Tulsa is in the process of adding a new sister city.
At a press conference Monday, Mayor G.T. Bynum announced Mwanza, Tanzania has tentatively been chosen to be the ninth city to be added to the program.
"In looking at all of the sister cities that we have," Bynum said, "it stood out to me that we did not have one on the entire continent of Africa."
Mwanza is a port city of Lake Victoria with a population of roughly 1.1 million.
Bynum made the announcement at McCullough Park on 918 Day.
"It’s been 18 years since we established a new sister city," he said.
The nonprofit Tulsa Global Alliance administers the sister cities program and is tentatively planning a trip for Bynum to visit Mwanza sometime next month.
Gilcrease funded
After the McCullough Park press conference, the mayor was asked to respond to the news of the Gilcrease Museum's $20 million funding gap being filled by a match from private donors.
"It’s a great relief," Bynum said.
"I want to thank my colleagues on the city council who put on the ballot the $10 million in matching funds for the Gilcrease Museum and then the citizens of Tulsa who, overwhelmingly, in a landslide, approved that in August,” he said.
The $10 million match from the city was approved by voters as part of the Improve Our Tulsa 3 capital improvement package.
