2024 State of the City

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Thank you, Teresa. Thank you to you and your board, and thank you to Christy Gillenwater and her team. Thank you to everyone at the Chamber for your partnership, your leadership, and for hosting this event, which provides a vital platform every year for our community. And thank you all for making time today to consider the State of our City, where we have been, and where we are going.

Last year at this time, our city faced one of the most important decisions in its history. Our status was on the line. The way that we have seen ourselves for the last two decades was at stake. Without a new arena, we wouldn’t be the long-term home of any major league professional sports team, and without that foundation as a big league city, we would have a very different and diminished canvas upon which to paint.

So, I spent my time on this stage a year ago laying out the situation and the broad strokes of a plan. And in the months that followed, we secured a thirty-year commitment from the OKC Thunder of the NBA and we approved a nearly billion dollar new arena with 71 percent of the vote. We secured our status as a big league city for another generation. This was a historic moment in our city’s history. But here’s the thing that really sets us apart; you know what our city did almost immediately? We did what we have done for the last three decades.  We woke up the morning after that election and we asked, “What’s next?”

Our modern renaissance was born of desperation in 1993, but now it is fueled by success. One victory built upon the next and today, our city is conditioned to seek the next big thing. Not only do we keep seeking it, we keep finding it. After you leave here today, you’ll be led to no other conclusion but that the State of this City is determined. There is not a city in America more mission-focused, more united, more dynamic, and more relentlessly focused on improvement. Sometimes incremental, sometimes dramatic, but always improving. All OKC does is win.

And so I’m not going to bury the lede. “What’s next” is where I will begin today.

On June 21st, one month ago, LA28, the organizing committee for the Los Angeles Olympics, announced that in July of 2028 it is their plan to host the entirety of two Olympic sports – softball and canoe slalom – right here in Oklahoma City.

These sports currently encompass over half a dozen events, each awarding a gold medal; nearly two weeks of competition; hundreds of athletes and 200,000 tickets. The Los Angeles Olympics in Oklahoma City.

If this wasn’t the most exciting announcement in Oklahoma City history, it was at least top three. And though the exact news may have been a surprise to many, it continued a narrative that observers around the country are getting used to.

If you leave here with only one thought today, I hope it is acknowledgement and pride that what you are experiencing right now as a resident of Oklahoma City is not typical. This is not what it is like to live in every city.  You are living in a special place at a unique time.  So my first goal today is for you to live in that moment. Enjoy it.  My second goal – in some tension with the first - is to keep you from complacency. We still have work to do. The journey of a city never ends. As such, there are a few answers to the question of “what’s next” that I want to share with you today. First, let’s talk about the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Now, I want to state upfront that the Los Angeles City Council is still considering some aspects of this proposal and will be for some weeks to come. We are deeply respectful of that process. But while the process unfolds, we can certainly still take a moment and appreciate that we are even having this conversation.

As you know, the reaction to this announcement in OKC has been euphoric. For anyone who lived here in the 1980s or ‘90s, this is another one of those moments where we have marveled at how far we’ve come. Even though I’ve been working on this for six years, as a kid from OKC, the opportunity still fills me with awe every day.

The Olympics is the greatest brand in the world. It transcends sports. And the cities that host the Summer Olympics are global capitals. Look at the hosts of the last 25 years along with Los Angeles – Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, Rio, Tokyo and Paris.

Oklahoma City has long been an admirer of and participant in the Olympic movement. Just a few blocks from here is a statue and museum in honor of arguably the greatest male Olympian of all time – our own Jim Thorpe. We are the home of the Softball Hall of Fame and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame. One member of the latter is arguably the greatest female Olympian of all time – Nadia Comaneci – who lives right here in the OKC metro. And her husband Bart Conner leads a list of many Gold medalists and Olympians with OKC ties, too numerous to mention here. Two blocks from here is a statue of two people carrying an Olympic torch, in recognition of the U.S. Olympic Festival that we hosted in 1989. And of course our boathouse and Riversport facilities are an official U.S. Olympic training site. We are a community with a deep appreciation for the Olympic movement.

We are also a community with many historic ties to Los Angeles. Route 66 takes you from one to the other. Our baseball team is the Triple A team of the Dodgers. We share favorite sons, from Ed Ruscha to Russell Westbrook.  We have countless residents who have journeyed to LA to create some of the world’s greatest film, music and art. Oklahoma City has great respect for the global capital that is Los Angeles.

