Mayor Jerome Prince is surrounded by supporters at Saturday’s opening of his re-election campaign headquarters

Gary's Mayor Prince opens his campaign headquarters for second term

Contributed By: The 411 News

Gary has never had a one-term mayor, a city employee remarked at Saturday morning's kickoff of Mayor Jerome Prince's re-election campaign. Mayor Prince is in the last year of his first term.

"I didn't look it up; it's a fact that people have told me," the mayor said, "but I'm not running on that."

Campaign headquarters at 38th and Broadway was proof of it that morning.

Mayor Prince asked for volunteers to fill slots at headquarters, the campaign's hub for election information. Hours are Saturdays only now, soon it will be open every day. Workers will be needed to help with absentee ballot applications and voter registrations. "And on February 18, we're going to start having bingo," the mayor said.

With 94 days remaining until Election Day, the mayor urged his supporters to encourage their friends and families to come out.

Along with running the city and a re-election campaign, Mayor Prince said he is also dealing with the most challenging thing he ever has had to deal with personally. "My wife De Anna is being treated for triple negative breast cancer." The diagnosis came in September. He said she is doing well.

Prince said he will continue to focus on 3 areas – public safety, cleaning the city and keeping it clean, and customer relations.

“We call our constituents, customers. We made a number of efforts to allow residents and businesses to interact online with our departments, to streamline the processes and make it a little bit easier to do business in the city,” Mayor Prince said.

Under his administration, the Gary school district began to take action on its numerous empty and abandoned school buildings. He pointed to Edison School, undergoing demolition and being prepared for redevelopment. Unused for 20 years, the school became a dumping ground and target for vandalism and graffiti.

"The end result of it is that place is going to create jobs and generate revenue," Prince said, "and those residents across the street won't have to look at that anymore."

Lew Wallace High School was demolished last year. Mayor Prince is a Lew Wallace graduate. The school closed in 2014 and like Edison, was vandalized.

"Public safety is a concerted effort I gotta get solidified," Mayor Prince said. "The police department needs structure that is going to be consistent. The chief needs the latitude in order to be able to hold his people accountable. That's what we've been working on since April."

When he named Indiana State Police Major Jerry Williams the interim police chief, the feedback was "... it's going to kill morale."

"Morale was down when I got there," the mayor said. "When they didn't have cars – riding around 2-3 people in a car. When they didn't have equipment. When their pay was low. And we have addressed some of those things."

With nearly 25 years experience in political campaigns, his message to supporters was, “The next 90 days will go by fast. Don’t focus on the negative, stick together, and have fun.”

Two other candidates have filed in Gary's Democratic Mayoral race, Indiana State Senator Eddie Melton and Danien J. Walls.

Story Posted:01/30/2023