Entrevista Exclusiva con Monroe Nichols: Candidato a Alcalde de Tulsa 2024

for thank you for coming glad glad to be here glad to be here absolutely yeah well you know uh you know I think the I'll start with my record so I've been in the Oklahoma House of Representatives for the last eight years and over those eight years uh I've I've always voted with uh the community most recent example was House Bill 4650 or 4156 which is the one that you know want to criminalize you know give felonies and misdemeanors to folks who were uh not documented in in in Oklahoma uh and fought against that piece of legislation in fact I think when you and I met for the first time we were at the church uh and the rally pushing back against it uh cuz I think those things are fundamentally not not helpful that comes from in part the district that I've represented over the last eight years is about 25% Hispanic and I was I uh my house is in the Kindle Wittier neighborhood uh and so you know for me it's a long history of standing with with the community uh and I think that is important when you're going to vote for somebody everybody who comes on this radio station is going to say oh you know I support the Community have a long record of of supporting the community I also think just you know when we think about the future of this city most of Tulsa's growth uh has come from uh our uh Hispanic uh our Hispanic tulson and I think it's important for us as we think about the future of this community to not just Embrace that but really you know consider what's it going to take to move this community forward and moving this community forward as a whole means that uh those folks who are uh of the of this community have to be an important part of it uh that is from an economic standpoint that's from a political standpoint uh so working with the community on the things that are important to folks is always going to be number one for me and again it's built on eight years of of of being here and being with the community and and and fighting for this community every day in the legisl and what about the non who have papers but that yeah one of the things that I would never tolerate is targeting anybody regardless of their documentation status uh I really believe that it's critical that we make sure this is the the safest big city in the country I think part of that is making sure that everybody who lives here feels safe and they feel like they can reach out to law enforcement if they need something and certainly we'll never feel like they're targeted uh for any reason particularly when they're just trying to live their lives take care of their families go to work and those types of things I think what Builds an excellent city is diversity and I think we have to embrace folks uh in this community and certainly like I said before would never tolerate any targeting from the police department but any targeting from anybody for that matter and I think that big part of that is making sure that this that the community is reflected in the mayor's office and and and and the folks that you hire and how they're able to engage and how the city uh can really have a footprint somewhere here in East holson in other parts of town so like if you if you need a city service or if you need help uh you come to us we're not going to ask you if you're documented or not uh we're going to be in a position to help uh take care of whatever it is need to be taken care of because I do believe uh that there's a number of folks in this community uh who are undocumented who are part of the fabric of this community and I think we have to always protect those folks just like we protect anybody and make sure they can thrive in this community look uh you know I I'm looking forward to the day uh that the federal government figures out an easy clean pathway uh to citizenship but in the meantime what I care about is how we do things together here in Tulsa uh and I think the number one thing is nobody in this community can feel like they are a target of the police or anybody else and so um you know you know the tolls police will continue to operate without targeting folks uh but we're also going to make sure we put some some some some some checks in place to make sure if that ever happens folks have a place they can go to to report that type of stuff uh because again my deal as a mayor is to make sure that everybody who is in this community feels a part of this community feels safe in this community I think that start to not feeling like they're a Target uh police or anybody else uh the maor GT V he initi a program absolutely I'm actually really interested in how you expand it right and I think how you expand it is in part coming and talking to folks like you you you all are dealing with issues every day that you are reporting news or talking on the talking on the radio and in the community I want to know from the community what are ways that we can expand those type of things like I said before I want everybody who's in this community feel part of this community and whatever we have to do to make sure that folks can Thrive from an economic standpoint to make sure they have what they need to educate their their their their children and make sure those families can Thrive that's what I care about and so you know you can look for me to be in a position to expand a program like that uh and it's in large part because like I mentioned before house district 72 that I've represented for the last eight years uh you know we have a strong and thriving Hispanic Community but we also have number of other diverse communities that are that are new to to the country you have a here in east Tulsa for example