Mayor Holt gives first State of the City address

This article originally appeared on VeloCityOKC.com.

More than 1500 Oklahoma City business leaders filled the Cox Convention Center last Thursday as OKC Mayor David Holt delivered his first State of the City address.

Holt recognized the event as a special opportunity for the community to come together and consider important issues. And one of the most significant issues in the last 25 years has been the various MAPS projects. The decision to undertake those projects has proven to be a game-changer for Oklahoma City.

“Twenty-five years ago last month, the voters of Oklahoma City made the now-legendary commitment to the first MAPS, our city’s groundbreaking initiative to improve our quality of life,” Holt said. “On that December day, we decided to invest in ourselves, to meet challenges and seize opportunities, and nothing has ever been the same.”

The Mayor touted surveys that consistently show the residents of OKC are more than satisfied that, when it comes to the daily services citizens rely on, the city is meeting expectations.

“How do we know? We ask you,” he said. “Every year, our city conducts a scientific survey of our citizens, and the results have been consistent for a decade. You are the most satisfied customers in the nation. Almost across the board, you rank our city services very high, higher than other citizens in other cities rank theirs. And listen to this, as a place to live, 82 percent of our citizens say Oklahoma City is good or excellent. That is 28 percentage points higher than the national average for a large city. Twenty-eight points. The national average is 54 and we’re at 82. Do you know how powerful that is when I’m pitching Oklahoma City to job creators? That I can say the people who live here love living here more than the people in any other large city?”

Read the full story at VeloCityOKC.com.