Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – July 24, 2024 – Jonesboro City Councilman L.J. Bryant has announced he’s running for the office of Jonesboro Mayor.
Bryant, a local businessman, serves on the Jonesboro City Council from Ward 5, Position 1. But beginning today, the 37-year-old husband and father has set his sights on the highest office in the city. But, just for 1 term.
Bryant explained “Most any politician is going to spend 50% of their time in some form of campaigning. It’s all about getting re-elected. If you move that 50% to the other side of the ledger, you could do the job 100% of the time. You can get 8 years’ worth of work done in 4. So, my thought is: how can I do the things that only I can do to really try to move the needle as much as possible in 4 years?”
He’s been considering the run since last summer. “People all the way back to last August have been encouraging me to run,” he said. He started by making notes… pages and pages of notes… detailing his thoughts on different aspects of the city. Those notes have ultimately been organized into a 10-point plan.
“My elevator speech for when someone asks me about my run for mayor is that I have this 10-point plan and I’m only running for 1 term. I hope that’s the message that gets across,” he said.
“The plan focuses on crime, quality of life, reducing poverty, government efficiency… these are some of the things that I’m going to focus on during the campaign. Cities across America face different challenges, but my 10-point plan highlights the challenges that I believe we face,” Bryant said.
“Priority #1 for me is public safety, specifically as it relates to crime. Crimes against persons are up fairly significantly. Now, the gross number of crimes is going to grow as any city grows. But we are growing more in crime, per capita, than the gross population. I didn’t see any progress or a plan to address things, and I started to feel like someone had to step up and do something. It’s so easy to complain about things, but it’s a whole other thing to actually do something about it,” he said.
Bryant referenced the recent shooting on Burke Avenue, where a gunman killed three people and left at least 5 injured. “The statement from the City of Jonesboro was very focused on it being a domestic incident. And while it was an isolated incident, there has to be an acknowledgement of what these things are. And I feel like that’s what’s missing.”
Another part of Bryant’s plan is to reduce the poverty rate from 22.4%. “In a recent grant application, the city shows that our poverty rate is higher than Paragould. Paragould is more like 19%, and the state is more like 17%. Poverty is a major, long-term problem, but changing the trend on poverty has a lot to do with reducing crime and bringing in jobs,” Bryant said.
He added, “I’ve seen no plan to address poverty and talk about who we’re attracting. There’s been a lot of press about population growth, but who are they? Where are they coming from? How much money do they make? Who’s leaving? I think we have to zoom out and say “all population growth isn’t good” depending on who the folks are and what assets they bring. Our workforce has shrunk but our population has grown.”
“We have to make sure we’re attracting folks to town who want to work, raise a family… model citizens are the folks that we want to do our best to attract to town. We’re going to keep growing because the towns around us don’t have the amenities that we have. We just have to have really smart growth.”
Other parts of Bryant’s Action Plan for Jonesboro include the funding of a trail system, the reduction of mosquitos, and a reorganization of the mayor’s office and city government. There will also be a focus on the transparency of city operations to the citizens. A lot of which can be done through social media.
“From a communications standpoint, there’s been a major shift. For me, I’d want to be in the city’s social media as little as possible. If the governor comes to town, and I need to introduce her, that makes sense. But I don’t have to cut every ribbon and do every employee award. The city’s social media needs to be about getting important messages out about the city and I feel like sometimes we’re not doing that now,” Bryant said, “Recently, we had a JETS bus break down and a lady waited at a JETS stop for 2.5 hours. There was never any messaging put out, anywhere. It wasn’t sent to the media, it wasn’t on social media, it wasn’t anywhere.”
When asked about being confronted with opposing ideas or conflicting comments, Bryant expressed that “People should farm for dissent.”
“You have to make yourself accessible to both the employees and the general public. How else are you going to know what’s happening on the ground? You don’t ever want there to be a barrier between you and the information that’s out there.”
Bryant’s official campaign announcement came during a press conference held at IV Kings Coffee on Wednesday morning.
Bryant was appointed to the City Council in August 2017 following the resignation of former council member Darrel Dover who resigned and moved to Northwest Arkansas with his family. He successfully withstood a challenge from Robert Speer in the 2018 election. He did not face opposition in 2022. His current term runs through 2026.
In 2022 Bryant successfully led an effort to change the way half of the members of the Jonesboro city council are elected. City voters approved the change to vote by ward for the number one position in each ward while leaving in place the longtime policy of voting citywide for the number two position in each ward.
Prior to city government Bryant ran unsuccessfully for positions in state government. Bryant ran in the 2012 election for Arkansas House of Representatives, District 52. Bryant defeated Todd Wilcox in the May 22 Democratic primary but was defeated by John Hutchison (R) by a narrow 45 votes in the general election on November 6, 2012.
In 2010 Bryant, at 23 years old, became one of the youngest candidates in history to seek a statewide office when he ran for Land Commissioner. He narrowly lost the race to Republican John Thurston. Bryant received 47.3% of the statewide vote.
More information is available about LJ Bryant and his campaign at ljbryant.com.
The mayoral question will be part of the November 5 general election ballot.