TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper is demanding that the group behind a wave of campaign mailers from the Strong Oklahoma Fund, LLC name its donors, saying the ads distort her record days before her Nov. 3 runoff for District 1 against Dr. Corinice Wilson.
At a press conference outside her campaign headquarters, Hall-Harper said a mailer and companion website attacking her list an Oklahoma City address and state they were not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.
“I believe voters deserve to know who is behind this spending, who is funding it, and why they are spending money to influence a local grassroots campaign in North Tulsa,” she said.
Hall-Harper led a five-candidate field on Aug. 25 with about 46% of the vote, short of the majority needed to win outright, according to NonDoc. She now faces Corinice Wilson, a Tulsa Community College professor, in a runoff for Tulsa’s only majority-Black council district. In a statement posted on Facebook, Wilson’s campaign said it “did not authorize, pay for, produce, or coordinate these communications.”
The campaign said its own spending has stayed focused on Wilson’s priorities and that outside groups “must account for theirs.” In an Oct. 22 update to the post, it said it objects to the ads’ content and denounces anything in the race that is harmful or carries racial undertones, regardless of who is behind it. The campaign also pushed back on any suggestion that North Tulsa voters can’t recognize outside tactics.
What the dark money mailers claim
Hall-Harper said the mailer stitches together three separate items — a data center decision, a 2024 tax incentive vote and the city’s annual utility rate increases — to suggest she raised household bills to serve big tech.
“That is a serious accusation, but the sources listed on the mailer do not establish those connections,” she said.
She acknowledged the council has approved increases to city water, sewer, stormwater and trash rates over roughly eight years. But she said those are separate from electric bills. Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s rates are reviewed by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, not the City Council.
Hall-Harper said the water and sewer increases pay to repair aging infrastructure after rates stayed flat from 2008 to 2018. She pointed to Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi — two majority-Black cities whose water systems failed — as the cost of putting off that work.
She also said the city’s multiyear capital plan was written before any hyper scale data centers were proposed in Tulsa, and the budget articles cited on the mailer do not show data centers caused the rate increases.
Who is behind the Strong Oklahoma Fund?
Despite its name, Strong Oklahoma Fund LLC is not an Oklahoma company. It was formed in Delaware on Feb. 12, 2024, according to Delaware state records, and federal tax records list its address as a suite in Alexandria, Virginia. Delaware’s public record for the company lists only a commercial registered agent, not its owners. The Black Wall Street Times found no registration for the company with the Oklahoma Secretary of State as of Oct. 27.
Its only known funder describes its own work in conservative terms. Economic Future Fund, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit, gave Strong Oklahoma Fund $175,000 in 2024, according to the fund’s 2024 tax return. The return says the group pursues “free market solutions” and lists a subsidiary, Heartland Conservative Coalition LLC, whose stated purpose is to promote conservative policies.
Economic Future Fund is a 501(c)(4), a tax-exempt group that can spend on politics without disclosing its donors. Its return lists one director, Gabrielle Lowry, and no employees. In 2024 it took in $4.1 million from donors it does not name and reported $1.4 million in political spending.
Economic Future Fund’s Oklahoma donor
Tax records show the group behind the anti-Hall-Harper and pro-Wilson mailers was funded in 2024 by a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that backed Republican candidates and conservative causes and does not disclose its donors. About a tenth of that nonprofit’s money came from an Oklahoma group whose director leads the state’s most prominent conservative think tank. The records do not show who paid for this year’s mailers.
OCPA Action Inc., an Oklahoma City-based 501(c)(4), gave Economic Future Fund $420,000 in 2024, according to Schedule I of OCPA Action’s 2024 tax return. It was OCPA Action’s only grant that year and equal to about a tenth of Economic Future Fund’s revenue. The return is signed by Jonathan Small, who is listed as OCPA Action’s director. Small is president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, which calls itself Oklahoma’s leading conservative think tank.
