running for mayor essay

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Why I’m running for mayor

Forrest Dunbar, right, talks with other Anchorage Assembly members on Tuesday, October 4, 2016. (Marc Lester / ADN archive)

On Oct. 7, in a video shot down on the beach by the Coastal Trail, I announced I was running for Mayor of Anchorage.

In the video, I acknowledged that I am probably not the kind of mayoral candidate you might be used to: I’m a millennial. I was raised in rural Alaska. I’m not from a wealthy or powerful family. But I have a vision for Anchorage, and I hope it is a vision that we share.

A question I’ve been asked a lot since announcing my candidacy is whether I am running against Mayor Ethan Berkowitz. To be clear, I am not running against Mayor Berkowitz, who will reach his term limit in 2021. Indeed, during my years as an Anchorage Assembly member, including my time as chair and vice chair of the Assembly, I have worked closely with his administration. We have had our share of disagreements, but on many of our largest policy choices — rebuilding the Anchorage Police Department, making the city more financially self-sufficient, changing regulations to encourage affordable housing — we have been aligned. I was chair of the Assembly when we purchased the new police headquarters downtown, when we passed the Accessory Dwelling Unit revision, and when we finalized the ordinance that sent the Municipal Light and Power sale to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

So why am I running for mayor? I’m running because I believe in the future of Anchorage, and in our community’s potential as an exciting, safe, forward-looking city — a beacon of economic strength and quality of life in a state where the outlook remains tough. Anchorage should be a place where Alaskans of all ages want to live, study, work, raise a family and retire. We should also be a city that takes a leadership role in Alaska, because the future of Anchorage and of our state are undeniably intertwined.

Anchorage has come a long way in the past four years, but there is still much more work to be done. From revitalizing our downtown, to making real progress for people experiencing homelessness, to moving forward in a responsible way on repairs to the Port of Alaska, Anchorage is poised to take that next step. We have seen cities around the country recapture a sense of vibrancy and livability, and Anchorage has advantages few others can boast of, including a world-class parks and trails system, a deep indigenous history, and a diverse, rising generation of Alaskans ready to contribute.

Many specific policy proposals will be developed in the 18 months leading up to this election — and indeed, some of my and my team’s ideas might actually become a reality in that time. But here are a few to kick us off:

1. With the cooperation of the business community, we should turn portions of Fourth Avenue and E Street into pedestrian promenades. Other cities have done this with great success, and studies have shown that boosting foot traffic in this way increases safety and commerce, particularly in the evening.

2. We need to take advantage of the $40 million investment toward homeless services promised by our private partners over the next five years, and make our own commitments to substance abuse treatment, behavioral health, housing and other initiatives — such as early childhood care and education — that get to the core of this and other problems. Those private funds must not be seen as a replacement for state or municipal support, but rather as a complement to what we can do. We have a unique window of opportunity; we must not let it pass us by.

3. We should work to strengthen the city’s sense of indigenous place, in part through acknowledging original Alaska Native place names. We should improve signage, and continue to build better relations with the Eklutna Dena’ina and other tribal entities. Aside from being the right thing to do, this approach is also the economically smart thing to do; surveys have shown that the No. 1 desire from tourists in Anchorage is greater immersion in Alaska’s rich Native cultures.

Finally, it’s important that Anchorage avoid some of the chaos and division we have seen in Juneau and Washington, D.C. Through a combination of good people, structural advantages and institutional investment, the Anchorage Assembly remains a comparatively well-functioning body. We generally maintain a sense of cooperation, avoid grandstanding and strive to uphold the public interest. Our municipal government delivers basic public services such as snow removal, police protection and emergency medical services, and that will always be my primary goal.

I have enjoyed dedicating myself to municipal policy for the past three-and-a-half years, and this campaign is a continuation of that work. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to serve alongside incredibly diligent, thoughtful pubic servants in the Assembly Department, both my fellow elected officials and the tremendous staff. I do not have to give up my seat to run, and I look forward to continuing our good work on the Assembly over the next year-and-a-half.

There’s no denying that we have been through some difficult times in recent years, but Anchorage is a resilient city. I am confident that our best days are still ahead, and I am asking for your support for mayor so that we can work toward a brighter future together.

Forrest Dunbar is a member of the Anchorage Assembly and a former Democratic candidate for U.S. House.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com . Send submissions shorter than 200 words to [email protected] or click here to submit via any web browser . Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here .

Forrest Dunbar

So You Want To Run For Mayor? Here’s How To Get Started

Most people associate a mayoral position with a large city. However, the position of mayor as the head of a municipality extends to small towns and villages.

The majority of mayors and the city council, village, or town council are directly elected by the voters. This means you’ll need to run a more traditional political campaign.

Let’s start with the basics.

What type of government does your city / town / village fall under?

Why do you want to become mayor?

Check your eligibility to be on the ballot

Can you keep your existing elected position, how much money will you need raise for your mayoral race, increase your local popularity, build your endorsements, expand your social network, attend events and government meetings, create a campaign committee, file your documents.

If you want to run for mayor, there are a number of factors that you need to take into consideration. You should be aware of the eligibility requirements, the most pressing issues that are affecting the city, and how to go about raising funds for your campaign. Also essential will be identifying an effective campaign team to help plan and execute a successful campaign strategy.

Your local government will not only determine the eligibility requirements, but also the duties and responsibilities of mayor.

Did you know there are two types of mayors ? They can ‘weak’ or ‘strong’.

A “ Strong Mayor ” is elected directly by voters. Under this form of local government, the mayor serves as Chief Executive to administer government duties. These duties include the power to: propose annual budgets; draft and implement administrative rules; and appoint and remove department leadership.

These types of mayors typically serve in a “mayor-council” system of government. This consists of an executive branch (Mayor) and legislative branch (City Council). Some mayors have veto power over council legislation, while others do not.

A “ Weak Mayor ” may also be referred to as “council-manager”. Under this type of government, the elected council ( often a “City Commission” or “Board of Aldermen”) makes policy and sets the local budget. The mayor is a full voting member but has little or no executive power. In these cases, the mayor is simply appointed by the council, or it is a ceremonial role that may be rotated between council members.

To administer city policies and programs, a professional City Manager who is responsible for managing city employees and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the government.

“When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.” – Lyndon B. Johnson

Either way, becoming elected is not easy. You must adhere to the requirements of a candidate and abide by state and local campaign laws and regulations.

These regulations include:

How you can run for office.
How and when you can raise money.
How campaign contributions can be spent.
Messaging requirements
Everything in between.

Finally, becoming elected mayor requires convincing the majority of residents to vote for you.

This process can be overwhelming if this is your first election, but you will find the process easier by starting with the basics.

Why do you want to run for mayor?

Before you start a campaign for mayor, you should have clear goals in mind. What are some of the challenges facing the residents in your town or city? What policies would you enact to help them deal with those issues? What makes you a better choice than your political opponents?

The National League of Cities releases an annual State of the Cities report . In it, the NLC examined 100 State of the City speeches from large and small cities across the United States.

According to the report, these are the top issues that matter to cities:

Economic Development
Public Safety
Infrastructure
Energy/Environment
Demographics, Diversity, and Inclusiveness
Technology and Data
Health Care

There is a good chance that one or more of these issues can become the basis of your candidacy. Learn the local issues and how they effect taxpayers and residents. Find out what solutions are being proposed and think about your stand on those positions.

Did you know? There are aver 1,400 mayors responsible for representing cities with populations over 30,000 across the United States.

Your objectives will affect the messaging and theme of your campaign. You will need to understand both the issues, your districts, and your voters to develop a campaign platform . Analyze the attitude of the locals towards the current elected officials.

Analyze the demographics of the area, including the number of voters, age ranges, household income and more. What are the dominant constituent groups in the city? What are their needs and demands?

Research previous campaigns. How did those candidates conduct their campaigns? What issues did they run on? What success have they achieved?

With this information, you can start to design a robust campaign strategy.

The eligibility for a mayor position varies based on the town you intend to run. Before you begin your campaign, you should be familiar with the eligibility requirements.

Below are some of the common requirements for mayoral candidates:

Age requirements

Generally, to become mayor of a large US city, a person needs to be at least 18 years of age . Other places have their own specific age requirements. For example, Hialeah, FL requires a candidate to be at least 19 years old, be a registered voter and a local resident for at least one year.

You must be at least 21 to run for mayor in Louisville (KY), Aurora (CO) and Oklahoma City. Cities like Colorado Springs, Washington, Glendale and Kansas City requires you to be 25 years. Denver (CO), Nashville (TN) and Memphis (TN) requires candidates to be at least 30 years of age.

A few cities don’t have a minimum age at all. They include Baton Rouge, LA, Pittsburgh PA; Minneapolis MN; and Jersey City, NJ.

Educational requirements

Most cities require you to have at least a high school diploma to be mayor, while others need a bachelor’s degree.

Residency requirements

Most cities require that candidates should be residents of the city or town for at least one year before they apply for the position. Also, if the candidate wins the election, he/she should live in the city until the end of their tenure as mayor.

If you don’t think you qualify to be mayor, perhaps running for city council would be a better move. That could give you additional experience an connections.

Where to get help on starting your campaign

Your county elections board or city clerk can provide the requirements and rules for your election before you run.

As with anything else government related, paperwork is everything. You will need to get and fill out all the relevant registration forms and documentation. You must provide details such as your name, age, education experience, residence, and your financial interests.

You will have deadlines for submitting the documents. Some documents may have filing fees.

Know your deadlines. Don’t miss them.

Some cities require the candidates to resign from their existing elected position while serving as mayor . This is called “resign to law”. Five states currently have resign-to-run laws—Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, and Texas. If you fall under this law, you will need to leave your current job before you can run for another office.

“What matters is voting for where you live: Who’s your mayor, who’s your police chief, who represents you, your city council, your judges. That matters that you vote.” – Joe Walsh

Election costs vary from location to location and from position to position. A village mayor candidate may hardly need to raise money at all and do little more than door-to-door canvassing.

However, a large city campaign will require considerably more resources and networks to establish itself.

Before you plan for fundraising, you should calculate the amount needed for your election. Election costs are higher than ever before. The amount varies based on the size of the city and competitiveness of the seat. The state board elections have financial campaign disclosures, but it’s also wise to check the FEC records for estimations if you live in a large city.
Many factors can affect the costs of a campaign. For example, if you are running against an entrenched incumbent, then you will likely need a bigger budget. Research the amount raised and spent from other mayoral candidates from the last few campaigns. Figure that you will need to raise and spend within that range.

After you evaluate the past elections, you will identify the spending trends that will help you develop a practical budget for your own campaign.

Early donors who believe in your cause will be some of your most important backers. Online fundraising is one of the most effective ways to find money when starting out. You should have a mayor campaign website as early as you can to accept donations from online donors.

To start fundraising, you won’t need much. Once you have a bank account and website, you’ll need a payment processor for your online transactions. A good online donation page contains the logo and colors of your campaign. A short introductory candidate video is also a good addition.

Related: Start your mayor campaign website – affordable package pricing and resources.

Good messaging bonds you with voters. But to really build a following, don’t underestimate the power of raw popularity.

Many voters will vote for a popular individual for any political seat. We often see this in governor elections, where celebrities with no political experience sweep into office.

So, how do you increase your popularity?

It can be tough, especially if you are not extremely outgoing.

Familiarize yourself with what is happening locally through community events, charity events and more.
Engage yourself in development initiatives and become a regular visitor at council meetings. It is there that you can display leadership in the issues that are important to you. Others who attend those functions will get more acquainted with you and identify you as a potential leader.
Try to meet with community influencers and other essential people outside of scheduled government meetings.
If you get the support of elected officials and community leaders, that will eventually give you the connections and endorsements needed to boost your candidacy.

Make sure you start your outreach process before you declare your intention to run for any political seat. Once it’s known that you are vying for an elected position, many will treat you differently.

Later, once you get your campaign off the ground, you can erect billboards, door signs and brochures to make yourself more visible to the public. Door to door canvassing across different neighborhoods will also enable you to establish a deeper connection with the voters and get better support. Online campaigning will help you reach new voters and keep in contact with existing supporters.

“Mayors are leaders, doers. We get things done, and we are moving America’s cities forward.” – Michael Nutter

Getting endorsed by politicians, political parties and other authorities can help establish trust with a good segment of the electorate. Organizations don’t seek candidates to endorse, so you should be proactive when looking for endorsements . This is especially important for first-timers.

Most organizations require candidates to follow a certain process to secure their endorsement. Typically, you will need to fill a questionnaire and outline your policies that will bring that will benefit the organization or their objectives. And if you need endorsements from individuals, then a letter with a similar outline will be beneficial.

Some ways to raise awareness in your region are to have local, well-known citizens write letters in the local newspapers or ask for endorsements from editorial boards.

It helps to be endorsed from other politicians, political parties, influential locals, local unions and community leaders. These are essential to your campaign as they raise your profile while making you more visible to the voting public.

Good endorsements can also boost your fundraising and volunteer organizational abilities.

As a politician, you need to be active on social media. If you are not talking about yourself and managing your own online conversation, then others will speak for you.

And that will probably be your opponents!

Learn how social media works yourself. Eventually, your campaign team will help put together a social media strategy . Work on promoting good messaging and content. While you may do most of this yourself before you announce your candidacy, eventually you may want to have a social media manager handle this aspect of the campaign.

Running for office? Get free tips for starting and running our digital campaign. Sign up here .

As an aspiring politician, it is crucial to participate in events and government meetings. They offer a platform to air your views on local issues and get recognized as a leader with genuine concerns for the people.

As noted above, being present in public meetings you will provide opportunities for meeting local representatives and developing a network that will be vital before and after your campaign.

Building contacts now will be essential to your political career.

Meet community members

Every day, you should have a goal of meeting at least one influential people in the community. These are individuals who understand the local community. They can help with your messaging and especially in convincing voters in their districts.

Relationships are the ingredients to success in almost every industry and profession. A larger network means a higher potential for success. Therefore, you should dedicate time for networking activity.

Before you run, you will need to establish a campaign committee , designate a campaign treasurer , and have a campaign bank account .

These requirements are typical for every political campaign. A treasurer must be appointed before the making of expenditures or accepting of any funds towards the campaign. A candidate can act as their own committee treasurer though this is not recommended.

The treasurer is responsible for:

Signing and filing of committee reports and statements
Budgeting for expenditures
Ensuring the campaign contributions fall within legal limits
Authorization of expenditures

This position is sensitive and comes with significant responsibilities, and so you must have a trusted individual for the job. The treasurer should develop a campaign budget that includes sources of money and expenditures for the entire campaign period.

Other important members of your campaign team are:

Chairperson
Communications director
Campaign manager

Most cities require you to establish a committee before you declare candidacy . Once established, your team will also help in day to day running of the campaign.

Many cities require mayor candidates to get a certain number of signatures for an election petition for them to qualify to run for the seat. So, you will need to collect signatures if you want to be on the ballot.

The exact number of signatures will vary based on the size of the town or city and the number of residents. These forms are available at your local clerk’s office and specifies the number of signatures needed and the deadline of collection. If you are running for mayor in a large city, then you may need a team of canvassers and volunteers who will help you to get the signatures.

Once your petition has collected the required number of signatures, the next task is the candidate’s affidavit and fulfilling any other election requirements.

If all goes well, you will be on the ballot!

And that’s just the start of your election season. As you ramp up your campaign, building an excited base is important. You will need those people to show up on Election Day.

“Winning the election is a good-news, bad-news kind of thing. Okay, now you’re the mayor. The bad news is, now you’re the mayor.” – Clint Eastwood

Turnout is crucial in mayoral elections , as in 15 of the 30 most populous cities in the U.S., voter turnout is less than 20 percent .

Now that you have an idea of how to become a mayor, now is the time to get started!

Featuring an affordable political website builder , tools and marketing services, start your campaign with Online Candidate.

Related: Start a Campaign to Run for City Council

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Why Do You Want To Be Mayor

by Michael Leppert | Jul 31, 2014 | Politics/Government

Over the years, I have had a few friends ask me this exact question: “do you think I should run for mayor?” Each time I have felt compelled to answer the same way. It goes something like this:

“I think you would be a good candidate, but you might mess around and win, and then you would have to actually BE the mayor.”

The point of my answer is that there is a distinct difference between campaigning and governing. In the political world, winning a mayoral election can be a logical step in an individual’s rise to higher office. There is no question that attending ribbon cuttings, marshaling parades and dangerously waving the green flag at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway brings public exposure that is politically priceless. But you are also responsible for trash collection, pollution, pot holes and occasionally my favorite, the weather. It is work. Thankless, miserable, hard work.

