BUILDING THE PONTIAC
YOU DESERVE
We need a mayor who collaborates with city council, residents, civic organizations, and local businesses to build the Pontiac you deserve. That’s the way we will develop strong neighborhoods, fix our roads, ensure public safety, expand economic opportunity, and enrich recreational opportunities and the quality of life for both youth and seniors. I promise to celebrate our rich heritage and improve upon the foundational strengths of our city – and I will always put Pontiac first.
- Enforce strict anti-blight code enforcement, especially for rental housing
- Ensure that commercial establishments keep their properties and buildings presentable
- Develop an up-to-date registry of apartment buildings and other rental units, including half-way houses and group homes
- Establish adopt-a-block and adopt-a-neighborhood programs
- Partner with non-profits to provide homeownership classes for first-time homebuyers
- Give Pontiac residents the first opportunity to acquire vacant lots and provide assistance to build affordable single-family homes on them
- Bring Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program back in-house at Pontiac
- Require housing developments that receive tax breaks/abatements to designate a percentage of units as affordable housing
- Establish an African-American Health Commission and partner with Oakland County, local nonprofits, and churches to establish robust health education promotion regarding COVID, heart disease, infant mortality, and other health crises that hit people of color disproportionately hard
- Invest more in repaving city streets and prioritize fixing the worst streets first
- Reconfigure the Woodward Avenue loop to improve accessibility and connectivity to downtown
- Improve signage and branding at city gateways
- Invest in underground infrastructure and coordinate water and sewer repairs with road repairs, so that roadways and private properties are not being torn up more than once
- Invest in cyber infrastructure to increase affordable access to high-speed internet and Wi-Fi
- Work with the Sheriff’s Relations Team and the Oakland County Sheriff Office’s Pontiac Substation Command to ensure open lines of communication and accountability measures when violent crimes occur and when any possible impropriety occurs within the Pontiac Substation
- Hold regular meetings with the Pontiac Substation Command, the Community Policing Team, and the Pontiac School District’s Chief of Security to improve safety and reduce violence throughout the city of Pontiac
- Ensure future fire and EMS contracting decisions are based on continuing to reduce response times
- Cut red tape, establish a one-stop shop for businesses and investors, and make Pontiac the easiest and friendliest place to do business in Oakland County
- Ensure that permitting and approval processes are predictable and applied consistently
- Recalibrate business fees so they are competitive with neighboring communities
- Reinvigorate downtown Pontiac businesses by working with Oakland County to move county employees to downtown Pontiac and pursue moving the Oakland County Farmer’s Market to downtown Pontiac
- Establish a preference for Pontiac-based businesses to receive city contracts
- Require businesses that receive city tax breaks/abatements to establish a hiring preference for Pontiac residents to ensure a percentage of their jobs are filled by Pontiac residents
- Partner with the county, state, and federal governments, as well as labor unions, to develop robust, Pontiac-specific job training programs, apprenticeship programs, and job placement programs
- Create an up-to-date directory of local businesses and identify minority-owned and women-owned businesses that qualify for federal programs and private grants
- Facilitate free entrepreneurship classes in partnership with Oakland County
- Partner with non-profits and foundations to establish a revolving loan fund for Pontiac small businesses
- Strengthen and modernize the Bowens Center and Ruth Peterson Center
- Work with non-profits to ease and improve access to existing home improvement programs and use Community Development Block Grant dollars to expand assistance to seniors for home repairs
- Support senior services like meals-on-wheels
- Invest in recreational programming for kids
- Partner with the Pontiac School District, churches, and non-profits to establish dispersed youth recreation locations throughout the city, within walking distance of kids’ homes
- Utilize parks for summer recreational programming
- Partner with non-profits and foundations to expand youth programming to include soft skills development (e.g., how to successfully interview for a job and what to wear to job interviews), entrepreneurship and financial literacy classes, and computer skills training (e.g., typing/keyboarding and programming/coding)
- Partner with churches and non-profits to provide music programming to interested young people
- Hire a recreation coordinator/director
- Ensure that parks are well-maintained and kept clean and promptly fix damaged playground equipment and basketball hoops