Though these historic connections are part of the narrative, ultimately this is a story of investing in ourselves and leveraging those investments through relationships. The seeds were planted through our residents’ willingness to vote for and fund facilities. In 1987, our softball stadium first opened. It was improved multiple times through the years, with the most important coming through approval by our voters in 2017 of a nearly $30 million expansion, part of the “Better Streets, Safer Cities” initiative. Today, that stadium – the longtime home of the Women’s College World Series - is two and a half times larger than any other softball stadium in the world.

In 1993, our voters approved funding through the original MAPS to put water in the Oklahoma River. Led by visionaries like Mike Knopp and Aubrey McClendon, this investment led to a rowing community. Mike advocated that a whitewater facility was the next logical step in our evolution, and in 2009, our voters approved funding through MAPS 3 to add that course, which opened in 2016. What we now call Riversport has hosted two of the three canoe slalom U.S. Olympic trials that have occurred since, and our course is the only one in the western half of the United States.

Six years ago, over dinner at a restaurant about a mile from here, my friend and then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti first asked what I would think about hosting the Los Angeles Olympic canoe slalom events here in OKC.  There will be a time and place to tell the story of everything that happened in between, but suffice it to say we couldn’t have reached this point without our friends and partners in Los Angeles, including Mayor Garcetti, Mayor Karen Bass, and especially LA28 leader Casey Wasserman and his team.

It has also been vital for the governing bodies to believe in OKC. We are thankful for the relationships within the international sports of canoe slalom and softball that were cultivated over many years by Mike Knopp at Riversport and Craig Cress at USA Softball. We wouldn’t be here without Mike and Craig and their teams, as well as our friends and partners at the International Canoe Federation, led by President Thomas Konietzko, and the World Baseball Softball Confederation, led by President Riccardo Fraccari, and the many other national and international governing bodies involved in this decision.

We have full confidence that Los Angeles will deliver the greatest summer Olympics in the history of the Games. We would have been proud to simply share a country with such a city. But we have the opportunity to do more than that. Oklahoma City has the opportunity to directly support L.A. in its work four years from now. We are inspired by L.A.’s careful planning and vision for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and we look forward to partnering with LA28 to deliver a dynamic experience for the athletes and fans of canoe slalom and softball. We guarantee that our city will deliver a special, unique and memorable experience worthy of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Though our community has already addressed the most expensive part of this endeavor – constructing the venues – there is obviously more to our role. The magnitude of this is far-reaching. We will anticipate it every day for the next four years, the events themselves will dominate our city’s life in the summer of 2028, and the legacy will leave our city and its residents forever changed.

Leading the implementation of this historic moment will be the Chamber that is hosting us today. Last summer, we asked the Chamber to take on the role of leading our community’s hosting efforts, and they have been hard at work ever since. The special relationship between our city government and this Chamber continues to serve our city.

For now, we will continue to respect and monitor the process as it plays out in Los Angeles. In the meantime, the Paris Olympics commence Friday. Softball is not being staged, but canoe slalom begins this Saturday and continues for ten days, awards six Gold medals, and concludes on August 5th. I would strongly encourage you to tune in and start raising your knowledge level. You are already unquestionably the best softball fans in the world. I need you to be the best canoe slalom fans as well.

Beyond Paris, in the months to come, there will be much more to say about the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and this historic opportunity for Oklahoma City.

Now, to a topic that is very near-term. Together, we have built a city that is drawing people and events like never before. Coming up in just about a month, on Tuesday, August 27^th, we all have an opportunity to significantly boost our efforts to attract visitors, to the direct benefit of our residents. I want to say a few words about that.

First of all, and we probably don’t think about this enough, but visitors are paying for our city’s core functions. Not only is the visitor industry responsible for $2.6 billion a year in economic impact to OKC, we estimate visitors pay at least a quarter of our city’s total sales tax. That means visitors are paying to fund our police officers, our firefighters, our streets. Visitors also drive improvements in amenities and services that we all enjoy, like nonstop flights at our airport.

So we would love to welcome more visitors, and we can. After three decades of investment, we have the venues, the hotels and the attractions. All we lack are the resources to market the city to visitors and to support events that draw visitors here. Traditionally, those resources have come from one source – the hotel/motel tax. On August 27^th, we will have the opportunity to vote yes to raising the hotel/motel tax, which will put more resources into those efforts, without raising taxes on our residents.

Most cities use their hotel/motel tax to support their visitor industry, as we propose here. It has been 20 years since we last adjusted our hotel/motel tax rate. Obviously, you don’t want to have a rate too high, which could impact the convention business, but if you have a rate that is far below your peer cities, you are probably not staying competitive because you’re not putting enough money into attracting visitors. Since our last increase, our peer cities have raised their rates significantly higher than ours, which means they are significantly outspending us to market their cities. We have built a world class city but we have to spend money to get people to enjoy it. That’s just the name of the game.