Now, there are tough parts of every job or it wouldn’t be called that. However, it is my view that no elected position is tougher in America than that of mayor (except President). With that said, the first campaign hurdle in any mayor’s race has to be convincing the public that a candidate unquestionably wants to be mayor. That sounds too basic to really matter that much, but I contend that it has been the difference maker in every Indianapolis race since the town became more politically balanced during the Goldsmith years. It may have been the difference before, but I am far too young and spry to personally recall.

If we look at a political campaign like a drawn out, expensive job interview, and the 3 or 4 candidates for mayor are being interviewed by the 850,000 people that live in Indy, wouldn’t one of the first and most prominent questions asked be “why do you want to be mayor?” My advice would be to limit answers to 60 seconds or less, but it would still be the most important answer to any question asked. The only truly deserving candidate must show that he or she wants it the most and for the best reasons.

All of the people that are running (and apparently considering running) for Mayor of Indianapolis are capable of serving as mayor. More people are capable of adequately performing the duties than the average guy on the street might think. But in our job search in Indianapolis, we are looking for more than “capable” and “adequate” now. We want, need and deserve the person that will lead us through our crime problem and our infrastructure challenges. We want a mayor that will recognize all of the things that make our city uniquely great, and inspire us to make it more unique and more great. Oh, and to the lucky winner of our job search, you only get a four year window to live up to your answer or you are fired.

Now, say again, why do you want to be mayor? We are all ears.

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How to Run for Mayor (A Campaign Guide)

Run for Office

Running for Mayor is a great way to get involved in your local government and improve your community, or as a first step into building a career in politics if you’re passionate about change.

There’s a lot that goes into a Mayoral campaign and navigating the bureaucracy can be daunting.

If you want to learn how to run for Mayor of your town or city, this guide should hopefully make your life a little easier.

Before we get into it, every Mayoral campaign needs fundraising, so check out how Campaign Deputy can get you started, today!

How To Run For Mayor Of Your Town Or City

We’re going to look at the 3 most important aspects of running for Mayor:

How is the Mayor elected
Requirements to run for Mayor
Steps to help you win the Mayoral election

Every town or city has slightly different processes to run for office, so the first thing you should do is research your local city government.

The best places to do this are on your city or state’s websites, your state’s election board website, or your Secretary of State’s website.

Here’s a great directory with links to all local government websites and resources.

These websites are going to be your best initial sources of information, but you should also try to network with elected officials already in local politics for advice on understanding the intricacies of running for local office.

Checking in with your local Democratic Party is a great first step to gaining resources an networking!

1. How The Mayor Is Elected And Who Appoints Them

Like the President, Mayors are elected into office by the people who live in the area and are legally allowed to vote in local government elections.

There are two types of Mayor-council systems :

Weak-Mayor Government : The Mayor has no formal authority outside the council. They are more of a figurehead position with no real powers to appoint staff or veto council votes.
Strong-Mayor Government : The Mayor has almost complete administration authority. They have the power to appoint staff, prepare and administer the city budget, has veto power over council votes, and has a lot of political independence.

The type of Mayoral system you participate in will depend on the local office you’re looking to run for. The best type of government for a city depends on the city’s size, population, and needs.

What Does A Mayor Do?

The local Mayor-Council system dictates the duties responsibilities of the Mayor .

In general, Mayors may be responsible for:

Serving on the city council
Voting in council meetings
Appointing council members and citizens to advisory boards or commissions
Receiving, preparing, and reporting on the annual budgets

Here you can research a more in-depth review of Mayoral duties and responsibilities specific to your state.

2. Requirements To Run For Mayor

Each town or city will have its own unique requirements to run for Mayor.

However, most towns and cities will have a version of the following criteria:

Age restriction – You must be at least 18 years or older to run for Mayor in most local government elections. However, this can vary widely from 30+ years to no requirement at all.
Residential status – You might be required to be living in the area for a certain amount of time before running for Mayor, usually a year or more.
Voting status – Some cities might require you to be a registered voter before you can run for office.

Fortunately, the requirements to run for Mayor in most cases aren’t excessive.

Be sure to check your local government’s election code for requirements before you start your campaign.

How Much Does It Cost To Run For Mayor?

Costs to run for Mayor will largely vary depending on the size and average income of the community you’re campaigning in.

For example, campaigning in New York City will cost you significantly more than running in a small rural town.

Typical fundraising for Mayoral races varies widely. In Lexington, KY, candidates average less than $100,000, whereas in some megacities it can be as high as $100 million or more . Check finance disclosures for your local race to see what the typical fundraising is each year.

Additionally, be sure to brush up on electoral fundraising laws to avoid legal issues by understanding exactly how and when campaign funds can be spent.

3. Steps To Help You Win The Mayoral Election

Before you can start your campaign for Mayor, there’s a list of important details you’ll need to address.

From fundraising to recruiting staffers, there’s a lot you’ll need to oversee while setting up your political campaign.

Here are 5 important steps you’ll need to take to succeed in your Mayoral campaign:

1. Filing for Candidacy

Before you start your campaign, you’ll need to let your council know that you intend to run for Mayor.

You do this by completing specific forms and providing the necessary documentation provided by your local government office.

As with everything, the documentation and forms involved differ from city to city – so be sure to research this for your specific local election.

2. Fundraising Campaign

Unless you’re wealthy and plan to fund your own Mayoral campaign, then you’ll need to get used to the idea of fundraising.

The more money your raise, the more you can publicly promote your campaign to interest voters.

You can also recruit more staff to help you scale your campaign for greater exposure, and along with that – more votes!

There are a number of ways to raise money, such as holding fundraising events, soliciting donations from individuals and businesses, and even applying for grants.

Effective fundraising strategies are often what set winners apart from losers in political campaigns.

3. Campaign and Personal Branding

One way to establish yourself in local elections is with unique branding.

Gaining public awareness is key, and being memorable is as important as the policies you’re championing.

A great way to do this is through active community volunteering, which can boost fundraising efforts be increasing your name recognition.

Your success depends on people remembering your name just as much as your campaign branding like your logo, slogans, policies, and any touchpoint you have with them.

By maintaining brand consistency and using confidence-building messaging, you can effectively connect with the voting public and win their favor.

4. Campaign Staff

No political campaign is complete without campaign staff.

These people support your campaign by organizing public events, managing campaign finances, canvassing and data entry, and pretty much any support you need to succeed.

This team should primarily include people with skills in fundraising, marketing, and organizing.

In most cases, to run an effective Mayoral campaign, you’ll need to fill a minimum of 4-7 roles:

Campaign Manager : The campaign manager is responsible for the overall planning and execution of the campaign. They will work with you to develop a campaign strategy, hire and mange staff, raise money, and get your message out to voters.
Finance Director/Treasurer : The finance director is responsible for managing the campaign’s finances. They will develop a budget, track spending, raise money, and file financial reports.
Organizer/Field Director : The organizer is responsible for building and mobilizing the campaign’s base of support. They will recruit volunteers, organize canvassing and phone banking efforts, and help get voters to the polls.
Communications Director : The communications director is responsible for crafting and delivering the campaign’s message. They will write press releases, manage social media, and work with the media to get your message out.

In addition to these roles, you may also need to expand or solidify additional roles, such as a policy advisor, a scheduler , or a graphic designer.

However, be mindful, the more staff you recruit (unless they’re volunteers), the more it’ll impact the cost of your campaign.

The specific staff you may need will depend on the size and scope of your campaign. Some small races may involve as few as 2 staffers or less, whereas larger races may essentiate 6-7+ staffers to ensure a fighting chance (though don’t let that scare you).

It is important to start building your campaign team early. This will give you time to find the right people for the job and to get them up to speed on your campaign.

You should also make sure that your team is diverse, with people from different backgrounds and perspectives. This will help you reach a wider range of voters and build a stronger campaign.

5. Endorsements

An important skill you’ll need to develop as you run for Mayor is networking.

Your goal is to generate as much support from well-known public figures as possible, including celebrities, athletes, company stakeholders, and other politicians.

Endorsements are valuable social proof that serve to increase public confidence in your campaign.

Getting the right endorsements could win you favor with huge portions of your community. So get used to speaking to people from all walks of life and getting to know your community better than most, which is great if you want to be a good Mayor.

The more endorsements you can attract from different sectors of your community, the wider you’re able to cast your Mayoral campaign to capture the attention of voters.

An effective method of gaining endorsements is through Call Time.

Call Time is a practical way to boost fundraising for your campaign. By contacting friends, family, and other potential donors, candidates like you can build relationships and solidify their credibility.

Many candidates streamline this process through Call Time management software such as Campaign Deputy .

Check out our article here for helpful tips for effective Call Time Management Tips .

Voter Engagement

There are 2 primary ways to connect with local constituents:

Media – For Mayoral elections, you’ll use media like radio ads, print ads, social media posts, email blasts, and even websites. Media messaging is a great way to reach a large number of voters and to introduce your campaign to them. It can also help to shape the public’s perception of you and your campaign.
Canvassing – Going door-to-door is still one of the most effective, though more traditional, methods for engaging with voters. You can speak with them face-to-face to understand their biggest concerns and get their thoughts on the future of your town or city, to help steer your policies and to ultimately serve your community better. A more modern approach to canvassing may include methods such as phone banking and texting constituents to maintain engagement and gain insights.

This combination of media messaging and canvassing provides voter engagement at various levels, benefitting your campaign in different ways.

If you are running for Mayor, it’s important to have a strong campaign strategy that includes both media messaging and canvassing.

This will help you to reach a wide range of voters, build relationships with them, and increase voter turnout.

Here’s how to run for Mayor in your town or city:

Research your local government requirements and get to know other local politicians
File for candidacy and recruit your campaign support staff
Design your campaign media and establish your public messaging
Start your fundraising campaign and network with public figures to attract endorsements
Engage with voters on various levels to gain attention and win votes

Now that you know how to run for Mayor, it’s time to find a comfy seat and start making some calls!

We wish you the best of luck with your campaign! Get in touch with the experts here at Campaign Deputy if you need any help with your fundraising. We’re always happy to support!

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See how they run: What Mark Farrell would do in his first 100 days as mayor

Government reform, a strong mayo r

Farrell sees himself as a stronger mayor than London Breed, and if his efforts to reform the city’s charter come to pass, he would also inherit a much stronger office.

Farrell is banking on voters passing Proposition D in November, a measure sponsored by the political advocacy group TogetherSF that would cut the number of city commissions from 130 to 65 and broaden mayoral powers.

Farrell has put together his own committee to pass the measure, which has fundraised $2.1 million of the $7.8 million total for the proposition, which is the single most expensive item on the November ballot.

Should Prop. D pass, the mayor would gain appointment authority over five out of seven members of the police commission, the body which sets policy and provides oversight of the police department.

Given these powers, Farrell said he would appoint new members to the police commission — although he did not specify which members he would remove. The commissioners should be focused on recruiting and enabling officers to do their jobs, Farrell said, “as opposed to coming after the police officers on the streets of San Francisco, which they’re doing today.”

The Police Commission, by definition, is the civilian oversight body for the San Francisco Police Department.

In addition, Farrell said he would also fire police Chief Bill Scott and Jeffrey Tumlin, the director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

Public safety, housing

For the most part, Farrell’s plan is on track with what he set out to do from the start .

At the onset of his campaign, Farrell promised a hardline approach to the city’s public safety, homelessness and drug problems.

On Wednesday, Farrell detailed how: He would create a “Stop the Spread” tent encampment removal team — although it is not clear how this would be different from the city’s “Healthy Streets Operations Center” and its other teams focused on dismantling encampments.

Farrell also said he would declare a fentanyl state of emergency, which would ostensibly leverage more funding from the state and federal government for treatment programs aimed at abstinence. Farrell has criticized the city’s use of “harm reduction” programs that try to keep people who are using drugs safer, rather than requiring abstinence for services — though experts say harm reduction is a critical tool of public health .

Likewise, regarding housing, Farrell drove home his plan to focus on upzoning in the Financial District, SoMa and Mission Bay, areas which are already among the most densely built up in the city. He also said he would further reduce the inclusionary requirements (i.e. the percentage of affordable units) for new builds from the current 12 to 16 percent bracket, to 10 percent.

However, on the subject of Market Street, Farrell appears to have fine-tuned his pitch. Upon launching his campaign, Farrell made a splash when he declared that he would bring cars back to Market Street , which is currently only open to buses and taxis; but on Wednesday, he specified he would only bring ride-share vehicles back to the corridor.

“Our plan from the beginning was about ride-share vehicles,” he said, in conversation with this reporter after his speech. “Let’s be honest, taxis are a dwindling kind of existence here in San Francisco. Ride-share is an activity that I believe we need to promote out of City Hall.”

Farrell has also sided with ride-share companies in opposing Proposition L, which would tax them and allocate that income to Muni’s operational budget. Instead, on Wednesday Farrell proposed reevaluating the need for funding for Muni capital projects — and focus funds on day-to-day operations.

‘A dog fight until the end’

Farrell’s 100 day plan comes a mere three weeks before voters will begin casting ballots. It’s a tight race, but it is clear Farrell is a top runner — and he knows whom he has to target to get the No. 1 spot.

“No mayor has overseen a steeper decline in our city’s history than Mayor Breed,” Farrell said on Wednesday, during a nine-minute speech in which he recycled some standard campaign fare targeting his biggest rival.

“Public safety is the number one concern in every single neighborhood. Homelessness is on the rise. Our economy is stuck in cement. Our neighborhoods are struggling, and families are no longer part of the dialog in City Hall,” he added.

Farrell, for his part, also hit at a brewing scandal that enveloped Breed last week, when Human Rights commission head Sheryl Davis, a longtime ally and friend of the mayor, was caught engaging in questionable (and lavish) spending atop her city department, the Human Rights Commission.

Farrell said he would pause all direct funding for nonprofits and centralize all their contracts under the mayor’s office; Davis is accused of manipulating city spending reports and signing off on $1.5 million in contracts to a man with whom she shared a home.

While Farrell has targeted Breed since the start of the race — and more recently, Lurie, on a dedicated page on his website saying he is “trying to buy the San Francisco Mayor’s race” — he has also been the target of broadsides from his opponents, largely centered on the use of funds he has raised for his ballot measure committee to subsidize his mayoral campaign, an end-run around donation limits .

Farrell last week also faced scrutiny after rival campaigns alleged that one of his campaign ads violated election law , and after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that as mayor he had solicited $1.2 million in payments to a nonprofit in which his wife was a board member from parties that had pending business at City Hall.

For his part, Lurie’s campaign has poured resources into media materials opposing Farrell, and a not-so-subtle anti-corruption agenda aimed at his campaign.

And Farrell, seeing the temperatures rise, is getting ready. “This will be a sprint until the end. This will be a dog fight until the end.”

More Field notes from the mayor’s race

See how they run: SF Dems accuse Mark Farrell of misusing party’s endorsement logo

See how they run: Aaron Peskin visits the zoning panic zone

See how they run: Labor leaders rally behind mayoral candidate Ahsha Safaí at Duboce Park

Kelly waldron.

Kelly is Irish and French and grew up in Dublin and Luxembourg. She studied Geography at McGill University and worked at a remote sensing company in Montreal, making maps and analyzing methane data, before turning to journalism. She recently graduated from the Data Journalism program at Columbia Journalism School.

Join the Conversation

Do not vote for anyone who is currently a supervisor. They vote for issues they do not understand. The Supervisors all voted for the demolition of The United Irish Cultural Center. The new non profit building is to be called The Cultural Center on 45/ Wawoma.ThisisA a slate and glass 6 story building with a rooftop restaurant with a veiw of low income housing,underground swimming pools and a garage for about 50 cars.This is to be built in sand on the same block as 4 small apartment buildings, a cafe,pizza place and motel.There are no known inspections of nearby buildings or the single family homes nearby to see if this is feasible. There is an underground stream/ aquifier under the zoo.The Pandas are coming and 1 million visitors are expected.This project is directly across from the zoo.All the Supervisors voted for this A big question is’ How did planning department allow this to happen?’

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How to Write a Speech to Get You Elected

Last Updated: February 28, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Patrick Muñoz . Patrick is an internationally recognized Voice & Speech Coach, focusing on public speaking, vocal power, accent and dialects, accent reduction, voiceover, acting and speech therapy. He has worked with clients such as Penelope Cruz, Eva Longoria, and Roselyn Sanchez. He was voted LA's Favorite Voice and Dialect Coach by BACKSTAGE, is the voice and speech coach for Disney and Turner Classic Movies, and is a member of Voice and Speech Trainers Association. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 466,284 times.

