AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Thank you, Sean.  And my gratitude as well to your board, and Roy and the whole team at the Chamber that makes this event possible, and so many other things as well.  We deeply appreciate our longtime partnership with the business community that has been the secret sauce of this city’s success.

And to everyone here, or watching online or reading or watching this later, good afternoon and welcome to the State of the City address. History will show that we held one in 2020 and we held one in 2021.  Like nothin’ ever happened!  But in reality, 20 months have passed in between the two speeches.  And for some of us, it may feel like 20 years.

As in every American city, the last twenty months brought external challenges that were almost unprecedented, and truly were unprecedented in that they all happened at the same time. A once-in-a-century pandemic, the most significant discussion of racial inequality since the 1960s, the worst recession since 2008, the worst ice storm since 2007, the worst snow storm since 2009, the longest sustained freezing temperatures since anyone can remember. It’s been a doozy, and yet almost to a person, for the last few months, everyone I talk to in town thinks right now is one of the greatest times in the city’s history. And that’s not just anecdotal.  Our city runs scientific surveys every year of our residents, and we recently received the feedback that 75 percent of our residents say the city is heading in the right direction, and that only 8 percent say it is heading in the wrong direction.  Seventy-five to eight.  After the year we’ve had. So, challenging times, optimistic people. That’s a fascinating phenomenon, isn’t it?  Today, as I review where we are as a city, I think we’ll all leave with a better understanding of why that is.

First of all, let me take you back to the last time we gathered in this fashion.  February 27, 2020.  On that date, about 2,800 people had died around the globe of COVID-19.  None in Oklahoma.  We were still a week away from the state’s first confirmed case.  I tweeted out on February 25^th that I was about to deliver my State of the City address. Becky Skidmore Tweeted back the following.

“Are you going to talk about coronavirus game plan for OKC?”

As you see, I politely responded. I haven’t yet followed up on Harold’s ties.  I need to do that.   And I was right, the Oklahoma City-County Health Department was ready. But the answer to Becky’s question was no, I didn’t talk about COVID-19 in my speech. Becky’s Tweet has always stuck with me. If I had any idea on February 27, 2020 what the rest of the year was going to look like, I would have spoken about nothing but COVID-19.  2020 certainly was the year of the pandemic, and it was hard to play anything but defense. For example, I devoted a not-insignificant portion of my 2020 State of the City to my vision for convening a conversation in our city about public education, revisiting the same kind of inclusive effort we had mounted 20 years ago leading up to MAPS for Kids.  That’s what I thought I was going to spend my 2020 on.  Three weeks after my speech, schools were closed and 20 months later we’re still trying to regain 100 percent normalcy. The issue of public education is one we must still talk about as a community, and we will, but this pandemic unquestionably delayed a lot of things we hoped to do in 2020 and 2021. Having said that, as we sit here today, we are entering a new chapter in our pandemic experience.

Thanks to vaccination rates that exceed the national average, and include 82 percent of all eligible people having received at least one shot, we’ve recently emerged from the fourth surge of the virus. With our high vaccination rates, barring a new variant that is resistant to the vaccine, we can begin to hope that future surges will not be as impactful. In any case, we can certainly look back and assess the totality of our pandemic experience to this point. And I would submit to you that no city in the country did things better than we did.  We took it seriously, we saved lives, and we saved our economy. Threading that needle wasn’t always easy, but Oklahoma City can now present some of the most compelling health and economic data in the nation.

There’s a million ways to measure COVID-19, but ultimately it’s about life, right?  That is why we have all acted as we did – to save lives.  So let’s look at that statistic that rises above all others in importance. In the Oklahoma City metro, which I define here as Oklahoma, Cleveland and Canadian counties, we have lost 2,714 residents to COVID-19.  It’s a staggering total. Some of those names were known to many of us.  All of them left friends and loved ones behind.  On behalf of the people of Oklahoma City, I send my deepest condolences to the families of those we lost.

Losing that many people means that one out of every 448 people living in the OKC metro died of COVID-19.  This is a sobering statistic, but it is worth noting that other places in our country endured worse.  Nationally, one out of every 442 people died of COVID-19.  We fared slightly better than the national average. But here is the comparison that is most remarkable. In Oklahoma, the state in which we reside, outside of the three counties of the OKC metro, one out of every 342 people died of COVID-19. Here in the OKC metro, we endured dramatically fewer deaths per capita than the rest of Oklahoma even though we’re the most densely populated part of the state. If the Oklahoma City metro had endured deaths at the same rate as the rest of Oklahoma, we would have lost at least 849 more residents in our city. 849.  That’s the minimum number of lives this community saved by working together to take COVID-19 seriously. It was truly an obligation that every single man, woman and child in this community carried.  Collectively and individually, we did the right things at the right times, and people who needed to lead did so. It would take this whole speech just to thank those who deserve our gratitude.  But let me call out just a few.