On Tuesday, August 27^th, voters will have the opportunity to consider giving us those resources, which we will use to market OKC, to support events, and to also support our two major venues that drive event business – this convention center and the OKC fairgrounds. This proposal is supported by the city’s hoteliers, the only group of people that would ever possibly have any heartburn. They support it because they recognize our current rates are low and they see the benefit this vote will bring them and everyone else.

In 2004, when we last did this, it got 89 percent support from our voters. There’s a pretty simple reason for such a high level of support. You don’t pay this tax.

We tax visitors and we use their taxes to attract more visitors, and all of these visitors significantly help pay for city services they barely use. This is just about the best deal there is. And let me remind you, when you go to their cities, you’re paying a higher rate than what they are paying in our city, and you’re paying for their marketing and their city services. This is kind of a no-brainer on every level, but we never take anything for granted. This Chamber is running a full campaign to get out the vote on August 27^th and educate everyone that this doesn’t tax our residents, but it does help our city. It’s the ultimate win-win, so vote yes on August 27^th and tell your friends.

Now, at the beginning of my comments I talked about our December arena vote. That was just a teaser, I didn’t want to leave it at that. We’ve certainly had a lot of wins over the last three decades, but this one may have been the most significant yet, and it deserves a little discussion.

First of all, 71 percent is an enormous victory. In politics, we call 60 percent a landslide. We don’t really have a word for anything over 70 because it just doesn’t happen. But it keeps happening in OKC. This election not only told the world that OKC is here to stay as a big league city, it also sent a broader message to the country about our level of commitment and what that means for our continued momentum. People knew we were on a roll, but this took it to another level. Arena elections are hard. Everyone around the country knows that. And what they also know is that for many upstart cities like ours, this is usually about when the momentum runs out. Sure, it’s one thing to make the rise but can you stay there? Are you that committed?

So much was accomplished with that statement you made on December 12th. You secured the fourth arena in city history and continued a century of investment in this centerpiece of our city’s quality of life. You secured our status as a big league city for another generation, beyond 2050. You specifically secured thirty years with our OKC Thunder, the reigning Western Conference number one seed. You secured another generation of great concerts.  And in addition to all of that, you left no doubt that this city is committed. That we have a sense of urgency. That we are still optimistic and aspirational. Determined.

After the arena vote, and especially with the magnitude of victory, people around the country now recognize to a greater extent than ever before that this city is capable of anything, because our unity and focus is almost unprecedented. And our commitment to investing in ourselves – that we keep renewing - gives others the confidence to invest in us. That’s why the arena election has been followed by so many exciting announcements. All OKC does is win.

I want to especially thank the City Council members who supported the arena initiative – Bradley Carter, James Cooper, Barbara Peck, Todd Stone, Matt Hinkle and Mark Stonecipher. These folks stood up for our city’s best interests and sometimes that’s not as easy as it may sound. On this issue and quite a few others, these Councilmembers are representing the best of our city’s political culture. We work together and find common ground. Let’s show our appreciation to our entire City Council.

I’ll have more to say about our culture in a few minutes, but first, while we’re on the arena, a quick update. You may recall I once told you that the fastest we have ever opened one of our city’s previous three arenas was nine years after the vote. Well, since the beginning of this initiative, we have known that such a pace – however typical – is not acceptable here. We’re in the big leagues now, and we need to get this done as soon as possible. Our original agreement with the Thunder called for an opening in 2029 and our agreement adopted in the spring moved that up to 2028. Everything has to go right for us to meet that goal, but we see a path and we’re still taking it. Fortunately, we have a great partnership with the Thunder ownership, led by Clay Bennett, and we are working through the steps. There are a lot of them. Next up is drafting the agreements most people think of as the lease, as well as hiring all of the professionals associated with the design of the new arena. Everybody wants to hear what the arena will look like. No such concept exists yet, but with this timeline, announcements will be fast and furious over the next two years. And I can tell you, as I have before, the design of this arena will raise the bar for aesthetics and experience in our community. It will change our skyline and our sense of place. As you likely heard us announce this spring, the new arena will be on the site of the old Myriad or Cox Convention Center. Before you know it, on that block will stand our city’s first true NBA arena, and when it opens, you’re going to look up and finally say, “that’s the arena of a top 20 city.”

