A new candidate is putting his hat in the ring for Saint John’s mayor.
Mel Vincent Jr. announced Friday he will be running in the upcoming municipal election.
“I am pleased and proud to put my name into the ring,” says Vincent. “Our City has put in a tremendous amount of work over the past five years, and thanks to the leadership of Don Darling, we’re in a pretty good place. Now it’s time to build.”
Vincent is the son of the late Mel Vincent Sr., who served on Common Council for 30 years. He works as a real estate broker and homebuilder and said he’s focused on building the population, economy and communities.
Vincent said he’s getting up to speed on all the complex work that is underway at City Hall.
“Over the next few weeks we’ll be digging into our platform issues and other topics with voters,” said Vincent.
“I want to be sure Saint Johners hear themselves in this campaign. Their issues will come to the forefront.”
Vincent says he grew up in a household where public service was classified as an honourable calling, not expected but encouraged.
He was raised as the oldest of five to give back to whatever he benefitted from, and still coaches in hockey as his way of giving back to a community and that’s what public office is to him,
“Mayor Darling has done an amazing job of getting some sound fiscal policies in place and processes to see how we’re doing and where we’re going and I fully endorse that and now we’ve got to build on it. It is time to build and I’m a builder,” he said.
Vincent said we need to grow the population, grow the city so the tax base increases, and in order to grow the community is to lower the poverty rate.
“Without growth, there’s failure and we have to encourage people to come here as citizens and we’ve got to find ways to grow the tax base so we can do the things we need to do and the things we want to do,” he said.
Vincent said there are many ways to grow the community either by affordable housing, wage strategies so people can live on their earnings.
He said council needs to provide leadership that encourages us to look at decisions that cause us to have the outcomes we want to have.
Vincent said he hopes to earn people’s trust with discussion and dialogue to answer people’s questions and not making promises he can’t keep.
“We’re at a critical junction point in our city’s future, that a lot of great things are happening here, we’re on the cusp of so much.”
Vincent said he’s running despite the pandemic because the challenges don’t cancel out the opportunities and he wants people to start asking why don’t they want to live in Saint John.
One thing that will be different from the current mayor is how he uses social media.
Vincent said he admires how available Darling made himself on social media, but he wouldn’t be able to and in fact, he doesn’t know how Darling does it
“I think Don is a rare individual who has that capacity. I would like to say I can but there’s not a hope, I don’t know how he does it. I commend him for it,” he said.
Vincent said social media isn’t the only conduit and he will be available to the public through phone, email and in-person meetings which he said he’s determined to make happen safely. He said he’ll miss going door to door, but if communication requires plexiglass and six feet apart, he’ll do it.
He said it’s up to him to be accessible and adaptive to the needs of others, particularly as a political leader.
“It’s not for me to dictate how somebody reaches me, it’s for me to figure out what they need and communicate in that medium, so whatever they’re comfortable with, we’ll make it work,” he said.
Vincent said Saint John is a great city and it’s time to return some pride to it.