The first person to whom I want to express some pandemic gratitude is a person who doesn’t even live here, but without him as our city’s ally, our OKC community wouldn’t have faced this threat as successfully.  We were fighting a war against a virus, and in a war, you need allies. Ours was Mayor G.T. Bynum and the people of Tulsa.  Never in this state’s history did our two largest cities have the opportunity to work so closely together on something so vitally important. Mayor Bynum and I have known each other for two decades, and we set out in our mayoral tenures to establish a new relationship between our two cities. We never imagined we would face a challenge of this magnitude and the necessity of forging a partnership on this scale.  Especially during the spring of 2020, we two mayors and these two cities worked together like never before.  That coordination gave credibility to our precautions. It made it possible for our residents to do what needed to be done.  Without that partnership, those 849 people in our city and hundreds more in Tulsa would not be alive today. Mayor Bynum, please stand and accept the gratitude of the people of Oklahoma City for standing with us in our mutual hour of need.  

Along with Mayor Bynum are hundreds of leaders in our community who found themselves in similar positions.  They were called upon to do what was right and they did it, time after time.  The leaders of our neighboring communities, mayors and councilmembers, county officials, state officials, and the leaders of school districts, businesses, retail stores, restaurants, and really every entity in this city.  Leadership mattered in this pandemic and I am eternally grateful to all in this metropolitan area who led by example.

And thank you specifically to all our city’s teachers who have pivoted multiple times during this pandemic and now are back in the classroom facing new challenges while preparing our city’s kids for their future.

And there will always be a special place in our hearts for those who could never escape the challenges of this pandemic - the heroes of public health and health care.  One person who symbolizes that commitment is Dr. Patrick McGough, Executive Director of the Oklahoma City-County Health Department.  He accepted his position just a few months before the start of the pandemic and neither he nor I knew what was ahead for us, but we’ll forever be linked by this experience.  He and his board and his team led the way for this community and did exactly what an independent health department is supposed to do.  In our state, only Oklahoma City and Tulsa pay for our own health departments, and we are very glad that we do.  Patrick, please stand and accept the gratitude of this community. 

And if you are in this room today and you work in public health or health care in any way, shape or form – and please feel free to use the most expansive definition possible, because this pandemic touched everyone in the field – again, if you’re in public health or health care, please stand and accept our city’s gratitude.

And finally, briefly, my own family.  We saw a lot more of each other in those months than we had planned, but that was a silver lining.  Who can forget our rituals of weekly Legos delivered via Amazon trucks, or family viewings of new episodes of “The Last Dance”?  Thank you, Rachel, George and Maggie for all your support during this pandemic and in all the crazy things we do.  

They are also joined today by my dad, brother and nephew. 

There was another aspect of this pandemic – the pandemic recession.  It was swift, but so was the response.  When the nation’s economy suddenly came to a halt, cities over 500,000 were granted major funding from the CARES Act, and we were largely just told to do what we thought was best with it. Our Alliance for Economic Development, led by Cathy O’Connor, moved quickly to create the Small Business Continuity Program with this Chamber and the team at the City of Oklahoma City. They created it completely from scratch, and with the support of First Fidelity, accepted their first online application on April 6, 2020. The Small Business Continuity program ultimately distributed $33 million to more than 1,000 businesses in our city. It prevented the business closures and long-term job loss that everyone feared.  And for individuals facing short-term challenges, the city also worked with the nonprofit sector to distribute millions of dollars in individual assistance.  If you were here at the end of my 2020 State of the City, you may recall I thanked our nonprofits and showed pictures from dozens of local charitable agencies. Little did I know how much we would lean on each other just a few weeks later.  Our nonprofits and faith community are amazing and they did incredible work in the pandemic.