- Partner with Oakland County and/or use a portion of our city’s youth recreation millage revenue to establish robust recreational programming in parks during summer months
- Establish a splash pad for kids in one or more city parks
- Establish a dog park in the city
- Partner with Oakland County to transform abandoned railroad lines into a connective trail network between city parks
- Clean-up Crystal Lake, Harris Lake, Terry Lake, Osmun Lake, and Galloway Lake
- Partner with non-profits and the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner to organize regular clean-ups of the Clinton River
- Partner with non-profits to properly maintain the Clinton River Trail
- Designate city liaisons to interface with schools, the library, and area colleges and universities
- Hire a Recreation Coordinator
- Hold quarterly meetings with the Pontiac School District and local charter schools
- Partner with the Pontiac School District, the Oakland Intermediate School District, local charter schools, and non-profits to improve youth recreation and after-school activities
- Partner with the Pontiac School District, the Oakland Intermediate School District, local charter schools, and non-profits to enhance early childhood education and adult education
- Partner with the Pontiac School District, the Oakland Intermediate School District, local charter schools, non-profits, and the Michigan Training Connect (MiTC) to help students and their parents plan students’ career paths
- Partner with the Sheriff’s Department, the Pontiac School District, and charter schools to increase the presence of crossing guards near schools in the morning
- Partner with the library to improve community meeting space for events and community organizations
- Collaborate with the library to assist it with budgeting software and administrative support
- Actively support the Pontiac Regional Chamber and Pontiac United Education Coalition’s literacy programs
- Work with Oakland University and Oakland Community College to establish functioning satellite campuses in downtown Pontiac
- Conduct forensic audit of the city’s finances upon taking office and ensure proper city record-keeping
- Implement conflict-of-interest rules for city staff and elected officials
- Improve decorum and professionalism of all city staff and all city operations
- Ensure that City Hall is welcoming and user-friendly for residents and businesses
- Ensure that the City is aggressively pursuing grant opportunities from foundations and from county, state, and federal government and ensure that grant applications are well-prepared and submitted on time
- Hire a Community Resource Coordinator to help connect residents, families, and non-profits with needed resources
- Establish a compliance officer to ensure that city operations are always in compliance with the law and that businesses fulfill their promises and commitments to the community
OUR ENDORSEMENTS
- County Commissioner Emeritus Mattie Hatchett
- County Commissioner Angela Powell
- Dustin McClellan, Community Leader
- H. Bill Maxey, Veteran and Founder of the Pontiac Urban Institute
- Irene Wright
- Brett Nicholson
- Lucy Payne
- Jean Matthews
- Robert Bass
- Pastor Douglas P. Jones
- Willie Martinez
- 14th District Democrats
- Oakland County Ministerial Fellowship
- AFSCME Council 25
- SEIU Michigan
- UAW Region 1
- Teamsters Joint Council #43
- Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter
- Oakland County Treasurer Robert Wittenberg
- Debra Ehrmann
- Pastor Robert Martin
- Pastor Roger Jackson
- Roland Elam, Small Business Owner
- Quincy Stewart, Educator and Community Activist
- Ahmad Taylor
- Margaret Brewer
- Robert Griffin
- Pastor John Tolbert
- Pastor Terrance Gowdy
- Lee Jones
- Maurice Jones
- Maria Moyet Delgado
- Dubrae Newman
- Malkia Newman
- Pastor Kevin Sanders
- IBEW Local 58
- Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights
- Pipefitters Local 636
- MEA
- Oakland County Commissioner Dave Woodward
- Sheldon Neeley, Mayor of Flint
- CWA Local 4123
- Angelo Taylor
- Claudia Buckley
- Laurie Bishop
- Caroll Turpin
- Jeff Kingzett
- Mike McGuinness
- Loretta Coleman
- Kyle Westberg
- Bishop Michael Martin
- Tameka Ramsey
- Leona Patterson
- Dr. Bruce E. Turpin, DDS.
- Dr. S. Barbara Raby
- Rick David
- Dr. Ashok Gupta
- Pastor Jerry Love
- Bishop William Murphy Jr.
- Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers Local 2 of Michigan
- Sheet Metal Workers Local 80
- State Senator Rosemary Bayer
- Michigan Construction Laborers’ Local 1076
- Unite Here! Local 24
- Pastor Derrick McDonald
- Pastor James Keys
- Pastor Rodney Tolbert
- Dr. Terrance Garrett
- Val Gross
- Larry “DJ Maddball” Gibbs
- Former City Councilwoman Susan Shoemaker
- Trent A. Maple Tyson Bey
- Yohannes Bolds
- Freddie Moran
- Bishop Antonio
- Perez Gibson
- Ken Corr
- Mona Hofmeister
- Carolyn Price
- Metro Detroit AFL-CIO
- Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council
- AFT
- Plumbers Local 98
- US Senator Gary Peters
- Colleen Ochoa Peters