From NewsOK:

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett will seek a third term, he announced this morning.

“I expect the next four years in Oklahoma City to be pretty spectacular, and I want to be a part of it,” Cornett said in a news release.

It was widely speculated that he would seek a higher office, but Cornett cited the city’s progress in recent years and a possible MAPS 3 initiative later this year as reasons to try to stay in office.

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From NewsOK:

It is a testament to the strength of the MAPS brand that so many in our city speculate as to the focus of a possible MAPS 3.

MAPS and MAPS for Kids were a success. They were a success because they each had a clearly defined, community building purpose and the citizens could envision the consequences for life in our city. With this filter, we should guard against the next MAPS initiative becoming an effort to build buildings, or a diffuse set of initiatives that amount to a tax in search of a purpose.

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From NewsOK:

I’d like to know why Oklahoma City, with its NBA team in place and a new 50-story skyscraper on the way, can’t land the sort of big-name retailers that one can find in Denver, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Mo., St. Louis, and yes, Little Rock, Ark., Albuquerque, N.M., and even Tulsa.

Reporters here have placed calls from time to time asking retailers like Whole Foods why they’ve skipped us over. The guys and gals on the other end of the phone line are polite, don’t rule us out, but never show any hint of things changing, even though trucks from Whole Foods must be passing through as they travel from Austin to Tulsa.

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From The Journal Record:

Jim Cowan, executive director of the Bricktown Association, thinks the founding fathers of Bricktown would have approved of the entertainment district’s push to become a musical hub. The founding fathers of Bricktown, the late Neal Horton and the late Jim Brewer, might not have envisioned the University of Central Oklahoma’s Academy of Contemporary Music or the American Banjo Museum, but Cowan said he thinks both men would be proud of the two establishments bringing music to Bricktown.

“Both of them would have been just as excited as they could be,” Cowan said. “Jim and his family started the blues and barbecue and the reggae festival.”

Cowan said the district has potential as a future national hot spot for a diverse array of music.

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From NewsOK:

While rock bands rang in the grand opening of the University of Central Oklahoma’s Academy of Contemporary Music from Bricktown’s United Way Square on Wednesday, civic and education officials sang the school’s praises in its newly renovated high-tech home on the fourth floor of the Oklahoma Hardware building.

There also were many plaudits aimed at ACM@UCO Chief Executive Officer Scott Booker, the man most responsible for bringing the first authorized U.S. version of the prestigious British academy to Oklahoma.

“I mean this guy is going to do for music in Oklahoma what Alan Freed did for rock ’n’ roll in Cleveland,” UCO President W. Roger Webb said of Booker during the grand opening ceremonies.

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