Tulsa Mayor Talks About Some Goals For His Last Year In Office

2024 marks Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum's last year in office and there is a lot he wants to get done before he leaves. Mayor Bynum joined us Wednesday morning to talk about some of those projects.

What are some of your goals before leaving office?

"Well, I mean, this has been my dream job since I was a kid. And citizens of Tulsa have given me eight years to do as much as I can on their behalf. And I think we've gotten a lot done in the first seven. But I think the year ahead of us really stacks up to be one of the more historic years we've had in the history of the city. I mean, we're going to finish the lake in the Arkansas River that people have been talking about here since 1964. I cannot wait for Tulsans to see this. It's going to change the way people use the river for recreation. We'll also open a new bridge that goes out over that lake that was designed by the same team that designed the Gathering Place. That's going to connect people. It's going to be like an extension of the Gathering Place out over our new lake. We're going to finish construction of the Gilcrease museum building. It'll take about another year and a half or so to load in all the art and build out the exhibits. But the building itself will be finished this year. We're hoping to get our new public safety center open for our first responders to have an appropriate place to work instead of the just rundown old buildings that they've been forced to work in for decades, with rotten pipes and fire headquarters being located in a floodplain. We're working to get them out of there and into a new public safety center later this year. And then there's so much I want to get done. On our homeless initiatives, we're working to get a low barrier shelter open this year, which we think will greatly reduce the number of people that you see out on the street, and so many more things. I just had my retreat with my team yesterday, and we spent all day talking about the number of things we want to get done this year. I have a whiteboard in my office, and every month for the next 10 months, there's all the things that I want to check off that list. So that when I leave, our next mayor is positioned to be incredibly successful, and the city is in a better place."

What advice or what would you tell the new person who takes the job as Tulsa mayor?

"Well, I think the thing that I've found, if you want to be successful in this job, the city comes first. It comes before your popularity. It comes before your ambitions for what you're going to do next. Sometimes it comes before your friendships and your health. But it has to come first because the citizens of Tulsa have entrusted you with the greatest honor that they have in their power to give anybody, which is to be the mayor of Tulsa. And so I've given it all I have for eight years. But when I ran the first time, I said I would only serve two terms. I'm a big believer in term limits, and in having citizen leaders come in and getting new ideas and new energy in. And so I'm excited to see who our next mayor is going to be. I'm committed to helping whoever that is, be successful and do all that I can to leave them a city government with a budget surplus and a team that's ready to go to help them fulfill their objectives that the citizens choose in the elections this year."

Do you know what you'll do after you leave office?

"I don't. I've started talking with some organizations and my big thing is, I just love serving Tulsa. That's what I've dedicated my career to doing. I want to continue to find ways to serve our community, but as to what that will be, time will tell."

Bynum, you touched on homelessness, and it's been a big priority for you. Are we concerned about getting them in from the cold especially as arctic air arrives?

"We absolutely are, and was in communication all day yesterday with our outreach teams that have been out there trying to get folks off of the street and out of encampments and into shelters. I know the Tulsa Fire Department spent all day yesterday going around visiting with different facilities that can be used as temporary emergency shelters. And I've actually been emailing with folks on our team since about 4:30 this morning, about everything that we need to do to make sure that our homeless service providers have what they need to keep people safe in an extreme weather event like this."