Cornett reflects on tenure as mayor, future of OKC
Oklahoma City’s storyteller-in-chief says the story of the city is change.
Mick Cornett stepped down Tuesday after 14 years as mayor and 17 years in city government.
In that time, he wove for the nation — and the world, really, thanks to the reach of contemporary media — a story of how individual responsibility and collective will can change a city’s fortunes.
Reflecting Monday on the challenges that lie ahead for the city, Cornett said his successors in political, civic and business leadership will need to keep the focus on the opportunities change is creating.
“The city’s changing, and I think the rate of change is increasing,” he said, “and change always makes people a little uncomfortable.”
As a city grows and changes, Cornett said, those who are nostalgic or like things as they are can be pushed “in directions not everybody is comfortable with.”
“A leader has to be able to communicate why this change is necessary, why it’s a good thing, and try to help people through that,” he said.
“Communicating and continuing to talk about the growth of the city and the inclusiveness that is necessary, I think these are all good things,” he said.
Cornett won a seat on the city council in 2001 after a career in local television sports and news.
Even then, he said, he had been swept up in change, as TV newsrooms were tasked with producing more programming with smaller staffs.
In those years, the city was investing MAPS sales tax dollars in the Bricktown ballpark and canal, downtown arena and library, public school renovations and construction.
Those earlier investments and continued investment through MAPS 3 have been credited with bringing Oklahoma City “farther, faster” than other metro areas.
“Look at the population growth, the job growth,” Cornett said.
He said there was “every reason” to think children will have more opportunities in a growing and changing city than they otherwise would.
“I think at the end of the day, that’s what people really care about most,” he said.
Cornett elevated Oklahoma City on the world stage by putting the city on a diet — a challenge that drew attention to increasing obesity rates — and by playing a central role in attracting professional basketball to the city.
His 2013 TED Talk, “How an obese town lost a million pounds,” has recorded more than 1.5 million views at www. ted.com. The site says the transcript is available in 28 languages.
He made a full-length documentary, “Oklahoma City: The Boom, the Bust and the Bomb,” that debuted in 2015.
The film traces 25 years of city history from the oil boom that preceded the economic doldrums of the 1980s through the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
He put in a year as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 201617.
Cornett became an advocate for midsize cities and their response to economic and demographic change.
Some of those midsize cities’ responses are on display in Oklahoma City with MAPS 3, the capital investment program begun while Cornett was mayor.
The city is adding a downtown park, $500 million convention center complex and streetcar system.
MAPS 3 is expected to build on the MAPS legacy of leveraging private investment with public dollars.
Cornett has a book coming out in September with Jayson White, “The Next American City: The Big Promise of our Midsize Metros.”
Public-private partnerships are a key part of that story, he said.
“It’s real easy when you’re in city government, a new idea comes along, you’re overwhelmed anyway, it’s real easy to fall into that, ‘No, we can’t do that and here’s why,’” Cornett said.
“It’s not maybe your first instinct but you have to learn to say, ‘Yes, let’s talk about that and we could do that if’ and whatever the if is,” he said.
“In other words let’s continue to talk and figure out a way to make it happen.”