Even as we work on this kind of endeavor, we never lose sight of our core infrastructure needs.  As you know, passage of “Better Streets, Safer City” in 2017 put nearly a billion dollars into the city’s core infrastructure, with almost $800 million of that dedicated to street repairs. Well, that means about 430 individual street projects across this sprawling city of 620 square miles. I want to remind you, we are one of the five largest cities in the United States by size. As you’ve heard me relate here before, you can fit about 15 typical American cities inside ours. As a result, we have 8,000 lane miles to maintain. That’s enough road to drive from OKC to Maine, then from Maine to San Diego and then from San Diego to Seattle, and then back to Oklahoma City. And we maintain all of that with the tax dollars of our 700,000 residents. So improving the average rating across the city is not easy. But “Better Streets, Safer City” was ambitious and big enough to make a difference. Let me explain. In the street maintenance world, a street is rated on a scale of quality from 1 to 100 on the Pavement Condition Index, the PCI. 70 is considered “satisfactory.”  When “Better Streets, Safer City” began, our average for the entire city was 63. This coming year, we expect to finally reach 70. That’s a big movement in the average in a relatively short amount of time, considering the size of the inventory. And obviously, reaching the official satisfactory level citywide is a big milestone. But this work is never done. And a city our size has many needs beyond streets. So we come back to you on a regular cadence to authorize another round of core infrastructure work. Our voters passed bond issues in 2000, 2007 and 2017. It’s now 2024, and it will be time again soon to come back to you with another list of projects, addressing the city’s basic needs. Planning for that is getting underway, and in the latter part of 2025, we expect to have that package in front of you for your consideration.

And by the way, thus far, we’ve also received over $100 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and we’ll continue to seek federal support for our infrastructure. In addition to the funding the city received directly, the state recently received a $17 million grant from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will provide a new pedestrian bridge over the Oklahoma River alongside the new planned I-35 bridges.

Included in our city’s core needs is a stronger commitment than ever before to invest in convenient and useful public transit. Our residents have asked for it, and though this is a service that takes a lot of planning, the improvements we have seen over the last ten years are revolutionary. Seven months ago we opened the most recent upgrade, the city’s first Bus Rapid Transit line, the Northwest Rapid, that goes up Classen and Northwest Expressway. This high-frequency line, with nice stops and high-quality buses, running along a high population corridor with lots of destinations, has already welcomed a quarter-of-a-million riders in just seven months. And through MAPS 4, we already have Rapid lines set to head to the Northeast and the South. The next major decision point for our community will be a regional transit system with rail-based elements, led by the long-awaited commuter rail line from Edmond to downtown OKC to Norman. A regional transit authority comprised of OKC, Edmond and Norman has been meeting for the last five years to develop this plan. Led by Chairman and former Governor Brad Henry, the RTA is getting much closer to having a plan for the three communities to jointly consider. This is a vital conversation for us to have, because it sets us up for the next generation of growth. If you’re not already tired of traffic, you’re going to be. And when you are, it will already be too late. We recognized this coming need nearly twenty years ago, and that’s how long this planning has already lasted. These systems take a long time to develop, fund and implement. But the RTA is closer than ever to a major step in the process, and that is also something you’re going to hear more about, as a proposal in that regard will also be ready for your consideration in the foreseeable future.

Our city’s renaissance may be operating on a lot of levels now, but it still stands on the shoulders of our city’s original catalyst – MAPS. This year has been an important one for MAPS. Last month, we concluded the 15-year MAPS 3 initiative, and now we’re entering the meat of MAPS 4, which will put $1.1 billion into the community’s quality of life over the next decade.

To remind you, MAPS 3 brought us this convention center that has elevated our visitor economy; the whitewater course that is now the catalyst for the Los Angeles Olympics; Scissortail Park, our community’s invaluable gathering place that we can hardly imagine not having; our event center at the fairgrounds; our downtown streetcar; the trails system that has now reached 100 miles; new sidewalks; our first four senior wellness centers; and millions of dollars in public art around these projects. MAPS 3 was truly transformative for our city, and its legacy will last as long as this city exists. So many people made it happen, from the Council that originally approved it, to the Chamber leadership who led the campaign, to the many civic volunteers who served on the Citizens Advisory Board and its subcommittees, to the city staff who implemented it. We read a resolution at Council last month thanking everyone, and that lasted 15 minutes, so I can’t repeat that today, but there are two people that I want to mention, and that’s Mayor Mick Cornett and Tom McDaniel, who chaired the Citizens Advisory Board. MAPS initiatives have always been led by mayors, and MAPS 3’s champion was Mayor Cornett.  And then Tom took the baton and implemented it over the next 14 years. When you leave here today, you’ll see how we’ve honored their legacy. From the balcony outside these doors, you’ll see the newly christened Lake Tom McDaniel at the heart of Scissortail Park. And directly to our north is Mick Cornett Drive, the address of this convention center. Let’s show our appreciation to everyone who made MAPS 3 possible.