The records do not show whether OCPA Action’s money went toward the $175,000 Economic Future Fund gave Strong Oklahoma Fund that same year. OCPA Action reported no direct political campaign activity of its own.
Economic Future Fund’s political money went to Republicans. It gave $750,000 to Keystone Renewal PAC, the main super PAC behind Republican Dave McCormick’s 2024 U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. It also gave $565,000 to Building a Strong America, making it the super PAC’s only reported donor. The PAC spent to support Republican candidates in 2024 U.S. House primaries in Indiana and Ohio, most of it backing Rep. Victoria Spartz, Federal Election Commission records show:
- Victoria Spartz (IN-5) – Republican
- Jefferson Shreve (IN-6) – Republican
- Mark Messmer (IN-8) – Republican
- Andrew Zay (IN-3) – Republican
- David Taylor (OH-2) – Republican
- Michael Rulli (OH-6) – Republican
Its largest grant, $800,000, went to Building Our Future Today LLC. That LLC was the only reported funder of two super PACs that spent heavily in the final weeks of the 2024 election, according to a complaint the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed with the Federal Election Commission. One of them, Badger Values, sent Wisconsin mailers attacking Democrat Kamala Harris while praising Green Party candidate Jill Stein, the Wisconsin Examiner reported. Its treasurer had worked for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The Campaign Legal Center alleges Building Our Future Today was used to hide the true source of $2.59 million given to those super PACs. There is no allegation that Strong Oklahoma Fund took part in that scheme.
The tax records cover 2024. They do not show who paid for the 2026 mailers targeting Hall-Harper.
Data centers and the moratorium
According to Hall-Harper, one decision cited on the mailer involved a T20 mining group application for an existing property near 129th East Avenue in District 7. She said it had nothing to do with Project Anthem, the Meta hyperscale data center being built in east Tulsa’s District 6.
The council voted unanimously in March to pause new data center permits through Dec. 31 while planners review zoning, though the first two phases of Project Anthem are exempt, according to KOSU.
“I believe residents have every right to ask how much water and electricity data centers use, who pays for the infrastructure, how nearby neighborhoods are affected, and what protections are in place,” Hall-Harper said. Those questions deserve public debate, she added, “not mailers that confuse separate projects.”
The 2024 Data Center Vote She Missed
The mailer also points to a May 1, 2024, council meeting on Project Anthem’s economic development plan. The deal included an 85% property tax exemption on eligible investments over 25 years, arranged through PartnerTulsa and the Tulsa Authority for Economic Opportunity.
Hall-Harper said she was not in the room. She said she was in Washington, D.C., that day accepting an award from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance for her dollar store moratorium, which she credits with paving the way for Oasis Fresh Market in North Tulsa. The Black Wall Street Times independently verified that Hall-Harper was in Washington, D.C., where she received the award from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
“If someone is going to use that meeting to attack my record, they should be prepared to show voters the full record, what was voted on, and who voted that day,” she said.
Hall-Harper has clashed with PartnerTulsa for years over transparency in North Tulsa. In May, the council approved her proposal to move oversight of $5 million in revitalization money from PartnerTulsa to the Tulsa Economic Development Corporation, NonDoc reported.
State Senator Regina Goodwin: ‘If people cannot control you’
Oklahoma State Senator Regina Goodwin stood with Hall-Harper and community members, calling the attacks deliberate.
“If people cannot control you, they will try to control what people think about you,” Goodwin said.
She criticized the group for refusing to show its face or disclose its donors and mockingly renamed Strong Oklahoma Fund “Wrong Oklahoma.” She said the ads were not a misunderstanding but an intentional effort to mislead.
What District 1 voters can do
Hall-Harper asked residents to read her record, ask questions and check the facts for themselves.
Voters can confirm their registration, polling place and sample ballot through the OK Voter Portal. The runoff is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
“Power belongs to the people,” Hall-Harper said. “I have ran my race for the last 10 years with that being a priority for how I lead, and that will not change.”