If you possess leadership skills and want to make a change, you may want to run for office.To become an elected official, you must convince voters that you’re the best option by delivering a message that will win them over. Regardless of whether your goal is a seat in Congress or a position as school president, the basic principles remain the same when making an election speech.

Structuring Your Points into a Speech

Step 1 Use a conversational tone in your speech.

You should write the speech with phrases and words that you normally use when talking to people.
For example, don’t write something like, “Voters and citizens, the abhorrent nature of my opponent while he assumed the position as treasurer saw that governmental coffers were drained to their lowest point in a decade!”
Instead, write something like, “Can you really trust my opponent? When he was treasurer so much money went missing that we’re now at the lowest level in 10 years!”

If you’re running for school president you can say something like, “Hey everyone. Today I’ll be talking about the important things that everyone here cares about, like the quality of our lunch, access to sports, and lack of programs and what faculty can do to fix it.”
If you're running for city council or mayor, you can say something like, “Thank you to everyone who decided to come. Today I’ll be talking about how essential educational investment is and what we can do about bringing jobs and industry back to our town.”

Step 3 Create a paragraph for each point you want to make.

If you're running for school president your paragraph could start something like "We all know that school lunch is bad, but would it surprise you to find out it's actually unhealthy? I have a plan to work with facility to improve the quality of our lunches."
If you're running for a federal office, you could write "There are many issues that face us today, but one of the most important things right now is access to healthcare. My plan for a single-payer system will ensure that everyone, regardless of income, will be able to afford high-quality health services in our state. I believe that healthcare is a human right, not a privilege."
Jumping from point to point will only confuse the listeners.
You don’t always have to stick to this structure but it's what usually works best and will keep your speech organized.

Step 4 Use an anecdotal experience to tell a story.

For instance, if you are running for school president you could say something like, "Everyone knows Jeremy is an amazing basketball player. We've all seen the videos online and we know how dedicated he is to getting better. But we don't have a team here. And that needs to change!"
For instance, if you’re talking about increasing the minimum wage, you could say something like, “I know a girl in my district named Gabby who is a single mother without her high school diploma. She’s one of the hardest workers and most genuine people I have ever met, but she is on government assistance because the only job she can get will only pay $8 an hour. This is just not an income that can sustain any sort of family, and it’s up to us to make sure that corporations reward workers who put in the effort and do the right thing. That’s why I’m proposing a major increase of the minimum wage over the next 5 years to $15 per hour.”

For example, if you’re mainly campaigning on environmental justice and immigration reform, don’t talk about foreign relations or prison justice reform in your speech because it will make the speech long-winded and off topic.

Step 6 End the speech with a conclusion and a call to action.

If you're running for office in school, you could say something like "We've talked about the lack of resources, unhealthy lunch food, and lack of decorations at the dances. And I've also layed out every way we can solve these problems together. If you want to do better for Freemondt Highschool, vote for me on November 8th!"
For instance, you could say, “And if you vote for my opponent, nothing will change! That’s why on November 5th, you should vote for me.

If you’re talking about a foreign country or including the names of people in your speech, make sure you know how to pronounce them correctly.

Delivering the Message

Step 1 Practice delivering the speech before you give it.

You can ask your friend whether they thought the speech was moving or powerful, if they were bored, or if there was anything they didn’t understand.
You can also memorize the speech so that you don’t have to read it when you’re delivering it. If you practice enough, you many naturally memorize parts of the speech.

Step 2 Stand up straight and convey confident body language.

Often, people will think that they are speaking much quicker than they really are.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama used pauses to emphasize points in his speeches frequently.

Creating a Platform

Step 1 Determine who your potential voters are.

Information about your voters can also be gained by reviewing polling information, past voter data, or by considering the location where you're giving the speech.
If you're delivering the speech at a university, there's a high likelihood most of the audience will be college-aged people.
Stay away from saying anything that may offend or upset your potential supporters.

Step 2 Identify problems or issues facing your voters.

For instance, voters could be concerned about corruption or a lack of jobs.
You can also ask people about their biggest concerns on social media.

Step 3 Create solutions to the problems you identified.

If there are not enough programs at your school, you could talk to the administration and the student body to develop new programs in your school.
For instance, if there is a lack of jobs in your town, you could propose a plan to lower the corporate tax rate in your area to bring in new business.

Expert Q&A

↑ Patrick Muñoz. Voice & Speech Coach. Expert Interview. 12 November 2019.
↑ https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/chapter/14-1-four-methods-of-delivery/
↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/speech-introductions
↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/publicspeakingprinciples/chapter/chapter-8-outlining-your-speech/
↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/speech-evidence/
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/conciseness/index.html
↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-write-motivational-speech
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/
↑ https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/10-tips-for-improving-your-public-speaking-skills/
↑ https://sps.columbia.edu/news/five-ways-improve-your-body-language-during-speech
↑ https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/Module%207_Becoming%20a%20Powerful%20Communicator_EN.pdf
↑ https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/Political_Campaign_Planning_Manual_Malaysia_0.pdf
↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/202004/how-win-election

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Guest Essay

The Political Cost to Kamala Harris of Not Answering Direct Questions

A photo illustration of Kamala Harris speaking.

By Todd S. Purdum

Mr. Purdum is a former White House correspondent and Los Angeles bureau chief for The Times.

When Kamala Harris sat down for just the second major television interview of her campaign last week with the Philadelphia ABC affiliate, the anchor asked her to outline “one or two specific things” she would do to fulfill her pledge of “bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people.” She responded by recalling how she was “a middle-class kid” who grew up in a community of construction workers, nurses and teachers who were “very proud of their lawn.” She recounted her mother’s saving to buy her family’s first house. She paid tribute to a neighbor who became a surrogate parent. She praised the “beautiful character” of the American people.

Only then, after nearly two minutes, did Ms. Harris outline her plan for a $50,000 tax credit for start-up small businesses; private-sector tax breaks to spark construction of three million housing units over four years; and $25,000 in federal down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.

It’s a shibboleth of modern political strategy that candidates should answer the questions they want to, not the ones that are asked, and Ms. Harris faces a unique challenge in this truncated presidential race of introducing herself to an electorate that in many ways still barely knows her. So she might be forgiven for leading with a blizzard of atmospheric biographical detail that makes some voters feel they can’t trust her to answer a direct question.

But in a campaign in which Donald Trump fills our days with arrant nonsense and dominates the national discussion (and polls show a tight race where Ms. Harris is running behind Joe Biden’s level of support in 2020 with some groups), the vice president can’t afford to stick only to rehearsed answers and stump speeches that might not persuade voters or shape what America is talking about.

Writing about politicians for decades has convinced me that direct, succinct answers and explanations from Ms. Harris would go a long way — perhaps longer than she realizes — toward persuading voters that they know enough about her and her plans, which polling surveys now suggest they don’t (yet badly want to). Being known as a straight shooter would also help persuade restive political elites, pundits and journalists that Ms. Harris is grappling with such scrutiny, and I think she’s apt to be rewarded in the end for it.

To be sure, there may be times when Ms. Harris’s best strategy is to stay out of Mr. Trump’s way. But his recent cats-and-dogs attacks on immigrants, and even his angry accusations that Democrats are to blame for the two attempts on his own life, are once again letting Mr. Trump dominate the news cycle after Ms. Harris’s extraordinary convention-to-debate liftoff. And as unhinged as they are, Mr. Trump’s outbursts raise issues of salience and vulnerabilities for Ms. Harris. Perverse as it seems, history has shown that whenever Mr. Trump is the subject of a sentence, he somehow usually manages to benefit.

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Lessons Learned, part three: Time for a Town Hall

Lessons Learned, part two: Feeling Safe

Lessons Learned, part one: Local Traffic Safety

Mark Joseph

Aug 7, 2020

Why I am Running for Mayor

This is a letter I sent to many voters in American Canyon, setting forth the reasons why I am running for Mayor of American Canyon. Please share.

To the Voters of American Canyon:

On July 20, 2020, I announced my campaign for Mayor of American Canyon. I believe I am the right person for the job:

A background that includes a degree in Public Administration and over 30 years of leadership responsibility in all aspects of local government, particularly municipal finance.

Served as your Finance Director, City Manager, and for the last ten years, as your Councilmember.

Active in the community, serving in leadership roles in local service clubs and nonprofits, such as the Arts Foundation and Kiwanis. The 2007 Gateway Award Winner .

Cheryl and I have called American Canyon home for over 25 years. We love this place!

Why am I running at this time, given the Covid-19 pandemic?

First, as the fiscal impact of the virus becomes more apparent, we need a Mayor with a strong background in finance and business development. One who can make sure the City is run in a business-like manner, with greater accountability and oversight. With my experience in finance and management, I can help lead the City through these difficult financial times.

Second, although American Canyon is a great place to live and raise a family, we still struggle with traffic. We have no plan to fully pay for renovating our parks and repairing our streets, and climate change continues to worsen here and elsewhere.

More than ceremonial, the next Mayor needs to stay focused on these issues and be pro-active. Our Mayor needs to offer solutions to our problems. In short, the Mayor needs to lead.

If you agree the time is right for a new kind of Mayor , I ask for your support. Money is always critical, but endorsing my candidacy, installing a sign, or helping the campaign is just as important. For more, go to www.electmarkjoseph.com or www.facebook.com/MarkJosephForAmCan . Or contact me directly.

I hope I can count on your support, and please, stay safe in these uncertain times!

(707) 334-5216

[email protected]

Voter Guide
Public Safety
Growth and Development
Positively RI
Nation & World

RI mayoral races: What to expect in November General Election

Several Rhode Island cities have contested races for mayor in November.

Take a look at who is running and what to know about each candidate's background and experience.

Cranston mayoral race

Mayor Ken Hopkins fended off a tough challenge from within his own party on Sept. 10, defeating rival Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung after an acrimonious Republican primary . Fenton-Fung vs. Hopkins was undoubtedly the most intriguing matchup of the primary. While overall turnout in the primary was less than 10% statewide, Cranston saw close to 20% turnout, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

GOP primaries are fairly rare, and Cranston is the only city in Rhode Island with a Republican mayor – making the seat a potential springboard for those seeking higher office.

Hopkins, a former baseball coach and teacher in Cranston schools was first elected to a four-year term as mayor in 2020. Before that, he served on the Cranston City Council.

On Nov. 5, he faces a challenge from Democrat Robert Ferri , a two-term city-wide Council member. Ferri, 68, owned Town Hall Lanes in Johnston for 20 years and is now retired. He also owned a company that managed properties for the Providence Redevelopment Agency, but it hasn't been active for a year and was dissolved last December, he said.

The two-term councilman was first elected as a Republican in 2020, but switched parties in 2022, giving Democrats a majority on the council. As he tells it, Republicans expected him to vote with them on every issue and would "ridicule" him when he disagreed and didn't fall in line.

"A lot of my moral values are more Democratic than they are Republican," he said.

Here's a look at where each candidate stands on a number of issues important to voters, from Budlong Pool to street safety to affordable housing.

Woonsocket mayoral race

Both incumbent Mayor Christopher Beauchamp and City Council President John Ward won places on this fall’s general election ballot in September's primary.

The primary election in the non-partisan race eliminated a third mayoral candidate, Keith Harrison, leaving two lifelong city residents and seasoned politicians to battle for who will run the city moving forward. With 100% of primary voting results in, Ward had 54.7% compared to Beauchamp’s 40.3%.

The mayoral race spun from the turmoil following the surprise resignation of Lisa Baldelli-Hunt last fall following the revelation that she approved a $1.13 million purchase of almost 5 acres owned by her former real estate associate without notifying the City Council.

The land purchase, at five times the property’s assessed value, violated the city Charter requiring the council be informed of such big purchases, concluded an independent report by former U.S. Attorney Aaron Weisman.

Beauchamp, 64, served 12 years on the City Council, including as its president.

Ward was critical of Beauchamp’s decision to retain several members of Baldelli-Hunt's administration.

Ward, a life-long resident, served 10 years on the school committee (four as its chairman), and 13 years on the city council (four years as president). He also served on the Board of Canvassers and the 2011 Charter Review Commission. He retired after a total of 29 years as finance director in Lincoln, school business manager for the Johnston School Department and finance director for the Woonsocket Housing Authority.

Ward is running on a platform of ending what he called a decade of mismanagement under the Baldelli-Hunt administration, with projects left incomplete and animus relations with the City Council.

Beauchamp pledged more transparency and to keep the City Council better informed of city issues, promises he said he has kept since taking over running the city.

Pawtucket mayoral race

Incumbent mayor Donald Grebien handily won his Democratic primary in September, putting him on track to cruise into an eighth term in office.

Grebien will face independent Nathan Luciano , who is running a longshot campaign, in the general election.

Here's a look at where the candidates stand on a number of important issues, from gentrification and the new soccer stadium, to a "vacancy crisis" in the school department and a leaky tower atop City Hall.

Warwick mayoral race

Incumbent Mayor Frank Picozzi faces a challenge from School Committee vice chair Leah Hazelwood, a Democrat.

Picozzi, a former School Committee chairman, unseated then-Mayor Joseph Solomon in 2020, running as an independent. He was best known at the time for his family's large Christmas lights display. He was reelected in 2022.

Earlier this year, Picozzi accused Gov. Dan McKee of actively trying to find a Democrat to run against him.

Whoever wins will be the first Warwick mayor to get a four-year term in office since a change to longer terms and term limits were approved in 2022.

Why I am Running For Mayor

'considering the city's' lisa austin on her new campaign .

Like many of you, I love Erie.

For 20 years, I've walked and biked around the city and talked with residents. The same issues always surface: jobs, schools, taxes, blight, and violence.

Though I wasn't born in Pennsylvania, I've worked for years with volunteers to improve Erie. I ask questions, research, collaboratively envision solutions, and – when I hit a stumbling block – try another way.

Because this city needs an elected leader willing to challenge the entrenched status quo and get the job done, I'm running for mayor.

Since 90 percent of new jobs are created by small businesses, I co-founded a competition back in 2008 that has helped a dozen residents manufacture new products. Our 2011 InnovationErie winner, Karen Rzepecki, is now the CEO of ReCAP Mason Jars, a thriving business with 10 full-time employees.

In the face of thousands of jobs lost at GE, 10 new ones may seem insignificant. But Erie's future lies in cultivating manufacturing, "eds and meds," tourism, arts and culture, and high-tech positions.

Penn State Behrend's new Innovation Commons, makerspaces, and other visionary initiatives like Radius CoWork at Tom Kennedy's Renaissance Centre help support entrepreneurs. Calculated investments – like Joel Deuterman's Velocity Network – will empower the unemployed, retirees, graduates, and new Americans to create jobs.

Economic development will continue to be a top priority of mine.

As mayor, I will support the United Way's Community Schools initiative and other programs that provide stability for our students and their families. I will address the funding crisis that drove Superintendent Jay Badams to propose closing all four high schools. Collaborating with other leaders, I will work to revoke the 25-year-old "hold harmless" clause that institutionalized inequity. We must reconsider the practice of using local real estate taxes to fund education (resulting in well-supported suburban and poorly-supported city schools.) This isn't fair to our kids.

Expanding vocational apprenticeships will help high school students who are not planning to go to college. In 2015, Penn State Behrend's Greg Dillon and I developed the Made in Erie Product Design Lab as a precursor to Erie County Library's Idea Lab, because we recognized that affordable design education is needed to spur economic development.

My own K-12 education (at a dozen public and parochial schools from Texas to Alaska) led me to Prince George's Community College in Maryland, then to Virginia Commonwealth University, and to graduate school at Yale University. I've taught seven years at a public high school and 23 years at three universities, where I learned the art of motivating people and navigating bureaucracies.

A community college changed my life. As mayor I will try to provide the same opportunity for Erie residents.

Safe, beautiful neighborhoods

Youth engagement, through summer jobs, Mothers Against Teen Violence, and the Police Athletic League help address violence and addiction. As mayor, I will support community policing, a citizens' advisory board and other effective programs. I will work to increase support for community centers, Wi-Fi access, public spaces, and transit to create opportunity and hope.

We must repopulate the city. Employer-assisted mortgages could encourage Hamot, Erie Insurance, and Gannon employees to buy a home downtown. Last year, Baltimore announced a tax-credit incentive to attract municipal employees, especially the police, to live in the city they serve. Why not here?

