this continuing process.

Citizens should be involved in the development, updating and application of the comprehensive plan. Continuing widespread public education is essential to both the development and support for any comprehensive plan.

It is a function of city planning to reduce barriers based on economics, race, and age.

The League supports the principles of balanced growth and believes the city can and should direct and/or redirect the growth of the city to prevent inner decay, and to use more efficiently existing facilities and accommodate future growth.

The placement and design of transportation networks and zoning districts must take into consideration the social and environmental consequences.
The location and timing of public facilities such as the transportation network, water and sewer lines, schools and parks should be used to carry out the objectives of the comprehensive plan. Cooperation between all agencies involved in planning, including the school districts, is essential.

(Adopted in 1974)

- Criteria for City Design in Regard to Transportation

Before any more mileage of urban interstate highways is built, Tulsa must have the opportunity to plan and adequately finance integrated transportation systems of its own choice.

Alternate forms of transportation, such as buses, trains, moving sidewalks, bicycles and street-cars, must be developed into comprehensive transit systems for our city.

Transportation systems dependant on public financing should be publicly controlled. Transportation should be considered a public service whose operating costs are subsidized as are the operating costs of all public services.

Transportation planning and construction must weigh all social and environmental costs. Social, economic, and environmental impact statements must be required.

Continuous and widespread community education and participation must be insured through the planning, development, and operation of any transit program.

Coordination between all agencies, affecting transportation must be insured.

(Adopted in 1982)

- Criteria for Tulsa’s Wastewater Management

Citizens should be involved in the management of Tulsa’s wastewater. Continuing and widespread community education must be encouraged through all stages of wastewater planning and development.

Local governmental agencies should be encouraged to study alternative wastewater treatment and disposal methods and to implement those determined to be the most effective, efficient and ecologically sound.

Existing local ordinances should be revised to control urban run-off as a non-point source of pollution.

(Adopted in mid 1970’s)

- Criteria for Bond Issues for Capital Improvements, City of Tulsa

The proposal should be evaluated to determine whether it is consistent with other League positions.

There should have been opportunity for citizen participation in the planning and the development of the proposal.

The proposal should satisfy a need which has been fully documented by facts and figures whose validity has been established.

The proposal should have been arrived at through established procedures which provide for priority setting, long-range planning, coordination with other government bodies and consideration of alternative methods of financing.

In priority setting, consideration should be given to providing for the amenities of life: e.g., libraries, museums, parks.

(Adopted in mid 1970’s)

- Public Trust Position

The League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Tulsa believes that:

Prior to creating a public trust that the beneficiary should give 30 days notice of their interest to create such a trust and hold public hearings. This notice of intent and the places and times of the public hearings should be published in newspapers and given wide-spread publicity in all media.

Trustees of a public trust should live within the boundaries of the beneficiary and be a combination of representatives of the public and people who are knowledgeable about or have expertise in the indenture of the trust.

A public trust should publish agendas before their meetings and should publish regularly at least once a year, a financial statement of the trust.

(Adopted in 1984)

- Stormwater Management Position

The LWVMT supports a continuing strong effort by the City of Tulsa to manage stormwater, with an emphasis on public safety. As projects are planned or re-evaluated, consideration must be given to cost effectiveness, impact on public safety, neighborhood integrity, and quality of life benefits. All planning should include citizen input with the city’s capital improvements planning process. The city should continue to fund regular maintenance, operation, and small capital costs of stormwater management through a monthly utility fee. The city’s share of other capital costs for stormwater projects should be funded by sales taxes or general obligation bonds. Since 1970, Tulsa County has been declared a federal flood disaster area more often than any other location in the United States. The City of Tulsa has made significant progress toward alleviating the impact of stormwater runoff and flooding. It is imperative for public safety as well as economic development that stormwater management continue to be a priority of the City of Tulsa.

(Adopted in 1990)

- Tulsa County Government

The Tulsa County units agreed that the commissioner form of government is not desirable, but there was not consensus on a replacement. The Claremore Unit preferred the commissioner form for Rogers County. There was strong agreement on the desirability of home rule for Tulsa County.

(Adopted in 1993)

- Criteria on Revenue for the City of Tulsa and for Budgeting, City of Tulsa

The League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Tulsa supports all presently available legal sources of revenue: sales taxes, excise taxes, user fees, income taxes, general revenue sharing and federal grants.

Believing that food and prescription drugs should be exempt from all sales taxes, the League also supports the exemption of these items from the city sales tax laws.

We encourage the state legislature to pass permissive legislation for cities for city tax options.

The city should establish a continuous source of funding for capital improvement projects and provide early, practical education to the public about these projects.
(Adopted in 1979)

The League believes that future budgeting processes should include the following:

- Long-range planning, which should include the coordination of a fiscal impact analysis system with the budgeting process in order to adequately assess the impact of the capital improvement projects on future city obligations, such as maintenance, personnel and growth patterns
- Continuous citizen participation from the initial stages
- Coordination of capital improvement projects among all city departments
- Evaluation and accountability of programs based on established goals and objectives

The success of the budgeting process requires that:

- The appropriate city employees should have the necessary training to write measurable objectives
- The budgeting staff should be responsible for providing continuity in the budgeting process

(Adopted in 1980)

- Comprehensive Plan

The local program committee recommends: 1) that the LWVMT continue its interest in and support for the comprehensive plan, 2) that the LWVMT encourage efforts from whatever quarter to increase citizen knowledge of and participation in the planning process, and 3) that for the next three years the Board of Directors assign to a LWVMT member responsibility for action to carry out this program.

(Adopted in 1992)

- Mental Illness

The LWVMT adopted a position on Mental Illness at the annual meeting in 2001. This position, slightly amended, was adopted by concurrence by the League of Women Voters of Oklahoma at the biannual meeting in 2001.

The League of Women Voters of Oklahoma believes that provision of mental health services in Oklahoma should be improved in the following ways:

That the state undertake a basic mental health needs assessment of Oklahoma’s children, adult, elderly, homeless and penal institution populations to serve as the basis for coordinated State and local planning to determine need for services; that such assessment should include input from citizens as well as all providers and funding sources, and should occur each decade and following any major revision in the structure of the state’s mental illness services (as in the closing of Eastern State Hospital);

That the state focus on all aspects of identification and prevention of emotional problems, mental illness, and substance abuse. State funding should be provided for intervention and prevention programs in the schools and child-care programs;

That the state increase funding for child mental health services and correct systemic payment issues which prevent any access to that care;

That the state monitor the effectiveness of mental health programs to ensure accountability and translate these findings into better allocation of available funds.

The League of Women Voters of Oklahoma believes that the delivery of services for mental illness and substance abuse in Oklahoma can be more effective; therefore, the LWVOK recommends that Oklahoma and the DMHSA undertake the following:

- A strategic state plan for treatment of illness based on epidemiological data which addresses all populations, including all minorities
- Funding for training personnel for delivery of services with placement relative to, and based on, needs of a comunity;
- Improve access to mental illness services;
- Stop the diversion of mentally ill children and adults into the corrections system;
- Increase funding to the Oklahoma DMHSA; increase funding especially to outpatient centers for mental illness and substance abuse.

(Consensus approved 2002)