Government
Main article: Government of Oklahoma City See also: List of mayors of Oklahoma CityThe City of Oklahoma City has operated under a council-manager form of city government since 1927. Mick Cornett serves as Mayor, having first been elected in 2004, re-elected in 2006 and then again in 2010. Eight councilpersons represent each of the eight wards of Oklahoma City. City Manager Jim Couch was appointed in late 2000. Couch previously served as assistant city manager, Metropolitan Area Projects director and utilities director prior to his service as city manager.
The city has called on residents to vote for sales tax-based projects to revitalize parts of the city. The Bricktown district is the best example of such a project. In the recent MAPS 3 vote, the city's fraternal order of police criticized the project proposals for not doing enough to expand the police presence to keep up with increased commercial activity.
Most neighborhoods in Oklahoma City lean Republican, but there are a few exceptions. The northeast portion of Oklahoma City and certain neighborhoods in the northwest are generally represented by Democratic state legislators. The Oklahoma City Council is non-partisan.
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Famous quotes containing the word government:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented! A semihuman tiger or ox, stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the “money touch,” but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)