The spotlight now turns to MAPS 4. MAPS 4 is $1.1 billion, 16 projects and hundreds of sub-projects. The last five years have been all about planning and now the shovels are ready to start turning dirt. And just remember that for all the new amenities we are enjoying, we still have these 16 MAPS 4 projects yet to come. $1.1 billion in quality of life investment. It really would take my entire time today to update you on the entire initiative, so I’ll just say that there is movement this year on most of the projects. This includes our new coliseum at the Fairgrounds, now known as OG&E Coliseum, which should be completed a year from now. After a couple years of effort, we were able to put together a major increase in the budget for our multipurpose stadium, which will be the home of our USL soccer team. We also sited it south of Bricktown on land donated by the Energy ownership group.  Soccer fandom in the United States continues to grow in anticipation of the 2026 World Cup, and OKC’s global aspirations demand that we be a part of the world’s most popular sport. This stadium is a vital project and as the ownership of the Energy recently transitioned, we are grateful to Bob Funk, Jr., Tim McLaughlin and now Christian Kanady for all the work they have done and will do to keep us in the game. MAPS 4 has also seen major progress this year on the Diversion Hub and animal shelter projects, both of which have seen approval of their plans. The innovative new operating endowments are likely to issue their first distributions in the next year. There will be a lot of groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings ahead for MAPS 4 and I certainly will have more to say about the progress in speeches to come. And we are very grateful to Teresa Rose – yes, that Teresa Rose – who not only chairs this Chamber but also chairs MAPS 4, as well as the dozens of volunteers who serve on the advisory board and its subcommittees.

We’ll stay with City Hall now for a little bit longer. Once again this past year, we conducted our annual scientific survey of our citizens, and once again we found overwhelming levels of satisfaction for our city services, much higher than other large cities. And in that survey, 71 percentage of our residents said that the city is heading in the right direction, with only 11 percent saying that it is not.

72 percent for MAPS 4.  71 percent for our new arena. 71 percent say the city is heading in the right direction.  These numbers tell a consistent story. We are moving forward through consensus, and with a seemingly unbreakable coalition of 70 percent of residents who are unified around our city’s direction. Look, I’m going to tell you a reality. Some people just vote no. If I just put a question on the ballot – “Is today Tuesday?” 25 percent of people would say no. That’s just who they are. We love ‘em, they’re our friends and neighbors, but they are a little negative when it comes to… everything. So when you are getting approval above 70 percent, you’re actually getting close to 100 percent of the people that are even willing to say yes to something.

The fact that we are pulling together that broad of a consensus is a testament to a unique political culture that I’ve talked about here before. Oklahoma County was 50-50 in the last presidential election. It’s demographics almost exactly mirror the country. But Oklahoma City is ignoring the extremes of American politics. We aren’t polarized.  We are putting aside the things that could divide us, including and especially our political party labels, and we are working together as “One OKC” to get things done. And people around the world are taking notice.  We recently had a wonderful feature in German’s leading newspaper, Die Zeit. I recommend you go online and read the story if you haven’t yet.  By the way, you’ll probably read it in English, but just know that Mayor in German is Burgermeister, and if you want to start calling me that, that would be fine.

This unique political culture requires intentionality from elected city leadership, buy-in from civic leaders at this Chamber and across the civic life of our city, the commitment of our voters, and also a commitment from our city management. We have the best city management in the country, and I’m not just saying that. For at least the second year in a row, WalletHub has ranked OKC the number one best-run city in the nation among all large cities.

So I would certainly be remiss today if I didn’t say a word about City Manager Craig Freeman, as well as his leadership team, his Assistant City Managers, his department heads, our Municipal Counselor’s office and our City Auditor’s office. These 5,000 city employees serve us every day, and I do mean every day. Let’s show our appreciation.

And by the way, our city staff that has been an integral part of our success, that gets these great rankings, does it all with a lot fewer people than their peers in similar-sized cities.

We’re the 20^th-largest city in the US and we have 5,000 employees. The 19^th-largest city is Denver and they have 11,000 employees. The 18^th-largest city is Seattle and they have 10,000 employees. And I can go the other way, too. The 26th-largest city is Detroit. They have 8,000 employees. Baltimore is the 30^th-largest city and they have 14,000 employees. What our city team does with 5,000 employees serving 700,000 residents is absolutely remarkable. I should mention that their work is supplemented by almost 500 volunteers who I have appointed to our city’s boards and commissions. These roles are a great opportunity to leave a legacy, but they can be very time-consuming. Let’s also thank our many civic volunteers who serve on our city’s boards and commissions.