All of what I just described was a remarkable mobilization and it saved our city’s economy.  Today, Oklahoma City has the #1 lowest unemployment in the country and our unemployment rate is where it was before the pandemic, currently 2.6 percent. Also, the city’s six most recent sales tax checks are the six largest in city history. That’s good for city services, obviously, but it is also an indicator that the city’s economy is booming. And announcements like the Costco back-office project are representative of some of the biggest jobs announcements in the city’s history that we’ve enjoyed recently. I’m not the first to say this, but the “Roaring 20s” followed the 1918 pandemic, and we might be repeating history now. It certainly feels like we’re just getting started. Working with our community’s talented economic development team, we’re making pitches every week and seeing the kind of opportunities we’ve never seen before. Job creators continue to be attracted by the unique combo we offer – ease of living and low costs combined with all the amenities of a large American city. And we’re hardly resting on our laurels.  In addition to utilizing the economic development incentives the voters approved most recently in 2017, we’re also proactively supporting Tinker Air Force Base by facilitating long-desired expansion to the east and new partnerships in water service, while supporting our veterans every opportunity we get, through our work on the Mayor’s Challenge to prevent veteran suicide and the establishment of a fantastic new tribute to veterans at Manuel Perez Park; we repealed 85 percent of our city’s occupational licenses; we’re partnering on the nearly $200 million restoration of First National Center to complete one of the final pieces in the revitalization of downtown, and kudos as well to recent major investments from BancFirst, Arvest, Heartland and the State of Oklahoma that are also impacting our skyline; we’re working to stay on the cutting edge of the economy by supporting the growth of the Innovation District through MAPS 4 and other means; and we’re fostering the growth of new economic sectors to increase the diversification of our economy.  The growth in aerospace, bio and tech are all examples of this. We’ve continued to have exciting announcements in the past year at OU Health, an institution we’re proud to host and one that is poised to contribute mightily to our city’s growth. All of our major hospital systems – including Integris, Mercy and SSM – were not just important partners in the pandemic, they are making investments in our city’s economic future.  Another example of our diversification is our burgeoning film industry, supported by the city through the transition of our old convention center into Prairie Surf Studios, and also supported by the state, thanks to the Legislature’s timely expansion of the film tax rebate program.  

It is an increasing priority that economic growth in our city be equitable.  This country has always promised equal opportunity.  This city should do the same. For too long, economic outcomes have been almost preordained.  A white kid who grows up at NW 164^th and MacArthur has a life expectancy of 81 years. A black kid who grows up at NE 23^rd and MLK has a life expectancy that is 12 years shorter.  In addition to life expectancy, vast differences in educational attainment and economic success are also statistically likely.  These are statistical facts. Stating them is not meant to cast blame.  Stating them is simply the first step to fixing them, and everyone in this city should want to address these disparities. We all believe in the American dream, and if our city is failing to fully offer it, we have to figure out why.

These disparities did not emerge overnight and they will not be addressed overnight. But each day we should be working to expand opportunity.  There are so many people now working on this, and the efforts are too numerous to list here. But one that I’ve been especially heartened by is a group of CEOs and corporate leaders in our city who formed the Mayor’s CEO Roundtable for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  They meet regularly to educate themselves as to how they can be a part of improving economic success for all our residents.  This Chamber has launched a similar effort in partnership with the Urban League.  Practically every initiative we pursue as a city now has an eye on this goal, including MAPS 4 and its creation of the Henrietta B. Foster Center for Northeast Small Business and Entrepreneurship, focused on minority small and disadvantaged businesses. And even in the ranks of city employment, we are working to ensure that advancement in a public service career is something available to all, through the recent creation of the city’s first diversity and inclusion officer.

Earlier I listed the various external challenges we faced in the last 20 months. Clearly the pandemic and the pandemic recession were the two that had the most impact. We can now look back on our experience and make the case that no one handled those twin challenges better.  We are emerging from this pandemic with fewer deaths per capita and arguably the nation’s strongest economy.  This is a remarkable outcome after extremely challenging times.

As I said, we are also emerging into this next chapter in our city’s history with a commitment to equality.  This is not an accident.  It is a commitment we intentionally prioritized in recent years, and the summer of 2020 solidified it. The murder of George Floyd sparked a discussion nationwide about our shortcomings, and I witnessed a broader spectrum of people in our city willing to have difficult conversations than I had ever witnessed before.  Some of those conversations were economic.  I just alluded to some of those efforts.  Some of those conversations were about neighborhoods, and how we build access across our city to the kinds of amenities many of us take for granted.  One example is in near Northeast OKC, the historic heart of our city’s Black community.  For decades, this community lacked a high-quality grocery store or new private sector investment.  In the last three years, we are seeing the seeds of revitalization planted.  In September, working with elected leaders like Councilwoman Nikki Nice, economic development entities like the Alliance, Urban Renewal, and the Economic Development Trust, and a private partner in Homeland, the Northeast community finally saw the opening of a spectacular new grocery store at NE 36^th and Lincoln. It’s not always the big massive projects that define a community.  Sometimes it’s the little things that a lot of us take for granted.  I believe I have seven high-quality grocery stores within two miles of my home.  But a resident of near Northeast OKC had to drive seven miles to get to one.  Now, with the opening of Homeland, they have access to fresh foods and Leo’s Barbecue. Meanwhile, on Northeast 23rd, we are witnessing the inspiring EastPoint development, with health care, a grocery store, and dining.  On three occasions in history, the international Urban Land Institute has awarded its Global Award for Excellence to an Oklahoma project. The previous two winners were Gathering Place in Tulsa and Devon Tower.  This year, the award was given to EastPoint.  EastPoint’s budget was maybe a few hundred million dollars less than those other two winners, but it has as much heart as anything we’ve ever seen in this city.

