Mayor Carolyn McAdams has filed papers and qualified to seek a third term as mayor of Greenwood, and two Democratic candidates also will be running.
Despite some previous reports that indicated her most recent term might be her last, McAdams said she has always intended to run again, so long as her health is good and she still has what it takes to do the job.
“I’ve been in there for two terms, and we’ve still got things to do,” McAdams said. “We’ve laid the plans down, and I want to finish my plans.”
McAdams will run as an independent.
Kenderick Cox, 33, and Jelani Barr, 32, have both announced, primarily through communiques on Facebook, their plans to run as Democrats and now have qualified.
The deadline for qualifying is March 3, and the primary election will be held on May 2.
McAdams said she thinks she has demonstrated that she is fairminded and will listen to the citizens, that she will work hard for the community and that she has put together a great team that can get things done.
Her top priority, she said, is “to provide safety and protection throughout the city.
“We’re struggling with the police department because people are not applying to be policemen,” McAdams said. “But we’re hoping to increase our police staff and take community suggestions on how to strengthen the department and make it more community-minded.”
McAdams cited the “unity of the community” as one of her top goals, saying she particularly thinks that Mission Mississippi, monthly meetings that connect churches and clergy across the community in prayer and discussion of common issues, is an important part of that process.
McAdams emphasized that a mayor should be a good team player, and she feels she has done that. Her team of administrators and city leaders, she said, in addition to “supporters that have been amazingly behind me” give her the strength needed to continue her work as mayor.
Political newcomer Cox, a Baptist Town resident and Delta State University graduate who has worked as a teacher in the Leflore County and Greenwood school districts, said he hopes to unify the city by creating new opportunities in South Greenwood for youth and for struggling families.
“Greenwood is in complete disarray,” Cox said, referring to the rise of violent crime in 2016, lack of jobs, lack of opportunity for the city’s poorest people to become homeowners, crumbling infrastructure in South Greenwood, and a lack of constructive activities for area youth. All of these prevent economic growth and prosperity for the city, he said.
“I want to be a beacon of hope,” Cox said. “I want young people to know you don’t have to go down that road.”
Specifically, Cox is proposing programs to “improve imperfections” in South Greenwood by creating job programs to repair falling-down homes and innovative partnerships to encourage and enable homeowning by a larger number of low-income residents.
He advocates a city-run recreation program, including an indoor-outdoor athletic facility, to keep kids gainfully occupied and to give them the opportunities to develop and demonstrate their talents.
Cox said the Greenwood Comprehensive Plan sells false hope by using vague language that prevents enforcement of its stated goals. He would like to remedy that with specific programs designed to accomplish long-term goals. That would include providing alternative education and hands-on vocational training to young people entering the work force.
“Instead of giving a high school kid a seasonal job, make it a few hours a week but year-round,” Cox said, citing the need to instill a work ethic, develop skills and take some financial burden off families.
Cox has crafted his ideas about offering hope and concrete progress to the youth of Greenwood around this statement by Frederick Douglass: “It’s easier to build a strong child than repair a broken man.”
Barr, who ran and lost in the Democratic primary race in 2013, brings similar concerns.
Referencing the recent suicide of a close friend whom he characterized as “hopeless,” Barr said his number one priority will be protecting the citizens through better police training and more attention on crime prevention.
“We had nearly a murder a month in 2016,” Barr said. “We need to protect the whole city from crime, but South Greenwood in particular because that is where the bulk of it occurs.”
Barr said he intends to “open up new avenues of revenue” in Greenwood and get the city involved in providing job training for its citizens. To do that, he said, Greenwood must develop an atmosphere of business competition that encourages the opening of new small businesses with fewer bureaucratic hoops to jump through, and a focus on developing entrepreneurs.
South Greenwood needs to be rebuilt with that competitive entrepreneurial mindset and assistance from the city, he said.
“I’m going to focus on the morale of the city,” Barr said. To that end, he proposes both a department of entertainment and a department of recreation to coordinate and develop regular activities for youth and all citizens, to “keep them engaged.”
He is also proposing that the city “pick up the paper” and engage in a coordinated clean-up and anti-litter program to rid it of trash on roadsides and in neighborhoods.
To free up dollars for such programs, Barr said he would “clean out all the waste in city departments,” referring to jobs he believes are held and maintained because of personal relationships and are not productive.
A small business owner and property owner, Barr characterizes himself as “a taxpayer who speaks his mind.”
Barr is perhaps best known in the city for filing a federal lawsuit against Greenwood police and the city last year when officers arrested him and filed reports that included false information. Barr won an undisclosed settlement in that case.
It is uncertain whether former mayor and mayoral candidate Sheriel Perkins, a Democrat who lost to McAdams in 2009 and 2013, will run for mayor. Perkins has yet to file papers or announce and could not be reached for comment.
For City Council seats, papers have been filed by incumbents Charles McCoy, a Democrat who represents Ward 4; Johnny Jennings, a Republican from Ward 1; and Andrew Powell, a Democrat from Ward 5.
•Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
