Karen Keith candidata alcalde de Tulsa Oklahoma 2024 entrevista en español

thank you for coming to I'm so delighted to be here thank you uh we are going to start well I believe that the diversity in our community makes all of us stronger and I recognize and I am so grateful for the workforce from our Hispanic Community because I'm not sure where we would be without um all of this amazing talent and so I'm really grateful for that and I support you know there's a group action Tulsa and they have these IDs that they think would be helpful um when uh somebody who doesn't speak English interacts with say police or you know anybody working from the city to help them and so I'm very supportive of that and I want to see that move forward and I greatly appreciate all the investment in this community and I work a lot on Route 66 uh and I love that we're doing more uh on the Eastern Edge and through your District so so I want to see more of that and Plaza St Celia um I think you know we have these amazing uh small businesses and entrepreneurs and it's going to help everybody in the Immigrant Community uh thrive in these businesses and it matters I mean I am astonished every day at um all the people who are working so hard and building their own businesses and being successful so I really want help support them and the other thing for me um I mean my husband and I we we love we go to Mexico a lot and we absolutely love the culture and so I I want to see you know the celebrations that we love when we are in Mexico I want to see that here so the rest of the community can experience that so um anyway I'll just think I'll be one of your best supporters uh for this side of the community because I love uh this community and what about the non-citizen Hispanics who came here with so I don't I don't think you have to worry I here's what I know the Tulsa County Sheriff Vic regalato you know tells the world yesterday a big story and you know and he's just talking about um that some of these things that have been proposed from the state are are going to be impossible to enforce and then in talking with Chief Larson he says they will not be acting any different than they have in the past and I want to Point these things out cuz I think this is important he said if you're not acting if you are acting legally and not act getting in trouble getting a felony you have nothing to worry about there will not be random stops to check anybody but he says you know if you are undocumented and uh if you are a victim of a crime please report it again they're not going to be checking your status but please make sure that you're getting the protection that you need and um he also says um you know if you're if you're not committing a felony you don't have anything to worry about so remember that but if you get a traffic citation if you get a traffic citation pay it if you need help getting it paid pay it because that's when you could get thrown into that you know have a a closer scrutiny of status okay okay to help new you I think you already know the answer to that absolutely I mean I again I go back to these amazing entrepreneurs that are coming out of this community and they're lifting all of us up in that process so I would absolutely I just I think that they're important to help our whole city Thrive as we you know continue to grow so absolutely so right now we're 130 officers short um so I would like to do everything I can to help them recruit and retain officers and I know they're wanting to recruit more uh uh folks who speak Spanish and I think that is important and they're still they're continuing to work on that so that's important uh I do want to say I've been endorsed by the fop so I will work hand inand with them uh to make sure that our community is safe um I mean and there are things like our neighborhoods we need to make sure that all of our neighborhoods have the proper lighting uh and have enough boots on the ground that if a neighborhood feels threatened that you know that they've got uh police protection in there as quickly as possible so I'll be working hand inand with them I I firmly believe that everybody deserves a safe neighborhood in every district and you know the City of Tulsa uh how do you plan to address the issue with the homeless use of the public spaces yeah so I mean I will work closely with uh our police department and our fire department you know um the firefighters are they're pairing up with a group that's the alternative response team so they're working with Family and Children Services and this team will then go out and interface with our homeless and I think that's the best way to make sure they in the services they need you know it doesn't do a lot of good to just throw them in jail or find them finds that they're you know they're never going to be able to pay but getting them the services that they need and I think we all recognize that there's a lot of mental health issues with many of our homeless and getting them you know the treatment they need and we have a new 106 bed hospital Mental Health Hospital coming out of the ground and doors will be opening in 26 that's going to be a huge help I'm also grateful to Parkside they're working a lot with our juveniles and that's kind of a specialty for them much needed and it's there now so you know that's going to be a big help and we've got of course Family and Children Services they're doing amazing work and uh we've got Grand mental health they've they're also doing work so a lot of uh efforts are going on in this homeless Arena but one of the things that is going to be a top priority for me is fixing our permitting issues at City Hall we have any number of people who are trying to build more affordable housing Habitat for Humanity those groups by the time they get through all of Permitting the homes are no longer affordable because it takes too long costs too much money so we've got to fix that we've got to make sure that our city is a partner to these developers so that's a number one priority and and I will do everything that I can in that space to make sure that that is fixed very quickly um now we are going to talk about the money for your government no plans to raise taxes and that's no plans to raise taxes he said enough the money yes and and I think you know obviously we have to be wise in how we're spending those taxes and make sure that you know that our priorities are addressed in the way those dollars are being spent so I certainly would be looking at that so yes I me I this is what they're authorized for so yes but we got it's just it's very difficult and I know from you know working with our Sheriff's Department it's it's it's you know I think for a lot of our law enforcement um it's just difficult because of some of the language nationally and some of the negativity that's out there so I think it's really harder to recruit um but I think there are ways to you know Tulsa is a great place to live and I think we just when people come here and experience that I think they're going to want to come here and work in all sorts of jobs but I think being u a policeman I think they're going to want to come here when they visit our city and we just have to let them know how wonderful it is and you know and of course I do want to see uh more uh Spanish speaking officers on the ground in in this part of the community as well okay well I'll just a little bit about myself um I do I love Tulsa and I worked with the mayor years ago because our downtown was dead so 20 years ago you know nothing was happening downtown and I I was very interested in it took a group of people to Oklahoma City to to look at what they were doing with their maps program and came back here and the mayor at the time had an opening and I begged him for the job and I got it and I was able to work on what was called Vision 2025 and we built the B Arena and we uh past funds it was a revolving fund so that we can invest in some of these old Office Buildings and turn them into apartments and so now we have this amus I mean we have this amazing vibrant downtown and it's so much fun to go down there uh and a lot of those dollars were dispersed throughout the community so um I I'm really proud of that work um and then after that one of the folks that I worked with who was a county commissioner at the time encouraged me to run for County Commission and then I did and I've been doing that for 16 years and I have worked well across party lines to get federal dollars to help fix our levies and then our state legislature this spring also pitched in on that I've worked in Economic Development uh for you know to get uh an industrial park out of the ground uh in a very challenging census track and it's now thriving you know I've worked on any number of projects I'm really proud of the work I've done these last 16 years and I'm ready to go to work day one I know all of our legislators I know everybody at our Chamber of Commerce I have worked closely with them and uh and I've got my membership with the Hispanic chamber of commerce too so I'm you know I want to you know get engaged here as well because that's what I love to do I don't want to just sit in an office somewhere I want to be engaged and out in the community uh working with everybody so that we together you know if we're working together and we all understand what the challenges are then we can make those changes and so you know as as I work on this I want you working with me that's how we can all be successful so and I'm very excited about it thank you so much oh thank you Nelson inst face Twitter