My years of experience on my neighborhood association, service on the Zoning Hearing Board and Downtown Improvement District, participation on the steering committee of Our West Bayfront, and roles co-founding Preservation Erie and ErieCPR will help me, as mayor, to collaborate with community and civic stakeholders.

Inclusivity, transparency

According to Kellogg School of Management, a diversity of people working on a problem creates a tension that actually fosters "a more careful" processing of information and better solutions. Thus, Erie would benefit from diverse decision-making groups. As mayor I will promote posting of board vacancies and encourage self-nominations, replacing the current opaque nomination and appointment process.

Because Erie doesn't have a city planner, well-meaning engineers are permitted to make bad urban design decisions. Untrained in how cities work, they overlook place-making opportunities that would transform Erie into a more connected and thriving community. As mayor, I will build on Charles Buki's Erie Refocused plan, work with design professionals, and give residents a real voice in their city.

Thinking locally, regionally, and globally

As mayor, I will meet with northwestern Pennsylvania leaders to collaboratively plan for our region. I will work with local universities to find ways to retain alumni. I will reach out to Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland and bring a larger percentage of their million-plus residents to visit downtown Erie. I will find a way to engage those who love Erie – but live elsewhere – to be part of this city's rebirth. I will expand existing projects, exchange programs, and residencies with our four sister cities in Mexico, Ireland, Poland, and China.

Do you believe in Erie?

Erie's best is yet to come. If you agree, please stop by my fundraiser ($35) on Thursday, Jan. 26, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Latino's Mexican Restaurant, 1315 Parade Street (580.8760). I would like to meet you and hear your ideas for Erie. (#Ideas4Erie)

For more information, please visit austinforerie.com; check out the Committee to Elect Lisa Austin's campaign Facebook page; or send an email to [email protected] or call 580.8760. As the co-founder of Civitas Erie, Austin initiated the creation of organizations working for improved transit (All Aboard Erie), economic development (Innovation Erie), urban planning (Preservation Erie), entrepreneurial support (Made in Erie Marketplace), industrial design education (Made in Erie Product Design Lab), and community engagement (ErieCPR). Austin also served for eight years on the city's Zoning Hearing Board.

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Election 2024 | 5 rivals vying to win Fort Lauderdale mayor’s…

Breaking News

Election 2024 | fau national poll finds harris leads trump, 50% to 45%, election 2024, election 2024 | 5 rivals vying to win fort lauderdale mayor’s race clash over development and gridlock.

A water taxi passes by a century-old rain tree on the site of a towering new development on the rise in downtown Fort Lauderdale in March 2023. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Critics complain about nightmarish gridlock; a homeless crisis that only seems to get worse; and an ongoing development boom that some warn is only going to make the traffic even more unbearable.

Who wants to be mayor? Five people, including the incumbent, are in the race. Voters will make their pick in the city’s Nov. 5 elections.

Residents got a preview of the rivals during a recent forum hosted by the Fort Lauderdale Council of Civic Associations, where candidates shared their thoughts on several issues, including a new state law that’s forcing a crackdown on the homeless crisis. The forum was moderated by South Florida Sun Sentinel Deputy Opinions Editor Dan Sweeney.

We share some top comments from all five candidates: Kenneth Cooper, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2020; Jim Lewis, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor making his 10th run for political office and his second run for mayor; Chris Nelson, a conservative activist and DJ making his first run for office; Barbra Stern, an attorney making her first run for mayor and her second run for office; and incumbent Dean Trantalis, an attorney who’s been mayor since 2018.

The winner will be one of the highest paid elected officials in Broward County. In Fort Lauderdale, the mayor earns $106,200. The salary will rise to $106,920 on Dec. 1 due to an automatic raise that’s been in place since 2020.

Opening remarks

Cooper: “I’m a native Floridian. I migrated from Miami to Hollywood. My undergraduate (degree) is in business administration, which is why I think I’m the most qualified. We all know the same issues: Overdevelopment, flooding, homeless, everything else. We need somebody who can stop the overdevelopment, fix the flooding, fix the homeless. It’s easy solutions and I believe I would be best qualified to be your mayor.”

Lewis: “I represented people in trouble here in this city as a criminal defense attorney for over 30 years. And we are a city in trouble. We need to wrestle this city away from the developers and the big money and the special interests. We can take our city back. The neighbors and residents are going to be in charge.”

Nelson: “My wife and I both live in the city and we love this city. But just since 2020 when we moved into our condo, our costs of living have more than doubled. We’re being squeezed all over the place. And the last thing we want is to be squeezed out of the city we love. I did vote for Dean Trantalis in 2020 because he was standing up to the commission at that time and I thought that was a good thing. But I’ve had some changes of heart since then.”

Stern: “I jumped in this race a little bit last minute, June 14, because I saw where we were in this city. And I know we deserve better. We have had decision after decision made that is not in the best interest of our city. Maybe the developers, but not in the best interest of our city. I could sit on the sidelines and continue to complain or I could be part of the change to make a better Fort Lauderdale.”

Trantalis: “I’m very proud to have been your mayor for the last almost seven years. I’ve been on the City Commission for almost 13 (years) total, first as a District 2 commissioner and now as your mayor. I’m proud to be part of a growing community that’s thriving. I moved here 40 years ago and I saw a different city than we see today. And I’m proud to represent what we have created so far.”

How will you address homelessness with the state’s new ban on public sleeping taking effect on Oct. 1? Sheriff Gregory Tony says he will not jail anyone solely for violating a city law against public sleeping. And the county has not been supportive of setting up a homeless encampment.

Cooper: “It looks like we’re going to close a bunch of schools because we don’t have that many children like we used to have. There is a (spot) for them with air-conditioning, bathrooms, showers and food to accommodate them. It’s an easy solution to a difficult problem.”

Lewis: “We’re going to have an encampment somewhere, folks. It’s going to happen. This law is taking effect Oct. 1. Homeless people have to go somewhere. The sheriff’s not going to take them at the jail. So I suggested we put (an encampment) at the parking lot of the soccer stadium . Let’s put the homeless camp there until we can figure out what we’re going to do. It’s got to go somewhere and we’ve got to take action now.”

Nelson: “We absolutely do not need a homeless encampment. In 2019, this commission relaxed the restrictions on where sex offenders can live in Fort Lauderdale. Since then, Fort Lauderdale has become a magnet for sex offenders. If you go to FDLE, you can see where all the sex offenders are registered. A lot of them are transient. That’s what those tents are. The restrictions on sex offenders needs to be put back in place so we don’t become a dumping ground.”

Stern: “We knew this change in the law was coming. I think the commission put their heads in the sand, was hoping the courts would turn it over. It didn’t happen. So now we’re faced with dealing with it. We’ve had solutions come forward, temporary. Safe parking zones — we need to do something along those lines. Many people are sleeping in their cars. And we owe it to them to find a safe place for them and their children to sleep. It is not ideal. But it’s a start.”

Trantalis: “When I first became mayor in 2018, we eliminated that homeless camp in front of the library. Remember that? We forgot about that. And ever since then, we have been trying every single year to come up with solutions to work with homeless people , find them a home, find them a job. We have spoken with the sheriff. He’s had a change of heart. Perhaps the phone call from the governor helped. And he is now going to work with us to bring the homeless people into a protected area within the county jail in order for us to take them off the streets.”

How has the recent boom in development impacted the city’s residents and economy? What direction would you like to see future development in the city take?

Trantalis: “People are moving here from all over. After COVID, our population spiked. Thousands of young people are moving into our city. We have to figure out a way to accommodate the increase in population. That’s why these buildings are being built. That’s why they’re filling up so quickly. We have a housing shortage. If we put a squeeze on the amount of units available, it’s going to drive the cost of housing even higher.”

Stern: “That’s a really nice way of taking credit for something I don’t think Fort Lauderdale can take credit for. When COVID happened and the governor opened up the state of Florida, people came here in droves. And that drove up the home values. It became a bidding war. People didn’t come here because we’re Fort Lauderdale. They came here during COVID because Florida was open. Now the problem is we don’t really have affordable housing. I don’t think a studio at $2,600 a month is considered affordable housing. We have 1,100 condo units available for sale right now. It’s just too much money and that’s why they’re sitting empty. So we need to adjust the master plan and go back and look and see if we made a mistake 20-plus years ago.”

Nelson: “We’re in one of those condos that’s up for sale because the special assessments and all these other things, it’s just squeezing us. I don’t know where all this affordable housing is. We’ve got to change the City Commission. We need new people in here. We have got to be keeping up with our infrastructure. We need to not green light every single new project.”

Lewis: “I’d like to see a city that knows what it’s doing. We don’t know how to manage anything. We can’t even build a City Hall . We can’t build a police station without (cracks forming). Why is that? Because we don’t know what we’re doing. And we hire a city manager that doesn’t want to live in the city . This city is not run efficiently. We waste money on things like the Tunnel Top (Plaza). We spend more money per capita than any other city in Florida. What do we have to show for it? Crumbling infrastructure. We can’t even keep the poop from coming up out of the ground. We need new leadership in this city.”

Cooper: “We now have all these 35-story buildings and what’s the impact on the economy? Well we just had five restaurants on Las Olas close. I don’t know how to save the Downtowner. I don’t know why they’re going out of business because I’ve paid them a ton of money (said with a chuckle). I’m a native. I never wanted to live in New York City. I’m not for the 500-foot height limit. You do need to amend the master plan with something that’s reasonable to stop all the 35-story buildings. Because I really don’t want to live in New York City.”

Residents are concerned about increasing traffic gridlock. Do you think those concerns are valid? If so, what specific strategies do you recommend to address and mitigate traffic issues throughout downtown and the beach area?

Cooper: “When you started building all these buildings, you should have planned for that traffic . I’ve been to those commission meetings where they come in with a traffic study for a 35-story building and the answer on the traffic study is there will be no impact . The crowd laughed. You have all these developers that should have been paying for parking lots and lighting and all these problems they created. I don’t know where those impact fees go, but it certainly hasn’t gone to the infrastructure.”

Lewis: “You think traffic is bad now? Wait till they open up the Pier Sixty-Six and the new hotel in the convention center and see what it’s like getting around. I used to live in Coral Ridge. I moved downtown because it’s close to work. That’s how I deal with it. I don’t drive anymore . There’s not a whole lot we can do other than stop the overdevelopment on the beach. Stop it downtown. If you don’t make changes, you’re just going to get more of the same.”

Nelson: “Well we were also supposed to be in flying cars right now but that has not happened. Let’s see some flying cars. I can tell you a way to not make it better. Building those two fat towers they’re going to put on both sides of the Dalmar is going to cause a lot of congestion in that area. If they tear up that Las Olas median that’s going to cause even more traffic.”

Stern: “These are critical times and we need to address traffic control. We’ve talked about having a bypass road to the beach. That would improve the traffic flow. The traffic congestion is a nightmare. We deal with it day in, day out. We have a crisis . It’s actually a regional problem. Getting our lights in sync is an important issue (under county control). But stopping the development is critical.”

Trantalis: “A lot of the activity we’re seeing is generated from new construction and commuter traffic. These are commuters that live in other parts of the county that work in our city. A lot of the folks that live downtown in Flagler Village, we’re seeing all these new young people moving into the area. They walk to work. They walk to the grocery store. They have created an urban environment. It’s exciting to see. We do have to talk about commuter rail. It’s going to be very important. And that’s why we need a tunnel. To accept a bridge makes no sense. Let’s not destroy our downtown with a bridge.”

Closing remarks

Cooper: “The reason you should vote for me is foresight vs. hindsight. If you’re going to build multiple 35-story buildings, everybody knew if you hadn’t rebuilt the sewers in the past 50 years — they’re cast-iron pipes — they’re going to blow up. You should have seen that coming. Now we’re (building) a new water plant and no one’s talked about replacing the pipes. So you’re going to send clean water down dirty, nasty pipes. You need to replace the water lines at the same time so we have clean water.”

Lewis: “I just really want to give back. I fought for you at the courthouse. I represented a lot of folks in trouble. And folks, this city is in trouble. And we can blame some of the people that are here. Or we can do something about it and change it at the top. We’ve got to do better than what we have done.”

Nelson: “I know it got a little heated there. But this is about holding these guys accountable. This is how you get things done. I’m a DJ by trade and I’d much rather be having a party right now. This is a city I love. My wife loves it here. I want it to stay what it is and not lose what we’ve got. We don’t want to lose what is special about our city.”

Stern: “It’s really, really important that we gain control over our city. I want to be that person. I’m being supported by our police union and our fire union. First responders know that I will stand up for the community. I will stand up for our first responders. I will make sure that neighborhoods are put first over the developers. We will stop the public land giveaways. We will put the resources where they belong and that is in our neighborhoods.”

Trantalis: “I’m very proud to be your mayor. We began with great challenges at the beginning of my tenure, with COVID and infrastructure problems , things I’ve been complaining about for years. We finally got a chance to do something . Investing over $1.6 billion to infrastructure. That never happened before I became mayor. We have a beautiful $170 million soccer stadium. And we have the Stanley Cup champions right here in our backyard, and we have the IcePlex for everyone to enjoy. I am not looking back. I am not taking our city back. I am taking our city forward. I want to see us be the greatest city in the state of Florida.”

Susannah Bryan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan

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Lori Bresciani announces run for mayor in Regina

Two-term Regina city councillor Lori Bresciani is running for mayor.

At a media event on Tuesday, Bresciani said her campaign will emphasize affordability, community engagement and communication, as well as keeping spending under control.

“I would talk about more about the debt and the money and the financial piece around our city, and I think that is something that’s vitally important to people,” the Ward 4 councillor told reporters on Tuesday.

Ward 4 Councillor Lori Bresciani said she would make affordability a key priority. (Daniel Reech/980 CJME)

Bresciani noted that she is “only one vote on council,” making it “very tough to make any kind of decisions around anything kind of around funding or anything like that.”

She said she was against increasing the city’s debt limit to fund the central library’s renewal. While saying she believes in a new pool, Bresciani said the city has to be more cost conscious on that and other similar projects.

Costs for Regina’s indoor aquatic centre ballooned up to $245.1 million from the initial $160.7 million plan.

“I want any project that comes forth, whether it be an arena, whether it be any of those projects, (to) come forth with partnerships and funding from other levels of government,” she said.

Bresciani said her campaign would not take money from developers or any other interest group that she thinks might have an influence on council.

Also running for mayor are Brandon Abtosway, Chad Bachynski, Kevin Kardash, incumbent Sandra Masters , Bill Pratt, and Shawn Sparvier.

Regina’s municipal election will be held on November 13.

Discover more on CJME.com

'It's a business': Riders sign RB Armstead after release from Ottawa

Meet Anton Krasovsky, the Gay Man Running for Mayor of Moscow

Anton Krasovsky stands alone: the only out LGBTQ person willing to stand for election in Russia. That’s if the authorities allow him to run for mayor of Moscow this September.

Anna Nemtsova

Valery Sharifulin/Getty

MOSCOW—Anton Krasovsky’s mouth is full of swear words. He is angry with pretty much every liar and propagandist in Moscow, the city he loves and wants to change.

At times it seems that his courage would disappear the moment he stops cursing. And courage is what he needs most right now, as Krasovsky is the only openly gay person in the country of Russia—with a population of more than 140 million—who dares to compete in the Kremlin-controlled election process.

The majority of Russian politicians and bureaucrats agree that LGBTQ people are abnormal. Just the idea of being one single warrior in the political field soaked in hate and thriving homophobia would scare many away from the arena.

Last month, speaking on independent radio station Echo of Moscow, Krasovsky revealed the news: in September he would run for mayoral election in Moscow, if the authorities allow him to. (He is registered as a candidate but to actually take part in the election he will have to collect signatures of 110 municipal deputies before July 3.)

“I almost pissed my pants when I decided to run for Moscow mayor,” Krasovsky admitted to The Daily Beast in a recent sit-down interview in one of Moscow’s hip coffee shops, Coffeemania. Here, in Moscow’s old town Kitai Gorod, many recognized Krasovsky’s face.

Five years ago, in June, 2013, 436 Russian MPs voted in favor of a new bill to ban “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors. The bill forbade both individuals and media groups to distribute literature or any other materials about gay rights. Many LGBTQ families fled the country in fear of the state taking their children away from them.

Since then, President Putin has been criticized for not doing enough to help the gay men killed and persecuted in a vicious crackdown in Chechnya . The noted British LGBT activist Peter Tatchell protested precisely this at the beginning of the World Cup, where the homophobia and anti-LGBT politics of Russia has again come under the international spotlight.

