Bixby officials blacklist News Channel 8 reporter
TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — "There’s at least 80 tickets at $200 a ticket," said Jeremy Price.
Two weeks ago we interviewed Bixby homeowners Jeremy Price and Karl Schultze about their battle for peace and quiet with Transformation church that's been going on since 2020.
"They’re practicing at full volume and they do this anywhere from 7 in the morning to 11 at night. At it's sometimes four days a week, some days five days a week, and it’s very random," said Price.
Jeremy showed us his stack of business cards from police officers, each one representing a separate noise complaint.
So each of these is a ticket? "Every one of these is a $200 ticket, or should be at least," he said.
And Karl, he his own stack of police cards.
"We both call all the time. I would estimate probably 200, maybe 150, 200 times," he said.
Usually, each one of those calls would result in a separate complaint says Karl, but now there are questions about how many complaints Bixby PD is willing to take after Karl says an officer told him...
"And told us that their direct supervisor and their higher-ups have been telling them they can only write one, per household is what it was from my understanding for a while, and now last night when the officer came it was actually oh we can only write one a day for the whole neighborhood, for the street," he said.
Karl says officers have even told him on a few occasions, why don't you just move?
"First thing he says to me, 'You know the simple answer to this thing is you guys should just move away,'" he said.
News Channel 8 reached out to Bixby PD asking about their citation policy but instead of answering our questions they apparently decided to blacklist yours truly, writing, "...we will not be communicating, answering media requests, or interviews conducted with Burt...your other reporters are welcome to contact us, and we will do our best to accommodate them as much as possible. Have a blessed day." Unfortunately, residents living near the church can't ignore the noise nearly as easily as city officials ignore the media.
"It's just a constant barrage of sound and the city has a duty to abate this building and say you cannot do this to the neighborhood, the taxpayers, until this is fixed," said Price.