TULSA — After three years on the city council, District 9 Councilor Jayme Fowler says he’s ready to take on his next challenge.

This week, he officially announced his candidacy to become the next mayor of Tulsa.

[Hear the KRMG In-Depth Report on Councilor Fowler’s candidacy for mayor HERE]

Fowler tells KRMG he grew up in Tulsa, the son of two teachers in the Tulsa Public School District.

He believes in the vital necessity of a quality educational system, and says he didn’t find recent interventions into the Tulsa district’s operations by State Superintendent Ryan Walters constructive.

“The way that that was handled as far as the dialogue between, you know, Dr. Gist and Mr. Walters was not a good showing for our city,” he told KRMG Thursday. “And uh, we can do better.”

Fowler says he believes Tulsa is at what he called “an inflection point,” poised for a bright future of growth and development.

He acknowledged that there are challenges ahead, and referred specifically to the difficulties involved in repairing and rebuilding north Tulsa, much of which still lies fallow decades after the infamous massacre of 1921.

One idea he has is to create a tunnel underneath I-244, which effectively cut the once vital Greenwood District off from the rest of downtown.

“That’s our Berlin Wall, quite frankly, and I think that wall needs to come down,” he said. “We need to put a tunnel, and open north Tulsa up back to the rest of the city, and make that a nice gateway to north Tulsa.”

More broadly, he wants to incentivize people to move into the area.

“Have a TIF district in north Tulsa where the property taxes are lowered for a long period of time, to incentivize,” he told KRMG. “And then not only that, open up a tranche say at Washington High School to let neighborhood kids go to school there, and incentivize people to move there because people want to live and go to vibrant neighborhood schools. They don’t want to be bused across town.”

Two other candidates have officially opened mayoral campaigns in Tulsa thus far, County Commissioner Karen Keith and State Representative Monroe Nichols.

Attorney Ron Durbin has also announced he will run for mayor.

The election is scheduled for August 27, 2024, with a run-off on November 5, 2024 if necessary.

KRMG will continue our In-Depth coverage with those candidates moving forward, beginning next week with Rep. Nichols.