Who will be Ocean Springs’ new mayor? Meet 5 candidates on Tuesday’s primary ballot
Ahead of a competitive Ocean Springs race for mayor, the five Republican candidates shared their visions for the city and plans they would pursue if elected.
Two real estate brokers, a former city employee, a retired communications professional and a former alderman are running Tuesday in the Republican primary as current Mayor Shea Dobson leaves office after one term.
A runoff between the top finishers will be held April 27 if no candidate receives a majority of the primary vote.
Several candidates pointed out that the mayor shares administrative power with the city’s seven-member Board of Aldermen, whose support is needed to approve and carry out city policies.
The candidates had a variety of ideas for improving the city, from planting wildflowers in medians to paying more attention to East Ocean Springs, and working more closely with Jackson County on Front Beach erosion control and maintenance.
All the candidates believe the city needs to update its strategic plan for growth.
The Sun Herald spoke with each candidate. Their ideas are presented below, with candidates listed in alphabetical order.
Melanie Allen
Melanie Allen’s decision to run for mayor was solidified when the city of Ocean Springs ended its long-standing contract with The Friends of the Mary C. , where she is a board member, to run the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center on Government Street.
The city is running the center now.
“Seeing the embarrassing public discourse that the Mary C. episode became motivated me, along with encouragement from other folks, to step up,” said Allen, who added that her knowledge of city operations has grown since she ran unsuccessfully in 2012 for the alderman-at-large seat.
“We’re a better community than that.”
If elected, Allen said she would support a foundation or other nonprofit entity to run the cultural center and reduce the city’s liability.
She believes the center could be transformed into a regional attraction that offers three-day to one-week classes that would attract more visitors who would stay and spend money in Ocean Springs.
Before moving to Ocean Springs in 1995, Allen sold the communications company that she owned in Mobile. In Ocean Springs, the 68-year-old has been an active civic volunteer and leader.
As mayor, she said, she would work to solidify and promote the city’s brand as a unique destination and community.
She believes open communication is a key to improving Ocean Springs. She wants to see fewer closed-door city meetings and establish citizen committees to offer input on economic development and the environment.
“We should be planning and setting priorities based on what citizens tell us,” Allen said.
She said the city’s comprehensive plan needs to be updated to deal with issues such as traffic, parking and density.
“Ocean Springs is at a crossroads,” Allen said. “We’re not the city we used to be and we’re not the city we’re going to become. Growth is happening here, whether we control and manage it or not. We need to be proactive.”
A cornerstone of Allen’s campaign is paying more attention to East Ocean Springs, where many residents feel too much attention goes to the downtown area.
She said the city should consider moving its public works operation to the east as growth continues in that direction. An added benefit would be freeing up space at the current downtown location.
Allen believes the police department should maintain its presence downtown and is glad to see foot patrols in the area.
As mayor, Allen said, she would make sure the city is focused on getting its share of millions in BP funding that the state is receiving each year because of the 2010 oil catastrophe in the Gulf. BP funds will help build a parking garage in downtown Ocean Springs and complete other projects.
Allen is an experienced grant writer who would be on the lookout for grant funding. But she also wants to take a hard look at the city’s budget, and hear from citizens, to see what economic development opportunities the city should pursue to expand the tax base.
Frederick ‘Chic’ Cody
Cody said he loves the city of Ocean Springs and decided to run for mayor after he found out Dobson was not running for a second term.
The 78-year-old works under a contract with the city to coordinate events such as the Peter Anderson Festival and Cruisin’ the Coast, a three-day event he helped organize.
Cody served as an alderman for 24 years but was defeated for re-election in 2017 by Ward 3 Alderman Joseph Bellman Jr.
If elected mayor, Cody said he wants to put more city resources into beautification, including sprucing up parks and landscaping along city entryways, which other candidates also mentioned as a priority.
He said money from 2% restaurant tax the city collects could be used for beautification.
“Attention has not been applied to the beautification process,” Cody said. “We just need to get everybody on board with that.”
He believes the city needs to continue operating the cultural center rather than bringing in a third party. Volunteers, he said, will continue to be vital for the center’s operation.