About why he mounted the protest, Tatchell told The Daily Beast at the time, “It’s tremendously important that President Putin doesn’t score an unchallenged public relations coup with the World Cup. He needs to be called out over the persecution of LGBT+ people, his suppression of the civil rights of Russian citizens, and his war crimes in Syria.”

The Daily Beast asked Krasovsky why he had gone into politics, when many Russian gay men and women were fleeing the country. “Because everything sucks here,” Krasovsky said. He was convinced that, even if the Kremlin did not allow his participation in the election, the experience would be useful for his political career.

In the past few years Krasovsky has managed election campaigns for two opposition candidates, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s and a pop socialite Ksenia Sobchak .

The idea of riding a black car or shaking hands with President Putin’s friends sounded rather humorous to the new candidate Krasovsky, a former Russian Vogue magazine correspondent.

“Somebody like Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov would not shake my hand; but if he wants to shake a hand of gay, I will shake his hand back.”

In Russia officials are not shy about their homophobic views. There is a sign on the door to the office of MP Vitaly Milonov, at State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament: “Banned entry for Sodomites.” Milonov is one of masterminds behind the anti-gay “propaganda” bill—in 2016 he claimed that gay people “rape kids.”

For years, Russia's small community of LGBTQ activists have endured harassment from violent nationalists and police. Most Russian gay people have given up the struggle for their rights—they either plan to escape or prefer to live quietly in their small circles .

When many of his friends immigrated, Krasovsky preferred to stay in Russia, although with his long experience of working as a magazine writer and a TV presenter he might be able to find a good place for himself in New York or any European capital.

There have been worse times in his life, he said, which left him among very few survivors. “I think about 90 percent of my friends from Moscow bohemia circles have killed themselves by alcohol and drugs and the rest have built themselves into the current state system. It is a miracle that I did not drink myself to death,” he admitted to The Daily Beast.

This is not the first time Krasovsky has shown his courage in Russia.

During his coming out on the Internet Kontr TV in 2013 Krasovsky said: “I am gay but I am just as human as Putin.”

Last year, in an interview published on Facebook, Krasovsky admitted that he had been living with HIV since 2011. As a volunteer and activist, Krasovsky and his friends have been pushing authorities for taking measures, legalizing methadone treatment, for fighting HIV/AIDS epidemic in Russia .

Although the Kremlin has sanctioned homophobia throughout the country, Krasovsky insists that ordinary people do not hate LGBTQ people.

“It is an illusion that Russia is a homophobic country by its nature,” Krasovsky insisted to The Daily Beast. He sounded irritated, when he spoke about stereotypes created by media. “My homosexuality has never helped me but it has never been in the way of my career goals. If people are constantly told that queers are bastards, and to beat them because all they want is to walk in the streets naked, some go and do beat up LGBT people.”

During the past month Krasovsky has been holding daily public meetings with his electorate in different districts of Moscow.

“People do not care if you are homosexual or not, nor is anybody interested in your HIV or any other health problems; people want to talk with me about the city demolishing houses in their district, of communal services failing, and of some illegal construction sites or schools closing down in their neighborhood.”

When Krasovsky was young his family lived in tiny rooms and communal apartments for most of his childhood. He was born on the outskirts of Moscow in the provincial town of Podolsk (which has a population of 302,831) where Krasovsky went to school.

He continued his studies in Ukraine, in the town of Rivne, where his engineer father worked at Rivne Nuclear Power Plant. “When I turned 14, I moved to Moscow and discovered the life of underground bohemia—many of my friends were using cocaine at the time.”

During the Perestroika years in the late 1980es Krasovsky belonged to counterculture circles of Soviet hipsters, calling themselves “Stilyagi.” “We were all listening to Elvis Presley, went to Viktor Tsoi’s concerts . I dressed up in second hand clothes from Teshinsky market. I had some hellish white jacket at some point. Look, I was never rich, I never had enough money to buy expensive clothes.”

Krasovsky’s friends met on Thursdays at an underground club called Moloko. Krasovsky studied Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, the training ground for Russian poets. His company of hip looking youth mingled with a queen of Soviet and post-Soviet rock and roll, Zhanna Aguzarova.

If, as he says, some of Krasovsky’s friends ruined themselves by drugs, others turned into Vladimir Putin fans. Krasovsky path was different. “I am still happy that changes came to my country; my family had never experienced any dramatic financial losses, we were never hungry during the period that some describe as the ‘bloody liberal regime’—any changes are always good.”

Running for Moscow mayor, Krasovsky sees his role, as a candidate, to fight for equality for all. “Of all politicians I prefer Obama, I am social democrat by my political views, I want to take part in the election to show the current political elite how to fight for human rights and freedom.”

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Election 2024: Frank Perez, Kathleen Taylor running for Reno City Council Ward 1

Frank Perez and Kathleen Taylor seek Reno’s Ward 1 city council seat.

Ward 1’s incumbent is Jenny Brekhus, who hit the limit of three terms representing the ward and can’t run again.

Taylor was appointed in 2022 to fill a city council vacancy in Ward 5, and now finds herself in Ward 1 after boundaries were redrawn.

She and Perez each have strong connections to the city. Perez is a city code compliance officer, and Taylor was chair of the Reno Planning Commission.

The Reno City Council has seven total seats: six council members and a mayor.

Election Day is Nov. 5. Early voting runs from Oct. 19 to Nov. 1.

Where is Reno’s Ward 1?

Ward 1 covers east-central Reno including downtown, the university and the Nevada Cares Campus.

See Reno Ward maps at washoecounty.gov/voters/reporting_and_data/precinct-districtmaps.php .

Who is Frank Perez running for Reno City Council Ward 1?

3 issues to focus on if elected: City investment in neighborhoods, community safety, and opportunities for our young people and seniors
Education: Graduate of Western Nevada College and the University of Nevada, Reno with a bachelor’s degree in political science
Occupation: City of Reno code compliance officer
Political experience: Attaché during the 79th and 80th Nevada Legislative Sessions under the chairman of Assembly government affairs Edgar Flores; chairman of the Washoe County School District’s school naming committee; chairman of the Washoe County Library System; vice president of the Community Health Alliance board of directors; and various other boards.
Political affiliation: Democrat
Family: Married with one son

Who is Kathleen Taylor running for Reno City Council Ward 1?

3 issues to focus on if elected: Social services and homelessness; affordable housing/diverse housing options; and growth and development.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in journalism from UNR
Occupation: Small-business owner, Reno City Council member
Political experience: Reno City Council for Ward 5 since September 2022, former Reno Planning Commission chair, Building Enterprise Financial Advisory Committee member
Political affiliation: Republican
Family: Two daughters

Q&A with the candidates coming soon.

Mark Robison is the state politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal, with occasional forays into other topics. Email comments to [email protected] or comment on Mark’s Greater Reno Facebook page .

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Leader Of Russia’s Protest Movement Alexei Navalny Running For Mayor Of Moscow

MOSCOW (AP) — A motley gaggle of hipsters, mothers with children and two babushkas with hair dyed bright red gather to listen to something they haven’t heard in over a decade: a stump speech for Moscow mayor.

Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger and leader of Russia’s protest movement, is trying to take his following offline and into the street, waging a traditional campaign of hand-shaking and leaflet drives to win voters outside his base of the young and web-savvy.

Navalny has little hope of defeating incumbent Sergei Sobyanin — but polls show his star is rising. And if he gets a big chunk of the vote, the Kremlin will face pressure to show leniency over his five-year prison sentence, and the grassroots protest movement that fizzled out after Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency last year may gain new wind.

Sobyanin, meanwhile, is playing the regal incumbent: Throughout the campaign, the Kremlin-backed politician has been all but invisible, allowing the constant drone of jackhammers or whiff of fresh paint that are signs of a Moscow makeover to remind voters of who’s in charge — and who can pull the purse-strings.

Navalny is the one who has been soaking up attention, and generating buzz. On a recent August day, the opposition leader stood on stage in a sprawling Moscow park dotted with enormous space shuttles and other scraps of Soviet-era glory, and attempted to connect with an audience he rarely reaches through Twitter: the feared and revered babushka contingency.

“We know that (in Soviet times) our oil money was spent on enormous factories, industry, railroads, roads, science, health care, rockets,” he boomed, riffing on a nostalgia felt by many older Russians, who saw their hopes dashed and savings depleted under post-Soviet political reforms.

“But can you name a single major business that’s been built in this country in the past 10 years? I can’t!”

The old ladies sitting in the first row chuckled and shook their heads.

On Sunday, police briefly detained Navalny after he left the stage of a campaign event, and released him a short time later. The detention was part of a series of public signals to Navalny, who was given a verbal warning about various alleged campaign violations by the Moscow electoral committee last week.

Polling data on the race is spotty and inconsistent, but the trends are clear: The number of Muscovites ready to vote for Navalny on Sept. 8 has breached 10 percent and may even be moving toward 20 percent. Meanwhile, Sobyanin’s ratings — while still above the 50 percent that would allow him to avoid a run-off — are slipping by the week. There are four other party-backed candidates in the race, none projected to snag more than 5 percent.

Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the independent Levada polling center, said that Sobyanin’s voter base was clearly no longer growing, and that there’s now a small chance there will be a second round.

Last month, Navalny was sentenced to five years in prison on embezzlement charges, but was released the day after his conviction in what many have described as an effort to legitimize the mayoral race and ensure that Sobyanin — who was appointed as mayor and is seen as a possible successor to Putin — is regarded as an elected politician with widespread support.

Such legitimacy is considered important because Putin’s forces are at their weakest in his seat of power: Moscow. When Putin won back the presidency last year, after ruling for a term in the lesser role of prime minister, he won only 47 percent of the capital’s vote, compared to 64 percent nationwide. That may also be a reason why, although there’s no doubt that Sobyanin is the Kremlin’s man, he is running as an independent and has avoided public appearances with the president.

Masha Lipman at the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow said that Navalny had already achieved something: cast doubt over the inevitability of Putin’s power.

“One of his greatest achievements is … adding an element of risk and uncertainty,” she said. “Putin built a political system in this country that is risk averse, it’s a political monopoly.”

Rather than the issues — immigration, traffic, high cost of living — it’s a contrast in political style that lies at the heart of the mayoral campaign. In the Levada Center poll, 48 percent of respondents said they would vote for a mayor with “experience,” whereas 47 percent said that personal qualities, such as “openness and determination,” were crucial.

Navalny, a sharp-tongued 37-year-old lawyer, has plenty of the latter. He has waged a blitzkrieg campaign with nearly $1.5 million in funds raised online, meeting with hundreds of voters every day and mobilizing enthusiastic young volunteers to help hand out leaflets in the street and on the metro.

His team has also unleashed a flurry of new online projects. From a GPS mapping system that shows how many supporters live in each apartment block to an application that helps users spread pro-Navalny information on Russia’s biggest social networks, the campaign has been keen to lock down his natural base of young voters, many of whom often don’t make it to the polls.

“Currently the polls are assuming that those who haven’t yet figured out who to vote for will vote the same way as those who have,” Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s campaign manager, told The Associated Press. “The fight is for the 30 percent of voters who haven’t decided yet.”

Andrei Tvertnev, an unemployed 25-year-old former soldier who was lingering in the crowd around Navalny, is one of those yet to make up his mind.

Tvertnev wasn’t keen on Sobyanin, saying that the changes he’s brought to the city “could have been done much faster.” At the same time, he remained skeptical about Navalny.

“Do I vote for a bureaucrat who made some changes, or a different person who promises even more changes?” he asked. “I think I’ll only make up my mind on the day of the elections.”

Sobyanin, who made his name as the governor of the oil-rich Siberian province of Tyumen, makes up for his lack of charisma and enthusiasm with what talks in Russian politics: experience, access and the money that comes with it.

Despite his almost invisible candidacy, Sobyanin is genuinely well-liked for the changes he’s brought to Moscow. He has poured a yearly budget of approximately $54 billion into the city’s parks and cultural institutions, although other promises to tackle traffic and parking have been lagging or limited in scope.

As if to shore up his reputation as a fixer-upper, the city, which usually hits a sleepy summer lull in August, has been converted into an enormous construction site — with sidewalks torn up and facades repainted.

“There’s little doubt that before elections, the government becomes very affectionate and thoughtful,” Levada’s Grazhdankin said about the city’s makeover.

While Sobyanin, who was appointed to the mayor’s office, is eager to prove himself as a legitimately elected politician, the tactics used against Navalny — from accusations that he receives foreign funding abroad to refusals by media outlets to play his campaign ads — show that he still sees Navalny as a threat.

Even if Navalny’s eventual vote tally is relatively low, he may end up having an outsized impact on the Russian political scene.

“If he gets 10 to 12 percent, they can say, look at your opposition leader, he was only able to get this tiny fraction of the vote,” said Lipman. “But those people who are investing their emotions, time and money into this campaign, that experience won’t go away.”

Oleg Bogomolov, a 42-year-old human resources manager who was at Navalny’s headquarters to volunteer for the first time, said he didn’t truly believe Navalny could win.

“But I think the more people who know about him, the greater his chances of being set free,” he said. “If they put him behind bars again (after the election), there will be even more people in the streets.”

If you talk to the experts, they’ll tell you that Trump’s plan for mass deportations has little chance of succeeding.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed three artificial intelligence bills into law on Tuesday in an attempt to require social…

This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter…

Democratic senators on two relevant committees are calling for their panels to investigate allegations last month in the Washington Post…

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Mayor for a Day Essay Contest Winners

Students from the cities of Byron, New York Mills, Shoreview, and St. Louis Park have been selected as winners of the League’s 2023 Mayor for a Day Essay Contest. In addition, judges selected four honorable mention essayists from the cities of Dilworth, Grand Marais, Lauderdale, and Windom. The League received more than 500 entries from students who reside in cities spanning the state.

The Mayor for a Day Essay Contest was launched in 2013 and continues to invite fourth, fifth, and sixth graders to share how they would make their communities even better places to live. In addition to having their essays published here, the four winners each receive a plaque and a check for $100. Honorable mention students receive a certificate of recognition, and excerpts from their essays appear here.

Some cities where the winning students reside also will arrange for recognition and city council meetings and other public events. City officials throughout the state supported the Mayor for a Day program by promoting it at their local schools, which often resulted in entire classes participating in the contest. Additionally, some students submitted entries independently. Essay finalists were judged by Nisswa City Administrator and League President Jenny Max and League Executive Director Luke Fischer.

The League thanks all teachers, city officials, parents, and guardians who encouraged students to submit essays. And congratulations to all participating students for your thoughtful essays.

Bailey Doll 6th Grade NEW YORK MILLS

Have you ever thought of what you would do if you were a mayor trying to better your own town? Well, if you haven’t, hopefully this essay will get you thinking about it because it made me think a lot. The things that I started to think about are street maintenance, the community, and what’s happening that is good in our town.

Street maintenance is very important because without it there would be too many car accidents for people to even be on the road. With street maintenance there will be less accidents. The type of things that prevent us from having accidents are traffic lights and signs. If the people want to get a certain sign in their neighborhood, I would try my hardest to make that process easier for whoever believes that their neighborhood should have that sign or warning. Or, if they have any other questions, they can ask me any questions that are relevant to the problem they are having.

The community is one of the most important things in a municipality. It’s important because community is a word that symbolizes coming together and helping one another for the better. Being involved is one of the best things you could do for yourself and the thing you want to be involved in. Another reason it’s a good thing is that you can make many friendships. Just think about all the good things you can and should do by being involved in a community. Taking a part in any community is a good thing because it will make everyone feel at home with the friends they make.

There are things I like in my town and things I think should be added. There are a lot of things that come to mind when I think about what is good, but the main thing is all the great people that are in my town. One thing that I would want to add to New York Mills is a place that anyone could go to learn about New York Mills. Although Mills has a website, which is more convenient these days, hopefully people like myself think it would be a good idea to make a place to go and learn about Mills. It allows people to get out of their house, which is always a good thing.

Street maintenance can be improved. Community, it’s important to be together, and you can learn a lot from being involved in one. There are many good things that are in my town and there are things that I think could be noticed or made better. Now that I’m done, what would you do if you were mayor for the day?

Zahra Kaderbhai 6th Grade SHOREVIEW

As mayor for a day, I would start a new program to allow people in the community to replant trees in public areas like city parks and other open spaces. Trees are so important — they give us fresh air, and keep us and the earth healthy. Trees are also homes to many animals and critters. Maple trees are my favorite!

Two summers ago, we had to cut down three ash trees in our backyard due to emerald ash borer bugs. These trees provided shade and shelter for birds and squirrels, and their loss saddened us. Unfortunately, the city is also removing other trees in the neighborhood due to the same issue. My program’s goal is to ensure that we are replacing as many lost trees as possible.

