Oklahoma
Oklahoma County inches closer to a county sales tax election to help pay for new jail
A public safety sales tax election in Oklahoma County to help pay for a new jail is closer after the Board of County Commissioners voted Wednesday to receive the unanimous recommendation of the Citizens Bond Oversight Advisory Board.
The commissioners did not act on the recommendation. Neither a tax special election date, nor other details have been developed.
It would not be the first-ever Oklahoma County sales tax, as previously reported. The county had a temporary 1% rate from Nov. 1, 1987, to Oct. 31, 1988, also for the jail, said David Francis, business registration manager and city/county services manager for the Oklahoma Tax Commission.
More work on jail financing needs to be done before commissioners take up another sales tax, said Myles Davidson, chairman of the board and District 3 commissioner.
“While there wasn’t an actionable item to send a sales tax referendum to the people, I expect the discussion to move forward soon,” he said. “My office is actively researching and developing a proposal to ensure we find the best path to fund the much-needed jail.
“It’s critical that we explore all options to address this issue in a responsible and effective manner for our county.”
A glance at financing for a new Oklahoma County jail
The Citizens Bond Oversight Advisory Board guides how Oklahoma County bond revenues are spent. The tax would partially bridge the huge gap between the $260 million bond issue approved by voters in 2022 for a new jail and the estimated $700 million or more that officials have said it will actually take.
That cost is in addition to the $44.4 million set aside for a Behavioral Care Center at the jail complex, paid for with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. Flintco LLC began work at 1901 E Grand Blvd., the jail site, earlier this month.
County officials continue research and negotiations with investment banks Raymond James Financial Inc., Morgan Stanley and Jefferies LLC regarding a possible “public-private partnership” with Oklahoma County that officials said could raise $450 million toward the jail.
Activists again assail OK County commissioners over jail issues
Before the commissioners voted, they took criticism, as usual, from detractors.
Mark Faulk, a regular critic, again denounced the plans for the jail and the commissioners themselves.
Jed Green, a candidate for the open District 1 seat vacated by Carrie Blumert when she quit last fall, said the state Legislature needs to step in and help pay for the jail.
Michael Washington, an activist who regularly harangues the commissioners, grew furious when not allowed to speak because he arrived too late to sign up to participate in the public comment period.
Activist: ‘Fix the Jail’ campaign in 2022 was a scheme
Faulk, alluding to the boulders the city of Oklahoma City has placed under a Western Avenue bridge to stop homeless people from gathering or camping, and calling it “hostile architecture,” said, “I would posit that building a bigger jail is the most hostile architecture of all.”
The commissioners and others promoting the jail have gone back on their word, said Faulk, with People’s Council for Justice Reform. They boasted in the lead-up to the 2022 bond election that a jail could be built from the bond proceeds with no new taxes.
The Fix the Jail campaign was a ruse with its pledge of a “new jail, no new taxes,” he said.
“Now we all knew that was a lie. We knew at the time that y’all didn’t have the money to build a jail,” Faulk said, reading aloud pledges against raising taxes made by commissioners and business leaders who were pushing the bond election.
Candidate: Oklahoma County leaders have ‘credibility issues’ on new jail financing
“Obvious credibility issues with what this (the way the new jail is being funded) is going to look like,” said Green, an independent who is running for the District 1 seat. The special primary election will be Feb. 11. Because an independent is in the race, the special general election will be April 1.
Green, a political consultant and founder of Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action, faces Democrat Sara Bana, a Midwest City Council member; Democratic state Rep. Jason Lowe of Oklahoma City; and Democratic former state lawmaker Anastasia A. Pittman.
“When I hire a contractor,” Green said, “I give them money, they come back at a certain point of completion, I give them more money, they come back and they say we’ve … done nothing but we need more money, I might be calling the attorney general for fraud.
“I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but in the minds of the average Oklahoma County voters, that’s what we’re seeing. If the county voters feel that something has been jammed through (they are likely to oppose it).
