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Pensacola Mayoral Candidates: Donna Clark

Donna Clark for Mayor

  Voters in Pensacola are going to the polls to decide the city’s next mayor, between incumbent Ashton Hayward and challenger Donna Clark. 

On running for Mayor, her first attempt at seeking elected office:

“The whole campaign itself, from the get-go I’ve been a dark horse. Each step I’ve moved towards this end result has been incredible.”

On bringing jobs into Pensacola:

“Where I’m looking now is a shipyard – Ingalls – in Mississippi. They’re getting ready to retire out in the next year and a half 3,000 people. So if I garnishee 1,500 of those – it’s welding, it’s pipefitting, and they're coming in (to Pensacola) to train, $35/hour – wonderful job opportunity. The other area….is fiber optics and cyber. It’s just looking at the best company. We have everything ready to roll, it’s just bringing it on in.”

On Pensacola’s aging infrastructure:

“We have 80 years of concrete corroding underneath; even our gas lines and rusting. This is what we’re looking at. Downtown infrastructure, why have we waited so long? That is really top on the agenda, working with county and city together. We need to do better than ‘patch things.’ Everybody needs to be taken care of with our storm drainage and infrastructure.”

On working with the City Council and Mayor Ashton Hayward’s rare appearance at meetings:

“The bottom line is, when you have a powered mayor that is sitting there and participating, land if there’s any information that you can set forth on that, that’s a golden opportunity for the mayor to bring that information out. You’re going to work one-on-one with council people, you’re going to work on having meetings cohesively. Number one, you should be at those agenda meetings. I will be at those meetings.”

On possible changes to the city charter:

“I’m going to stand strong on what’s going on with the recalling the mayor, and of course, for the attorney and assistance (which would be hired by and for the City Council). Our mayor was the first to amend the charter (to remove the council’s at-large seats). I think the charter is a starting point for our city. It’s been four years, and now we can see the weaknesses. And when you see those weaknesses, that’s when the amendments come in. You’re just shoring it up; you’re not changing it, because it really works well.”