John E. Dorman

At Stillwater, he served as the Chief Legal Officer for a community home to Oklahoma State University and managed a municipal department that rendered all legal services, including litigation, for the city council and its subordinate boards, commissions, and quasi-judicial tribunals; city administration; and city-operated public utility, airport, and economic development trusts. This also included being directly responsible for handling complex transactional, real estate, and regulatory matters.

John steered the Stillwater Utilities Authority through the financing, acquisition, and construction of a new state-of-the art municipal electric power generating facility, and the rebuild of a significant portion of the city’s water distribution system. He assisted the Stillwater Regional Airport with several large federally funded construction projects and was one of the principal actors responsible for bringing daily American Airlines passenger service to the city.

John created the Stillwater Economic Development Authority and Western Payne County Ambulance Trust, and reformed the Kaw Reservoir Authority, a key component of the north central Oklahoma regions’ water supply. His efforts resolving conflicts with rural electric and rural water entities have produced model cooperative agreements and helped to secure Stillwater’s future growth in the region.

John’s litigation background is equally diverse. At Tulsa, he successfully defended numerous federal civil rights cases involving the Tulsa Police Department. He litigated Title VII and other employment claims. At Stillwater, John won important decisions involving constitutional debt limitation, electric power deregulation, taxpayer (qui tam) lawsuits, election law issues, and tort claim defenses.

During his tenure in Broken Arrow, John served as primary legal advisor to the planning and code enforcement departments, defending zoning appeals and prosecuting condemnation actions in state courts.  He also assisted with Broken Arrow’s annexation efforts in Wagoner County, the region that has accounted for much of that city’s growth over the past decade.

John has served as an adjunct professor of political science at Tulsa Community College and Oklahoma City Community College.