Back when we first posed the question to you on our Facebook Page about “What questions would you ask Sapulpa’s Mayor?” the first question was not at all shocking:
“Who is Sapulpa’s Mayor?”
It’s a common request. The man isn’t in the news a lot (probably a good thing), and he doesn’t grant interviews very often. So it was with a very special sense of appreciation that I met with him over breakfast last week.
He looked like any of the other patrons to the restaurant that morning. He wasn’t in a suit, he didn’t march with an entourage or have any security detail. He immediately spotted me and walked over with a warm smile and shook my hand and introduced himself.
He seemed exactly the kind of mayor that Sapulpa ought to have: relatable.
Meet your Mayor
Mayor Reg Green was born and raised and graduated from Sapulpa. He left to go to college in Edmond, but eventually returned to the only home he’s always known. He’s been married to his wife Carolyn for 48 years, and they have one son.
Green has actually been a part of our city’s council for the last twenty years, and it happened almost by accident. Back in 1996, he was asked by then-mayor Brian Bingman (who’s now an Oklahoma Senator) to fill a vacant seat in the council.
“When I got there, I realized how much I loved it,” he said. His consistent presence in the city’s government eventually led to him being elected Mayor about five years ago, and he’s since been re-elected to another four-year term.
Despite the honorable stigma that comes with the title of Mayor, it’s not what you’d call a cushy job: the Mayor and all of the City Councilors are unpaid positions. That means that Mayor Green has been serving Sapulpa and her citizens for the last two decades plus essentially out of kindness of his heart and his desire to see Sapulpa do well.
“If I didn’t love this town and love these people, I wouldn’t be doing this job,” he admits. “I’ve read letters to the editor where someone says that city might have more money if the councilors and the mayor were willing to take a pay cut. Well, these are not paid positions.”
[bctt tweet=”‘If I didn’t love this town and love these people, I wouldn’t be doing this job.’ —Sapulpa Mayor Reg Green”]
In fact, there’s a city law that requires a city charter review every ten years. Awhile back, someone brought up that city councilors should be paid for their work. It went through the motions and was brought up for a vote. It didn’t pass.
Green is mostly retired from his job as a Sales Manager, but he still goes in a couple days a week to assist with certain projects where his years of service would come in handy.
In much the same way, his years of service to Sapulpa still come in handy, even if he’s not the one doing a lot of the work.
“It’s about teamwork”
Mayor Green spoke over and again about the new City Manager and the accomplishments she’s made in her short time at post. Joan Riley was hired in April after Sapulpa’s former City Manager, Tom DeArman, tragically died. Understanding of the shoes she was expected to fill, Riley jumped in with both feet, bringing resolution to contracts with the city’s Fire and Police departments, and hiring a new Police Chief, with more success stories on the way.
Hopefully, an interview with Joan Riley is forthcoming.
But back to Mayor Green—he continued to praise the City Manager and other team members who help keep Sapulpa running and looking ahead.
One such example was the shocker that our city’s insurance provider was going to be raising rates by an additional $250,000 for the year 2016. This would affect all of our city’s civil servants and crucial services, such as our police and fire departments. One fact was glaringly obvious. The city itself simply could not support such an increase out of its general funds.
The Mayor then proceeded to tell about how all the department heads and chiefs came together and worked it out amongst themselves through a more creative means, such as working spouses covering the insurance for their counterparts who worked for the city. Through a series of decisions like these, they were able to absorb the financial blow and keep our city’s employees insured.
“It’s really about teamwork,” Mayor Green said. “My goal is to work with the city manager and put forth the accordances put in place by the council.”
Why is Sapulpa not growing?
One of the other questions posted—and we’ve written about it before—is why after 10 or 20 years, Sapulpa remains at a consistent 20,000 population. The answer is a combination of things, but the most obvious, according to the mayor, is residential availability. “There are simply not enough homes available for people to live in,” he says. The lack of continuous housing development is what has driven more families to nearby towns like Kiefer and Sand Springs.
A couple of housing developments off Wickham Road are nearing their end, and the next step will be a few apartment complexes: one on Wickham Road, and one on Teel Road. Both of these are income-qualified complexes that are prime residential possibilities for lower-income families.
There’s one complex though, that isn’t going to income-based, and it’s a brand new, 60-unit building that’s going to be built at the site of the old golf driving range near Walmart. That one is expected to attract the kind of residents that we really need to see Sapulpa grow; the kind that have money to spend.
Why can’t Sapulpa get more chain restaurants?
“I’ve personally always wanted a Chili’s in Sapulpa,” Mayor Green remarked. I had just posited the question that seems to come up every time you ask “What would you like to see in Sapulpa?” The answer is pretty much the same: More restaurants. A coffee shop downtown. More entertainment. Or to put it another way, a reason not to drive to Tulsa.
Green’s lifetime residence in Sapulpa comes into play in a big way here, since he remembers how great it used to be.
“I remember back in 1967, when we had JC Penny’s and Zales and all these great places downtown,” he says.
According to Green, the worst thing to happen to Sapulpa was the Creek Turnpike.
“It cut right through Sapulpa on the east end, and allowed all these folks who used to come right through Sapulpa to completely bypass us.”
It’s a common curse for towns that used to have thriving downtowns, who were upended by the construction of a major highway. Sapulpa is not the only town to suffer from it, but unlike others, we can’t seem to shake it. Why not?
The answer is in surrounding yourself with people who know people.
Sapulpa has hired a consultant to help put us in touch with the key decision-makers to bring more business development to the town we love. It already seems to be paying off.
“The biggest thing that’s ever happened to Sapulpa is happening right now,” Green says.
[bctt tweet=”The biggest thing to happen to Sapulpa is happening right now. —Sapulpa Mayor Reg Green” username=”sapulpatimes”]
Weary of how much he’s allowed to say, he tells me that a certain company is coming to town that is going to bring a lot of money to our city. There are plans underway for them to take over the old Polaris building on Main Street, and they are supposedly looking at purchasing acreage off of Highway 117 to build a shipping and warehouse unit that will provide jobs and income and tax revenue to our city.
The exact answers to these curiosities will have to be played out in the coming months, because he’s not allowed to say much more than that.
Nevertheless, it’s exciting. Both for a writer and a Mayor, and for the citizens who call Sapulpa home.
What’s your long-term vision for Sapulpa?
Sapulpa’s Mayor ties his long-term vision for our town into a single word: growth. “Everything that’s good happens when you grow,” he says. Believing that the key to that growth is more residents and more business and more people who want to be involved, he encourages everyone to keep an eye on what sorts of things are being brought before the council and brought up for a vote.
Though he can’t always take care of the issue personally, he is glad to be the receptacle of much of the public opinion about our city. He gets a lot of phone calls and emails from people. Not all of them are good. “If we can’t send someone to you to help, you can always bring your matter before the city council, and they will get it done.”
Mayor Green runs a consistent theme throughout our conversation that really comes out when you think of it in this way: we are all here, we all have a part to play, and only together can we make what we want to see happen.
