Steve Rosenthal filed this week to run for mayor of Indianola, seeking his fourth, non-consecutive, term in office.
Rosenthal, who currently serves as Sunflower County’s economic development director, had been elected to three consecutive terms as mayor spanning 2010-21. He was defeated by incumbent Mayor Ken Featherstone during the last election cycle.
This will be Rosenthal’s sixth campaign season overall, having also lost his first bid for mayor two decades ago.
“I’m more excited about it,” Rosenthal told The Enterprise-Tocsin during an exclusive interview this week. “I don't feel like my challenge is winning the race. My challenge is fixing the problems that we have in the city right now. I think that's my biggest concern, because it's going to take a lot of work to get everything back into the municipal government procedures that need to be in place.”
Rosenthal’s entry currently makes it a three-person race for the city’s top seat, as veteran law enforcement official Hollis Myrick has also filed to run.
The filing deadline is August 15, and the primary
election will take place on October 14.
Rosenthal said that his decision to run was based on things that he has observed within the city over the past four years, as well as conversations that he’s had with citizens, some of whom he said did not vote for him four years ago.
“You know, every time I go to Walmart, I get stopped by a minimum of three people and usually five or six. And the first thing they say, ‘we messed up,’” Rosenthal said, later adding, “And then they…typically say (the city is) falling apart. You know, they can't get over how bad the roads are or ‘it's total chaos at board meetings.’ It's the view of how citizens see our community.”
Rosenthal touched on a number of issues this week that concern the city, including its delinquent audits, crime, street repair and economic development.
Audit noncompliance may become a complicated issue for Rosenthal, who left office four years ago with multiple years of annual financial reports not completed.
The fiscal years 2018 and 2019 audits have been completed in the past four years, with the 2019 report having been accepted by the board of aldermen during last week’s meeting.
Rosenthal said that he does take partial ownership when it comes to the audits that were not done on his watch. He added that several factors led to the persistent problems that culminated last month with the state auditor’s office ordering the department of revenue to withhold $675,000 of the city’s tax dollars to pay for back audits.
“I’m not here to lay blame, but (as mayor) I can’t hire anybody,” Rosenthal said. “I can only recommend. And I, multiple times, did my part. I brought qualified local auditors to the table multiple times. Three directly presented. They made a presentation before these aldermen. And I'm talking these aldermen that are currently elected, because they're the ones who stopped it before.”
Rosenthal said that his recommendations for auditors between 2017-20 were routinely rejected.
He does acknowledge the need for a new approach, he said.
He said that he would add incentives to the auditor’s contract, promising bonus payouts if audits are completed by certain deadlines. He also said that he would incentivize work being done on multiple audits at the same time.
He would also push to have the auditing firms spend more time on the front end of the contract at city hall, gathering documents, rather than having them scanned and emailed to the firm.
On streets and infrastructure, Rosenthal said that he offers a comprehensive plan to fund major repairs in the next four years.
Rosenthal said that he values input from the city’s five aldermen, adding that a viable plan would also have to involve the city’s engineer assessing all of the city’s streets.
“Now, I think we need input from the aldermen, but the true selection needs to be on the worst streets, (with) the worst infrastructure underneath it,” he said. “Then we get a cost analysis and then take that cost analysis and see what every one of those streets would cost.”
Rosenthal said that a major project could be funded with a bond issue, using the nearly $700,000 in annual use tax revenue as collateral. He also said that the use tax cash flow could be used itself to fund projects, and he also said that money could be borrowed from local banks for multiple smaller initiatives.
“And as long as you got good balance sheets to show to lenders, they're willing to work with you, and we got (multiple) homegrown banks that would be glad to work with the city,” he said.
On crime, Rosenthal pledged to recruit qualified police officers.
“Then we got to get more police officers patrolling the street,” Rosenthal said. “Then the big thing we got to work on is with our youth. Give them activities to do, but more than that, we’ve got to show them a little bit of love and be out there and involved with young people who…are battling each other constantly. It's going to take some mindset changes with our population that there's more ways to solve a dispute than pulling a weapon.”
On economic development, Rosenthal claims that he is uniquely positioned to combine his experience in municipal government with the skills that he’s learned as the county’s economic developer over the past three years.
“I've come to have a real good working relationship with our Capps Center here,” he said. “And we don't market that enough to people that you can take a six-week, 12-week course and have a certificate to do air and heat work. You can get carpentry skills. You can get welding skills…You can get lineman skills. Some of those jobs you can graduate and if you work hard, you could be making $50,000 to $60,000 a year and in Indianola, Mississippi and in Sunflower County.”
Rosenthal also touted his relationship with the Sunflower County Consolidated School District, which is currently B-rated. Rosenthal has partnered with the district in bringing the Leader in Me program here.
Ultimately, Rosenthal said that he hopes his economic development prowess will lead to job creation within the city.
“And all that I can tell you is that I will take every avenue to bring somebody here,” Rosenthal said. “Now, again, it's a team effort. It takes a board. It takes the citizens.”
And the citizens will decide whom the next mayor will be in just over three months.
