After reclaiming the Tulsa City Council’s District 5 seat in 2024, incumbent Karen Gilbert is determined to win another term Aug. 25, but challenger Adam Burnett hopes to shake up what he sees as a “lack of action” from the current council.
Gilbert, 57, served as the District 5 councilwoman from 2011 to 2018 before leaving to run for House District 79, a race she narrowly lost in the Republican runoff to Dan Hicks. In 2022, she again lost the District 79 Republican primary to Paul Hassink. In 2024, voters elected Gilbert to return to District 5 on the Tulsa City Council, where she succeeded controversial Councilman Grant Miller.
“Two and a half years ago, community members from District 5 actually wanted to meet with me, and said, ‘Will you please come back?’ Because ever since I’d left, we had had different representation every two years, so there wasn’t a steady leadership in our district,” Gilbert said.
In an interview with NonDoc, Gilbert said other candidates should have the opportunity to run, but she feels she is the best candidate because she knows the district inside and out.
“The needs of the city are different than what they were when I first ran in 2011,” Gilbert said. “I listen to the constituents’ questions, the issues that they’re also bringing and asking different departments from the city. I want to make sure that everyone has a voice and that those voices are heard.”
Gilbert’s opponent is Pryor native Adam Burnett, a partner at Frasier Frasier & Hickman LLP who is new to the city council scene. He said he has lived in Tulsa since graduating from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and he and his wife recently put roots in District 5.
“We really made the decision to make it our home and lay roots here about four years ago when we bought a house, and we bought a house in District 5,” Burnett said. “It’s been great to get to know our neighbors and be involved in a community, but on the other hand, some of those mutual problems that face the community are things that we face, too.”
Burnett, 32, said he decided to run after becoming frustrated with what he called a “lack of action” from the Tulsa City Council in recent years.
“I have always been involved politically with different organizations, and so it’s always been something I wanted to do,” Burnett said, noting that he paged for former Rep. Ben Sherrer (D-Chouteau) as a 17-year-old. “I’m the best candidate for this role because I want to bring active and energetic leadership to the city council, focusing on progressive policies that help working people improve their day-to-day lives.”
While Tulsa municipal contests are nonpartisan, the District 5 race carries some partisan context. Gilbert has run for the Legislature as a Republican, while Burnett has been endorsed by the Tulsa County Democratic Party.
Burnett and Gilbert are the sole candidates seeking Tulsa City Council District 5 — an area covering a southeast section of Tulsa, including the intersection of I-44 and State Highway 51. The winner of the Aug. 25 election will earn the seat.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day. Early voting will be available from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Aug. 20 to 21, as well as from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 22.
Burnett: Code enforcement a ‘paramount issue’ in Tulsa
On Facebook, Burnett has posted that he supports Safe Move — a rehousing initiative to address homelessness in Tulsa. In an interview, he said his top priority involves improving accountability for landowners.
“That’s a big part (…) in protecting the investment that Tulsans have made in their own property, by holding landowners — who are in code violation or have allowed property to be negligently maintained — to hold them accountable for that,” Burnett said.
According to Burnett, code enforcement is a “paramount issue” in Tulsa. He said increasing the budget for city’s overworked code enforcement agency would be a priority.
“That doesn’t just lower crime. It also protects the property of the people around them. It also encourages those landowners to use that property responsibly, which brings up the property values for everyone in the area,” Burnett said. “It’s a rising tide that lifts all ships.”
Gilbert also discussed property-related problems. She said the council is working on housing initiatives and reassessing vacant properties in the city.
“We have the (vacant) Promenade Mall at 41st and Yale. We also have the OYO Hotel there on Skelly and Yale that we’re getting ready to demolish,” Gilbert said. “So just, you know, trying to reconfigure what we can do with some of these vacant properties, vacant hotels, and what can we do to help those that need housing.”
Burnett wants to improve bus stops and metro transit in District 5. He said many bus stops are not accessible by sidewalk or do not have benches or coverings.
