South Bend native Sean Haas filed paperwork to appear on the Republican ballot this May as a candidate for Mayor of South Bend.
Haas is a teacher and veteran who says he will focus on infrastructure and attracting manufacturing jobs to the city as his goals if elected as Mayor.
News/Talk 95.3 Michiana’s News Channel received the following news release from Haas:
Haas, a graduate of Indiana University South Bend, military veteran and high school teacher says that he is running for mayor in an effort to get back to basics.
“The primary focus of city government should be public safety and infrastructure,” Haas said. “I believe that there are a lot of good things happening in the City of South Bend, but that we need to do a better job at the basics – the rucking and mauling, in rugby terminology.”
Haas points to infrastructure issues such as crumbling water infrastructure, an EPA mandate to separate storm water from waste water, which has become a $1B+ problem and the fact that at the city’s current rate of paving, it will take over 100 years to touch every road it is responsible for.
“I hear it from my family, friends and neighbors on an almost daily basis,” asserted Haas. “The roads are in terrible disrepair and what is under the roads is even worse. If we don’t start making substantial progress toward fixing our infrastructure, I am afraid we will find ourselves in a situation where it is simply too late.”
Mr. Haas said that other top priorities of his administration would be to continue building South Bend’s economy, closing the skills gap through new programs in our schools, reinvest in our public safety agencies and ensuring that we are budgeting toward priorities and delaying projects that may qualify as “wants” versus “needs.”
Haas is the only Republican to file for the mayor’s seat so far.
1 comment
Mr. Lynn Coleman, who is running for mayor of South Bend is a fellow Washington H.S. Panther grad and retired SBPD officer. Lynn was one of my officers in the West Sector of the South Bend Police when I was the commander of that sector in the mid 1980’s. Lynn was also Assistant to Mayor Steve Luecke when I was a member of the South Bend Board of Public Safety. Lynn is a smart capable man who is extremely caring and loves the city of South Bend. However, I am backing Sean Haas for mayor of South Bend. I met Sean at Rise Up Academy in 2010 when he was a teacher and I worked as security at the school on a part time basis after retiring from 20 years of service to the University of Notre Dame Police Dept. Sean impressed me as a young energetic teacher and fellow veteran of the U.S. Military. It was immediately apparent to me watching how Sean interacted on a daily basis with the students how much he loved what he was doing and the individual students as well. He taught the students to respect him and everyone working in the building who treated them fair and deeply cared for their well being as most employees at Rise Up Academy did. I sincerely believe the city I was born and raised in and gave so much of my life protecting deserves a mayor who will look at ALL the MANY Problems of the city and take OUR city in a different direction to SOLVE those problems. We’ve had years of pie in the sky ideas from the past administration with investment in downtown and near Notre Dame neighborhood of the city while kicking the can down the road for the rest of us. Our public schools ARE FAILING, Streets are crumbling with Domino’s Pizza repairing them, our police department is not in charge of the streets of South Bend with gangs, drugs and shootings all over the city. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the failing city at this time. WE DESERVE A REAL LEADER with solutions to fix what is wrong and not just talk about it.