OKC’s Baseball Team Is Not The “Dodgers” Anymore
Oklahoma City’s minor league baseball team is rebranding… again.
The team announced Thursday that it is no longer using “Dodgers” and instead will use the temporary nickname “Oklahoma City Baseball Club” for 2024.
The Triple-A squad had used the Dodgers nickname for nine years.
The team says it will spend a year with the generic moniker before identifying a new “permanent” identity beginning with the 2025 season.
The team will continue its affiliation with Major League Baseball’s L-A Dodgers. But in its announcement of the move, the franchise explained that the MLB squad no longer has an ownership stake in the OKC team.
The team has had other nicknames over the years including the Redhawks and Eighty-Niners.
The Baseball Club will begin its season in April with games at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.
OKC Arena Voter Turnout, Next Steps
When Oklahoma City residents approved a sales tax to fund a new Thunder arena they did so with almost record-setting enthusiasm. Here's how that vote compares to previous sales tax propositions, and what’s next for the arena.
Nearly 58,000 people cast ballots in Oklahoma City’s local election this week, and 71% of them voted for a penny sales tax to fund a new Thunder arena. That’s the second-largest margin of any other sales tax proposition in the past five decades — only MAPS 4 topped it with 72% in 2019.
Now that voters have approved the tax bump, OKC still has a lot to figure out about the new $900-million arena.
City Manager Craig Freeman says city officials are looking for a location — options include sites directly north or directly west of the Paycom Center. They’re also seeking architectural and engineering services to design the arena and say they hope it’ll be ready for the 2029 NBA season.
Democrats Elect Next State Senate Minority Leader
Oklahoma City Senator Julia Kirt to be next minority leader for Senate Democrats.
Democrats in the state Senate have elected new leadership. Kirt is stepping into the role of Senate minority leader, succeeding Kay Floyd, who is term-limited and will be leaving the chamber after this session.
Kirt flipped a seat formerly held by OKC’s GOP mayor David Holt in 2018. She previously led arts and culture nonprofit organizations for nearly two decades.
The nonprofit newsroom Oklahoma Voice reports it’s common for parties to elect new leaders in advance of a current one hitting a term limit. However it’s unclear if Republicans will replace Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat as he gets ready for his own term limit.
Medical Marijuana Pregnancy Prosecution
Medical marijuana has been legal in Oklahoma since the passage of State Question 788 in 2018, but multiple women in the state have been prosecuted for using it since then because they were pregnant.
Pregnancy Justice, an advocacy group based in New York, filed an application with the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Thursday asking it to put a stop to the prosecution of women who use medical marijuana during their pregnancies.
In a press release, the group said Oklahoma’s Medical Marijuana and Patient Protection Act, which went into effect in 2019, legalized medical marijuana for all adults with valid licenses from the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.
Despite this, reporting from The Frontier found at least eight Oklahoma women with state-issued medical marijuana cards have been charged with felony child neglect for using marijuana during their pregnancies since 2019.
This charge comes with the potential of a life sentence.
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