At the Tulsa Regional Chamber Annual Meeting & Inauguration, 2026 Chair Dr. Cliff Robertson announced that one of his objectives was quarterly briefings focused on public safety.

“This will include intentional breakout briefings for large employers throughout Tulsa, hospitality leaders in the region and downtown stakeholders,” he told the audience in January. “These briefings will capture sentiment, incidents and desired outcomes so that we can engage city leadership with a unified, informed and solutions-oriented voice.”

About 30 attended the first of these Community Vitality Briefings on Monday at the Chamber, with a focus on business resilience and workforce well-being in downtown.

Emily Scott, vice president of urban development, interim president and CEO of Downtown Tulsa Partnership, said that in 2025, downtown Tulsa saw an 8% year-over-year decline in employee visits, the first decrease since 2020–2021. The steepest declines from pre-pandemic levels are on Mondays (-36%) and Fridays (-40.7%).

Scott said this particularly impacts restaurants and retail.

“Vacancy then leads to more vacancy and then you get into a cycle and then we get lower tax coffers and and then disinvestment and then it cycles and cycles,” she said. “It’s really just foot traffic and it’s really just people. Five to 10 dollar transactions every day make a huge difference.”

Tyler Parette, executive director of Housing Forward, said Tulsa is “underproducing housing for the size that we are.” Tulsa had 1.75 residential permits issued per 1,000 people in 2024, adding that 2025 will be slightly higher when statistics are released later this year, he said.

“Still not anywhere near we need to be and still room for improvement” Parette said.

One way to counter this is Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) units. Parette noted that there were 177 LIHTC units in 2025, adding that 601 applied in 2026.

Zack Stoycoff, president and CEO of Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, noted that mental health is an education, workforce and quality of life issue for Oklahoma.

“Mental health is the number one people don’t work,” Stoycoff said. “The number one reason people don’t work is disability, and mental health is a top driver of disability. Even for those who do work, we see absenteeism and pre-absenteeism to the tune of almost 200 billion dollars nationwide, and we’re seeing about a month of work per employee is lost for depression.”

The briefing also featured group discussions about how Tulsa can improve in these areas and what the business community’s role is. Suggestions ranged from providing more mental health help to employees to encouraging a return to the five-day office week to decrease work-from-home isolationism.

Jonathan Long, senior vice president of community development for the Chamber, thanked all the event’s participants.

“The Chamber cannot make differences on these complex issues by itself,” he said. “We need all your help. Progress is something we desperately need in all of these areas. You’re not just here as an audience. You’re here as part of the solution.”