Bynum says he told BOK Center officials he would back decision to not hold Trump’s rally

“I had a lengthy conversation that weekend with both Doug Thornton and Casey Sparks and told them, ‘If you don’t feel safe, you are the experts we trust to operate this facility. You are one of the top event management companies in the world, one of the largest. If you don’t feel that this can be conducted safely, then you should not do it, and I will have your back.’

“Those were my exact words in my conversation with them.”

Thornton is executive vice president for Arena, Stadium and Theaters at ASM Global, which manages the BOK Center. Sparks is general manager of the BOK Center.

Thornton on Monday night confirmed the mayor’s recollection of the conversation and provided some context.

“I said to him I am confident we can operate the building safely; I am confident we can make it safe for our staff,” Thornton said. “... What I was not really comfortable with was giving a capacity percentage. I said I don’t know, what would the accurate number be? Twenty, 30, 50 percent? I am not qualified to make that kind of judgment.”

Thornton said that since state guidelines allowed for a full capacity event, and local officials had not offered a suggestion on what the appropriate crowd size should be, he asked the Trump campaign for what public health guidelines they planned to implement.

The campaign never provided a plan, Thornton said, so the BOK Center took steps to put social distancing information throughout the arena.

“Our view was there was nothing to restrict them from the full capacity unless otherwise directed from a local official,” Thornton said. “That was my take on it.”

Thornton said the event happened under unprecedented conditions and he praised city officials for their work to make it happen. He added that he looks forward to working with the mayor and other city officials to bring clarity to policies.

“I’m all for it, so we can avoid this situation in the future,” he said.

Bynum reiterated his contention that there was nothing he could do to stop the event from being held at the BOK Center and that politics played no role in his decision-making process.

Bynum, a Republican, said he has always been guided by one principle — to do what is best for the residents of Tulsa.

“I have not done anything in my time in this job to try to move onto something else,” he said. “I have only done the work in this job as best I see fit to best serve the citizens of Tulsa.

“There are a lot of things that we have worked on in my time as mayor, which, if I was trying to climb the political ladder, it would be pretty ridiculous to be trying to do if you are trying to move ahead in Republican politics in Oklahoma.”

Bynum drew heavy criticism on social media after announcing last week that he would not attempt to block Trump’s Saturday rally by invoking a civil emergency. The event was held amid a rise in new COVID-19 cases in the state.

But the mayor said city officials handled the event the same way they would have had it been a Hillary Clinton rally or any other large political event.

“Our job at the city is not to get involved in presidential politics and picking sides,” he said. “Our job is to safely facilitate the room for people to express their views.”

Bynum said he did not speak with Tulsa Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart until the weekend of June 13-14, after ASM Global had entered into an agreement with the Trump campaign to hold the rally. By that time, Dart had come out in favor of postponing the event.

“The discussion at that point was whether we should depart from the state’s reopening plan and enact a ban on public events of a certain size in Tulsa,” Bynum said.

By the end of the weekend, after additional conversations with officials from ASM Global, the Governor’s Office and local hospitals, Bynum decided against imposing any kind of ban.

“The challenge for us was that we have been using hospitalization counts as our metric and the state has been since the beginning of reopening, since May 1,” Bynum said. “... So while Bruce, I think, has very fair concerns about our increasing positive case count, we’re not seeing an endangerment of our hospital capacity.

“So I ultimately felt that changing the metric that we’re using as our red flag and applying it to one event would not stand up to legal muster, so decided not to invoke any sort of citywide ban.”

Prior to the Trump rally, Bynum had been praised widely for his response to the COVID-19 outbreak. He quickly enacted a series of social distancing and shelter-in-place measures to stop the spread of the disease. In doing so, he said repeatedly that he would rely on the advice of Dart and other local health officials.

But the Trump rally was something different, occurring at a different time, Bynum said.

“I said that consistently throughout the early going when we received zero guidance from the state as to what we ought to be doing, so naturally we would follow the guidance of the Tulsa Health Department, but for the last month and a half, the Tulsa Health Department has not been calling the shots on the reopening, the state Department of Health has been doing that,” Bynum said. “And the state Department of Health’s metrics that they are using to guide that reopening is the hospitalization rate and overall hospital capacity.”

Bynum also noted that Dart never told him the city should implement a citywide ban on public events.

“He said that he wished it would be delayed,” Bynum said. “Well, delaying it is not in my power. The only option at my disposal was a citywide ban on public events.”

Bynum also noted that not much has been made of the fact that on the same weekend as the Trump rally, Expo Square held several events at the fairgrounds, including a gun show, a home and garden show and simulcast horse racing.

“I am pretty sure the Trump rally at the BOK Center this weekend was not even the largest attended indoor facility in the city of Tulsa this weekend,” Bynum said.

County Commissioner Karen Keith said it was disingenuous for the mayor to compare the Trump rally to the activities at the fairgrounds.

“The totality of our numbers will be close to the rally numbers, but nowhere close to the added numbers at the rally that included all of law enforcement and campaign staff,” she said. “In addition, our events were spread out among multiple venues and days with one completely outdoors.”

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