KRMG In-Depth: County Commissioner Karen Keith’s bid to become mayor of Tulsa

TULSA — In 2002, Karen Keith left a successful career as a broadcaster and journalist to work for a Republican mayor because she wanted to see a neglected and underdeveloped downtown Tulsa thrive again.

[Hear the KRMG In-Depth Report on Karen Keith’s run for mayor HERE]

A Muskogee native, she’d spent more than twenty years working her way up from floor camera operator to main anchor on the evening news, and host of a half-hour program called “Oklahoma Living.”

But, she tells KRMG, she didn’t want to report on what was going on with the downtown area, she wanted to make a difference.

“Our downtown was dead, and it was something I was passionate about. And then, when I heard Mayor LaFortune was looking for somebody to work on community outreach - and they were working on a big package that was later named Vision 2025 - I went down there and applied,” she told KRMG.

She says she knew most of the people working on that project were “of a different political persuasion than me,” but she believes she got the nod because they probably ”recognized that they needed some people working on that that had some name I.D.”

By any measure, the Vision 2025 effort was a success, and continues to provide funds and impetus for improvements county-wide.

That was one of the lessons of that effort, which succeeded after two improvement packages in a row were shot down by Tulsa voters.

It was getting people in other cities around the county involved, and invested, that helped bring Vision 2025 to fruition.

And the public investment sparked private investments, which have resulted in restaurants, hotels, museums, green space and more in what is now a thriving downtown.

Keith gives the credit to the leaders, like LaFortune and former Mayor Kathy Taylor, who led the efforts to make those improvements.

And she says she’s learned how to make those public-private, bipartisan coalitions work for the common good.

That will be a key message of her campaign, she tells KRMG, adding that the issues the metro faces moving forward aren’t limited nor defined by political affiliation.

“I know that the issues facing our city are not red or blue issues,” Keith said. “I want to work on job opportunities. I want to work on our streets. I want to work on schools, all these things. And of course, we’ve got to tackle homelessness. So, these aren’t red or blue issues, these are just things we need to get done.”

So far, two other candidates have officially announced mayoral campaigns for 2024 in Tulsa, State Rep. Monroe Nichols and City Councilor Jayme Fowler.