Mayor Jon Mitchell Officially Announces Re-Election Bid

NEW BEDFORD  — Mayor Jon Mitchell has officially announced that he will be seeking re-election to the City’s top elected office.

The Mayor made the announcement this morning in a video posted to his campaign website, jonmitchell.com. In the video, Mitchell touts his administration's accomplishments over the years, highlighting that his administration “has done what it said it would do.”

“We said we’d help create more jobs. Today, there are 5,000 more people working in the City than there were back then. We said we would make our neighborhoods safer, and since then, we’ve seen double-digit drops in the crime rate in our city. We said we would make our city’s finances stronger, and today it has the highest Wall Street bond rating in its history,” Mayor Mitchell said.

“We said we would take on the problems of our schools, which were under a state monitor back then. Now, the state monitor is long gone and test scores and graduation rates have gone up, and under the leadership of Superintendent Anderson our schools are now a much more welcoming place. We said we would create great public spaces in our city, so we went ahead and eliminated graffiti, we built five new parks, we planted thousands of trees, built this harbor walk and that cove walk, and there is more road work going on in our city than there has been in the last 20 years.”

In a post online surrounding the video, Mitchell explained that the “most important point we should heed” from his administration’s accomplishments” is that decline is not inevitable. The Mayor says he wants to continue to restore confidence that the city can continue to progress and address many of its problems.

First elected in 2012, Mayor Mitchell has won the previous two mayoral elections as an incumbent.  If reelected this year, he would be the first mayor in the city’s history to be elected to a four-year term.

According to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, Mitchell stands with $202,267.50 in his campaign finance account as of July 17, far above the funds raised by his opponents thus far.

“It seems like in politics today, talk passes for action and partisanship replaces problem solving. It’s very frustrating and seems to be happening all over the place, especially in Washington. I ran for mayor because I believe it didn’t have to be that way, at least not in New Bedford. I love our city, and I believe that our residents deserve accountable and effective City government,” Mitchell said to open the video.

“I’m here today to tell you that I’m running for re-election this fall because I believe that together we need to see our work through.”