Longtime Mayor of Monroe, LA Keeps City Growing with Surplus

Mayor James Mayo is still standing strong and resilient in the midst of challenges, including the thunderstorms and floods that held Monroe hostage for several days in 2016. But, his challenges have been outweighed by successes.

Northeast Louisiana includes some of the “poorest cities per capita” in the United States, yet, Mayo is credited with ushering the city into a longtime budget surplus, a number of economic development initiatives, and scores of new businesses and multiple revitalization efforts. 

Mayo entered politics when he was elected to the Monroe City Council in 1995 to fill an unexpired term. Voters re-elected him as a councilman in 1996 and 2000. Mayor became interim mayor in June 2001, after the death of the city’s previous mayor. In October of that year, with three years left on the previous mayor’s term, voters elected him outright in October. He went on to win the next four mayoral elections.

TheVillageCelebration interviewed Mayor Mayo about his accomplishments, his challenges, and his future goals as chief executive officer of the city of Monroe.

TVC: To what do you owe your staying power as Monroe’s mayor?

Mayor James Mayo: I believe in a team approach.  I credit my hard-working department heads, our staff, and our list of successful accomplishments with helping me defeat challengers to my seat during my re-election bids. When we came into this seat, we had to do many things to get the budget in order and we did not have much of a budget. My opponents talked about what they were going to do, and we talked about what we had done. 

TVC: What are some things you have done over the years to improve Monroe?

Mayor James Mayo: Under my administration, Monroe enjoyed eleven consecutive years of a fiscal year budget surplus, earned an A+ Bond Rating and now has an overall fund balance of more than $14 million. The city is an eight-time winner of the Louisiana Municipal Association Community Achievement Award and four of the awards were for economic development.

Since the year I took office, more than 2,000 new small, medium, and large businesses have opened in Monroe, creating thousands of new jobs. Monroe is home of the corporate headquarters for the nation’s second-largest telecommunications company, Century Link.  IBM, Century Link and the State of Louisiana partnered to create 400 jobs in Monroe over the next 10 years. In addition, IBM has established an application development and innovation center in Monroe. It will be the anchor of a new 80-plus-acre lifestyle community development. 

Monroe has also experienced major business growth and expansion through companies such as Vantage, Mid-South Extrusion, and Gardner-Denver Thomas. Growth and development is taking place in Monroe’s Air Industrial Park as well as in the I-20, Tower-Armand, Downtown, and Southside economic development districts. 

Other notable developments that I am proud of are:  The renovation of the old Howard Brothers building in South Monroe and its conversion to the Fire and Public Safety Center. We have built a new, state-of-the-art regional airport terminal … and there is another fire station right beside it. We have obtained a Class 1 Fire rating, which is the highest you can have in the country. We are one of the top two fire departments in the United States. 

Yet another development, in recent years, has been the city’s downtown revitalization. The Rivermarket does very well during its spring and fall seasons.   We established a quiet zone (train horns can’t blow) and mixed Rivermarket activities, including quarterly concerts, along with art galleries and shops. Now, my office is supporting zoning changes to allow for residential development. There is quite a bit that’s going on downtown. But we still have quite a bit of work to do.

Midtown has also enjoyed considerable development, as well as other parts of the city. But the $15 million fund surplus (at its peak amount) – the largest the city has ever seen – is probably my tour de force.

The city also has a new Civic Center Arena in the works. A four-star hotel has already committed to come to Monroe if this project is completed. Currently, there is no hotel downtown. Putting one there will attract even more people to the area. We need a new arena project to replace our outdated facility and to create an economic-driver that spurs further development in downtown Monroe and revenue growth in other sectors of our community, all while enhancing our local quality of life. When you see an arena downtown, it is surrounded with a hotel, restaurants, sports bars, shops and activities.

I compare the arena project to Monroe’s completed airport project, which cost $41 million. We were able to do some creative and innovative things. We got a stimulus plan from the President. We got $10 million dollars from the stimulus package for the airport, but with this project, we need a public and private partnership. We will not have to fund all of it, but the city will be responsible for some of it. I have a plan to identify our private dollars. An architect who worked on the team that designed the Dallas Cowboys stadium it part of our creative team, which is being led by an outstanding minority contractor from originally from Monroe. William McElroy of M3A Architecture of Jackson, Miss. (a former Wossman High School and Louisiana Tech University graduate) is the lead on this project. 

TVC: What are some of your challenges in Monroe?

Mayor James Mayo: Despite its growth, crime has been a major challenge for Monroe. Some people want us to prevent every crime from happening; and that’s just not a reality because we cannot assign more police to every house, street, school, etc. in Monroe. Some people think that more incarcerations is the key. And yes, I agree that some people deserve to be incarcerated. But we need to work on more intervention as well as crime prevention, especially with our youth, to make sure that we can have something … to provide better opportunities for them. There should be more safety services, but it takes a whole community to make change. We started a project called Project SAVE (Community Solutions and Voices Engaged to Help Our Youth) to engage into our community.

In addition, managing the budget has been a task. The economy is not as strong as it was and making tough decisions has not been as popular.

TVC: What have been the biggest setbacks suffered by the city under your watch?

Mayor James Mayo: Perhaps the biggest setback for the city under my leadership was an event I couldn’t control: the flood of 2016. Monroe got 27 inches of rain in only two to three days. It was something the city, and parish, had never experienced before. The flood caused considerable damage to Monroe’s infrastructure. There were several roads and bridges that were damaged throughout the city and Ouachita Parish. During the flood, I was with the police and National Guard in Oregon Trail, on Monroe’s Southside, getting people out of their flooded homes. Some residents thought they could ride the storm out, and it was horrible getting people out of their homes. It was quite an experience. 

Luckily, various departments came together and responded — the Monroe Police, Fire, Engineering, and Public Works Departments, the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Louisiana State Police, the Louisiana National Guard, the Ouachita Parish Police Jury and the American Red Cross. We talked to the governor, and the president, to secure some future funding for our infrastructure. FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] came in to help. So many organizations from outside our city were involved and helped us. 

Another setback came with an error the Census Bureau made in its population count. The Census first stated that the city had 48,815 people. After a recount, an amended figure of 49,147 was released, but that count was still wrong. The problem may have occurred when the Census forms were sent to residents; some of them may not have filled the forms out and mailed them in. Monroe’s population is over 50,000 people, and I will continue to challenge the Census count [until the count] is correct. I believe the city’s population could grow to be as high as 68,000 to 80,000. I, along with city officials, will start early to prepare for the 2020 Census, so the population count will be accurate.

TVC: What are your future goals for Monroe?

Mayor James Mayo: One of my future goals for Monroe includes reducing crime. The police and I have got some strategic approaches. I recently appointed a new police Chief.  An independent crime consultant is lending expert advice.  We have focus groups and active efforts relating to crime reductions, the downtown Arena/Event Center, Century Village, etc. The city also implemented the OK Program in conjunction with the Monroe Police Department to help reduce the high incarceration rates of African-American males.  This is a male-mentoring program that targets boys in middle and high school.  

Another goal is to reduce the blighted areas of the city such as the Southside; these are older communities consisting of the abandoned homes. We have a program called “Fight the Blight,” which will revitalize those blighted neighborhoods by tearing down eyesores and replacing them with greenspace or new and safe structures.

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Mayo is a member of New Light Baptist Church member, and he is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. He and his wife, Angela, have two children, Jared and Ashley, both graduates of Grambling State University and a grandson, Tyler Williams.