Another aspect of equality is working to ensure that all our communities are satisfied with the core city service of law enforcement. This was obviously a major issue coming out of the challenging summer of 2020.  There was a lot of important things said that summer, and it was always a priority to city leaders that we hear those things. Through it all, I’ve always moved forward with a belief that you can love our police officers and you can love the people marching in the streets.  You have to. They’re all humans and they’re all our neighbors. And if we will all communicate and listen to each other, we will find we have a lot more in common than we may think.

Wade Gourley, our city’s chief of police, publicly stated last summer that his department can improve.  That’s not necessarily a groundbreaking observation, but it can be when everyone is talking in bumper stickers. It demonstrated there is common ground.

Last summer, this community put together the Law Enforcement Policy Task Force, which is in the process of presenting dozens of recommendations for improvement, informed by hundreds of conversations with city residents, deep input from diverse community leaders, with advice from nationally-recognized experts, and all facilitated by the amazing leadership of M.T. Berry, our city’s first Black chief of police, who generously came out of retirement to lead these efforts.  And the Council unanimously approved a resolution adopted by Councilman James Cooper that created a City Manager’s working group to consider investments in community policing. Meanwhile, this summer, the Council increased the police department budget by $7 million and city management is working to put more officers on the street, fulfilling the promise of the 2017 vote taken by our residents to add 120 new positions.  When serious people are willing to work seriously towards improvement, and all parties are willing to communicate and listen, you can support public safety and improve it at the same time. That’s not a simplistic answer, but it’s the mature answer.  

 Two weeks ago I went to Washington, DC with Councilmembers Mark Stonecipher and Todd Stone to help honor some of our police officers.  Last year, a person in our city committed two horrific murders in one day and was on the run.  When police found him he began firing, hitting one officer, Zachary Barby, whose life was saved by his protective vest.  A group of officers bravely ended the terrible situation.  These were the officers honored in Washington, the first OCPD officers to be so recognized in a decade. Situations like the one that they faced that night do happen, and they are why we have law enforcement. After the dinner in DC was over, I visited with our officers long into the night.  I’ve had similar lengthy visits with people who come at these issues from very different life experiences.  I continue to be inspired that the people I’m visiting with, especially the people involved in the task force and the working group, appreciate the complexity of these issues. Serious people from many perspectives are having serious conversations and finding the best solutions that we can, respecting our differences but staying focused on our basic humanity and finding common ground. I commend everyone for working together to find the best path forward. The Council and I look forward to receiving these recommendations in the months ahead.

 Long before 2020, I was working toward diversity in our decision-making, and that work continues.  In our dozens of boards and commissions, we are seeing diverse representation that reflects the richness of our city. Sometimes that diversity is geographic.  I continue to appoint more people from South OKC and Northeast OKC than we have ever had before.  Sometimes that diversity also means bringing in appointees from diverse ethnic backgrounds, or more young people, or more women. For example, since we last met, I appointed and the Council confirmed the MAPS 4 Citizens Advisory Board, led for the first time by a woman, Teresa Rose.  She leads a board that is majority female, a first for a city board of this magnitude.

 Also in the summer of 2020, our city created the Human Rights Commission Task Force to present to the Council a proposal to join Tulsa and most other large cities in having a Human Rights Commission.  Their proposal will come to Council for consideration in the months ahead.

