Stan Booker
Over the past two and a half years, Lawton Mayor Stan Booker has found satisfaction in helping the city move forward, he said Wednesday.
“It’s very fulfilling being the mayor of my hometown,” he said. “It’s very fulfilling to be a part of a transformation that builds a foundation that will take us to the future. And I don’t just mean those as words.”
Booker, who is finishing his first three-year term as mayor and seeking another term, is running against challengers Sherene Williams and Palmer Moore Jr. The three candidates will square off in the Sept. 14 municipal election.
Southwest Ledger interviewed Booker about his decision to seek re-election. Here are questions and answers from the interview, edited for clarity and length.
Q: What made you decide to seek re-election?
A: I wanted to continue building the city to be a community of choice for young families that we’ve started.
We’ve put in place a CIP (community improvement plan) that addresses the future and does it in a big way, and it’s a record CIP that goes out 15 years.
Primarily, it invests in job creation for better-paying jobs, including high-tech jobs to help keep our young people here.
It also invests in quality of life, and it invests in what we’ve called ‘the digital transformation’ to bring us into current times digitally, as a city, so we can improve services and increase efficiency. We have the goal of becoming the most efficient city in the state.
It’s a very comprehensive plan, and it’s very far reaching. Our community has not, historically, planned out that far in many areas.
We have a record amount of money in that CIP for job creation and infrastructure needs for industry. We have a record amount of money in there for quality-of-life issues.
Q: How much, if you remember?
A: It was $27 million for industrial development. That included operations, but it also included infrastructure.
Then the quality of life had $20 million on a parks plan, with $8 (million) of that going to an indoor sports program. All of this was aimed at the quality-of-life issue to become more a community of choice for young families.
The indoor sports arena will make us a destination spot for all of Oklahoma and north Texas.
Q: When was that plan adopted?
A: It was adopted February of 2020 and went into effect two weeks after the pandemic started.
And already, we’ve kicked it in high gear. We’ve done what we call ‘acceleration.’ We’ve accelerated engineering. We’ve accelerated planning.
If the money is in the allocation, even though it may not have come in yet, we’re prioritizing the engineering to get it done so that we can get it done faster.
That’s the reason that we have more street projects going right now than anyone can remember in history. Just on residential streets, we have 12 street projects going – 12 streets going at the same time. And we have 16 more in planning. Then, we have some main arterials that are either out to bid or in planning.
We have Lee Boulevard, which is – I’d have to add it up, but I think it’s like eight miles from I-44 all the way to Goodyear Boulevard. The first two miles, from Goodyear to 67th, are out for bid right now and expected to be complete by the end of the year.
So Lee Boulevard is a very long-awaited project that, until we passed the CIP, there was no funding and no plan. And just a little over a year after it’s passed, we’re already getting started.
Then over the next few years, the rest of Lee Boulevard will be addressed in phases.
Goodyear Boulevard will also be redone. It has passed the end of its useful life and is deteriorating pretty quickly, so we hope to be able to address that in the next, say, 18 months.
Then there’s a Goodyear Boulevard extension that is huge to the city. The reason it’s huge to the city is because it will get semis off of our city streets.
A semi does as much wear and tear as 27,000 passenger cars. Did you know that? That information comes from the Department of Transportation.
So if we can get them on the highway – Highway 62, Rogers Lane. It’s a state road – if we can get them there, then they’re off the city streets. Not wearing on our city streets.
Q: What, to you, are some of the highlights of your first term as mayor?
A: I think the biggest highlight is the CIP because not only it is a long-term plan, but it’s also long-term funding for the plan. So, we can get started on the things now.
I think another key component of that is the acceleration that we’ve done on planning. I think most people underestimate how important accelerating the engineering has been. It’s been very, very important, and it’s the reason that we’re able to get so much going.
Some other things that have been very important – many of these are tied to the CIP.
The Youth and Family Committee creates an investment in children to help them be successful. It’s aimed at the 40% most disadvantaged.
By investing in our children and keeping them constructively focused on good things, we help them be successful and keep them out of trouble. In the long run, we create a society with a lower crime rate.
