I think you will find a number of legal opinions in complete opposition to the esteemed Councilor Eagleton. Eagleton is probably the best on the council, but the taxpayers were simply not supposed to be on the hook for this crony deal. With every politico in the city involved, including the Lortons, the taxpayer was bound to get screwed, I guess. Come on now, read the history of that deal (that which has been uncovered). This was no fair settlement, this was a scam from the beginning.
The $7M alone would be a very significant amount of money in the current situation. Add to that the acquisition, remodeling, moving costs and lost rent revenue associated with the new city hall, and we simply would not be in this mess. I'll agree that decreased revenues are the last straw in this fiasco, but continuously expanding budgets with no regard for possible shortages caused this. We have now used up essentially every source of revenue the city is likely to find, and then some. The city govt is out of control.
I'll agree too, that the TPD is overstaffed and has been for years. Ditto the TFD. This is what happens with union happy govts.
We discussed this at length at the time on here. Many of us were miffed as to why Studenny's E/O insurance was not tapped for this shoddy legal work. That's why professionals carry insurance to make those injured or damaged by their negligence whole. Speculation as to why he was not held accountable has ranged from black helicopter conspiracies about how Studenny knew "where all the skeletons were buried" on the airport trust and Great Plains and that some prominent Tulsans would wind up embarrased or in serious deep smile, or that a previous mayor was being protected, etc.
Honestly, I was shocked when Eagleton came out in favor of the settlement. They may have simply looked at it and said: "make it go away instead of racking up legal fees to make it go away".
I've not been made privy to specific legal documents regarding the original agreements signed nor the settlements, so it's really hard for me to say whether the settlement was proper and what liability the city actually had.
And seriously, I do want to know if anyone ever moved to get Dick Stupidity disbarred.