Sabbagh enters race for mayor

City Councilman David Sabbagh announced Monday he wants to bring change to Bloomington by taking on a new role.\nServing his third term as a Republican representing District 5 in the City Common Council, Sabbagh’s declared his new ambition to become the city’s next mayor.\n“There is a lack of leadership today in the mayor’s office,” Sabbagh said during an interview Tuesday. “Procrastination seems to be the mode of operation in the (current) administration. It’s hurting the business environment of the city.”\nSabbagh said he plans to tackle such issues as improving the business environment, creating new jobs and supporting the children of the community. He said his “bold and innovative” approach might be exemplified by his dreams of a mayor’s youth hiking group. \n“I’d like to get kids to do some hiking,” Sabbagh said. “I’d love to start a mayor’s youth hiking group so children can see the beauty of nature.”\nPlans of building more sidewalks throughout the town are one of the several steps he would like to take to protect the children of the community.\n“We need sidewalks,” Sabbagh said. “We want to build sidewalks so (children) can walk safely in this town, so that parents won’t have to worry. We should really have sidewalks within a mile of all of our schools.”\nImproving the economy of the city likely will be another key issue to Sabbagh, whose initiatives include new transportation systems.\n“Once we can get I-69 going, we want to work on a passenger rail system from Bloomington to Indianapolis,” Sabbagh said, adding it’s an idea that could make commuting to the state capital easier. “We want to complete needed infrastructure. We want to create an environment so we can have businesses and jobs created.” \nHis ideas might seem extreme – and expensive to some. But Sabbagh claims the lack of leadership shown by the current mayor, not money, is the issue.\n“We have sufficient funds and we would continue to raise funds the standard way,” Sabbagh said. “The current surplus of $3 (million) to $3.5 million is more than is needed. We need sidewalks.”\n“There’s been procrastination on the B-Line (Trail) and I don’t understand why that hasn’t started yet,” he said. “There was a lot of momentum before the current administration took over. We haven’t moved forward in the last three-plus years.”\nEach mayoral term is four years long, and Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan, a Democrat, is up for re-election in the 2007 city elections.\nKruzan said he agrees with Sabbagh about which issues need to be addressed during this election race. The election would come down to “which candidate and which political party can best protect our quality of life and promote economic vitality,” Kruzan said in an e-mail.\nKruzan said he is “very proud of the success City Council Democrats and (he) have had on both those fronts.”\nBoth candidates have expressed their desire to keep the race positive and avoid turning to negative tactics that so often tarnish elections.\n“City campaigns are about the issues,” Sabbagh said. “I will talk about the issues. That’s the way I have always run my campaigns and always will run my campaign.”\nKruzan said he believes that, in many cases, low voter turnout is a result of negative ads and personal attacks during election races.\n“David’s a good guy, and I’m hoping the race will stay positive,” Kruzan said in the e-mail. “We’ll be talking about what we’ve already done, but more importantly, what we plan to do in the next four years, if we’re fortunate enough to be re-elected.”\nFriday is the deadline to register as a candidate for the primary elections, which are scheduled for May 8.