Here’s how my program would work:

Choose a location — I’ll provide a list of areas where the city has cut down trees. You can select a spot to plant a new one.
Apply for permission — Apply to the city. You’ll receive a plaque with your name and planting date if approved.
Plant a Tree — Pick a tree seedling from a local garden center. Attach the plaque to your tree and watch it grow!
Celebrate — Trees can be grown for special occasions like birthdays or graduations, inspiring others to join in!

I would also set up a way for people to donate trees. During the summer, my dad sometimes pulls out tree seedlings that are extras from our garden, and I believe others do the same. I encourage everyone to pot and donate them to local tree nurseries or garden centers. I think this program will make it fun for people to keep Shoreview green!

Elina Larsen 5th Grade BYRON

Hi! My name is Elina Larsen. Have you ever wanted to be the mayor, even just for a day? Well, I am going to tell you three things I would do if I was mayor.

First, I would build a police station so police will not have to come from Rochester. Instead, we should build one in Byron so police can arrive faster. Another reason for a police station is I feel like if I had a building for my job, I would feel appreciated. I think it would be nice to build them a police station, so they feel more appreciated.

Second, I think we should open some retirement places. It would be easier to see your Nana and Papa. I feel like it would be nice to have them not worry about finding a good retirement place. Also, more elderly would come live in our community.

Lastly, I would make better access for people who have disabilities. I feel like they would feel more appreciated. I believe that everyone will feel more welcome, and it would be easier for everyone.

That is everything I think Byron needs to be a great place for people to live in. Those are the things I’d do if I were mayor for a day.

Claire Westlund 6th Grade ST. LOUIS PARK

My name is Claire Westlund and I live in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. If I were mayor for a day, I would want to meet all the people that I would be working with and establish what jobs they have so I know who to ask for what, as well as to just meet and interact with my fellow peers.

I would first want to scope out empty areas and spaces that are just being wasted. Like a big empty lot or something like that. These spaces always make me think of something that I think would look better there. Such as a playground, or walking nature strip, or dog park. Even a shop or outdoor eating area is so much more fun than a big, empty, concrete lot.

I bet that there are lots of people who have business ideas, but don’t have a space to show and share cool, creative ideas. Or they could also be turned into something completely new and unique.

I would also want to at least start depolluting lakes in Minnesota. Out of the over 10,000 lakes, many of them are polluted. I live right by Lamplighter Pond, and it’s pretty much a giant sewer dump. I would want to put in an effort to try and clean some out if I were mayor for a day.

I hope you enjoyed my reasoning and ideas for “The Mayor for a Day Essay Contest.”

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Louis Adams 5th grade LAUDERDALE

Excerpt from Louis’ essay: “As mayor, I would make an event called Pie Fest. The town’s bakers can sign up to compete for the title …”

Grace Carlson 5th Grade DILWORTH

Excerpt from Grace’s essay: “… I would start clubs to help our environment, such as clubs to plant gardens and clean the city.”

Janette Cerda Juarez 4th Grade WINDOM

Excerpt from Janette’s essay: “I would make our safety better by having an emergency button in all houses …”

Charlotte Haussner 5th Grade GRAND MARAIS

Excerpt from Charlotte’s essay: “… pick-up recycling program improvement would help the people of Grand Marais and the whole area participate more in recycling …”

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I Was the First Woman to Run For Mayor Of L.A.

In my career, people always cared that i was female. today, we’ve got better things to worry about..

by Linda Griego | February 26, 2013

The first person to show me women could be active in politics was my grandmother, an ardent New Dealer and lifelong admirer of FDR. We lived in Tucumari, New Mexico, and once I got my driver’s license (at age 15), she never let me go to school on an election day again. My job, instead, was to drive people to the polls. When I’d finished with one group, she’d have a list of new people for me to pick up.

There was an unnerving pause. “You know, it’s a really hard job,” she finally said. “But you can do it.”

Today, odds are high that we’ll elect a female mayor of Los Angeles (two of the leading mayoral candidates are women), but what’s perhaps most remarkable is how little we’ve noticed that milestone. Things have changed a lot for women in business and politics, and in my career—sometimes on purpose, sometimes by chance—I wound up helping drive that change. It isn’t always fun to break a barrier (barriers can cause injuries), but it can be satisfying. I know that, because I had to learn it repeatedly.

In 1967, when I was 19 years old, I got my first paycheck. It was for $450, more than any check ever earned by anyone in my family. I was in Washington working for New Mexico’s U.S. congressman, Tom Morris. I’d gotten the job, which had started as an internship, right out of high school, in part because Morris was the husband of my first grade teacher. This was the era of the Vietnam War, and there was a lot of turmoil. When Martin Luther King Jr. got assassinated and Washington went up in flames, I called my grandmother to tell her what was happening.

“It was about time,” she said. “Sometimes you have to take drastic measures. You push people so far and they have to do things.” Her reaction was unexpected but calming: She wasn’t afraid for her little girl, so neither was I.

If working for Congressman Morris showed me that I could live on my own as a young woman in a big city far from home, my next job, as a caseworker for U.S. Senator Alan Cranston of California, showed me how to negotiate both bureaucracies and Capitol Hill boys’ clubs. I worked primarily on veterans’ affairs in both D.C. and in Los Angeles, helping returning Vietnam veterans with things like unpaid benefits and hospital bills. At one point, a glitch in the VA computers caused thousands of vets to lose their GI Bill checks, threatening their enrollment in school. When I told Senator Cranston, he sent me straight to the VA office. I wound up staying there three days in a row, refusing to leave until someone gave me definitive answers about when the checks would be delivered. He taught me one of my earliest lessons about advocacy: If you have to barge in, barge in.

At that time, very few women ran for office, and there were no women in California’s congressional delegation. Even female staffers were few. One day, when Cranston sent me to the Pentagon for a meeting about defense procurement, I got turned away at the door. I was told I must be lost; then I was told there were to be no women in the meeting. Stunned, I returned to office and told Cranston I’d been tossed out.

“Why?” he asked sharply.

“They told me there are no women,” I said.

“You get back in a cab and get over there!”

“You should send Bob,” I suggested.

“If you’re my rep, you’re my rep,” he said. “You get back there.”

In 1972, still working for Cranston, I moved to Los Angeles to enroll at UCLA for a bachelor’s degree. One day, while participating in a panel on nontraditional jobs for women, I met a telephone executive who claimed that women would never work as repairmen or as linemen because they didn’t want to muss their hair or break a nail. I told him this was ridiculous: With $15 an hour and some mussed hair you could put your kids through college; with $4 an hour and perfect hair, you’d be poor forever.

Three weeks later I got a call from Pacific Bell asking me to come in for an interview, and then I got offered a job as a foreman. I loved politics, and part of me wanted to run back to D.C. But I was married, and my life was in L.A. I took the job.

My time in Washington taught me about being a woman in a male-dominated white-collar setting. My time at Pacific Bell taught me about being a woman in a male-dominated blue-collar setting. I was based in a garage in San Gabriel with 90 male coworkers—and just one woman, a secretary. My job was to lead a crew of seven installation and repairmen. Figuring I’d last only a week, my supervisors gave me what they thought was one of the least-promising teams. But the guys were all Vietnam vets, and we got along great.

I got promoted pretty quickly, but no matter what I was doing, people would be surprised to see me. I’d walk up to a door and knock, and a kid would say, “The telephone man is here, and it’s a girl!” In emergencies, I’d get a call at 1:30 a.m., get my book, and go down the list of crew leaders to call. If their wives answered the phone they would hang up on me, not believing my post at the phone company could be occupied by a woman.

As I moved up the ladder, I got trained in finance, labor, and management, and eventually I decided I wanted to own my own business. Since the only thing I knew how to do was cook chili, I opened the Chili Stop, a takeout restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard between Beverly and Melrose, in 1980. A couple of years later, I teamed up with a group of investors to buy an abandoned firehouse downtown at Figueroa Street and Wilshire Boulevard, with the goal of opening a restaurant there. At that time, downtown was boarded-up buildings and parking lots, but we thought a renaissance was on the way, and we turned out to be right—much, much later.

This effort wound up being an education in municipal governance. I needed permits, but all I got from L.A. was obstruction. Everywhere I turned, the answer to my questions was, “No, you can’t do that.” Here I was, trying to create jobs and pay taxes in the middle of a recession, but I couldn’t even open the building! The Downtown News ran an article on me, and I vented all my complaints. Why was the no-can-do attitude so prevalent in the city bureaucracy?

My frustration with Los Angeles ultimately brought me back into public life. While I was running my restaurant, I had given fundraisers and been appointed for stints on the Community Redevelopment Agency and the Cultural Affairs Commission. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, in 1990, I got a phone call from the mayor.

“This is Tom,” he said. “Tom Bradley. Are you free to come talk to me about a position?”

I had met Bradley and worked on his campaigns, but I didn’t know him on a first-name basis. When he asked if I wanted to become a deputy mayor, I thought it was a joke. But Bradley felt I could help streamline the city permitting process for new small businesses. I signed on.

In 1992, the L.A. riots broke out, and Mayor Bradley, after 20 years in office, decided not to run for a fifth term. The field was wide open, and a lot of people I’d worked with— women’s groups, Latinos, friends, some politicians who were already in office—started asking me if I planned to join the race. I’d never seriously thought about it. I had never run for public office; the deadline for declaring candidacy was imminent; and I had no campaign organization and no campaign funds. But I also thought I’d be a good mayor. So at the end of 1992, right before the deadline, I jumped in.

I thought I’d been busy as deputy mayor, but running for mayor showed me what busy really was. Never before had my every waking moment been filled with such activity: Raise money; “meet and greet” voters; raise more money; give TV and radio interviews; raise more money; give news conferences; raise more money; tape political ads; raise more money; debate the other candidate. Did I mention raise more money? Like it or not, a candidate who does not have personal wealth to fund her or his candidacy must spend more time dialing for dollars than on any other campaign endeavor. Money equals credibility.

I also got to see more sides of the city than ever before. One minute, my staff would have me meeting Sherry Lansing at Paramount. The next, I’d be walking around the neighborhood near USC—where I helped a woman pick up bullets in her front yard—and speaking at the Pico Union Boys & Girls Club. A little girl there told me she wanted to live in Beverly Hills when she grew up. “Where I live we hear gunshots every night,” she explained. “And I know that in Beverly Hills it’s only sometimes.”

Because I was a “first,” I got a lot of encouragement and support—financial and volunteer—from women. The political action committee Emily’s List supported my candidacy, as did Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard and then-State Assemblyman Louis Caldera. Women from different parts of the country sent me donations. Having a woman among 10 male candidates made for good visuals on local television news. One of my few TV ads—I didn’t have money for many of them—got a lot of traction. In it, I wore black high heels and a red jacket (neither of which I’d normally wear) and strolled among six-foot-tall cutouts of my male competitors wearing the same gray suit. Every time the ad ran, my poll numbers went up.

Still, for all the attention I got for being a woman and a Latina, it was also a year after the civil unrest that left 55 people dead, over 2,000 injured, and more than 1,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Racial tensions ran high. The Los Angeles Police Department leadership was in turmoil. People felt vulnerable. Richard Riordan’s campaign slogan, “Tough Enough to Turn L.A. Around,” was calculated to tap into that anxiety, and it was almost impossible for a female candidate to compete on that dimension. My campaign wound up raising nearly $800,000, a respectable haul for three months, but Riordan, who won, raised $4.6 million ($3 million of which were his own funds), and L.A. was ready for his message.

In the past 10 years, women have been elected to more and more offices locally and nationally. Leaders like Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Dianne Feinstein have dispelled doubts about whether women can be tough. Cities like Houston, San Diego, and Dallas have all elected women mayors. As with ethnicity, gender simply matters less to voters than it once did.

I’ve heard friends say it would be great for L.A. to have a woman mayor, and I agree. But Jan Perry and Wendy Greuel, the two leading female candidates, have had to work just as hard as any male candidate to win the support of female voters. If they win, it will be as candidates, not as women.

And that’s a very good thing.

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Clown suits and chaos: What happened when Jello Biafra ran for Mayor of San Francisco

From forcing businessmen to wear clown suits, to introducing a Board Of Bribery, Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra's vision for San Francisco was both “a great prank” and barbed social commentary

As frontman with The Dead Kennedys , Jello Biafra was American punk rock’s provocateur-in-chief. The fiercely leftwing band’s 1979 debut single, California Über Alles , was a sneering, satirical Molotov cocktail aimed squarely at the politicians in The Golden State.

Within months Biafra was putting his money where his mouth was and running for Mayor in his home town of San Francisco, a city where the hippie dream had been replaced by poverty, bribery, corruption and, following the assassination of then-Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk the previous year, even murder.

For Biafra it was a chance to take on the politicos at their own game

Jello Biafra : It was kinda done on a dare. I was in the back of our drummer’s Volkswagen Beetle on our way to a Pere Ubu concert when he said: “Jello, you have such a big mouth you should run for Mayor.” At the gig that night I started mouthing off to everybody that I was going to run for Mayor.

I even wrote my platform out on a napkin with a felt-tip pen, while Pere Ubu was playing a metre from me. One idea that popped into my head that night was that police officers should have to run for re-election every four years and be voted for by the people in the districts they patrol, the people who suffered from the violence and corruption.

Barry Melton (ex-guitarist, Country Joe And The Fish): During that year, Country Joe and I were working as a duo, but I was also studying with the intention of moving into the legal profession, so I was paying close attention to that election. The two main candidates for Mayor were Dianne Feinstein and Quentin Kopp. Feinstein had been the Chair of the Board Of Supervisors [the city council] at the time of the assassinations of Milk and Moscone by city official Dan White.

The other major candidate, Quentin Kopp, had been a Republican for years until he realised a Republican could never get elected in a town as left-leaning as San Francisco, so he became an independent.

Classic Rock Newsletter

Jello Biafra : Quentin Kopp was actually very jovial, friendly, kind of a character. He and Feinstein had been on the Board Of Supervisors, but when George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated Feinstein was appointed as Acting Mayor. She ran the city with an iron fist, and the police were completely out of control, which she seemed to get off on. I have never been very fond of her, and any grief I can cause that creature, I’m happy to oblige. But that wasn’t why I ran for Mayor. It was more like: wouldn’t this be a great prank?

Barry Melton : I felt aligned with the punks at that time. We were as in-your-face as they were, but just from a different time and with a different way of showing it. I met Jello and, to the sense that my politics were so far to the extreme of any ordinary San Franciscan, I certainly took notice of his campaign.

Jello Biafra : There was very little time for planning, but we managed to turn in my application at the last minute. And then suddenly I was being flooded with loads of mail, being invited to far more events than any one person could possibly attend. I only went to three of them in the end. It never even occurred to me to print up much in the way of campaign literature, or go door to door, or do very many public events.

Quentin Kopp : In every election in San Francisco you find someone with extraordinarily different proposals. Some people were offended by the very fact of his candidacy, his rhetoric, his speeches. I don’t recall being offended by any of it. Someone like Jello was not a new phenomenon and neither was he obnoxious. He certainly wasn’t particularly offensive to me.

It turned out that his uncle and I had been classmates at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. After that I became bemused by him. I think he was certainly seeking publicity. I think he got personal satisfaction from saying what was on his mind and expressing his sense of humour. It didn’t do his reputation any harm. It elevated him.

Jello Biafra : I had some pretty interesting proposals. Making businessmen wear clown suits was the one the media seized on, but there was a lot more to it than they realised. It was my response to Frankenfeinstein [Feinstein] saying she was going to “clean up” Market Street, by which she meant throwing the homeless out of all the vacant buildings.

So I went to her mansion in Pacific Heights on a mission to clean up her lawn. It was just an attention-grabbing stunt. It looked like I was wearing a toxic-materials suit, but it was actually a coverall for a milk delivery man. There was a big, locked gate at her mansion so I didn’t get as far as her lawn.

But, sure enough, the story made it to the evening news. I felt it was the other end of Market Street that needed to be cleaned up. That’s where the headquarters of Chevron and Bank Of America and other corporate evil-doers were based. That was what needed cleaning up. So I proposed that businessmen should wear clown suits between the hours of nine and five.

Barry Melton : His idea of letting people legally squat in vacant, tax-delinquent buildings was great. But, come on, forcing businessmen to wear clown suits? Just from a civil liberties point of view, should people be made to wear clown suits? It’s actually frighteningly right-wing, if you think about it.

