Mayor Oliver Ellis released a thirty-minute infomercial style television broadcast on Easter Sunday in which he summed up his first eight months in office. It was a beautiful production, but many didn’t see it and many minorities who saw it couldn’t feel it!
Mayor Ellis ripped another page from the Mayo Administration and styled the broadcast as a “State of the City” address.
In the 30-minute TV-Show Mayor Ellis said very little. He expanded the “city” to reach beyond those things influence by city government to include Delta Community College, ULM, and the hospitals.
The video itself was well crafted with the feel and style of a political campaign ad that highlighted the city’s positives and ignored its negatives.
Among the points of pride highlighted were:
—CRIME PREVENTION: The city’s new shot spotter program helps them respond faster when shots are fired. The police are trying to get neighbor watches in South Monroe and a youth mentoring program has been established. Eight new police officers have been hired to reduce crime. The city will reduce crime by 20% in 2021.
—ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES: The city is procuring new vehicles for departments, some of which are 15 years old. It is streaming the application process for licenses and permits including a new 311 services app.
—ONGOING CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS: The city is in need of complete Water Treatment Plant upgrades, Georgia Street Pumping Station to avoid Southside flooding, and complete the Kansas Lane Extension
—ZOO UPGRADES: The city is working to upgrade the zoo and has received $460,000 in grants from the Convention and Visitors Bureau.
—NEW BRAND: The has changed its logo based on the old Edom Bridge between Monroe and West Monroe to that an “M” that takes the shape of the bridge, promoting unity, not between the two cities but between different sections of the city.
Other agencies around the city promoted their points of pride as well.
Major Items on the mayor’s agenda is to prepare the city for what is called “Gig Economy” or internet-based city’s that has the fiber optic infrastructure for the future 5-G business growth. The promotion of a marina as a tourism attraction is a high priority.
Next year hopefully, the mayor will rebrand his “state of the city” name. Just the name itself warmed-over Mayo. It would also be a good idea for the consultant to devise a new theme for the city from its present “OneRoe” which is a clone of Mayo’s “One City One Future.”
Mayor Ellis’ biggest strength is his own personality. In eight months he has proven to be empathetic. He is at his best when he’s helping cut tree limbs and working soup lines. He’s a people person and that’s good.
His greatest weakness is that he isn’t transparent. He has yet to have a press conference where he answers questions from the media instead of making scripted presentations.
He is trusted, so he should have no fear of the media. Many questions we have can’t be answered by text messages and “feel good” news releases.
While we trust that the mayor may be working to build the “bridge” in relationships, we think he should meet regularly with civic leaders of our community including the NAACP, establish relationships with both Black newspapers and regularly tackle issues of South Monroe instead of responding to protests.
What we saw in the video was meringue: black faces, a black narrator, a black choir singing, but we didn’t see issues high on our priority list targeted in the video. The African-American community is nearly 60 percent of the Monroe population, our issues should rank high on the mayor’s priority list.
What’s on our mind is increasing violent crime, deteriorating infrastructure, lack of business opportunities or the fact that we don’t even have a Post Office or a Major Pharmacy on our side of the city.
The mayor may be trying to do something, but we don’t know about it. Aretha Franklin’s had a hit song titled, “Giving him something he can feel.”
In the song she express that true love is worthless if the person loved doesn’t feel it.
The mayor says crime is low, but we can’t feel it.
He says everybody is happy, but we can’t feel it!
Minority contractors can’t feel it!
One final note: It was a supreme insult to air the “State of the City” address on Easter Sunday; many people are not saying it aloud, but they were offended and thought it was bad taste.