as you all know we have a thriving Asian community and we got a lot of folks who are new to this community I think Tulsa is an international City and we need to make sure that's reflected in everything we do so the expansion of those types of programs I think is how we do that uh so you know there won't be any roll backs but but it will certainly be you know working with the community say what do we need to do to help businesses Thrive to help people thrive to help families Thrive and that's going to be my prity as mayor yeah yeah you know again I think that's a a big part of that is working with the community I think a lot of times when we see increases in crime uh a lot of times there's a there's a fundamental distrust between police and the community where folks don't feel comfortable reporting things those types of things I think we have to really work hard on that community policing aspect of it uh but I think also there's some real challenges that we have and this is Citywide these are Citywide challenges uh I was just talking last night about the prevalence of of certain weapons uh guns and those types of things that are stolen out of cars just people don't properly secure them I think we have to make sure we educate people on those types of things but we also have to make sure that everybody in this community particularly young people see a pathway to a really strong and solid life that does not necessarily mean going into uh any sort of criminal activity I think this is something we CH what challenge we have with all with all young people I have a 16-year-old old son I know the challenges and the and the Temptations that the young people face and if they don't feel like there's opportunity somewhere it is very easy to go in a different direction and so we certainly need to increase uh the number of of Law Enforcement Officers I mean I think we're 180 or some odd officers short that's only part of the solution the other part of the solution is making sure that again we're working every day with communities to say like hey what what do we really need to make this city safe and I think my job as a mayor is to deliver on those things it's everything from you know street lights in some neighborhoods uh to certainly you know combating the prevalence of of dangerous weapons that are as I said often times stolen out of cars and then making sure we're investing in education and things that truly at the root cause of why we see so much crime in the community I think if we do those things we'll see crime go down uh and I think it's something that we can all that we can all take a lot of pride in but something we have to do together like the police presence is only one part of that the other part of it is how are we working with communities and make sure they're absolutely safe the other the other problem is how did you plan the other homeless in aent those police such as I think I'm the only candidate in the mayor's race right now that's actually released a plan on homelessness and that plan is all about how do we find you know ways to in homelesses as we know today uh and so we put out a plan that gets us there by by 2030 and how we how we're going to do that is one we're going to take ownership of the issue of the mayor's office uh so that means getting somebody appointed who's actually going to lead the city wide effort on homelessness what does that mean that means making sure that we're investing in Data Systems so folks who have a substance abuse uh issue or a mental health issue or folks who are situationally homeless we're finding the the services that they need to specifically deal with their need and not treating everybody the same uh as I uh know it there are uh somewhere estimated about 3,000 people who are living on the streets right now that's a that's a that's a that's a large number but it's not an impossible number so we do those things and in in in in in addition to that getting the low Berry shelter online and then just increase our affordable housing stock right we actually don't have enough affordable housing in this community to meet the needs of folks and and I think at the end of the day uh we also have to make sure that while I know the Supreme Court has kind of criminalized homelessness the state of Oklahoma has criminalized homelessness you know if somebody already doesn't have resources giving them a ticket for being homeless is not going to do anything they can't they can't pay it I think what we have to do is make sure that we're matching Services of the people on the street and also making sure those folks who who truly you know have these chronic issues uh that we address them and we address them fully I think we can absolutely do it right now as a community we're spending a significant amount of money trying to solve this this challenge we're not doing it in a coordinated way right now and that's why people are so frustrated I saw a poll that was taken it said 85% of Tolson don't think the city can solve the issue of homelessness um the plan that we put out there is a plan that is based on other communities that have actually done it uh so it's not Pie in the Sky it's not something that is impossible we're just making it up because we're running for office uh it is based on the very best strategies for getting people off Street and keeping them off the street right now homelessness is getting 9% worse almost every year Family homelessness so those living with children is 34% up from when it was in from what it was in 20120 900 kids at Tulsa Public Schools alone are homeless and about 12200 kids are in family addiction we have to make sure that we can stabilize those families in in their