Jello Biafra : People began making their own signs and bringing them to rallies. One of them was: ‘There’s always room for Jello’. That was an advertising slogan for a fruit-flavoured dessert at the time. I didn’t choose it. That was just one of the signs, but it was the one that caught on. There were several more, including somebody walking around with a sign saying: ‘If Jello doesn’t win, I’ll kill myself’.

Quentin Kopp : I was bemused by all that. I have a vague recollection that Jello made five or six points which were off the chart, so to speak. I didn’t take him seriously.

Jello Biafra : Something else I had learned quickly when I first came to San Francisco was that the city was openly and brazenly corrupt. I realised, for example, that the reason why punk shows were getting attacked so much by the police was that none of us had the money to pay off the cops. In some cases the promoters just refused on principle.

So realising how the whole thing worked, I thought, okay, let’s just bring it all out in the open. And I proposed an officially appointed Board Of Bribery to set fair and standard bribe rates for acquiring liquor licences, building code exemptions, protection from the police and other crooks and so on.

In addition to the Board Of Bribery, I also proposed that people be allowed to panhandle [beg] on a 50 per cent commission to raise money for the city. There was already a growing number of beggars on the streets because social services were being cut. Another proposition was to erect statues of Dan White [Harvey Milk’s assassin] all over town and raise funds by selling rocks and rotten fruit and vegetables for people to throw at them.

Barry Melton : He had things that were absolutely brilliant political insights, but he also had ideas that would disqualify his campaign entirely. The people I hung out with, we really appreciated some elements of his campaign platform. But there were things like erecting Dan White statues… I mean, if you include clown suits and throwing eggs at statues as part of your campaign, I assume you know you are disqualifying yourself.

Jello Biafra : I like using my sense of humour as a gateway to whack people in the head with things I want to say to them. I’ve always been like that. But even so, there were serious points.

Barry Melton : Of course, you can mount an election campaign not with the expectation of winning, but with the intention of pushing the dialogue so that your serious issues actually get discussed.

Jello Biafra : Ultimately the election became a high-noon showdown between the downtown business interests, whose puppet was Feinstein, and the real-estate interests, whose puppet was Kopp. Feinstein was expecting to get a 50 per cent majority, and when she didn’t get it her spokesman said: “If someone like Jello Biafra can get so many votes, this city is in real trouble.” There was genuine anger behind that.

Quentin Kopp : The gay candidate, David Scott, got about 10 or 12 per cent. For Biafra, coming in fourth was very good. He finished behind Scott, so he probably got two or three per cent of the vote.

Barry Melton : I would say it was not a good result for Jello Biafra. He only got a tiny minority protest kind of vote. But if it’s a close fight, which this was, a small percentage can be everything. When you get somebody like Jello, the threat is to the candidate on the left, which was Dianne Feinstein.

Jello Biafra : Had me and David Scott not gotten so many votes, then Feinstein and Kopp would never have been forced into a run-off.

Quentin Kopp : As it turned out, Feinstein beat me in the run-off a month or so later.

Barry Melton : To my friends and me, the proposal that police officers should be elected was wonderful, not something to be laughed at. So his campaign had some really legitimate parts to it, but he took other aspects of it into the theatre of the absurd.

Jello Biafra : Five years later, when Kopp was still on the Board Of Supervisors, they passed a law preventing anyone to run for office using an assumed name. He admitted that one of his targets then was me. You couldn’t have people like Jello Biafra humiliating candidates who had spent tens of thousands of dollars on their campaign. To which my reply was: “Wasn’t that the whole idea?”

Barry Melton : Jello succeeded in getting his issues discussed. Also, relative to those major police problems in San Francisco, in the years that followed, more and more Metropolitan Police Departments started introducing concepts like community policing, where officers actually walk beats and get to know the people they’re working for, so there’s interaction between the police and the community, not just a bunch of outside army occupation troops coming in and messing with your lives. The changes have not been exactly as Jello had envisioned, but these ideas have become rooted in our culture.

Jello Biafra : People still ask me to run for more offices. But I have to warn them that if I did it now I’d have to put way more time and effort into it, because I know now how things are actually done. If I won I’d have to give up rock’n’roll for good.

The hardest part would come right after being elected, when I’d have to find the right people, the right advisors. I’d be walking that tightrope between finding people who shared my vision and people who could actually oversee a bureaucracy and shake things up.

What happened next?

Jello Biafra ran for presidency of the Green Party in 2000, and finished second to Ralph Nader. He still tours and records with his band the Guantanamo School Of Medicine, who've just released a video for their song We Created Putin .

Dianne Feinstein is the the senior United States Senator from California, and the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Quentin Kopp, who later became a judge, is now retired. Barry Melton balances life as a criminal defence lawyer with playing guitar in various live combinations.

Johnny is a music journalist, author and archivist of forty years experience. In the UK alone, he has written for Smash Hits, Q, Mojo, The Sunday Times, Radio Times, Classic Rock, HiFi News and more. His website Musicdayz is the world’s largest archive of fully searchable chronologically-organised rock music facts, often enhanced by features about those facts. He has interviewed three of the four Beatles, all of Abba and been nursed through a bad attack of food poisoning on a tour bus in South America by Robert Smith of The Cure.

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‘Demand a Recount!’—William F. Buckley’s Quixotic 1965 Run for NYC Mayor

Puckish conservative ran short on votes but won the long game , william f. buckley jr.’s decision to run for mayor of new york city in 1965 as the conservative party candidate proved a turning point in his career and in the conservative movement. by challenging a charismatic liberal republican and a bland democrat in what was perhaps the nation’s most liberal city as president lyndon b. johnson was pressing to build his great society, buckley invigorated conservatives across the country..

Buckley’s “paradigmatic campaign,” as he called it, sought to showcase conservative ideas as constructive alternatives to the liberal agenda. The National Review editor contested “group interest liberalism,” in which power brokers maintained control by placating voting blocs. That system, Buckley argued, perpetuated a stalemated status quo, as most voters had multiple interests. Addressing New Yorkers as individuals and talking about their city writ large, Buckley brought to bear wit, erudition, and theatricality, attracting more attention than normally accorded third-party candidates.

Buckley’s campaign had its origins in an appearance he made before the New York City Police Department’s Holy Name Society Communion Breakfast on April 4, 1965. His theme was the establishment of civilian review boards to investigate allegations of police brutality. Buckley opposed the imposition of such boards. Charges against police had been overstated, he said, positing that New Yorkers faced a greater threat from rising crime than from occasional police overreactions. He insisted that existing procedures might best address whatever abuses had occurred. Recent Supreme Court decisions, Buckley believed, had made it tougher for police officers to do their jobs.

The month before, the Alabama State Police had beaten civil rights marchers in Selma. The episode at the Edmund Pettus Bridge was very much on the minds of Buckley’s audience, the press, and the public. Buckley said events in Selma had “aroused” the “conscience of the world,” adding, based on information he later found to have been faulty, that television coverage of the episode had excluded footage of police showing restraint as demonstrators provoked them. Buckley might better have cited proven false allegations against police leveled locally.

The New York Herald Tribune reported the next day that Buckley’s audience had applauded his comments about the Alabama police and laughed at his references to the murder of civil rights volunteer Viola Liuzzo. Buckley remembered his listeners being silent during both passages. The New York Times , which mentioned neither applause nor laughter in its “bulldog” edition, a day later published an expanded story under the headline, “Buckley Praises Police of Selma/Hailed by 5,600 Police Here as He Cites ‘Restraint.’”

Unable to persuade the Herald Tribune to retract or modify its story, Buckley sued for libel. The Holy Name Society had recorded his talk; for members of the press, he played that tape, which documented the absence of applause and laughter. Clearly audible were Buckley’s references to “injustices” dealt African-Americans. Hearing the tape, the National Catholic Reporter wrote that of 26 quotations in the Herald Tribune story attributed to Buckley 19 were inaccurate. The Tribune agreed to correct the record. Buckley withdrew his suit. But the memory of how a single newspaper—however wrong its facts—could shape the narrative stayed with him. “Corrections very seldom catch up with distortions,” he observed. The manner in which the media covered his speech, as well as public figures’ demonstrated disinclination to counter such faulty reporting, lest it cost them votes, drove home to Buckley certain realities about municipal politics in the New York of that era.

Buckley later said he decided to run for mayor about 45 minutes after his April 4 speech; more likely, his decision flowed from the Herald Tribune incident. Another impetus was liberal Republican congressman John V. Lindsay’s contemplation of a mayoral run. Were Lindsay to win the mayoralty in a city where registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans three to one, Buckley surmised, commentators would declare Lindsay a contender for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. That would reverse inroads conservatives had made in shifting the party’s ideological center rightward with the 1964 presidential nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater. This conservatives were determined to resist.

The night Goldwater lost, Lindsay had won a fourth term in Congress with 71.5 percent of the vote in a district LBJ swept. Lindsay’s campaign slogan, “The District’s Pride, the Nation’s Hope,” telegraphed his ambitions. New York’s Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller and fellow GOP moderate Jacob Javits, the state’s senior U.S. senator, both were thinking presidentially, and unlikely to leave office soon. Junior Senator Robert F. Kennedy had won election months earlier. In 1965, the mayoralty seemed the only way station that might open for Lindsay on the path he hoped to take from the House of Representatives to the White House.

Mayor Robert F. Wagner was retiring after 12 years at City Hall. The Liberal Party, which usually backed Democrats, was poised to endorse Lindsay, enlarging his prospects. As tribute for that gesture, the Liberals demanded Lindsay name one of their operatives to his ticket and award the Liberal Party a third of mayoral patronage. Lindsay entered the race with a record as one of the most liberal members of the House, with an 85 percent approval rating from Americans for Democratic Action. On May 13, 1965, Lindsay, 43, announced his candidacy for mayor.

Days later, Buckley, 39, published in National Review a column titled “Mayor, Anyone?” Proposing to lead New York City out of what he termed its “perpetual crisis,” Buckley described a 10-point program. He suggested measures to reduce juvenile crime. He advocated repealing narcotics laws regarding adults and allowing certified addicts to buy drugs at pharmacies. He favored legalizing gambling, exempting teens from minimum wage requirements, and ending union monopolies over city contracts. Businesses locating in depressed areas and hiring neighborhood residents would, under a Buckley plan, receive tax benefits.

To keep traffic moving, Buckley would ban loading and unloading of commercial vehicles between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. He suggested that the city allow people with good driving

records to use their cars as taxis. His proposal to build a bikeway from 125th Street to 1st Street generated considerable interest. Buckley favored residency requirements for welfare and wanted to require recipients to perform some kind of work. In laying out the magazine, the managing editor added to the cover a teaser: “Buckley for Mayor?” On June 7, Buckley told Conservative Party chairman Daniel Mahoney he would accept the party’s nomination for mayor. At the Overseas Press Club on June 24, Buckley announced his candidacy. His opening line—that he often wished more of the press was overseas—got a sustained laugh. Buckley said he was running on the Conservative Party ticket because the Republican slot was closed to anyone not in the “mainstream of Republican opinion.” Lindsay and his managers countered that Buckley’s views were outside the “mainstream” of New York opinion. When someone inquired whether he wanted to be mayor, Buckley said he had “never considered it.” Asked how many votes he expected to receive, he replied, “Conservatively speaking: one.”

Most of the press editorialized negatively about his politics and his policy recommendations, but reporters covering Buckley found his ready humor, candor, and unconventionality refreshing. Liberal columnist and Lindsay supporter Murray Kempton, a friend of the candidate, said he found it reassuring that Buckley had pledged not to campaign during the day, given his duties at National Review, while incumbent elected officeholders would be campaigning on taxpayers’ time.

Buckley, asked the first thing he would do if he won, shot back, “Demand a recount!” His jest became the campaign’s most quoted line. Such witticisms tickled reporters and audiences; intimates feared Buckley was not taking his campaign seriously. He established credibility, however, by releasing well-reasoned position papers on virtually every issue. A commentator likened the volunteers crowding Buckley’s headquarters to “a ‘New Frontier’ elite of the political right.”

Lindsay sought to make a virtue of his newness to the New York municipal scene. His campaign advisers, taken with a Kempton line—“He is fresh, when everyone else is tired”—printed it on campaign posters. When not citing his personal attributes and professed idealism, Lindsay, by design, avoided specifics.

In September, city comptroller Abraham D. Beame, 59, won the Democratic primary. Asked to discern between the diminutive Beame and Lindsay, whom master builder Robert Moses likened to a matinee idol, Buckley pronounced their differences more “biological than ideological,” noting that he would be running against a tall liberal and a short liberal.

Averring disinterest in which rival he took votes from, Buckley was harder on Lindsay. He insisted that he bore the congressman no personal animosity, stating as his primary objection to Lindsay that he belonged in the Democratic Party. Indirectly nodding to Lindsay’s presidential ambitions, Buckley remarked, “Mr. Beame does not pretend to be anything but what he is, a very ordinary politician.” Lindsay denied having known Buckley when the two men were students at Yale and attributed Buckley’s different recollection to his suffering “delusions of grandeur.” An irked Buckley retorted that he did not take “grandeur” to mean “having known John Lindsay.” Whenever Lindsay donned reformer’s robes to batter Beame, Buckley, invoking Lindsay’s deal with the Liberal Party, proclaimed the Republican “boss backed.”

On September 16, Buckley caught a break when a strike shuttered six of the city’s daily newspapers. The 23-day walkout created a void that television, radio, and out-of-town papers filled, and which worked to Buckley’s advantage. Appearing together for the first time on radio, Beame and Buckley took aim at Lindsay from opposite directions. Beame said Lindsay, by not identifying as a Republican in his campaign literature, seemed to be ashamed of his partisan affiliation.

“I’ll buy that,” Buckley blurted, beckoning to Republican voters.

During the candidates’ first televised debate, Buckley, who at Yale had been a champion debater, employed techniques he had long since perfected, including scene-stealing. His facial expressions matched his rhetoric. Noting that Buckley had time remaining, the moderator asked if he cared to say more. “No,” the candidate said. “I think I’ll just contemplate the great eloquence of my previous remarks.”

In early October, a Herald Tribune straw poll had Beame leading Lindsay 45 percent to 35 percent, with Buckley at 10 percent. Within days, Buckley had jumped to 13 percent. On October 21, the Daily News, back in print, put Lindsay at 42 percent, Beame at 37 percent, and Buckley at 20 percent. Three days later, the newspaper poll had Lindsay at 43 percent, Beame at 40 percent, and Buckley at 18 percent.

Lindsay, playing to liberals, began to slam Buckley as an ultra-rightist, employing the phrase “relocation centers” to describe a Buckley proposal to move unemployed mothers on welfare to areas where the city would provide the women with housing and job training and their children with schools and recreation centers. Beame referred to Buckley as the campaign’s “Clown Prince,” asking rhetorically which groups Buckley intended to send to “concentration camps” once he removed all the welfare recipients and drug addicts.

Buckley was gaining among white ethnic voters, many of them Democrats, in the outer boroughs. Pollster Samuel Label attributed Buckley’s numbers to his “giving emotional voice to many racial discontents among white voters.” In framing his arguments, Buckley repeatedly mentioned Beyond the Melting Pot, a 1963 book by Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Glazer was a prominent Harvard sociologist; Moynihan, an academic on the rise in policy-making circles. As U.S. assistant secretary of labor, Moynihan had written a memorandum to President Johnson on the crisis besetting the black family: rising out-of-wedlock births, fatherless households, and increasing unemployment among black men—phenomena Moynihan said were exacerbated by a welfare system that stifled incentive and discouraged work.

Glazer and Moynihan also noted challenges to other ethnic groups in New York. The book’s chapter on Irish-Americans, which Moynihan wrote, told of how these and other outer-borough Catholic voters, once cogs of Democratic machines and prime beneficiaries of Tammany Hall largesse, had lost influence to “reform” Democrats. These “amateur Democrats,” as political scientist James Q. Wilson called them—were mostly upper-middle-class professionals and almost exclusively Protestant or Jewish. “Amateur Democrats” cared more about programmatic issues and programs, often run in Washington, than neighborhood problems and political patronage, the focus of the “regulars.”

This shift of power from clubhouse to reformers coincided with a surge of African-Americans and Spanish-speaking residents into the city and what has been termed white flight to the suburbs. Increasingly, regulars and reformers battled over school busing, public funding for private and parochial schools, crime control and prevention, taxation, abortion, civilian review of police, and accommodation to alternative lifestyles. Court decisions on school prayer, busing, abortion, and other matters intensified the sense in the white working class of losing influence. Buckley addressed these concerns.