 And I continue to use my platform as Mayor to elevate the many communities within our city, to make sure we know and understand each other. And I am seeing the city respond.  We’ve talked a bit today about the Black experience in OKC, but at no time in our city’s history have we been more inclusive and more conscious of the experiences of our LGBTQ community, of our disability community, of our Down Syndrome community, of our Indian community, of our Asian community, especially our thriving Vietnamese community, our Pakistani, Middle Eastern and African communities. Our refugee community. Our interfaith community.  And we are truly embracing our Latino community like never before.  One out of every five OKC residents is Latino.  Perhaps you saw a few weeks ago when I got to surprise the crowd at Fiestas de las Americas with Danny Trejo.  That was a fun moment, it symbolized the growing prominence of our city’s Latino community, locally and nationally.  And it’s a moment that occurred about four minutes’ drive from this room, on SW 25^th Street, in Capitol Hill, the heart of our Latino community.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, leave here in your car today and head south for four minutes.  You’ll thank me.  And perhaps you saw the announcement last week that Oklahoma City will soon be home to a Mexican consulate, a big milestone in our city’s history, and a major acknowledgement of the 106,000 residents of our city who come from Mexican descent.

 But maybe no community within our city is having a better year than our Native American and Indigenous community.  As an Osage and our city’s first Native American Mayor it was an incredible honor to be our city’s mayor at opening day of the First Americans Museum.  It was a long three decades to reach this moment, and the expectations were high for this $175 million facility. It has exceeded all of those expectations.  It’s an incredibly impactful place, that tells this vital story in a way that comes from the heart, and is accessible to all. And I truly believe the creation of this place, that is one of a kind, establishes Oklahoma City as a national and international capital for Native and Indigenous people. And that was made even more real by the announcement last month of the Chickasaw Nation’s $300 million development around FAM, a resort to include a 400-room hotel, conference facilities, an indoor and outdoor water park, dining and retail.  And by the way, thank you to Governor Anoatubby and the Chickasaw Nation and all of the team there for your continuing commitment to Oklahoma City.

 Just imagine when the whole FAM development is complete and then just three miles up the very same road will be the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center and the restored Freedom Center, telling the important story of our city’s civil rights movement.

 One of our favorite sons, Ralph Ellison, wrote one of the greatest works of American literature – “Invisible Man.”  The title came from the idea that as a Black man, the character at the center of the novel felt invisible.  Too often, our city’s diverse communities have felt that way.  But no more.  Sixty percent of our city’s kids are non-white and we shouldn’t simply be waiting for them to grow up.  We should actively be building a city right now that is ready to hand them the baton of leadership.

 These diverse communities, by the way, are no small contributors to some of the best news we’ve received around here in a long time. I am speaking of the 2020 Census.  There are a million ways to measure a city’s success, and I’m covering a lot of them today, but nothing speaks louder than population growth.  Americans vote with their feet. Now, some might say, “I don’t want any more people to move here.”  Well, I get that, but here’s the deal.  You can’t build a city that people want to live in and not have people move there.  We can build a city that no one wants to move to, but I don’t think you’re going to like that very much.  In fact, we tried that.  We call that the 1980s, and we don’t want to go back there. So, I celebrate population growth as validation that we’re doing things right. And we have a lot to celebrate.  Oklahoma City is one of just 14 cities nationally that added at least 100,000 people since 2010 and is the 6^th-fastest growing large city in the United States.  In 2010, we were the 31^st-largest city. When I last delivered this speech in 2020 we were the 27^th, and now, with 681,000 residents, we are officially the 22^nd largest city in the United States.  We’re larger than Boston, Portland, Las Vegas, Detroit, Louisville, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Atlanta, Miami and Minneapolis.  One of those cities – Boston – is so mad about it they’re suing the Census! I tell people all the time that even though it feels like we’ve come so far since 1993, I really think we’re just now beginning to realize the full benefits of all this work.  I really do believe that we’re just getting started and that this growth is not going to diminish anytime soon.

Now, population growth at this scale does bring infrastructure needs, and we’re trying to stay ahead of that at City Hall. So let me turn to a quick update on core services.  I’ve said this here before, but the good news is that the partnership between City Hall, this business community and the voters has set our city up for success in the years ahead, especially after the major commitments made in 2017.  In that year, the voters approved “Better Streets, Safer City,” the largest investment in city street repairs that our community has ever made – nearly $800 million.  Something that is desperately needed in a city that is the geographic size of six major American cities. That work continues.  97 projects are complete, 99 projects are currently underway, and 230 more projects are planned. That same bond issue also included facility improvements that are currently underway at city-owned buildings across the city, including at our libraries and golf facilities, as well as at community gathering places like the Civic Center and our softball stadium. On that same day that saw the passage of the infrastructure funding, and as I mentioned earlier, the voters also committed to adding over 120 new police officer positions and some firefighter positions as well. Those positions are funded and the work of filling them continues. More people also means more traffic, and we continue the work of preparing alternatives, so that when you suddenly wake up one morning and want that, we’re ready for you.  In 2023, we will open our city’s first Bus Rapid Transit line up Classen and Northwest Expressway.  MAPS 4 funds two more lines to South OKC and Northeast, as well as 500 bus shelters.  And active work is happening on regional transit.  Governor Brad Henry chairs the Regional Transit Authority, a new government composed of Oklahoma City, Edmond, Moore, Norman, Midwest City and Del City.  That body will put a plan in front of the voters in the years ahead to fund and construct commuter rail between those communities. Transit improvement remains a top priority.

