Todd Strange, Artur Davis Running for Montgomery Mayor
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Two men throw their names in the Montgomery Mayoral Race. Current Mayor Todd Strange announces he will seek re-election, and former U.S. Congressman Artur Davis says he is also running for the city’s top office.
In an emotional speech Thursday morning before city and county leaders, Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange announced that he will seek reelection.
“I’ve met with my family and at 11 o’clock today, there will be a press release that I will announce that I am offering myself another four years as mayor of this great city.”
Shortly after, former U.S. Congressman Artur Davis announced through a youtube video that he would be running for the office as well. We caught up with him at the Dan Morris Show on 93.1FM, where he told us he believes he’s climbing an uphill battle.
“We know in this race, that we’re sort of running against city hall,” he said. “We know that we’re sort of running against, candidly, a lot of the entrenched power in this city.”
Davis says one of his priorities would be creating a city school system.
“As Mayor, I don’t want to use the excuse that it’s a county problem or it’s outside of my jurisdiction. I want to put the system under city control.”
While Strange admitted Thursday morning that the school system does need work, he touted other accomplishments under his tenure as mayor, like developing downtown, improving the revenue streams and fighting crime.
“With the new sheriff, the new police chief, I think we’re going to be aggressive in our crime.”
Montgomery residents are now weighing their options.
“He’s done a good job since he’s been there,” says Rosa ByrdSong of Strange. “and Artur is a good person. I believe if he got there, he would do as well. So I can only say I wish them both luck.”
Richard Garcia moved to Montgomery from Texas six months ago and says he’d like the crime addressed.
“It is a big issue here,” he said. “As far as what we’ve seen so far, it seems like the officer are always out and they’re doing a good job.”
Strange says he will run a relatively simple campaign. He says if you like what he’s done over the past few years, then vote for him. If not, he says you can always vote for someone else.
Artur Davis is setting up his campaign headquarters at 2880 Zelda Road.
Stay with Alabama News Network as we continue to cover the Montgomery Mayoral Race.