“[It] makes it really hard for our disabled neighbors to get to the bus stop if they have to go through the grass,” Burnett said. “It also make it hard for our elderly neighbors to stand at the bus stop without any shade or in the rain.”
Gilbert said “beautification” is a concern she commonly hears from constituents.
“With all of the rain that we’ve had, some people aren’t able to keep up with their lawn mowing, and so there’s a lot of overgrown yards in neighborhoods that people don’t like to see when they look out their front window,” Gilbert said. “That’s one of our concerns.”
Gilbert: District 5 faces new challengesÂ
A Tulsa native, Gilbert graduated from Memorial High School. She was later employed by Tulsa Public Schools for 18 years, working as a parent facilitator.
“I thought, ‘You know what? I’m already working with parents, citizens of Tulsa. I think I can do this,'” Gilbert said. “I love helping people, and that’s why I decided to run the first time in 2011.”
Having served as the executive director of the Tulsa Crime Prevention Network for more than seven years, Gilbert said she has seen public safety improvements over time. She said during her first term on the council, she and her fellow members visited residents door-to-door and asked what improvements Tulsa could make in the next decade.
“What they really, really were concerned about is the number of police officers that we had in Tulsa, that we were short over 200 police officers, to the point where officers were just going from call to call, call to call,” Gilbert said. “They wanted more community policing in Tulsa. (…) They wanted to see more police officers just driving through the neighborhood and checking it out and getting out of the car when they could, just to talk to residents, just to get to know the people that they serve.”
After reflecting on her first tenure as a city councilor, Gilbert said District 5 now faces new challenges.
“We have a housing shortage, we have a homeless population problem right now. We have so many different things going on now,” Gilbert said. “We’re also working with different businesses to try to help them grow and trying to get other new businesses into the district.”
Asked how his professional experiences translate to his campaign, Burnett said his work as an attorney allows him to solve complex problems.
“People often have this assumption of lawyers as dogs in a fight, where it’s like, ‘I just want to fight.’ But really, that’s not what a lawyer’s job is,” Burnett said. “Most of the job of an attorney is to take these people in different, very diverse positions and find and craft a solution that brings everyone to the table.”
Before law school, Burnett received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a bachelor’s degree in letters from the University of Oklahoma. Although he is a younger candidate, Burnett said he is excited for any learning curve he may encounter.
“I had a journalist friend who, she always used to say, ‘Every single person in the world knows something that you don’t.’ And so for me, I really am excited of the opportunity to get a more clear picture of the problems that our city faces,” Burnett said. “To hear as many diverse opinions as I possibly can, so that when we address a problem as a city, we address it with everyone who it’s impacting. That, I think, is crucial.”
Gilbert is currently chairwoman of the Tulsa City Council, a role she says has not been strenuous. She said her additional duties primarily include more meetings.
“Really, there isn’t any (additional role) except running the council meeting at five o’clock, and just sitting through other meetings and making sure that councilors get the right information,” Gilbert said. “Whatever meetings that myself and my vice chair go to, that we make sure that we get information back out to the other councilors.”
Ahead of the Aug. 25 election, Gilbert said voters know where to find her.
“Just about anybody and everybody in District 5 has my cell phone number,” Gilbert said. “I respond to my own emails. I answer my own calls, and I mean, yes, we all have aides in the council office, but I just want to make sure that the constituents of District 5 hear it from me and not somebody else in the office that they don’t know.”
While Gilbert says she holds town halls once a month and responds to constituents personally, Burnett said he would prioritize improving transparency and accountability in the decision making of the city council.
“Bringing a level of transparency and accountability to the decision making in the city council is crucial in this moment,” Burnett said. “That’s always something that, whether as a journalist or as an attorney, or even just as a regular citizen, has always been paramount to me. That decisions that affect the shareholders in the community — the constituency, the communities here — need to be made publicly so that those communities can have input on them.”