City Hall is also getting more engaged than ever before in the issue of homelessness.  You know about the inclusion of homelessness as a focus of MAPS 4, but there are many other initiatives underway.  The City recently hired an additional staffer focused on the issue and recently directed more funding toward clean-up in public areas that have recurring issues, working specifically with Commissioner Brian Maughan’s SHINE program. Our community also recently launched “A Better Way,” which gives people experiencing homelessness an opportunity to receive a day’s wages cleaning up public property, while connecting with services.  This program has been a proven success in Tulsa.  City Care opened their low barrier night shelter since we last gathered, an important new element to our city’s homelessness response.  City Rescue recently cut a ribbon on new improvements to their facilities. And ongoing efforts like the city’s HOT team, Curbside, Positive Tomorrows, the Homeless Alliance, and at Jesus House and Sisu Youth Services, with many more examples too numerous to mention here, continue to address the short and long-term aspects of the issue.  There are literally dozens of agencies that work every day to address homelessness, and recognizing that their efforts needed coordination, I formed a task force in 2019 to come up with our city’s first united and comprehensive strategic plan to address homelessness in more than a decade.  Co-chaired by Bob Ross and Sue Ann Arnall, that task force’s report was recently adopted by the City Council and is available at OKC.gov/homeokc.

While I’m on core services, let me recognize some of the people who make our city government function.  There are at least three groups.  The first, of course, is the City Council, your representatives at City Hall.  They are, in order of ward, Councilman Bradley Carter, Councilman James Cooper, Councilwoman Barbara Young, Councilman Todd Stone, Councilman David Greenwell, Councilwoman JoBeth Hamon, Councilwoman Nikki Nice and Councilman Mark Stonecipher.  These public servants are joined by City Manager Craig Freeman. It’s worth noting that between the nine elected officials and the City Manager, only two of those ten people were in their positions on January 1, 2017.  The last four years has seen a massive transition in our city’s leadership, but many of us studied at the feet of those we followed, and have worked to not only maintain but build upon the success of those who preceded us.  Working with the City Manager are some 4,800 city employees. And that team really rose to the occasion during the pandemic and our various weather crises.  Who can forget those line workers getting out in sub-zero temperatures to repair water line breaks all across the city in February? At times over the last twenty months when many residents were able to stay home, our city employees were out on the front lines. And I don’t know that everyone here in OKC realizes how we do more with less.  The City of Dallas is less than twice our size in population but has three times our number of city employees.  I could give examples like that all across the country.  We run a lean operation here but our team gets it done, and I think that makes it the best in the country. We are so incredibly grateful for our police officers, our fire fighters, our water line workers and all of our folks in utilities, our public works employees, our animal welfare workers, our parks and rec employees, our employees at the airport, in the auditor’s office, in the clerk’s office, in the municipal counselor’s office, in development services, economic development, finance, human resources, IT, at the municipal courts, in planning, public information, transit, and the Zoo. And the city’s management team did an unbelievable job maintaining our fantastic financial track record, and once again avoided the kinds of layoffs you were seeing elsewhere, while still maintaining our unparalleled bond ratings. And then there is one final group at City Hall worth thanking – our hundreds of community volunteers who serve on our dozens of city boards and commissions.  There are some boards that are permanent and there are temporary task forces like I have referenced earlier, such as the task force that helped us successfully update our city’s charter in 2020. Would any members of the Council, the City Manager, any city staff, and anyone who serves on a city board, commission or task force please stand to be recognized?  Thank you for your service.

Of course, our first priority has always been these core services, but a close second priority has been our commitment to quality of life.  Since the passage of the first MAPS in 1993, the MAPS initiative has been the backdrop for every success our community has enjoyed.  Since we last gathered, MAPS 3 and MAPS 4 have both taken some major steps forward.

