Neighborhood activist Gary Leitzell announced that he is challenging Rhine McLin for her seat next year as an independent. He even got a write up in the Dayton Daily [1] yesterday (amazing since I announced months ago- and told you he was running [2] as well).
I am making an early announcement that will explain why things are slower at the “Crack House”. I am going to run for Mayor next year and have just slapped together a web site and blog to use in my campaign [3]. I shouldn’t have to post to the site very often. It is a tool to allow me to connect with residents of the city. I have added a banner in the right sidebar that links to “Dayton Mayor”. There is a petition process that is quite time consuming. I hope to be through with it soon so that I am ready to do more work on the house. Don’t worry, this won’t become a political blog. I’m really not a politician. Just a mover and a shaker who gets things done.
Now I can say that the worse thing that could happen to me personally is that I get elected, because I would have to do the job and we certainly are facing some challenges here in Dayton. I am willing to face those challenges but I won’t be too disappointed if the voters don’t think that I am the best person for the job. On the other hand, we are certainly going to have the right house if I can just get things finished!
via This Old Crack House [4].
Leitzell sounds like I did 20 years ago- when I first ran for Commission. I too refused to accept contributions- instead capping myself with spending $1000 of my own money. It was before the Internet, and before I understood what it really takes to win a campaign. Even though the Mayor’s job is part-time, and only pays $36K a year- we’ve seen races cost close to a million (the Capizzi/Turner race, and the first Turner/McLin race).
This isn’t exactly a playground for the feint at heart. In my first run against Clay Dixon for Mayor, I had the windows of my office shot out on two consecutive nights, was attacked by a union chief, attacked by Dixon, received death threats and written off by the Dayton Daily News as an “advertising man with nothing to say” even though my campaign literature [5]was 11×17 and full of ideas for change.
Best of luck Mr. Leitzell, I’ll be running into you a lot in my campaign for commission.
Yes, I will even agree that Mr. Esrati was the first to publicly announce that I had taken out petition forms for the mayoral race. I had only posted the announcement in the “members only” section of the Dayton Most Metro forum prior to his posting on this blog. However, I do recall that Drexel Dave posted something about how people should vote for me on the DDN opinions forum about two years ago and I certainly haven’t hid the fact that I planned to do this from anyone who knows me. Maybe that is why people are wondering why it took the newspaper so long to catch up with the story. It wasn’t until a week after I publicly announced it on the Dayton Most Metro forum that the story was picked up by the press and Mr. Debrosse called me.
All I can tell you David is to post your announcements on the DMM site as well as your own. I look forward to our conversations whenever we run into each other.
Can someone explain McLin’s comment ?
“McLin said she welcomes the challenge to her third term in office. “If you’re doing your job, you’re going to draw opposition,” she said.”
Is that all she could come up with when asked on the spot ? Seems to me that if people were happy, she’d have NO oppositition.
>Now I can say that the worse thing that could happen to me personally is that I get elected, because I would have to do the job
>I am willing to face those challenges but I won’t be too disappointed if the voters don’t think that I am the best person for the job.
Not trying to pee in the cornflakes, Mr Leitzell, but this doesn’t sound like a leader. I wouldn’t care if you are a politician or a trash collector, but right now in Dayton, the constitution of a leader is absolutely imperative for this job.
Agreed. Guys who want grass root community this and that are not the guys (or girls) that we need. We need a heavy hitter, make it a full time job that pays 100k plus and get some real stuff done.
A planter in the boulevard hardly attracted big business to any city.
We need jobs. A mayor can help with this kind of thing. Or we could elect rock stars or crack addicts with funny glasses bc we think it is cooooooooooooooooooool to have black leaders. F*ck, and then you ask yourself why nothing gets done. In short, we need QUALIFIED people.
You know what is so great about this region? We are critical of our leaders and we are critical of those who choose to oppose them when the time comes to do so. This behavior does not encourage true leadership. People who feel the call to rise up and do some public service are discouraged at the starting point when some body tries to cut them off at the knees just for standing up. I am often criticized for what I am doing in my neighborhood. Creative concepts are often criticized by those who sit back and watch what is happening around them. At least I am criticized for what I do and not for doing nothing. Teri, I will stand by my comments. The truth is that the worst thing that could happen to me personally is that I get elected. I have many other things that I could be doing to make my own life better. I am already busy. Stepping up to the plate to run for mayor means that I will have no time to improve those things that affect me. Am I confident that I could do the job? Absolutely! Do I want to do the job? Well, let’s see, would you or anybody else reading this want to do the job? Are any of you willing to do the job? Why would I not be disappointed if someone better than me stepped up to be elected? That is easy, I could continue doing all those things I need to do to make life easier for me over the next four years. Things like finish working on the “Old Crack House” and doing a more excellent job of home educating my daughter. Things like visit my family in England, making my very own neighborhood a desirable place to live and continue making South East Dayton a better place. Possibly buy up some of our crappy housing stock and fix it up. I could just go about my busy little life and not care what our civic leaders do like the majority of residents in the… Read more »
The change you may (and currently do) bring will be welcome, but will it locate businesses to Dayton, gain jobs for our city, make the Boregon District a desirable place to go, get rid of drugs and crime? etc…. I think people like you change neighborhoods, and that is great. I love that – but I am not sure, from reading your bio and other stuff regarding your life and work, that you are qualified to get big business to the city of Dayton. This should be, in part, the job or our Mayor. Our current mayor is worried about meaningless BS. We need jobs, jobs from the outside and created locally as well. With this you will get “better” people – those like you, educated and hard working. “You” guys/girls make your neighborhoods better, which we need. But can you bring jobs to Dayton? Can you create a system where it is easy to grow business within our city? Can you accept the challenges by competing suburbs and surrounding counties and view this as a challenge rather than do what most of our current so called leaders do, which is cry bc The Greene or Austin Pike got monies and the City of Dayton did not.?.?. If you can do this, GREAT. But, in my opinion, your are better left in the situation you are in, being on a smaller level. It is not a cut at you, I could not do this job either. We need you where you are, I believe we need someone with huge ideas with multiple big businesses and government contacts to create a WIN situation for the city of Dayton. Ideas are just that, ideas. We need action, JOBs and locating real new big business and small business to the ACTUAL city of Dayton. We don’t need, from a mayor, to worry about boulevard maintenance when we need jobs. That may not be the mayor you want to be, but what we need is what I stated. REAL PROGRESS. Our city needs to look at itself on all levels – we need to… Read more »
Gary-
thanks for the response.
>The truth is that the worst thing that could happen to me personally is that I get elected.
This concerns me, as I’m sure it would you if you were reading that about someone else.
>People who feel the call to rise up and do some public service are discouraged at the starting point when some body tries to cut them off at the knees just for standing up. I am often criticized for what I am doing in my neighborhood. Creative concepts are often criticized by those who sit back and watch what is happening around them. At least I am criticized for what I do and not for doing nothing.
If that was directed at me, you would be incorrect. I’m not trying to cut you off at the knees. Expressing a concern is constructive criticism- which is typically a healthy way to improve.
Disclosure: I’m not a resident of Dayton, which means you can ignore me, tell me go get stuffed, or anything in between, but, I work very hard to improve Dayton- by running for office? No. By utilizing resources here, supporting businesses here, spending money here. There are many ways to improve this city- some are quietly supportive, some get more attention than others, but the are all needed and worthy.
Best of luck to you in all your endeavors, and here’s a great future for Dayton!