Voters overwhelmingly approve OKC arena ballot measure in preliminary results

Oklahoma City residents headed to the polls Tuesday to decide whether the city will use at least $850 million in taxpayer funds to build a new downtown arena.

According to preliminary totals, the ballot measure passed by about 70%. All vote totals are unofficial until the state election board certifies the results.

The proposed arena would be built at a minimum cost of $900 million, with the majority of funds coming from a 6-year penny sales tax that would start in 2028. The Oklahoma City Thunder also would contribute $50 million, and the city would use at least $70 million in MAPS 4 funds.

OKC arena vote election results

All vote totals are unofficial until the state election board certifies the results.

City councilperson: arena proposals's community benefits package valuable

Ward 2 Councilperson James Cooper, who was among the city council majority that supported the arena proposal, also spearheaded work on an additional proposal for a community benefits agreement in September. He told The Oklahoman he had considered the concerns of many who were critical of the arena proposal, but also said he wanted to remind residents how a community package could also be a beneficial type of “harm reduction.”

“When I hear people say ‘no’ to the arena, I absolutely understand that, but I also see the potential to use this as a unifying force that we can rally our families and our students around,” Cooper said Tuesday evening. “This arena is yours, and you can help us build it, and you can help us, five years from now, be the ones who we connected to … apprenticeships and other resources.”

Modeled after a similar and historic agreement from the Milwaukee Bucks for use of Wisconsin’s Fiserv Forum arena, Oklahoma City’s community benefits package is expected to include provisions for a workforce intermediary and an apprenticeship program to tackle unemployment; a commitment to paying a “living wage” of $15 an hour; and a working group to study best practices for a labor peace agreement.

Cooper is also working to ensure various community organizations are represented as partners in the workforce intermediary, including Sisu, a youth social services agency, and Positive Tomorrows, a private school serving children experiencing homelessness.

Positive Tomorrows CEO Margaret Creighton encouraged residents to vote in favor of the arena proposal Tuesday, saying the Thunder had donated numerous times through philanthropy and events to support the school’s children and that the team’s international recognition had increased support from across the globe.

She also supports Cooper’s community benefits agreement, telling The Oklahoman that a living wage provision could help families afford housing and avoid homelessness.

“I’m grateful that there would be more opportunities for our families to have access to jobs that would allow them to be able to support their families,” Creighton said. “If you’re looking at people that you see as currently being homeless, the biggest misconception, in my opinion, is that they’re not working, that they’re not trying. For so many of our families, we’ve got multiple people working minimum wage jobs and it’s just not enough to make ends meet.”

Buy Your Own Arena campaign reacts to loss

Spokespeople for Buy Your Own Arena, the campaign opposing the arena proposal, said they were disappointed with Tuesday’s results, but reiterated what they described as the financial burden of the arena build to local taxpayers at the expense of other city projects.

“Mayor Holt negotiated a terrible deal, and the Chamber and their allies ran a fear-based inferiority campaign about OKC — and it worked,” said Nick Singer, spokesman for Oklahoma Progress Now, the progressive advocacy group that ran the opposition campaign. “They scared voters, and voters supported a bad deal, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad deal. It’s a 95/5 deal, and that doesn’t change just because you claim it has all of these positives, but the mayor was willing to go along with it.”

Singer told The Oklahoman the Buy Your Own Arena campaign spent less than $10,000. In contrast, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, which funded the pro-arena campaign, previously shared documents showing television advertising expenditures of at least $478,000 since November.

With a potential MAPS 5 now likely delayed until well into the 2030s, Singer reiterated oft-heard criticisms from other opponents of the proposition that the penny sales tax approved to fund the arena construction could be better used to address critical city needs.

“People will wonder why the streets don’t get fixed or we don’t make more progress in taking care of the homeless. It’s because of this bad deal,” Singer said. “We live in the time of the greatest income and wealth inequality in 100 years, so the last thing we need to do is to give more money to people who don’t need it.”

-Jessie Christopher Smith

Keep OKC Big League campaign reacts to win

Tyler Moore, campaign manager for Keep OKC Big League, said Tuesday’s landslide did not represent an “either/or” ultimatum regarding the city’s ongoing projects to tackle homelessness and mental health.

