MUSKOGEE, Okla. — City Councilor Patrick Cale easily won the mayor's seat Feb. 13 in a special election.
Mayor-Elect Cale will be sworn into office in April but told 2 News he's already drawn up plans for accommodating the major economic development coming to the city's industrial park, including a lithium battery facility and a Polaris data center, which will bring jobs and families.
"We're bringing in all this other new industry. We gotta have fire equipment ready to put these things out if something bad happens," the mayor-elect said Wednesday.
"Economic things that happen are going to be all positive. Growth here, growth there. The restaurants, feeding more people. It's the perfect timing (for new infrastructure projects)."
Cale easily defeated the long-shot candidate Wayne Divelbiss on Tuesday with 70 percent of the vote to 30 percent.
He also had the backing of current Mayor Marlon Coleman and four former mayors.
Cale believes new facilities for the police and fire departments are needed as well as a remodeling for the MLK Center and city street expansion.
All this, he said, has to be done with bond elections - something the city hasn't had in 50 years.
"I have no idea, but the council back then did not seem to think they needed to renew the bond," he said.
"We can't keep the same old stuff day after day and expect to compete in the modern world," former mayor Janey Cagle Boydston told 2 News.
Cagle Boydston said if there's anyone to expand city improvements, it's Cale.
"I hope that the citizens will get behind him and do the things that he's talking about," she said.
Cale said he has the backing of city councilors and employees but will first need to hear from residents in town halls, as any future projects would likely raise sales taxes.
"I've got confidence (residents will) want Muskogee to have a future. They'll want their kids to have a future," Cale said.
The mayor-elect added an initial bond election would likely involve a maximum of $74 million in funding and would be placed on a special election ballot in either late summer or early fall of this year.
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