“Everybody is welcome to come to the Mary C.,” he said, “anybody and everybody.”
Cody also stressed that the mayor does not operate independently and must follow directions from the Board of Aldermen. He said the mayor will have to get the board’s consent on critical water and sewerage projects and other funding priorities.
If elected, he would sit down with the board so they could list four or five priority projects from each alderman’s ward. He said priorities would range from short- to long-term projects and funding sources would be examined, including grants and assistance from Jackson County.
“You can have all the ideas you want to,” Cody said. “If you can’t get it funded by the aldermen, you can’t get it done. My job is to corral them and lead them.”
Cody said the beach in Ocean Springs is maintained by Jackson County, although the city has been responsible for landscaping between the walkway and sea wall. He said the ultimate goal is to prevent beach erosion with a series of jetties the county intends to install.
Many residents do not care for the concrete the county has poured into ditches along the walkway, pulling up landscaping in the process.
Cody said: “I do think that the county’s trying to do the right thing. They are trying to come up with a solution. We’ll have to wait and see.
“After all, the county controls the beach. We don’t have the money to take the beach on. . . . It’s very expensive. It’s not easy to maintain the beach because it’s constantly being eroded by rain, water and tide.”
Summer Devrow
Summer Devrow was a city employee in public works before she joined the mayor’s race.
She had clearance to run, she said, but after she entered the race she was told her campaign and city job would conflict, so she resigned.
She had joined the city’s Public Works Department after serving for 2 1/2 years as a school-crossing guard, where she got to know many families.
Devrow said she decided to run because she wants to make sure the departments that are the pillars of the city — public works, and the police and fire departments — are adequately funded and taxpayer money is not wasted.
She said many of the city’s sidewalks are in disrepair and aging infrastructure needs attention.
She wants a more walkable Ocean Springs, with new and repaired sidewalks and bike lanes that could be funded with federal grants.
“That’s why I’m running for mayor because I care enough to do something to take action instead of going online to complain,” said Devrow, 47.
When she went to work for the tending city flower beds, landscaping and welcome areas, she said: “I was shocked at how much money they waste. They wasted a lot of money.
“They buy flowers from nurseries, they rip them out and put new ones in and just let the other ones die.” She asked for and started a greenhouse where the city can grow its own plants to save money. She prefers native plants that require less money and attention.
For example, she would like to plant wildflowers in certain areas of the city, including bald spots along state highways 90 and 57.
She also believes the city should annex areas along Highway 57 to accommodate growth.
She has a couple of other projects in mind, too. She wants to seek grant funding and donations through fundraisers for a skate park to get teenagers off the streets.
“We have bars for adults and we have playgrounds for small children, but we don’t have something for kids who are that age,” she said.
And Devrow would encourage developers to build more housing priced below $200,000. She said too many people who work in Ocean Springs can’t afford to live in the city.
She said she hopes Jackson County will finish work quickly on Front Beach, which will allow the city to come in with landscaping along the walkway.
Devrow believes her time as a city employee will help her as mayor.
“It’s very insightful to have an insider look,” she said. “The wheels of the city turn slowly, but I turned them a lot faster when I was there.”
Being satisfied with doing OK is not OK, she said. “You have to bring your best and people deserve the best.”
Jeffrey S. ‘Jeff’ Guice
Guice, a state representative, would leave the state Legislature less than halfway through his fourth term if elected mayor.
He said people have been encouraging him to run for mayor for years and that God led him into public service and the 2021 mayor’s race.
“God keeps calling me into that realm, so I’ll follow where he sends me,” said Guice, who is 60 years old. “I’ve generated strong, solid working relationships with my colleagues that give me a lot of tools in my toolbox.”
He said that he has and will continue to tap into those relationships to secure funding for the city, including BP catastrophe dollars.
Guice, who owns a real estate brokerage firm, also would use strong relationships with the Mississippi Development Authority and Jackson County Economic Development Foundation to develop vacant properties and bring businesses to empty buildings, he said.
But the city will first need to revisit its strategic plan for growth and update it annually with input from residents.
