The City Council
is composed of five citizens elected to represent the interest of their
individual wards within the city. I am running for the
position of Councilman for Ward 4.
The City Council is the legislative
authority of the municipality and is charged with adopting laws and
setting policy for the City as a whole. Service on the City Council is
for a term of four years and is classified as a part-time position.
Having been a resident of
Hattiesburg for over 20 years, I am very fond of the city.
It continues to be a 'good place to raise a family, at least in most
areas. However, crime is a sleeping giant that is slowly
creeping into our neighborhoods, robbing our residents of the safety and
peace of mind that Hattiesburg has offered for nearly 125 years.
Our city and our police force lack unity and effective leadership.
Without these key elements, Hattiesburg will suffer and our future
generations will suffer. There are many budgeted items that
concern me, and even more non-budgeted items. It's time for
accountability in our city government. My wife, Diane and I are
working people who care about our city and who don't want to stand on
the sidelines and watch greed and corruption steal our city from us.
I care about the people of this community and the children we are
raising here.
Rick James
Rick James
Candidate for City
Council, Ward 4
Hattiesburg,
Mississippi\
Below
is a sample of
challenges facing our city that I would like to address as a
Councilman:
The Hattiesburg Police
Department is housed in an 80 year old building that should be
condemned, yet over $700,000 was recently spent to replace the air
conditioning unit. Filled with asbestos, several floors and
entire sections already are given over to rats, broken windows and
air that is unhealthy to breath.
Moral is low among the
employees of a city that continues to ignore this gross area of
neglect to one of our most important infrastructures. Our
police department needs to be housed in a building that is a safe
place to work. It needs a police chief who exemplifies the
characteristics of a leader who is equipped to manage those in a
stressful environment who risk their lives every day without
adequate and fair compensation.
Our young people are turning
to drugs and other dangerous forms of entertainment and escape
daily. It didn't help when
the dollar movie theatre closed it's doors. The kids in
that area of town have 1 less place to go, and because of the
surplus of minimum wage jobs, their families barely earn enough to
live on, let alone invest in entertainment or time to spend with
their children and keep them
occupied after school
and during the summer months. I would like to entice this and other
more wholesome types of entertainment and activities for our kids to
locate in Hattiesburg.
Register to VOTE
Click here for an application
to register to vote in Mississippi. If you are not registered to
vote where you now live, you can use this form to register to
vote or report that your name or. address has changed. The
application is in Portable Document Format (.pdf). If you
do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, click on the icon below to go
to the Adobe website and download it at no charge.
A Tribute to the King of Funk
Rick James, Grammy Award-winning singer and
songwriter, will forever be remembered as the King of Funk. His
new official site is both a tribute to a world class entertainer
and a source for fans around the world to gather, communicate
and find all the official information on this legendary artist.