Those programs are all aimed and must show results of how they help kids do better and be successful.
Another thing that we’ve done is the Race Relations Commission. We started that when we were having the race relations conversation a year ago, right in the middle of COVID. We started that to continue the conversation.
The Race Relations Commission is a solutions-oriented commission to help people improve their lives, as opposed to a complaint-receiving body. And I’m very proud of what we’ve done there.
Q: Would you say you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the city’s current direction?
A: I’m very satisfied with the city’s current direction.
We’ve faced our challenges head on. For 18 months – over half of my time in office – we’ve been in a pandemic, and we’ve continued to focus on progress. Continued to focus on the future and continued to work.
It’s had an impact on that and probably slowed us down from where we could have been, even though we have been very much in an accelerated mode. We potentially could have accomplished even more.
Q: What skills make you an effective mayor, in your opinion?
A: I think it’s my business experience that I bring and studies of municipal economics as I have studied for commercial real estate. That’s the key factor.
Palmer Moore Jr
Three years after he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for mayor, Palmer Moore Jr. Is running for public office again.
A longtime resident of Lawton, Moore is one of three candidates competing for the mayor’s office. He will square off against incumbent Mayor Stan Booker and fellow challenger Sherene Williams in the Sept. 14 municipal election.
Moore’s previous mayoral campaign hit a snag when he was named in a felony embezzlement charge which was filed Aug. 17, 2018, in Comanche County District Court. He was arraigned on Dec. 4, 2019, and pleaded not guilty.
His case was set for the June 2020 jury docket, but it was repeatedly continued and now is scheduled for the September/October 2021 docket, records of the Oklahoma State Courts Network show.
The embezzlement charges were filed shortly before the 2018 election and hurt Moore’s campaign, he said Wednesday.
“That right there kind of affected my race,” he said. “It affected my race a lot. But I look and learn and grow.”
Moore said he was falsely accused, and he is hoping his case will be resolved in the fall.
“I pray that we can go to court in October, so it’ll be over with,” he said.
Southwest Ledger interviewed Moore about his decision to run for mayor. Here are questions and answers from that interview, edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What made you decide to run this time around?
A: This time around, it’s basically for the kids. My heart is into it.
I love Lawton. Some years ago, we were a thriving town. I’ve lived in towns where I’ve seen a lot of things that can be brought into our community to help our community.
I just want to be the person that can open up the door and give Lawton back to Lawton.
Q: Was there a specific issue or issues that made you decide to run again, besides just wanting to give something back to the community?
A: There’s a lot of issues, but the ones in particular that I’ll focus on are basically the schools, the job opportunities and beautification of each ward.
Open-door policy: We need to rewrite the laws of Lawton to where the city of Lawton is more involved in the precincts, the people that do the footwork in their own community. For them to work hand in hand with their ward member to also help provide structure and information, to where they can work hand in hand to where they can help each other out.
Q: Would you say you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the city’s current direction?
A: I’m dissatisfied with the direction that we are going in right now. It seems like we are in a whirlwind, tumbling down instead of raising up, lifting up.
The outlook of our proclamation, basically, is kids. We need to have something for the kids.
We’re shutting down schools. There’s no preparation for them or anything like that.
I think that if I win, I will change all that around. I will open up a million opportunities for jobs. Open up information centers. Because there are a lot of schools that are closed down, and we, as the city of Lawton, can reopen them. Use them for information centers to build our community back up.
If it’s hard for a person to get a job or look for anything like that, I think the information center that we open up would be a 21-day program. The 21-day program would be like, once they pass a test in whatever they enroll in or are good in, at the end of the 21-day program, whatever jobs are connected to the program, they’ll be able to start the next day.
And we’ll learn how to maintain a budget with a five-year plan.
Q: What skills do you have that would make you an effective mayor?
A: Public relations. Diversity. I’m open-minded to everything.
I think instead of just one person sitting at the table, I think we all should sit at the table. Bring people together with different beliefs but for one common goal, and that’s to rebuild Lawton and make it great again.
Southwest Ledger Senior Staff Writer Mike W. Ray contributed to this report.