“Without a ‘big league’ city, we’re less able to fix our roads, we’re less able to serve the underprivileged, we’re less able to improve our education in Oklahoma,” Moore said. “If we want to have a ‘big league’ city, we’ve got to make the investments into ourselves, and I think that’s what voters decided to do tonight, and I couldn’t feel more excited about the future of Oklahoma City.”

Moore expressed gratitude for the coalition of supporters that made up the campaign, which included various groups that traditionally had not been involved in elections.

“It was the turnout that I didn’t quite anticipate,” Moore said. “We were very pleased. It really just demonstrated that people just took the message to heart, and I thought it was a good demonstration of the nonpartisan nature of this campaign. Even at a time when we are so heavily polarized nowadays, people from every different political persuasion came out and chose Oklahoma City.”

-Jessie Christopher Smith

OKC Thunder chairman Clay Bennett 'grateful' of voters' confidence in city

As it became clear the arena proposal would pass, OKC Thunder owner Clay Bennett released a statement.

“We are deeply grateful for the confidence and pride our citizens have expressed in the future of our city. We also appreciate Mayor David Holt for his leadership and relentless passion to elevate Oklahoma City at all levels," the statement read.

More: What Thunder chairman Clay Bennett, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said about OKC arena vote

-Cheyenne Derksen

OKC Mayor gives victory speech at pro-arena watch party

With the "yes" votes winning by a wide margin with 80% of precincts reporting, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt took the stage at the Keep OKC Big League watch party to give a victory speech.

“Tonight, we told the nation, we told the world, that Oklahoma City is and shall remain a Big League City,” Holt said.

-Cheyenne Derksen

OKC Mayor David Holt tweets cheering Thunder reaction

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt tweeted at 8:04 p.m. a photo of OKC Thunder players cheering. Though he didn't include a caption on the tweet, the celebratory intention was clear.

-Cheyenne Derksen

Voters react as results trickle in

By 8:05 p.m. Tuesday, with at least 118 of 278 precincts reporting, at least 19,562 residents had voted in favor of the proposal, with at least 8,201 voting against it.

People took to social media with mixed reactions to the preliminary numbers as results continued to be tallied.

-Jessie Christopher Smith

Campaign organizers comment ahead of polls closing Tuesday evening

Tyler Moore, campaign manager for Keep OKC Big League, joined volunteers Tuesday afternoon to wave signs on street corners, encouraging drivers-by to go to the polls. He said staffers were encouraged by early vote and absentee numbers.

“We don’t want to put all of our stock in that, obviously, but I feel like today is going to be a high turnout,” Moore told The Oklahoman.

Nick Singer, an organizer for the Buy Your Own Arena Campaign and spokesman for Oklahoma Progress Now, was hopeful Tuesday afternoon that the proposition would still fail. But he acknowledged that the oppositional campaign was “being outspent 200 to 1” by the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, which had funded the Keep OKC Big League campaign.

“There’s really no winners if (the proposition) passes,” Singer said. “We’ll be on the hook for $1 billion and I think a lot of people are going to be shocked and disappointed by how this deal turns out. Everyone can suspend their imaginations all they want, but this was an objectively bad deal.”

Meanwhile, workers at a local church acting as a polling location in south Oklahoma City told The Oklahoman the turnout they had seen Tuesday had been “better than they were thinking it would be,” but that the steady flow of voters in and out of the church would probably be “nothing record-breaking.”

-Jessie Christopher Smith

OKC Mayor David Holt makes last-minute push for arena on election day, responds to naysayers

The day before the vote, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt made a last-minute social media call for residents to vote for the proposed NBA arena.

Holt tweeted two photos on X (formerly Twitter) at 1 p.m. Monday summarizing his reasoning for why Oklahoma City should vote to use at least $850 million in taxpayer funds to build a new downtown arena.

In the tweet, Holt wrote that Oklahoma City is one of a few cities that have an NBA team and is not a top 40 market, so he considers OKC as having an underdog story. He encouraged voters to feel "the responsibility to retain $590 million a year in economic impact and 3,000 jobs" as well as the aspiration to keep the Thunder past 2050.

As naysayers responded with their reasons why they would be voting "no," Holt responded to their tweets with counterarguments.

- Cheyenne Derksen

Photos: OKC votes on building new Thunder arena

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma City voting results: Voters overwhelmingly approve arena proposal