Enraged activist calls OK County commissioners names and makes racism accusation
The flamboyant Washington, who has lambasted the commissioners for years, often waving his hat and launching outbursts like a lively preacher, was incensed when he missed the 9 a.m. deadline for signing up to speak at the speakers podium.
He spoke anyway, calling Davidson, who recently took over as chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, “the new idiot in town” and a “puppy,” and accused him of treating the First Amendment like “a piece of dog meat.”
“What’s this little boy’s name? Son, what you need to do … your mama ought to be ashamed of herself (for giving birth to Davidson),” Washington said.
He continued to walk around the board room, yelling at the commissioners as they concluded business, then interrupting when the commissioners opened the meeting of Public Building Authority.
Washington, who is Black, accused Davidson, or all the commissioners — it wasn’t clear — of being “white supremacists.”
“That’s what you are. You know, man. Don’t try to pretend you’re not,” he yelled.
Staff writer Richard Mize covers Oklahoma County government and the city of Edmond. He previously covered housing, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com, starting in 1999. Contact him at rmize@oklahoman.com.
Brent Venables got Oklahoma back to the College Football Playoff in 2025, and while the season was a massive success, merely making the 12-team field isn’t good enough for anyone in Norman — Venables included.
The Sooners enter 2026 with something that has been missing on both sides of the ball for a few years: continuity.
OU returns its starting quarterback, John Mateer, for the first time since Dillon Gabriel started Venables’ first two seasons as head coach.
Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle is back, and while Venables lost cornerbacks coach Jay Valai to the Buffalo Bills, Venables has everyone else back on his staff and he’s the architect of the defense.
The schedule will be tough again, but expectations are high for Venables’ fifth team at Oklahoma.
Here are three areas the Sooners need to improve to get back in the national championship picture.
Run the Ball
Venables hasn’t shied away from OU’s issues running the football.
He’s put improvement in the rushing attack at the forefront all throughout the offseason, from working to sharpen the mentality of the offense to bringing in pieces like right tackle E’Marion Harris and a virtually new tight end room to help the cause.
More consistency on the ground will take pressure off Mateer’s shoulders.
It will not only allow OU to control the clock and give its defense a rest, but it will also open up the passing game downfield if the second and third levels of opposing defenses truly have to worry about bottling up the run and the pass.
The inability to run the ball was the Sooners’ most glaring issue in 2025, so there is plenty of room for improvement this fall.
Limit Mateer’s Turnovers
At times, Mateer had to do everything for OU’s offense in 2025.
There were memorable moments, but Mateer also had a handful of head-scratching mistakes.
He threw a career-high 11 interceptions a year ago, and his downturn in turnovers in November coincided with the Sooners’ employing conservative game plans.
His worst moment came in the loss to Texas, where he threw three picks, but that performance came 17 days after thumb surgery, where he clearly was unable to throw the ball downfield with real accuracy.
But he threw a pick in each of his first three games on questionable decisions, then he threw a nearly catastrophic pick against Tennessee when the Sooners were just trying to milk the clock late.
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He tossed another three picks against LSU, and the pick six he threw against Alabama helped the Crimson Tide roar all the way back after digging a 17-point hole in the College Football Playoff.
Mateer’s freewheeling nature produced incredible moments, and that will lead to risky throws. The tradeoff in those moments is usually worth it, but he can cut down on his misfires elsewhere to find a balance between pushing the envelope and taking care of the football.
Avoid the Back-breaking Special Teams Plays
Oklahoma was excellent on special teams in 2025 for the most part.
Kicker Tate Sandell won the program’s first Lou Groza Award for his incredible season, and special teams played a big role in massive victories, like Isaiah Sategna’s first punt return in Tuscaloosa that set OU’s offense up deep in Alabama territory.
But the few special teams lapses were monumental.
Texas effectively put away the Red River Showdown by returning a punt for a touchdown, though Venables correctly pointed out a key block in the back that wasn’t called that helped spring the touchdown.
But in the Cotton Bowl, the call stood, and it’s the kind of play that cannot happen when lining up against the best competition on the schedule.
Then, in the CFP, punter Grayson Miller oddly dropped the football, leading to a blocked punt. Alabama was able to take that play and start clawing its way back into the contest.