Sherene Williams
For the third time in six years, Lawton resident Sherene Williams is seeking the mayor’s office.
And she’s hoping the third time will be the charm.
A lifetime resident of Lawton, Williams ran for the mayor’s office for the first time in 2015 and ran again three years later.
Williams’ conversations with other Lawton residents have convinced her that the city needs new leaders, she said Monday.
“From what people have been telling me, they’re ready for a change,” she said. “And they’ve told me they’re ready for me to be the mayor.”
Williams’ current campaign pits her against Mayor Stan Booker, who is seeking his second consecutive term, and Lawton resident Palmer Moore. The three candidates will face off in the Sept. 14 municipal election.
Southwest Ledger interviewed Williams about her decision to run for mayor. Here are questions and answers from that interview, edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: What made you decide to run?
A: I’d like to make some changes for the betterment of the citizens here in Lawton.
One of the changes is with our trash service that we currently have. A lot of the citizens are not happy with what has transpired here. And what I mean by that is, their utility rates have been raised, but they are receiving less service. They are not happy with that.
We used to have, actually, two services per week. Now we only have one service per week, and they are getting one bulk (trash collection) per month. But even the citizens are complaining about that, because they’re saying the bulk trash is not being picked up on time.
With less service, the issue that it’s causing – the citizens stated there are maggots in their trash cans now. They’re getting uninvited rodents in their back yard, such as foxes, bobcats, different things like that. And it’s costing them more money in pest control…
Now, two other ladies and I went before the city council this last month – July 13 – and we requested that the trash service be put back to twice a week. And we explained why we were requesting it, because to me, if you look around, the beautification of our city is deteriorating because of the trash and different things that are out here. It’s not looking the greatest.
Q: How did the council respond?
A: They listened. It wasn’t on the agenda that day, but there was a form you could fill out. And so, we filled out the form so we could discuss it.
So I’m just waiting for them to put it back on the agenda and revote.
Q: What other changes would you push for if you were elected?
A: More manufacturing jobs here in the city of Lawton. And how I can do that is work with the Lawton Economic Development Corporation – the president – sitting and talking with him.
Mr. Brad Cooksey is the president. And I’ve sat down already and expressed to him the importance that we have more manufacturing-type jobs.
For instance, we have children – our children – that graduate from high school and even college. And a lot of times, they leave Lawton because they have other, better job opportunities that aren’t here in Lawton.
We need to provide them more opportunities so that they will have a choice whether they want to stay here, in their hometown, or go somewhere else. Go to another state.
Q: If you are elected to the mayoral office, what actions would you push for to help bring more manufacturing jobs to town?
A: First of all, there’s the Lawton Economic Development Corporation. That is their job. So, it’s a matter of working with them and asking, “What are the problems? What are the issues here why we’re not getting these jobs here in the city of Lawton? Are we offering them better tax breaks or discounts to draw the companies here?”
But then too, companies, prior to coming to your city, they look at your infrastructure too. That’s another area which I want – have our infrastructure improved here in the city of Lawton.
Any business is going to look at your infrastructure, because that could be a cause factor for them also.
And then also, they’re going to look at the cleanliness of your city. That’s why I’m stressing about beautification of our city and about the trash situation. Because businesses will be reluctant to come here if they see that your city is not clean enough.
Q: Are there any other changes you would like to see if you’re elected?
A: More mentoring and coaching of our youth.
The reason why I say ‘more mentoring and coaching of our youth,’ what I’m basically saying there is, ‘Getting more involved with the young people in the community and having more activities for them to do.’
Because if they don’t have enough activities, an idle mind could possibly get into trouble. Keeping their mind busy on more positive things – that can help eliminate some of the crime, the violence, the shootings that have been happening here and that needs to stop.
Q: What skills would make you an effective mayor?
A: I do have a degree in management, so I’ve been trained to know how to govern a city.
I have 30 years of experience with the military, taking care of people. I’ve had experience where I had to handle several billion-dollar budgets from the military.
And also, I am a retired sales manager from Sears, Roebuck and Company.
So, I have the financial skills. I have the interpersonal skills and skills of knowing how to work with a diversity of people. That is very important.