In the time we have remaining today, I’ll highlight a few other topics. There is so much happening in this city that 30-45 minutes can hardly do it all justice, but I promised you that you’re going to leave here today with an unprecedented level of pride about the state of our city, and I still have some more material.

Our economy is still strong. Most notable is our unemployment rate. I think sometimes we take it for granted, but anyone who lived here in the 1980s knows what it is like when unemployment is high. We have our monthly unemployment statistics back to 1990, and the longest streak of unemployment below four percent in city history was 38 months, a streak that was ended by 9/11. The second-longest streak was 37 months, and it was ended by COVID. We are now sitting on the third-longest streak in city history – 34 straight months below four percent unemployment. Whether we set a new record or not, this is clearly a unique economic time in our city’s history. Meanwhile, this Chamber works closely with our City team and the Alliance for Economic Development to pursue big picture economic development strategies and specific projects. Recently, this Chamber completed a new strategic plan for economic development. One important tool in our efforts has been our incentive funding, approved in the 2007 and 2017 bond issues. You’ll see a proposal to renew that strategic tool when the next bond issue comes forward.

Before we meet again next year, the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum will commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the Bombing. The Memorial continues to give us a way to honor those who died, those who survived and those changed forever. It also gives us a platform for applying the lessons of 1995. The Memorial leads better conversations and works every day to remind all Americans that the natural outcome of dehumanizing your political opponents is ultimately political violence. Especially in a national election year, we hope all Americans will heed this lesson.

OKANA, the Chickasaw Nation’s $400 million development around First Americans Museum, in an area soon to be known as the Horizons District, is looking on track for completion in the next year. Ever since the opening of First Americans Museum, or FAM, I have believed that Oklahoma City can be a national capital for Native and Indigenous people, and those bonds continue to grow. Last month, a record number of attendees joined the Sovereignty Symposium here in OKC, now hosted by OCU and OCU Law, where I serve as Dean. At this year’s Symposium, we also announced the creation of a new Tribal Sovereignty Institute. The Oklahoma City Indian Clinic, where they serve 22,000 patients, is celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year. FAM welcomed Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland this year, the nation’s first Native American serving in a President’s cabinet, and Secretary Haaland has been joined by almost 400,000 other visitors to FAM since it opened in 2021.

It takes awhile, but I came into office as Mayor determined to retire old stereotypes about South OKC being overlooked by public investment. And this year it was hard not to notice how many ribbons we’ve been cutting in South OKC. Just in the last two months, we’ve opened a beautiful new senior wellness center, a new Almonte library, a revitalized Woodson Park athletic complex, and a new clubhouse and state of the art driving range at Earlywine golf course. Earlier this past year we opened a brand new fire station in far Southwest OKC. And there is so much more to come. For South OKC, MAPS 4 will bring upgrades to every neighborhood park, two new parks, new youth soccer investments at Southlakes, new placemaking at Lake Draper, a state-of-the-art youth center, a new bus rapid transit line, a new trail linking to Lake Draper, bus shelters, placemaking in Capitol Hill and Stockyards, a new animal shelter, a pedestrian bridge over the river, and beautification along key highway corridors, including aesthetic upgrades to South OKC’s three highway pedestrian bridges.

I have the same hopes for Northeast OKC, where we opened a beautiful new senior wellness center in December.  MAPS 4 will bring to Northeast OKC the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, the Henrietta B. Foster Center for Northeast Small Business Development and Entrepreneurship, upgrades to every neighborhood park, plus a $5 million upgrade to Booker T. Washington Park, a new park in far Northeast, a new pavilion at Minnis Lakeview, enhancements to the Northeast Community Center, new youth facilities, placemaking and beautification along Northeast 23^rd, new bus shelters, and a new bus rapid transit line. As we develop the next bond issue I spoke about earlier, it is so critical that we remember all of our city in that planning, just as we did in MAPS 4.

During the school year, I’ve continued my practice of reading to a different elementary school almost every Friday morning. There are over a hundred elementary schools in the city limits, and I will eventually get to them all. Every time, I read from “Goodnight OKC,” which was created by the Junior League of Oklahoma City. Right now, we’re working together to introduce a new version that even better reflects our entire city and the many changes that have happened just in the last decade. Look for that to debut in the next year.

