OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — Cathy Cummings will run in opposition to incumbent Kevin Calvey for the Oklahoma County District 3 Commissioner seat. The vote can be in November 2023. Calvey’s time period doesn’t finish till January 2, 2023.
The north Oklahoma Metropolis restauranteur believes that Oklahoma County authorities must be run in a method that can deliver again “normalcy” and “cheap choices.”
Calvey has turn into a political lightning rod as a county commissioner, not the standard factor for a place that offers with the usually boring however important enterprise of operating a county resembling sustaining roads and growing budgets.
Why is Cummings operating? “Each facet [of county government] has been an absolute drama fest,” she informed Free Press late Tuesday. “Every part is an influence wrestle. It’s his method or the freeway.”
“And so, I simply wish to deliver again some normalcy and a few cheap choices and run the county the way in which it’s alleged to: for the individuals. That’s what it was meant for,” she stated.
“And you recognize, this job shouldn’t be that troublesome and stuffed with that a lot drama,” Cummings stated. “It must be right down to enterprise, pragmatic options. Let’s run this county the way in which it must be.”
Areas of concern
Roads and bridges are the place Cummings desires to focus first if elected. She stated that only recently she was on County Line Highway that’s the boundary between Oklahoma and Canadian Counties round the place N.W. 164th Avenue intersects.
“It’s horrible,” she stated. “And, you recognize, I’ve to inform you, after I was a single mother – and this was many, a few years in the past – the one factor I couldn’t afford have been repairs to my automobile due to operating into potholes.”
Cummings additionally stated that the state of affairs with the poor situations within the Jail wants clear engagement with the general public. She believes that the general public should be allowed to vote on what to do with the Jail subsequent, whether or not to tear it down and begin over or do intensive repairs.
The Oklahoma County Prison Justice Committee, a type of think-tank for the Jail Belief, is finding out the potential of intensive repairs and additions to the present constructing.
Expertise in metropolis authorities
Cummings cited her time in The Metropolis of The Village City Council as expertise that qualifies her for county commissioner.
She has been a counselor, then Vice-Mayor, and Mayor of The Village. In that function, she says that she has needed to interact the neighboring Metropolis of Oklahoma Metropolis and Oklahoma County authorities in negotiating MOUs and different agreements.
“I believe a very powerful factor is to hearken to what the individuals need, and what they want and try to give it to them,” Cummings stated. “, I believe individuals are struggling proper now, particularly after the pandemic.”
Not the primary
Cummings isn’t the primary to announce a problem to Calvey, although.
Native arts supporter Cacky Poarch originally announced she was operating in opposition to him in 2023. It was simply his second 12 months on the job and got here after Board of County Commissioner conferences and the newly-formed Jail Belief conferences (the place Calvey was a member) turned loud, contentious events due to outrage at what some perceived to be underhanded dealing in county authorities when it got here to points with the Oklahoma County Jail, ICE holds on prisoners and the formation of the Jail Belief.
Since then, Poarch has determined to not run for the place however help Cummings, as a substitute.
Calvey – formidable politician
Some thought that Calvey had gone too far with intrigues and procedural sleight-of-hand to see that his far-right-wing ideology was expressed even in county authorities.
But, he continues to be standard amongst some segments within the county who’ve the identical ideological views, particularly pro-Trump supporters and individuals who consider that their Second Modification rights are at risk.
By the top of 2023, his supporters have been coming to the conferences in numbers rumored to be able to bodily confront the protestors who had been disruptive within the conferences since Could of that 12 months.
However, Sheriff’s deputies and the dialing down of rhetoric on all sides averted any such confrontation on a big scale despite the fact that a couple of conditions got here shut.
A lot of that help comes built-in from his years within the Oklahoma Legislature representing Home District 82 which is situated inside his present county District 3. He served from 1998 to 2004 after which from 2015 to 2019 within the Home of Representatives when he hit the cumulative time period restrict.
Calvey has way over simply two years of constructing help amongst his constituents. The political capital he has constructed campaigning for his Home seat in prior years is part of the political calculus amongst voters in District 3.
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The submit Cathy Cummings to challenge Kevin Calvey for OK County Commissioner appeared first on Oklahoma City Free Press.
