Oklahoma City Mayor is Public Official of the Year

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has been named Public Official of the Year.

Tuesday, October 26th 2010, 5:37 pm

By: News 9


News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett has been named Public Official of the Year.

Governing Magazine announced Tuesday Mayor Cornett won the honor. The publisher of the magazine will officially bestow the title on the mayor Wednesday during a ceremony on the east steps of City Hall. Mayor Cornett also appeared on the cover of the November issue of the magazine.

The mayor said the magazine is like the Rolling Stone for public officials and it's an honor to be recognized.

Mayor Cornett gained the magazine's attention and the prestigious honor of Public Official of the Year through his crusade to put the city on a diet. Here's an excerpt from the article:

In 2006, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett stepped on a scale and came to a realization: "I was obese." Cornett's epiphany wasn't just personal. Oklahoma City had begun appearing on multiple lists of the country's fattest cities, and the mayor decided it was time to do something about it. His idea? Put the city on a diet. (To drive the point home, Cornett held a press conference standing in front of elephants at the city zoo.) The results of the weight-loss initiative are impressive -- 43,000 participants already have lost a combined 600,000 pounds and counting. Cornett himself has shed 40 pounds, down to 180. The mayor's crusade against obesity became the cornerstone of a whole new vision for the city's future. "We had an automobile-centric culture, a drive-through restaurant mentality," he says. We hadn't built a pedestrian-friendly community."

Governing Magazine is a national publication for state and local governments.  Previous winners of Public Official of the Year have included the mayors of Houston, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Denver and Atlanta.

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