Our work continues to recognize our city’s civil rights story. Since we last gathered here, I was honored to speak about Clara Luper and our civil rights story on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the 60^th anniversary of the March on Washington. In addition to the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center previously mentioned, we expect to dedicate in the next year the multimillion-dollar monument to Clara Luper and her sit-inners that will be located just a few blocks north of here, where the sit-in movement began in 1958. It is so important that this chapter in our history is recognized in the heart of our city. The statues of Clara Luper and the sit-inners are at the foundry right now, and you’re going to be overwhelmed by the power of this monument and what it will mean to have this remembrance in downtown. There are also efforts just getting fully underway this summer – led by the Ralph Ellison Foundation - to create a commemoration of Ralph Ellison in Deep Deuce, where he was born. The world-renowned author of “Invisible Man,” one of the most important books of the civil rights movement, will also receive a statue through MAPS 4 at the library named for him.

Oklahoma City continues to rise in prominence as a global city. We have long had a strong Sister Cities program, but more than ever before the world is now coming to us. As you know, the world’s ambassadors live and work in Washington, DC. Some of them occasionally visit other U.S. cities, but historically, they rarely found their way here. However, just since I took office in 2018, it has been my honor to help host the Ambassadors of the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Jordan, and Romania. These are more ambassadors than we’ve ever previously seen.  And of course, our city’s Mexican consulate recently celebrated its first anniversary in downtown OKC. Though Oklahoma City’s entry to this global stage may be new, engagement between large cities and other nations has occurred for decades. Recently, the U.S. State Department created an office just to support cities in their global work. Today, at this speech we are joined by Ambassador Nina Hachigian, the inaugural leader of the State Department office for City and State Diplomacy, as well as another member of her team, Daniel Ricchetti. Thank you both for being here today. I get to work closely with the Ambassador and Daniel in my service as Vice President of the United States Conference of Mayors. Next June, I’ll become president of America’s mayors.

Oklahoma City Public Schools continues the work of implementing a billion-dollar bond issue approved by voters in 2022. OKCPS also underwent a leadership transition this summer. We thank Sean McDaniel for his historic service as superintendent and we wish Dr. Jamie Polk all the best in her new vital role.

I often say that population growth is the ultimate judge of a city’s success. All the things you do to build a city ultimately boil down to whether people want to live there or not. Once again, the most recent Census data released in May reflects a city that is getting the best reviews possible. First of all, we reached a historic milestone. We passed 700,000 people living in the city limits. Over the last year, only 13 American cities gained more people. Just to give you some sense of the growth over the course of our recent renaissance, the number of people who have moved into the city limits over the last 15 years is over 150,000, which by itself would be the third largest city in the state of Oklahoma. I often think your doubling speed is an interesting population statistic, and we have doubled in size since about 1965. As a comparison, you have to go back to 1905 for how long it’s taken New York City to double itself. When I became mayor, just six years ago, we were the 27^th largest city in the U.S.  As you know, we are now 20^th and have been for several years. And listen, at our current growth rates, number 19 Denver, with just 14,000 more people, is hearing our footsteps.

Our community’s work continues on the issue of homelessness. This is a complex issue. I assure you that no large city is ignoring an easy or cheap solution. The reality is they don’t exist. But though they may be more complex or expensive, there are proven solutions. And over the last two decades in this community, we’ve actually had a significant level of success employing these national best practices. Here’s a stat that I think is going to surprise you.  In 2007 – 17 years ago – we had more people experiencing homelessness – 1,930 – than we did in our count this year, which found 1,838. And our overall population in the city has grown nearly 30 percent in that same time period. And pick any recent year, and our numbers still rank very low compared to most other cities our size. No one in the national conversation about homelessness thinks that Oklahoma City has anything but a very low number of people experiencing homelessness for a city our size. So we have to recognize that our service provider community has done some incredible work. And we would be remiss if we didn’t honor Dan Straughan, who retired this year as the longtime leader of the Homeless Alliance, for his role in that success. Having said that, none of that means much if you or someone you love is experiencing homelessness, or if you’re in a specific area with a high incidence of homelessness. Zero will always be the goal. And despite our relatively low numbers, we can’t rest, because we are seeing a gradual growth trend. It’s measured in the hundreds, not in the thousands, but the number has been growing. And the pressure will only increase, because our city’s population is growing and our housing prices are rising with that demand, putting pressure all the way down the line. The good news is, we know what to do. The bad news is, it does cost money. At a macro level, we need more affordable housing, and you’ll see us continue to push policy and incentives toward that goal. MAPS 4 has over $55 million toward that purpose. On a micro level, the basic answer is that you have to approach people experiencing homelessness and offer them housing and wraparound services to address the host of challenges they face. If you do that, you’ll have success. Recently, we’ve utilized that strategy under the banner of the Key to Home initiative. And thanks to Key to Home, which has now housed over 150 people, unsheltered homelessness actually declined from 2023 to 2024. So, we have a plan, and it builds upon two decades of relative success, but we have to keep at it and we have to keep funding it. This work will continue.

