LAWTON – Mayor Stan Booker talked trash, FISTA, floods, and economic development during an appearance Monday before the Great Plains AMBUCS chapter.
He used the occasion to respond to criticism that appeared on social media last week about “so much secrecy at City Hall.”
A critic expressed skepticism at Booker’s claim that FISTA (the Fires Innovation Science and Technology Accelerator housed in the Central Mall building) is paying its way.
In response, Booker told the AMBUCS, “We borrowed $18 million to buy and renovate the mall, and in just seven months we’ve already paid down $600,000 on the principal, plus interest.” Seven months “isn’t a long period of time when you’re recruiting business and creating jobs,” he added.
FISTA is intended to attract defense contractors, high-technology industry, innovative businesses and the like “with capabilities to directly support the Cross-Functional Teams of Long-Range Precision Fires, Air & Missile Defense and Fort Sill’s FIRES Center of Excellence in the Army’s comprehensive modernization, driving innovation and integrating capabilities to the warfighter.”
Booker said new jobs are coming to Lawton at a relatively swift clip, and much of the credit goes to the Capital Improvement Plan that Lawton voters approved and which “gave us a record amount of money for industrial development.”
As a direct result, QuickBooks/Intuit will bring 175 work-from-home call center jobs to Lawton and Carter Wind Turbines announced April 9 it plans to invest $10 million initially in development of a manufacturing plant in Lawton that will employ 300 workers within five years.
Both of those announcements came within the last 120 days, Booker said, “and there’s some more following that in the near term, and some more following that.” He declined to elaborate, however.
Booker referred to “the gap” in economic development.
Oklahoma City approved its first MAPS (Metropolitan Area Projects) program, a $350 million sales tax initiative, in 1993; the proposal passed with 54% of the vote. Capital improvements it financed included a new baseball park in Bricktown, a new sports arena where the NBA Thunder play, renovation and expansion of the downtown convention center, construction of a canal downtown, renovations at State Fair Park, renovations to the Civic Center, modifications to the Oklahoma River channel, and construction of a new public library downtown.
“Today you can hardly find anybody who’ll admit having voted against MAPS,” Booker said. MAPS 4 passed in a December 2019 special election with 72% approval.
“That’s ‘the gap’,” Booker said. “I have every confidence that within 18 months that gap will narrow in Lawton” just as it did in OKC. “The gap is already beginning to close.”
TRASH, FLOODS
Turning to the subject of trash, the mayor conceded that the city stumbled on the rollout of the bulk waste collection program. “We have egg on our face,” he said. City staff “underestimated the volume of trash people had stored in their garages and back yards – five times as much as the city anticipated they would have,” he explained.
“We will work through this,” Booker vowed. “We’re trying to clean up the town.”
In a related matter, he mentioned the city’s goal of demolishing 500 to 700 dilapidated and dangerous residential structures in Lawton over a five- to six-year period. The city has earmarked $3.5 million in CIP funds for the program.
Lawton has been plagued with flooding in recent years: four so-called “100-year floods” in just “the last six or seven years,” Booker said.
Consequently, seven governmental entities have petitioned Congress to appropriate funds to underwrite a feasibility study of flooding on Cache Creek. The “consortium,” Booker said, included the City of Lawton, Comanche County, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, Fort Sill, and the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache tribes.