He said decisions should be based on data and the right professional input. The mayor, he said, must develop a strong working with the Board of Aldermen because, “in our form of government, the mayor doesn’t get to decide a whole lot.”
He said more unique overnight accommodations in the city would help build the tax base and improve the quality of life.
During his campaign, he has knocked on more than 1,000 doors. Residents indicate to him that the biggest problem in the city, by far, is drainage.
“We’ve just got to make that more of a priority,” said Guice, who has lived in the city for 35 years. “That’s something you can’t fix tomorrow.
He said upgrades and repairs will have to be prioritized and an annual maintenance schedule needs to be in place.
Guice said federal, state and county funding would be available to help with those repairs and upgrades.
He is not satisfied with the county’s current strategy for Front Beach. “We need to address the beach differently,” he said. “I want to leave engineering up to engineers, but when we hire engineers, I want to hire the engineers qualified for the problem.”
Guice said he has been talking with Jackson County representatives about the beach, but he was not ready to go into details about any specific proposals for controlling erosion and beach stabilization.
As a legislator, Guice said, he is most proud of his work on bills dealing with early childhood education, charter schools and prevention of child exploitation. Guice also sponsored the bill that allows Ocean Springs to regulate use of golf carts on public streets.
Kenny Holloway
Real estate broker Holloway also believes the city needs an updated strategic plan that retains the charm of Ocean Springs while allowing for growth.
An owner of various businesses over the years, the brother of former Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway, now deceased, also served for 13 years on the Biloxi school board.
He was on the school board during and after Hurricane Katrina.
“I’ve had my share of tough meetings and tough decisions,” he said. “It’s easy to govern when things are good. It’s not so easy to govern when things are bad and you’ve got to make tough decisions.”
He said challenges come with growth, but the city would have problems without growth. He said an updated comprehensive plan would dictate where and what kind of development takes place, but the city has room to grow along U.S. 90 in east Ocean Springs.
He will actively seek federal and state funds for city projects, he said.
“I’m not going to sit in the office and sit in front a computer,” said Holloway, who is 60 years old. “I want to be out and about and I also want to be in Jackson during legislative sessions, talking to those legislators. I think there’s been a void there.”
If elected, Holloway said he also would work to secure more parking downtown and support construction of the parking garage through a public-private partnership. He believes the city should continue to operate the Mary C. center.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said. “The Mary C. folks have moved on. They’re happy with what they’re doing, so I think that opportunity has gone by the wayside.”
If elected, he said, he would work to resolve the impasse between developers and residents over construction of The Sands townhouse complex on Front Beach. The project would bring in around $800,000 a year in tax revenue, he said, and needs to be completed.
And he wants to sit down with Jackson County officials to talk about Front Beach maintenance moving forward. He believes the county should maintain the beach and says the walkway there should have been built along the seawall, as it was in Biloxi, rather than on the beach, leaving a strip for the city to maintain. City tax dollars paid to the county should cover maintenance, he said.
He also wants input from residents, business owners and developers on the business climate and growth going forward. If elected, Holloway also said he would work to attract a name-brand hotel to the city.
Ocean Springs alderman races
Candidates for aldermen are listed below. Independent candidates will be on the ballot in the June 8 general election.
Find a complete list here of Coast mayoral and council or aldermen candidates.
At Large — Incumbent Bobby Cox (R), Matt Stebly (Ind.)
Ward 1 — Michael Bryant (R), Jennifer Burgess (R), Greg Gipson (Ind.), Brandon Riches (D)
Ward 2 — Incumbent Rickey Authement (R), Karen Stennis (R)
Ward 3 — Incumbent Joey Bellman (R), Kevin Wade (R), Doug Walker Wineki (R)
Ward 4— Incumbent Ken Papania (R), Richard Daniels (R), Elizabeth Feder-Hosey (Ind.)
Ward 5 — Incumbent Robert Blackman (R), Jeffrey Mortenson (R)
Ward 6 — Incumbent Mike Impey II (R), Melanie Milburn (R)
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 2:07 PM.