So too will our commitment to mental health. City government didn’t historically have much of a role in mental health, but that changed in MAPS 4 with the inclusion of new mental health crisis centers. This past year, the state broke ground on a new 330-bed mental health hospital in OKC toward which we contributed, and we’re grateful for their partnership on this important issue.

We have discussed quite a bit the challenges of our existing arena infrastructure, but we are also very blessed to have one of the top management teams in the country. I’ve said this here before, but everyone in the arena business knows that Chris Semrau and his team at Paycom Center are some of the best, and they absolutely maximize our current arena’s potential. In 2024, they are scheduled to host 40 major concerts, which tops their previous best of 37 in 2022. And one thing I really love is that seven of those 40 shows are Latin music shows, reflecting the evolution of our city. As you’ve heard me say here before, one out of every five OKC residents is Latino. It’s incredibly important that we continue to grow together, as One OKC. Even something like the shows at our arena can reflect that. And by the way, there is a slightly smaller music venue in our city that also draws some top talent – my office. City Hall Sessions will produce its 30^th episode this summer. Check out all the episodes at our City of OKC YouTube channel.

Our airport continues its amazing evolution. The effort is full speed ahead to add our first modern international nonstop flights. The customs area is just about ready. The next step will be recruiting the flights. And this year, we finished the multiyear process of reimagining all of the retail and dining to reflect the things that make us uniquely Oklahoma City, and I commend everyone involved in that effort.

Some of our favorite Oklahoma City artists have had special years worth noting. Our own Ed Ruscha opened blockbuster exhibitions at MOMA and LACMA, and he produced the cover of the final Beatles song. Our OKC Museum of Art continues to grow their permanent Ruscha collection, so that we have a notable presence here in OKC from the most famous visual artist to ever come from our city. And The Flaming Lips are celebrating 40 years this year with two nights of free shows at the Zoo Amphitheatre later this summer. The venerable Zoo Amp has enjoyed some upgrades this year, as did the other part of the Zoo, the part with the animals. This past year, our Zoo celebrated 100 years in its current location and opened the $35 million Expedition Africa. You have to check this new exhibit out. We truly have one of the best zoos in the country. And not far from there, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is embarking on a major new $40 million upgrade.

Our film industry is basking this week in the glory of having produced the number one film in America – “Twisters.” “Twisters” premiered in OKC last week and grossed over $80 million over the weekend. “Twisters” was the first recipient of our city’s new film incentive, and you can see our logo prominently displayed near the end of the credits. Also, when you see the film, look closely at Midtown Manhattan. It looks a lot like Park Avenue a few blocks from here. We continue to be bullish on the future of film in OKC. We are working closely with Prairie Surf Media on their future, and we love the continued growth at Filmmakers Ranch in far Northeast OKC. And next year, deadCenter Film Festival will celebrate 25 years.

Finally, we all know about our Thunder’s exciting year on the court and the promise of the year to come.  From Loud City to New York City bar tops, the energy during the playoffs was off the charts. I think we’re all just spending this summer saving up our energy for an electrifying season ahead. In addition to our Thunder’s success at the highest levels of the global sport of basketball, both of our current minor league teams are the reigning champions of their leagues. This past year, our Oklahoma City Baseball Club won the Pacific Coast League championship for the first time since 1996 and the Oklahoma City Blue won the G League championship for the first time ever.

And maybe that’s a fitting place to conclude. A city of champions is an appropriate metaphor for today’s theme.  All OKC does is win. As I wrote this year’s speech, and I thought about this past year and the road ahead, that was my inescapable conclusion. The story of any city is full of ups and downs. I think that sometimes in our past, OKC has been almost completely defined by its tragedies and its losses. All the more reason to celebrate the greatest run we’ve ever had. Will it end some day? Not if we can help it. And with all of us continuing to work together, all OKC will do is win.

Thank you to everyone who makes this event possible, especially Cynthia Reid at the Chamber and Jane Anderson and the production team, all of whom I torture every year by writing this speech until the very last minute.

Thank you to my family, Rachel, George and Maggie, and my dad Stroud, all of whom are here today. I’m proud of all of you, but especially Rachel for your amazing work at the United Way. Our nonprofits are such a huge part of our city’s success.

Thank you to all of you for being here today, and for all that you do, individually and collectively, to support this city. As I always say, this is the most mission-focused city in America. Everyone in town is on Team OKC, and certainly everyone in this audience today are the All Stars. Have a great day, watch the Paris Olympics, vote yes on August 27^th, stay tuned for updates on the Los Angeles Olympics, and I’ll see you back here next year. Thank you!