Doug Deakin has done a phenomenal job with the Sooners’ special teams units, but there are still improvements to be made in 2026.
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Oklahoma
Wembanyama leads San Antonio Spurs past Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 to reach NBA Finals
Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs started the Western Conference finals with a win in Oklahoma City, then ended the series the same way.
The champions are dethroned. Wembanyama and the Spurs are headed to the NBA Finals.
Wembanyama scored 22 points, Julian Champagnie got 18 of his 20 off of 3-pointers, and the Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103 on Saturday night – bucking heavy odds to win a Game 7 on the road.
“This feeling, I can’t explain it,” Wembanyama said. “It’s so powerful.”
Stephon Castle scored 16 points, and De’Aaron Fox had 15. Dylan Harper added 12, and Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell each finished with 11 for the Spurs, who are headed to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.
They will host the New York Knicks in Game 1 on Wednesday night.
“Back in October, we knew we had a chance to be pretty good,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
Correction – the Spurs have a chance to be great. Championship-level great.
A huge moment came midway through the fourth, when San Antonio’s Luke Kornet blocked Oklahoma City’s Isaiah Hartenstein at the rim – denying a fast-break score that would have gotten the Thunder within four.
It felt like the last gasp for the Thunder. Kornet played six minutes, missed all three of his shot attempts, and finished with only two points, but the block was an epic moment.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 35 points and nine assists, but for the eighth consecutive season, the NBA will have a new champion. Cason Wallace scored 17 points, while Jared McCain and Alex Caruso had 12 apiece for the Thunder.
“You have to grow from every experience, including the tough ones,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “And it’s the NBA – there are tough ones. We can also be really disappointed. … There’s nobody that we don’t think we can beat, respectfully.”
After four straight games that were largely decided going into the fourth quarter — the Thunder led Game 3 by 11, the Spurs led Game 4 by 18, the Thunder led Game 5 by 10, and the Spurs led Game 6 by 26, those leads all holding up with relative ease – this one was different, worthy of a Game 7.
Spurs 80, Thunder 77 was the score going into the fourth, a bit of a back-and-forth contest in which the Spurs led by as many as 14 in the first half and by as many as 11 in the third, only to see the Thunder come roaring back both times.
“The players did what they’ve been doing all year, and they met the biggest moment,” Johnson said.
The Spurs pulled away in the fourth again, daring the Thunder to try to come back one more time. The champions — short-handed, with Jalen Williams sidelined with a bad hamstring — just didn’t have anything left.
“Winning an NBA championship is very hard in itself to do one time,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So to do it all over again would just only make it harder.”
San Antonio won eight of the 12 meetings against the Thunder this season — and in the end, the only matchup that really mattered.
“We want four more,” Wembanyama said. “We’re not done.”
SAN ANTONIO – Eight very lucky Spurs superfans are on their way to Oklahoma City, all thanks to H-E-B!
Early Saturday morning, the Spurs Jackals, a team of superfans of the San Antonio Spurs, personally curated by Victor Wembanyama ahead of the 2025-2026 season, announced via X (formerly Twitter) that eight of their members would be going to Oklahoma City.
This came following a previous announcement from the previous day, sadly telling fans they would not be in attendance at Game 7.
Following that, H-E-B confirmed the announcement, saying that the eight lucky superfans would be joining the organization for Game 7 in Oklahoma City.
RELATED | Meet the Jackals: San Antonio’s new era of Spurs energy
Whether you’ve been to a San Antonio Spurs game in person or caught them taking over your social media feed, you’ve heard them before.
During home games, the fans inside The Frost Bank Center serve as a heartbeat, and The Jackals are the pulse.
Founded ahead of the 2025-2026 season by Victor Wembanyama, the group got the ultimate co-sign from Wemby himself when he gave them their now-iconic name, The Jackals.
No matter if you’re up in the 200 section or courtside cheering for the Spurs. The jackals are in section 114 and in the H-E-B fan zone, carrying the energy across all levels of Frost Bank Arena.
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