OKC Mayor Proposes New Arena For Downtown
Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt is proposing a new arena for downtown.
At his annual State of the City address Thursday, Holt said he envisions the venue being an upgraded home for OKC’s NBA team, the Thunder.
Earlier this year, the Thunder’s long-term lease at the Paycom Center expired.
The NBA team and arena are currently operating under a three-year lease extension to clarify their future.
“Obviously, we want a long-term relationship that secures our Thunder for a generation, but we can't accomplish that without a modern NBA arena,” Holt said.
The potential new arena is still in the planning phase.
Holt says he hopes to have a more formal proposal introduced by the end of the summer.
He also says the arena could be funded without raising tax rates.
ED Week: Districts Failed To Send DEI Reports
A national education publication reports some of Oklahoma’s largest school districts defied a state mandate to report spending related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Education Week’s report details what happened after Superintendent Ryan Walters’ administration issued a mandate earlier this year requiring schools to submit documentation on DEI spending.
According to the article, several large districts, including Lawton and Oklahoma City, did not submit the reports. Walters has called DEI “divide, exclude and indoctrinate,” and the districts said they have no initiatives that match Walters’ DEI definition.
Walters’ administration has already gone after two districts last year for DEI-related initiatives, drawing on a law passed in 2021 that bans so-called “divisive concepts” from classrooms. Education Week points out that crackdown and the subsequent accreditation dings could be partially behind districts’ reluctance to submit the reports.
Oklahoma’s Foreclosure Rate Increasing
The U.S. foreclosure rate is increasing, and that's the trend so far in Oklahoma this year.
Mid-year data from the home data analysis company ATTOM shows there were more than 185,000 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings so far this year.
Those can include default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions.
In Oklahoma, 1 in every 766 households are facing foreclosure - ranking the state 15th in the country for homes that could be impacted in the near future.
Data also shows foreclosures in Oklahoma are up in 2023 compared to 2022.
That is playing out nationally as well.
In 2021, foreclosures were rare amid low interest rates and pandemic-era protections for mortgages.
Some economists are anticipating foreclosures to continue its upward trend for the time being - getting closer to pre-pandemic levels.
Thousands of Oklahomans Use 988 Crisis Line
The 988 Mental Health Lifeline reported a high volume of calls in its first year.
The lifeline received nearly 40,000 calls since its launch last July.
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse estimates more than 3,000 calls come to 988 a month.
In the past 30 days alone, more than 4,000 calls have been answered by 988.
About 89% of those calls did not require an in-person response after phone support.
The top reason people call: suicidal thoughts or thoughts of self-harm, followed by coordination of care.
988 is a direct line that connects callers to trained behavioral health professionals, providing free and confidential support.
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