MAPS 4 of course passed just a few months before the pandemic, and it was always heartening to think that we had all those investments in our city waiting for us on the other side of that experience. Now, those projects are just that much closer. I mentioned previously the creation of the Citizens Advisory Board, something we had to get done right in the middle of the opening months of the pandemic.  But we got it done, they began their work, and they completed an implementation plan in about the same amount of time that it took MAPS 3. No small feat, considering the many external challenges they faced. That very thoughtful plan was recently adopted by Council and in the coming weeks we will seat the subcommittees. Over the next decade, we’ll see a billion dollars of new quality-of-life investments open in our community, addressing things I’ve already mentioned like transit, the Innovation District, homelessness and the Clara Luper Civil Rights Center, but also 12 other projects, including upgrades to all our parks and our youth soccer facilities, state-of-the-art youth centers, a senior wellness center, mental health and addiction centers, Palomar for victims of domestic violence, sidewalks, bike lanes, trails and streetlights, an animal shelter, a Diversion Hub for people interacting with the criminal justice system, beautification along major corridors, upgrades to the arena, and a new multipurpose stadium and fairgrounds coliseum. As you’ve heard me say before, 70 percent of the package goes to important human and neighborhood needs that we need to address, with the rest directly contributing to the economic growth of the city. Many of these projects will be assisted through our innovative creation of endowments to extend the power of MAPS into perpetuity. You’ll hear me talk about these things a lot in future speeches, because thanks to the public’s commitment to MAPS, we will continue to have new investments in our city to look forward to for years to come. This process of MAPS 4 implementation will last at least another decade, but we are planting trees so that our grandchildren have shade.

In the meantime, under the leadership of Tom McDaniel, his board, and David Todd and his staff, MAPS 3 has reached some major milestones since we last gathered. We recently broke ground on the last major projects – the senior wellness centers in Northeast and far south Oklahoma City. Across the street from here, the lower portion of Scissortail Park is progressing nicely, with completion scheduled next year, and with the renovation of Union Station still a major funded project yet to unfold as well.  And last but not least, welcome to our new convention center.  This is the single largest MAPS project ever, and it opened earlier this year.  Today is the largest event yet held in this ballroom. Combined with the new Omni, Scissortail Park across the street and the streetcar to link this complex to the rest of downtown, we have truly built the finest meeting destination in the country for a city our size.  As a result, tourism is emerging as a major new sector in Oklahoma City’s economy.

No longer is Oklahoma City just a place you sleep in if you’re driving from Little Rock to Albuquerque. This is truly becoming a destination for meetings and tourists.  Investments at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds have secured its place as the horse show capital of the world.  The investments here where we sit today will attract national meetings we could never host in the past, and we expect to enter many new national rotations over the next decade.  First Americans Museum adds a new attraction to complement other leading venues in our city, such as the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.  The development around FAM will attract more new tourists and meetings from around the nation and world. The Cowboy continues to improve upon its already national reputation, adding new exhibits and the prospect of possibly meeting Tim the security guard. Oklahoma Contemporary opened since we last gathered, and it has immediately established itself as a major cultural amenity and attraction, featuring exhibits like the recent Ed Ruscha exhibition that was arguably the most important in state history. The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum tells an impactful story our nation needs to hear now more than ever.  Attractions like Remington Park, our Thunder, Energy and Dodgers draw people by the thousands. By the way, how about that Lakers game last week? Our many arts agencies, many of which are doing incredibly innovative work, are becoming regional draws. Many of our arts agencies got very creative about venues during the pandemic, and while on the topic of arts venues, we have a major renovation underway at Civic Center. And public art is an increasing draw, as our city was recently voted the #1 city in the nation for public art. Our live music scene is back, partly thanks to the city’s direct financial support of venues during the pandemic, and our music scene, fostered by entities like ACM@UCO, is something that we continue to highlight with my City Hall Sessions program. And you don’t even have to be in a bubble anymore to see live music, though our Flaming Lips made international news with that innovation. Our Science Museum, our Zoo, which just opened Predator Pass last week, the Museum of Art, the History Center, the 45^th Infantry Museum, the Firefighters Museum, Factory Obscura, all add to the mix.  The Rother Shrine will soon bring thousands to our city. Our many neighborhoods now offer authentic local experiences. In downtown, led by Bricktown, the region’s premiere entertainment district, you can enjoy Automobile Alley, MidTown and West Village, and then across the city, you can enjoy diverse offerings like Plaza, Paseo, Western Avenue, Windsor, Adventure, the Asian District, Uptown, and growing districts like NE 23^rd, Capitol Hill and Britton.  Route 66 is a draw, as is the Myriad Gardens and the renovated State Capitol.  Scissortail Park has become the heart of our community, something we barely knew we needed until we finally had it. The events being held there draw visitors from the region. More and more major events are coming to OKC, like the recent internationally-televised canoe/kayak competition we hosted at RiverSport.  Truly, we are seeing more and more unbelievable opportunities come our way thanks to our unique facilities at RiverSport.  You can now surf, ski and whitewater rapid in the shadow of our skyline. But it’s the competitive rowing and paddle sport opportunities that will have the most impact on our city. We’re going to be talking a lot about RiverSport in the years ahead.  It gives us a direct tie to the Olympic movement, fitting for the home state of Jim Thorpe. And of course venerable local events like our Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon and the Festival of the Arts draw thousands to the city.  And the Marathon is now taking runners to all parts of our city in the spirit of “One OKC.” We just enjoyed hosting the greatest Women’s College World Series we’ve ever had, in our new renovated stadium, a venue worthy of our status as the world capital of softball. And visitors are helping to drive growth at the airport, where we are now up to 27 nonstop destinations and just opened a spectacular new expansion, offering a new front door to our city, more gates, more amenities for flyers, and more local options. The Oklahoma City visitor economy is something that hardly existed a quarter-century ago, but now it is a major aspect of life in Oklahoma City.

