Johnson, Vaughn Reject Rinehart Proposal

Oklahoma County Commissioners Willa Johnson and Ray Vaughn today rejected Commissioner Brent Rinehart's proposal to identify where commissioners' campaign donors live in relation to county road projects, saying it would be too time consuming and ineffective.

Rinehart, the District 2 commissioner, first proposed the practice earlier this year in response to past criticism of a bridge project he had planned near the home of a controversial donor to his 2004 campaign, developer Ray Pelfrey. Rinehart says he didn't know where Pelfrey lived or that the bridge would benefit him.

The practice, which Rinehart called an increase in political transparency, would have required the county engineer to use commissioners' campaign finance reports to create maps showing which donors live within a mile of proposed county road or bridge projects.

Rinehart said the intent was to give other commissioners and the public assurance that road projects were being chosen for practical reasons rather than political favors.

County Engineer Stacey Trumbo estimated it would take a full-time employee two and a half months to generate the maps if the employee worked on nothing else during that time.

Johnson and Vaughn classified that as an inefficient use of county resources. They also expressed doubts that the proposal could be efficient because identifying the owners of corporations, partnerships and trusts that own property can be difficult, if not impossible.

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