place like I said get that affordable housing stock on and make sure we coordinate services so that folks who who truly need specific care they absolutely get in this community we do those things we will in homelessness as we know and in the plan that we put out there I think in April uh we believe I I I have confidence gets us there by 2030 okay yeah no I mean I don't I don't have any plans to raise taxes I think it's more about how we spend our resources more effectively and how we partner with the philanthropic Community how we partner with business owners uh and make sure that every dollar that we're spending is highly is a highly effective dollar we're tracking those and are we getting the outcomes we want for every dollar that that we spend as a city uh I think if we were to roll back to even the homelessness question affordable housing we have somewhere around7 or100 million that the next mayor will have to help address the issue of housing uh and so we have that on the way uh when we think about every dollar we spend at the city you know thinking about how is that helping children family and business owners are we are we putting people in a better position than they were today and so the things that work we'll keep investing in them the things that don't we're not going to invest in those things anymore and those things that don't work that we're spending money on reinvesting that in the strategies that work I think we'll we'll find that we have as much money as we need in addition to working with our nonprofit Partners I think the city budget this year reached a billion dollars for the first time in our in our City's history um you know it's kind of crazy to say you know billion dollars can probably go kind of fast but if we can start to show what we get for that money like we I think often times citizens don't know you're spending all this money what are you doing with it right uh I think if we can start to show people the difference that we're making with those resources and if we start to hold ourselves accountable for making sure we understand the difference we make those resources we have as much money uh as we need to meet the needs of the people across this community but it isn't matter matter of priorities I think the other thing that we have to pay attention to there's some hidden taxes sometimes uh you know I don't I don't know how closely you look at your water bill and additional fees and that kind of stuff it your water bill is uh paying a little bit for water and then a lot for for some other fees and so there's some hidden taxes there that we want to get on top of to make sure that you know we're actually investing in the infrastructure in this community that's going to allow us not to continue to put that burden on folks because a lot of folks who are struggling uh to make their own household budgets work adding an additional fee on a water bill can be a problem uh so so my goal is uh obviously no plans to raise taxes uh I don't think there's a need for it but I do think the accountability around how we spend people's money people's hard- owned money back to building our infrastructure back to taking care of our citizens is is my highest priority and I think we have plenty to make that happen Okay so anything else what what I would say um everybody knows how important this election is and I think you you can think about that everywhere from president of United States down to a school board member but we think about this mayor's race and I'm speaking specifically to the Hispanic Community but I'd say this to anybody um we know that in Oklahoma things can be um um not necessarily all that inviting for for for new Americans and I think often times folks in leadership in the the city are silent when those things happen when I came to uh the church and the followup to House Bill 4156 outside of Senator Brooks and representative uh Alonzo salival I don't think that any other elected official was there uh and so I think it's critical that everybody understand the importance of having a leader in the mayor's office that is with the community not when it's convenient when they're running for office but has been with the community forever because there's going to there's going to come a time where the next version of some hateful bill was 1804 back in the day now it's House Bill 4156 those things are going to continue to come up there has to be somebody in the mayor's office willing to speak up when this community gets attacked and I think I'm I know I don't think I'm the only person in this race that's ever done that and that will also be reflective in how I lead it's not just about speaking up it's not just but it it shows the character and the values of a person and my values sit in a place where anytime folks are attacked anytime people marginalized just because of who they are uh that's not going to work for me it's not going to work for me cuz my own family tradition comes from folks who have been attacked because of what they look like and uh and and so I hope people understand that this is not just an election to sit out on this election will certainly shape the future of our city it'll shape how inviting of a city we are it'll shape how who gets a see at the table it will shape how how kids uh view their own neighborhoods and their own City uh and I and I and I hope people internalize that because there's going to be a real question about you know the name that you may hear more often um but I think this has to be about who's going to be most effective and stand up for the community making sure that the City of Tulsa is a city for everybody thank you absolutely face can in Twitter h [Music]