Take for example, a friend who reached out this summer while he was shooting a movie in Oklahoma, another sign of the times.  We’ll call him “Leo.” He wanted to come to OKC and experience our city for a day.  So, we had lunch at Cheever’s, one of the best examples of the incredible restaurant scene that is taking off in Oklahoma City.  Then we went to the National Memorial, always a must do.  Then I took him to First Americans Museum. It wasn’t actually open yet, but I knew people. And I wasn’t planning to take him to the Art Museum, but he said to me, “Hey, don’t you have a Pompeii exhibit right now at the Art Museum?”  And I said, “Yes, yes we do.”  So we hit that up as well.  That day was a real microcosm of the modern Oklahoma City visitor experience.  More and more, visitors are going to be a part of our daily existence.  And sometimes visitors turn into residents.  Our population growth speaks to that. As for Leo, maybe he’ll be back here if the film thing doesn’t work out.  But it probably will, he’s just got one of those faces.

At the beginning of these remarks, I spoke about how optimistic our residents are, how pleased they are with the direction of our city, even in the face of enormous external challenges. Of course, adversity is not new to us. Through oil busts, tornados, a Bombing, we have been conditioned to persevere.  The residents of this city really are different in that way.  We also have at least one other thing that sets us apart, especially in the current national political environment.  We have a long-held political culture of working together to get things done.  Of setting aside the things that divide us and finding common purpose. Time and again, we are answering potentially divisive topics with compassion, tolerance, empathy, truth, humility, civility, inclusion, and with a dual sense of obligation that we must continue to be aspirational, and we must be willing to compromise so we are always moving forward. I have called our unity and our resulting ability to get things done “One OKC” since I first ran for this position.  Maintaining that consensus-driven, outcome-focused approach is the only way we can continue to move forward as a community.  In Oklahoma County, the two major presidential candidates were separated by one point in the most recent election.  But when I was elected, I got 78 percent.  MAPS 4 passed with a record-shattering 72 percent.  As I said earlier, 75 percent of our residents support our current direction.  These consistently high numbers illustrate that a lot of people who come from different perspectives are finding common ground when it comes to Oklahoma City. That kind of collaboration is not happening in a lot of other places, but we’re working hard every day to arrive at outcomes that 70 to 80 percent of us can support. That’s the kind of pragmatism and pluralism that makes democracy work.  Some days it may feel like we’re one of the last places in the country that gets that.  So let’s guard it.  Let’s be intentional about it.  Let’s be committed to it.  Let’s defend that culture.  There will always be extremists at both ends of the ideological spectrum trying to pull us apart.  But we cannot let them. This city’s momentum and renaissance depends on our unity of purpose.

The state of our city is strong.  It is sturdy and it has proven to be durable and resilient through tough times.  It is the honor of my life to play this role in my remarkable hometown at such a remarkable time. Together, we’re going to continue to accomplish remarkable things. We’ll continue to improve core services, we’ll continue to grow our economy, we’ll continue to improve our quality of life, we’ll continue to include everyone in our city’s story.

Thank you for your time today and thank you for the honor of being your mayor.