"How do we treat each other when we have friction? How do we treat each other when there’s a disagreement?," asked Bobby Stem, Director of the Association of Oklahoma General Contractors.
Those are the questions at the heart of a rift between contractors who do road work for Tulsa and the city's public works department.
"Fine men and women over there, individually, but collectively they’re part of a broken, broken process," said Stem.
A process with no collaboration or respect, he says.
"It's the contractors, it's the guys out in the field that feel very disrespected. It’s the people that are estimating jobs, it’s the people that are asking the city of Tulsa to pay their bills, but yet not get their pay. Therefore they can’t pay the folks at the quarry or they can’t pay the fence company, or they can’t pay the small contractors working for them. Everybody suffers down the line," he said.
Things have so bad, Stem is asking contractors to consider not doing business with Tulsa.
"From this day on, they should consider not doing business with the city of Tulsa," he said.
Mayor Bynum responding by saying in part, "My staff and I have attempted to contact Mr. Stem to determine what specifically he would like addressed. He has not bothered to return any of our calls...It is regrettable that he chose to hold a press conference and lambast the City of Tulsa in vague terms instead of just calling me so we can fix whatever problems he has identified.”
If you had to describe the culture that you’ve been dealing with it would be"Divisive, inconsistent, and sometimes, I have not experienced it, but the culture that I’ve heard about that are out in the field, is sometimes toxic. It truly is a us versus them mentality," he said.
A mentality, he says, which has already directly impacted taxpayers through inflated costs to cover the anticipated difficulties of working with the city.
"It costs more to fix a street in Tulsa than it does a street in Oklahoma City," he said.
Stem estimates that bids for Tulsa road projects are 5 to 15% higher than other cities.
"So here’s what happens. If you and I want to bid that work, we build that in. Cause we already know we’re dealing with a partner that’s not collaborative. We build it in. So now all of a sudden a million dollar job that should be a million dollars is a million two. Because you’re going to pay for the problems," he said.
As for Stem's call for contractors to stop bidding on road projects, the mayor stated, "We don’t stop responding to 9-1-1 calls while we work to improve the Tulsa Police Department or Tulsa Fire Department, and we’re not going to stop doing street work while we work to improve there either."
Who’s responsible for this dysfunction? "A little bit of everybody. Let me tell you our industry could do better. We’ve got some i’s that we could dot, some t’s we could cross. We’re not perfect. Problem is, is that as we want to partner with someone so we can all get better, it's falling on deaf ears," said Stem.
Here's the full statement from Mayor GT Bynum;
“My door is always open to experts who have ideas on how we can do better work at the City of Tulsa. We believe in continuous improvement, and always strive to be better tomorrow than we were today. But we don’t stop responding to 9-1-1 calls while we work to improve the Tulsa Police Department or Tulsa Fire Department, and we’re not going to stop doing street work while we work to improve there either.
“I would also point out that the City Council and I agreed just two weeks ago at our annual retreat that we need to assess and improve the way street work is done in Tulsa. This is one of our shared goals for 2023 which will inform the budget development process currently under way.
“I appreciate the expertise of our partners in the road construction industry, and am always eager to collaborate with them on process improvements. Working together, we’ve spent the last 15 years constructing over a billion dollars in street projects - the largest street program in Tulsa history. My staff and I have attempted to contact Mr. Stem to determine what specifically he would like addressed. He has not bothered to return any of our calls. I have worked with him constructively in the past, and hope to do so in this instance. It is regrettable that he chose to hold a press conference and lambast the City of Tulsa in vague terms instead of just calling me so we can fix whatever problems he has identified.”