'I'm Staying Out Of It:' Tulsa Mayor Chooses Not To Endorse Any Candidates In Mayoral Race

Mayor Bynum joined News On 6 at 9 with LeAnne Taylor and Dave Davis to discuss the upcoming mayoral election and the Oaklawn Graves excavation.

Dave: We're about two weeks away until voters in Tulsa decide who will be the next mayor. You've served in this role for eight years. Are you endorsing anyone for the position?

Bynum: No, I'm not. I've told all of the candidates that I'm staying out of it. I want them to know that I'm here at City Hall, working as hard as I can to have things lined up so whoever wins is positioned to be incredibly successful right out of the gate. I'm really encouraged we have a number of excellent candidates running for the job, but I am not getting involved in the race.

LeAnne: What are some of the qualifications? Or what type of person do you think will be beneficial in moving us forward as your time wraps up?

Bynum: Well, I think whether it's the mayor or any office, there's probably a couple of big things that you ought to look for. One, what are they saying that they're actually going to do if they get the job? I find a lot of people run for office because they'd like to have the office, but never quite tell you what they will do for you if you entrust them with that job. So, look at what the candidates are saying they're going to do if they get in and is that something that you want somebody doing? Two, do they have a track record of actually doing things that they say they're going to do? Do they have a demonstrated ability to get things done? And the third one, which I think is more specific here for us in Tulsa, and is probably the thing that I am proudest of, that, I think, has changed the most in the last eight years. Do they have in their minds that Tulsa should be one of the best cities in the world? That should be the level of expectation that the citizens of Tulsa should have? I remember eight years ago, when I was running, I said we should be competing with Austin, Denver and Chicago, and people would laugh at me for saying that. Now everybody in town expects us to compete with the best cities in the world for economic development and quality of life improvements. So, my hope is that whoever our next mayor is continues with that same mindset of working every day to make Tulsa one of the best cities in the world.

Dave: Several big things going in Tulsa right now, I wanted to start with the update on the mass graves investigation in Oaklawn, researchers have identified a Race Massacre victim who was buried at Oaklawn. Since then, more remains have been found with bullet wounds. What is next in this investigation?

Bynum: So the key thing here is one, we know that there are 18 Race Massacre victims who were buried, unidentified in Oaklawn Cemetery. We have the receipt from Tulsa County paying for their burial, but not naming who they were. We believe we found the first one of those. C.L. Daniel, a World War One veteran. What we're looking for on the invoice; it said they were buried in plain wooden caskets, and they're all men. So, we're looking for men buried in plain wooden caskets, and Mr. Daniel, that was what flagged him for our researchers. He did not have any visible bullet wounds in his remains, but he was buried in a casket in a way that made it clear that it was not a casket built for him. It was a pre-built casket that he had been pushed into. The other caskets now that that have been identified, there have been some in previous excavations. Then in the last few weeks, we've identified seven different remains that have been excavated from the area right around where Mr. Daniel's remains were found. They excavate, they remove those remains, and then forensic experts try to extract DNA from those remains and then provide those to our independent DNA and genealogical research lab, and that's how we found out who Mr. Daniel was. Through those connections, we believe that may be the first time in forensic history that something like that has been accomplished. We have the same hope for the remaining at least 17 families. You know, it was so powerful for us. Mr. Daniel's family spent 103 years not knowing where his remains were until just a couple of weeks ago. We were able to call and tell them, and my hope is that we can do the same for at least these 17 other families. It all starts with finding the bodies, looking for bodies that are in that are buried in a way that flags them of interest. As you point out, a number of these that have been flagged were found with bullet wounds, and one of these sets of remains had different kinds of bullets associated with their remains. We believe that these are all strong candidates to potentially be the other victims that we're looking for, but we won't know for sure until we can make those matches down the road.