“Either schools are places where education is the primary consideration,” the candidate declared, “or they are places where social policies of politicians are the primary consideration.” He predicted that “if the public schools became little more than social laboratories for the promotion of integration, parents most ambitious for the educational advantages of their children will, if they can afford to do so, send their children to private schools; those who cannot afford to do so will continue to send their children to the public schools but will become bitter, and even hostile, toward the minority groups whose pressures they hold accountable for unnatural arrangements.” He embraced vouchers—later rebranded “school choice”—as a means of relief for families unable to send children to private schools or better schools outside the city.

Many liberals dismissed Buckley’s comments on education and other issues as “racist.” Decades later, academician Timothy Sullivan concluded that outer-borough voters took to Buckley because they felt he understood their frustrations and treated them and their concerns with respect. This mutual attraction abounded with ironies. An elitist by temperament and a skeptic regarding democracy’s ability to remedy social ills, Buckley gave voice to grievances felt by a constituency little disposed to favor conservative economics and less hostile than he to government intervention elsewhere.

The phenomenon of Buckley’s appeal to primarily white, working-class voters persists. “Buckley Democrats” shared demographic and other characteristics with Nixon’s “silent majority,” “Reagan Democrats,” and “Trumpers.” Buckley and his advisers expected him to do best among Republicans concerned about rising taxes and a declining city economy. Few even within his own camp expected Buckley to draw working-class voters away from their Democratic roots. Voters among whom Buckley was making inroads could not have cared less whether he or Lindsay represented the GOP’s future.

Nor did Buckley ignore African-Americans. He traced racial animus in New York “in part to a legacy of discrimination and injustice committed by the dominant ethnic groups. The white people owe a debt to the Negro people against whom we have discriminated for generations.” To right historic wrongs, Buckley embraced what later went by the name of affirmative action. He promised to crack down on unions that discriminated against African-Americans. Appealing to black individuality, Buckley declared educational success, bootstrapping, and capital formation surer avenues out of poverty than government programs.

Four days before the election, Buckley visited the offices of The New York Times. He recalled secretaries, janitors, and non-editorial staff enthusiastically welcoming him, in contrast to the cool response of the paper’s editorial board. He told reporters afterwards that he felt, upon exiting the building, as if he had passed through the Berlin Wall. Asked what he would do if he woke up mayor, Buckley replied, “Hang a net outside the window of the [ Times ] editor.”

Lindsay won with 45.3 percent to Beame’s 41.3 percent and Buckley’s 13.4 percent. Between them, Lindsay and Buckley won 57.8 percent of the vote. As Buckley had anticipated, news reports began to name Lindsay a presidential possibility. The commentariat’s refrain was that Buckley, by failing to deny Lindsay victory, had not figured in the election, except insofar as he pulled votes from Beame, enhancing Lindsay’s tally. Another explanation was that traditionally Democratic voters made a conscious decision to deviate from past voting patterns.

Buckley polled worst in Manhattan, taking 7 percent to Lindsay’s 55.8 percent and Beame’s 37 percent. He did best on Staten Island, receiving 25.2 percent to Lindsay’s 45.8 percent and Beame’s 28.9 percent. Buckley polled 21.9 percent among Irish-Americans and 17.8 percent among Italian-Americans.

Buckley’s percentage belied the growing and enduring impact he would have on American politics long after both of his opponents, each elected New York’s mayor, had departed the scene. He emerged as the best-known American conservative after Barry Goldwater.

Fan mail inundated his office. Strangers stopped him to have pictures taken and to request autographs. National Review subscribership jumped to 117,000. His newspaper column, “On the Right,” had been running in 150 papers; that figure doubled.

Buckley’s byline began appearing more frequently in Esquire , Playboy , The New York Times Magazine, and other periodicals besides his own. He became a favorite and frequent guest on The Dick Cavett Show and The Tonight Show . He appeared on the prime-time revue Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and on satirical programs hosted by Woody Allen. He began publishing books at the rate of at least one per year, many of them best sellers.

And Buckley launched his own weekly public affairs television program, usually featuring him matching wits with a liberal intellectual or activist. Debuting less than three months after Election Day, Firing Line ran for 33 years, making Buckley’s a household face.

The Buckley persona became recognizable to millions. Two years after Buckley’s mayoral run, Time ran a cover story, “William F. Buckley, Jr.: Conservatism Can Be Fun.” Presidential hopefuls sought his endorsement.

Buckley likely never would have attained such prominence, or its accompanying influence, had he not run for mayor. Among his many new roles was that of “tutor” to Ronald Reagan, who, a year after Buckley’s “paradigmatic” campaign, won the California governorship. Days after the 1965 New York City mayoral election, Barry Goldwater proclaimed that Bill Buckley had “lost the election but won the campaign.” More than a half-century later, those words appear even more prescient than they did then.

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Election | How Chesapeake’s mayoral candidates would…

Election | How Chesapeake’s mayoral candidates would balance city’s growth with school, infrastructure needs

Don Carey, left, and Rick West. (Courtesy images)

Two candidates are running for office in the Chesapeake mayor’s race. Incumbent Mayor Rick West faces a challenge from City Council member Don Carey.

Don J. Carey III

Occupation/job title: Consultant, Carey Consultant Firm

Highest level of education: Master’s degree in Strategic Management, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business

Previous elected office: Chesapeake City Council, 2020-present

Military service (if any): N/A

Website: www.votedoncarey.com

If elected, what would be your top priority for Chesapeake?

My top priority is expanding affordable and attainable housing in Chesapeake. While our city has many beautiful single-family homes, we need to diversify our housing options to meet the needs of all residents, from first-time buyers to seniors. By introducing more varied housing types we can help stabilize home prices and ensure that everyone has access to a place they can call home. This approach not only supports a more inclusive community but also drives economic growth by attracting a diverse population to our city.

If elected, how would you work to address the city’s ongoing challenge grappling with growth, particularly when it comes to adequate infrastructure and overcrowded schools?

If elected, I will proactively manage Chesapeake’s growth by ensuring our infrastructure and schools keep pace. As our city expands, I will collaborate with the council to assess and upgrade roads, utilities and public facilities in growth areas, preventing traffic bottlenecks and ensuring developments strengthen our infrastructure. With 50,000 new residents expected in the coming years, partnering with the school board is vital. I propose creating a joint task force to align future growth with educational needs, expanding schools, building new ones, or rezoning to prevent overcrowding, ensuring every child has access to quality education.

Where do you stand on the issue of recycling and how would you address it in Chesapeake? Would you act according to the will of the voters on the advisory referendum?

My family and I are passionate about recycling because preserving our planet is a responsibility we all share. I’m committed to finding the most effective and affordable recycling program for Chesapeake. I believe that the Southeastern Public Service Authority (SPSA) will offer our city a top-notch, efficient recycling solution, and I’m eager to support their efforts. SPSA is not just focused on recycling; they are also working to streamline our entire waste management system, which will benefit our community as a whole by extending the life of our landfill.

Occupation/job title: Mayor of Chesapeake

Highest level of education: Doctoral degree, Urban Studies and Leadership, Virginia Tech

Previous elected offices held (if any): Chesapeake City Council, 2008-2017; Mayor, 2017-present

Website: rickwestformayor.com

Putting citizens first. Everything I do is about one thing – people. This priority guides me to prioritize public safety, accessible amenities, low taxes, quality jobs and first-class customer service for our Chesapeake citizens. As mayor, I strive to ensure Chesapeake is not only the best place in the Commonwealth to live, work, learn and farm, but also the safest and friendliest. We back up our words with actions, treating our citizens with dignity and respect while prioritizing best-in-class public safety and enforcing the law to keep our families, streets and businesses safe.

Tackling growth and infrastructure is essential, and is already a top priority of mine. We prioritize infrastructure development to support our expanding population, ensuring safe and efficient roads and bridges. Our focus on education is equally strong — listening to parents and delivering high-quality educational opportunities that prepare our children for the future. Whether public, private, or learning from home, I will always support all educational pathways to meet our community’s diverse needs. Every child deserves a first-class education regardless of their zip code. In Chesapeake, we work to make this a reality for all children.

Recycling is a vital issue for our community. I am committed to honoring the voters’ will as expressed in the advisory referendum and ensuring our recycling is efficient and effective. We must balance environmental stewardship and practical solutions that meet the needs of Chesapeake’s residents.

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How to Run for Mayor (with Pictures)

COMMENTS

Short and Sweet: Why I Want to Be Mayor of Richmond
We asked the candidates to give you the pitch for why they should be mayor. Here's what they wrote. Richmond's Eight Candidates. Jon Baliles. "I have dedicated my life to making Richmond ...
Why I'm running for mayor
To be clear, I am not running against Mayor Berkowitz, who will reach his term limit in 2021. Indeed, during my years as an Anchorage Assembly member, including my time as chair and vice chair of ...
How to Run for Mayor (with Pictures)
Talk with the city clerk or look online for all the forms that you need to complete. Some forms will have a filing fee associated with them. 4. Create a committee in larger cities. Most cities and some larger towns will require that you create a committee before you can declare your candidacy for mayor.
So You Want To Run For Mayor? Here's How To Get Started
You must be at least 21 to run for mayor in Louisville (KY), Aurora (CO) and Oklahoma City. Cities like Colorado Springs, Washington, Glendale and Kansas City requires you to be 25 years. Denver (CO), Nashville (TN) and Memphis (TN) requires candidates to be at least 30 years of age. A few cities don't have a minimum age at all.
Why Do You Want To Be Mayor
The point of my answer is that there is a distinct difference between campaigning and governing. In the political world, winning a mayoral election can be a logical step in an individual's rise to higher office. There is no question that attending ribbon cuttings, marshaling parades and dangerously waving the green flag at the Indianapolis ...
How to Run for Mayor (A Campaign Guide)
This team should primarily include people with skills in fundraising, marketing, and organizing. In most cases, to run an effective Mayoral campaign, you'll need to fill a minimum of 4-7 roles: Campaign Manager: The campaign manager is responsible for the overall planning and execution of the campaign.
Election Success Blueprint: How to Run for Mayor and Win Today!
Make sure you are eligible to run for mayor of a city. Start a petition for candidacy - How to run for mayor of a city. File your documents. Appoint a treasurer and other committee members before you run for mayor. Raise your profile in the locality. Gather endorsements to run for mayor. Recruit staff and volunteers.
What Mark Farrell would do in his first 100 days as mayor
With less than two months to go until Election Day, Mark Farrell is putting the jigsaw pieces of his plan for San Francisco together. The mayoral candidate revealed on Wednesday he would not open up Market Street to all cars (just to ride-shares like Lyft and Uber), but would upzone downtown, remove members of the police commission, and declare a fentanyl state of emergency.
3 Ways to Write a Speech to Get You Elected
3. Create a paragraph for each point you want to make. Start the paragraph by stating the issue and end the paragraph with the solution. Each point in the speech should be set up as an issue or problem facing the voters and how you'll provide the solution. Make a separate paragraph for each issue that you want to talk about in your speech.
Who Wants to Be Mayor of New York City?
Raymond J. McGuire , 64. Mr. McGuire was recruited to run by members of the city's business community who feel they have not had a voice at City Hall since Michael R. Bloomberg was mayor from ...
The Political Cost to Kamala Harris of Not Answering Direct Questions
Guest Essay. The Political Cost to Kamala Harris of Not Answering Direct Questions ... (and polls show a tight race where Ms. Harris is running behind Joe Biden's level of support in 2020 with ...
Why I am Running for Mayor
This is a letter I sent to many voters in American Canyon, setting forth the reasons why I am running for Mayor of American Canyon. Please share.To the Voters of American Canyon: On July 20, 2020, I announced my campaign for Mayor of American Canyon. I believe I am the right person for the job: • A background that includes a degree in Public Administration and over 30 years of leadership ...
RI mayoral races 2024: What to know about the candidates
Picozzi, a former School Committee chairman, unseated then-Mayor Joseph Solomon in 2020, running as an independent. He was best known at the time for his family's large Christmas lights display ...
Portsmouth mayor election guide: Meet the candidates
Three candidates are running in Portmouth's mayoral race: Harold S. Carothers III, Shannon E. Glover and Lisa L. Lucas-Burke. If elected, how do you plan to address gun violence across the city ...
Why I am Running For Mayor
Thus, Erie would benefit from diverse decision-making groups. As mayor I will promote posting of board vacancies and encourage self-nominations, replacing the current opaque nomination and appointment process. Planning. Because Erie doesn't have a city planner, well-meaning engineers are permitted to make bad urban design decisions.
La Crosse candidates answer: Why are you running for mayor?
Talks were expected to run into Friday. NEW YORK (AP) — A reputed Peruvian gang leader suspected in nearly two dozen killings in his home country has been arrested in New York by U.S ...
Norfolk mayor election guide: Meet the candidates
Incumbent Kenny Alexander and challengers Tommy Leeman and Giovanni Dolmo are running for mayor of Norfolk this November. ___ Kenneth Alexander. (Courtesy image) Kenneth Cooper Alexander.
5 rivals in Fort Lauderdale mayor's race clash over issues
We share some top comments from all five candidates: Kenneth Cooper, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2020; Jim Lewis, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor making his ...
Lori Bresciani announces run for mayor in Regina
Two-term Regina city councillor Lori Bresciani is running for mayor. At a media event on Tuesday, Bresciani said her campaign will emphasize affordability, community engagement and communication, as well as keeping spending under control. "I would talk about more about the debt and the money and ...
Meet Anton Krasovsky, the Gay Man Running for Mayor of Moscow
That's if the authorities allow him to run for mayor of Moscow this September. Anna Nemtsova Updated Jun. 29, 2018 12:01PM EDT / Published Jun. 27, 2018 4:45AM EDT
Election 2024: Perez, Taylor running for Reno City Council Ward 1
Frank Perez and Kathleen Taylor seek Reno's Ward 1 city council seat. Ward 1's incumbent is Jenny Brekhus, who hit the limit of three terms representing the ward and can't run again.
Alexei Navalny 2013 mayoral campaign
Navalny. v. t. e. On May 30, 2013, Sobyanin argued an elected major is an advantage for the city compared to an appointed one, [5] and on June 4, he announced he would meet the President Vladimir Putin and ask him for a snap election, mentioning the Muscovites would agree the governor elections should take place in the city of Moscow and the ...
Read profiles on the five candidates for Richmond mayor
Maurice Neblett is one of five candidates vying for the position of Richmond mayor in the Nov. 5 election. He is running on a platform that focuses heavily on community building, citizen ...
Leader Of Russia's Protest Movement Alexei Navalny Running For Mayor Of
MOSCOW (AP) — A motley gaggle of hipsters, mothers with children and two babushkas with hair dyed bright red gather to listen to something they haven't heard in over a decade: a stump speech for…
Hampton mayor election guide: Meet the candidates
Vice Mayor Jimmy Gray and retired fire Capt. Richelle Wallace are running for mayor. ___ Jimmy Gray. (Courtesy image) James A. "Jimmy" Gray. Age: 68. Job title and company: Retired.
Mayor for a Day Essay Contest Winners
Students from the cities of Byron, New York Mills, Shoreview, and St. Louis Park have been selected as winners of the League's 2023 Mayor for a Day Essay Contest. In addition, judges selected four honorable mention essayists from the cities of Dilworth, Grand Marais, Lauderdale, and Windom. The League received more than 500 entries from ...
I Was the First Woman to Run For Mayor Of L.A
When I'd finished with one group, she'd have a list of new people for me to pick up. In 1993, when I decided to run for mayor of Los Angeles, the first woman and Latina to do so, I called to tell her the news. There was an unnerving pause. "You know, it's a really hard job," she finally said. "But you can do it.".
What happened when Jello Biafra ran for Mayor of San Francisco
Within months Biafra was putting his money where his mouth was and running for Mayor in his home town of San Francisco, a city where the hippie dream had been replaced by poverty, bribery, corruption and, following the assassination of then-Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk the previous year, even murder. Jello Biafra: It was ...
'Demand a Recount!'—William F. Buckley's Quixotic 1965 Run for NYC Mayor
Puckish conservative ran short on votes but won the long game. William F. Buckley Jr.'s decision to run for mayor of New York City in 1965 as the Conservative Party candidate proved a turning point in his career and in the conservative movement. By challenging a charismatic liberal Republican and a bland Democrat in what was perhaps the ...
Chesapeake mayor election guide: Meet the candidates
Two candidates are running for office in the Chesapeake mayor's race. Incumbent Mayor Rick West faces a challenge from City Council member Don Carey.