When the final votes were tallied and showed former state Sen. Mike Mazzei the winner in the GOP Gubernatorial contest against Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, it left a lot of disappointed voters around Inola.
Residents who oppose the $4 billion aluminum smelter favored Drummond because he has led a legal fight in court to stop the state-supported project. Mazzei, the candidate who initially opposed the project then came out in support, also attracted the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
Days after the election last week, KJRH TV News, known as 2 News, interviewed Inola residents and quickly learned they weren’t happy about the election results.
Most of the vocal Inolans 2 News has previously listened to, however, favored Gentner Drummond for the Republican nomination, reported the station. He already filed an injunction as state attorney general earlier this month to halt the project that Pres. Trump and current governor Kevin Stitt champion.
“He outlined exactly the concerns that we’ve been seeing for months now about the emissions, the pollutants, the foreign ownership,” Chris Roam of Protect Inola said on Aug. 26. “So he demonstrated a clear understanding of the issues.”
While the runoff is over, Roam and other members of the new “Rogers County Grassroots Coalition” now plan to submit signatures for a grand jury petition in a Rogers County court.
“It’s a grand jury petition to review the deals that were made enclosed doors and under the table, and to investigate the open meetings act for both the data center and the smelter,” the coalition’s Casey Jones told 2 News. “We have to obviously have them submitted today so we can verify and validate them (on Aug. 27).”
Mike Mazzei is now favored in November for the governor’s mansion ahead of Democrat Cyndi Munson and Independent Robert Brooks.
