Published: June 04, 2009 12:00 pm      

Former OKC mayor ignites vision in Ada leaders

Ada — A former OKC mayor spoke at Oak Hills Country Club during a luncheon Wednesday, and challenged many emerging leaders to change their city.

“I cannot tell you what you ought to do in Ada,” Kirk Humphreys, the former OKC mayor said. “I can tell you what we’ve done in OKC, and I can tell you some things that need to take place if you’re going to make Ada all it ought to be.”

Humphreys was speaking to the first leadership YOUniversity class, a group of 22 men and women who have proven to be effective leaders in the community. Humphreys addressed how OKC has changed during his time as mayor, and said he hopes Ada replicates their results.

“If we invest in ourselves and make our city what we want it to be, then maybe someone else will like it to,” he said. “That’s what I would say to Ada.”

Under Humphreys, the MAPS project was initiated. The project was a five-year, one-cent tax that is credited with over $4 billion of investment in downtown OKC. Humphreys said there are several things Ada has to do to achieve similar goals.

Humphreys asked Harland Stonecipher, the CEO of Prepaid Legal, if they replaced the CEO of Prepaid every year. “I hope not,” said Stonecipher, in a laughing manner.

“I would get rid of this traveling trophy for a mayor that changes every year, because you’re never going to get anything done without political leadership that has capital,” Humphreys said. “You can never get capital in a one-year term.”

Humphreys said Ada’s leadership should not try to change everything and to not necessarily address the most important issues first.

“We don’t have enough bullets in our gun to fix everything,” he said. “We don’t have enough time in our day to do everything, so we ought to be concentrating on our greatest needs from a strategic point of view.”

Young people seem to be going back to OKC after graduating college, and Humphreys said this is because of the many businesses emerging in the downtown area.

“Bricktown was an abandoned warehouse district,” he said. “We had a lot of needs.”

With a professional basketball team, a minor league baseball team and the many restaurants in the area, Bricktown seems to now be a thriving part of OKC.

Emerging business leaders in the leadership YOUniversity class are now wanting to implement this vision for the local community.

“We would like it to change so we could bring more venders in and have more events to bring people in to attend music concerts here, opposed to driving to OKC,” Julie Weems, a marketing and sales consultant for Vision Bank said.

Mayor Roger Cupps said he is open to the idea of bringing more big-city events to the area.

“I think it would be great,” he said. “We would be supportive of it.”

Chea Christian, a loan officer at Vision Bank, said Humphreys challenged her to “put the legs on your idea and do the work to make it happen.”

“People of our age want these things, but we don’t know how to go about getting them as far as getting involved,” she said.

The public may express their ideas to help the Ada area grow by attending city council meetings every first and third Mondays of each month at 5:45 p.m. at the Council Chambers in Ada City Hall. To obtain an agenda or a request form to be placed on the agenda, visit www.adaok.com.

Until the time Ada becomes a major attraction for those outside the city, local leaders wait and hope to continue their vision.

“My vision is to continue to grow Ada with the dynamics of a big city,” Bailey Walker, a financial associate for The Chickasaw Nation said. “If we could incorporate that within Ada as a vision and collectively as a community, we could actually bring that to the forefront.”