entrepreneurs, especially in the tech and bio industries. Encouraging the innovation district’s growth could help to address that. How do you plan to support public education in Oklahoma City? Public education is the greatest challenge facing our city. And it’s personal to me as well—my kids are students in Oklahoma City Public Schools. Cities and school districts are separate entities in Oklahoma, but a mayor must do everything he can to address our city’s greatest challenges. A mayor can convene the interested parties in our city and develop a consensus around a strategic vision for education. We had MAPS for Kids, but that was 17 years ago. It’s time to develop a new vision and rally our city around its implementation. One of your top priorities is incorporating diversity into decision making. How do you plan to bridge divides and make Oklahoma City leadership more diverse? The first step is to use the platform of the position to force us all out of our bubbles a little bit. Spending a year running for mayor has a way of exposing you to people and places you wouldn’t have otherwise experienced. I need to be engaged in all the communities within our city, and I need to share those experiences with everyone else. A mayor also has direct appointment authority over hundreds of volunteer positions. Over time, I will make sure those appointments reflect our population. And finally, the mayor has a big say in who is in the room when decisions are made. I will make sure those rooms
reflect the diversity of our city. There are communities that have not felt a part of our decision-making and our momentum, and for our city to succeed in the long term, that has to change. What is the best way for Oklahoma City residents to contribute to Oklahoma City’s ongoing growth? Stay engaged. On important issues moving forward, I’m going to repeatedly and publicly invite your input. Please respond, so all our voices are represented. We’re not all going to get exactly what we want, but I believe in win-win solutions, where the final product reflects a compromise. That final outcome can’t begin to reflect your priorities or your vision if you don’t articulate it. I would also say—stay optimistic. Stay unified. Stay proud. Oklahoma City is a special place because we believed we could accomplish things that others doubted. And we did it by setting aside things that might divide us. That’s a unique thing in these times, and we should be proud of that. Four years from now, what is your vision for what Oklahoma City will look like? We’ll have core services we’re extremely proud of. We’ll have more quality-of-life investments coming that ensure our momentum for another decade. We’ll have a hopeful vision for public education that we’re pursuing together. We’ll have a decision-making process that the whole city feels a part of. And I think with those things in place, we’ll have continued job growth and a continued sense of pride and optimism.
3 CITYSCAPE AN UPDATE ON THE PROGRESS MOVING OKC FORWARD
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