3 Democrats running for mayor in Mt. Pleasant

Mt. Pleasant Mayor Diane Bailey will face two Democratic challengers in Tuesday’s primary election.

The winner will face off in the fall against Republican Nicholas Lucia, who in unopposed on the GOP ballot in a bid to succeed his grandfather as mayor.

Jerry Lucia died Dec. 17, 2021, at 76, shortly after he won his 10th term as mayor. Bailey was appointed mayor in January 2022 to replace him.

The candidates are seeking to complete the two years remaining on Lucia’s term.

The other candidates on the Democratic ballot also have experience serving the borough: council member Richard Cholock and former council member Paul L. Wagner.

Bailey, 66, served on council from 2012 through her appointment as mayor. She is retired from a 35-year career at Mt. Pleasant Area School District, where she served as fiscal director.

Bailey was defeated by Jerry Lucia in a previous bid for mayor. After Lucia’s death, she said, other council members asked her to serve an appointment as mayor, and she “decided to step up to the plate. I was retired and could be out and about in the daytime.”

One of the duties of the mayor is to oversee the police department, which “does a good job,” Bailey said.

With three highways passing through the borough, Bailey indicated she balances promotion of the town with enforcement of its laws.

“We have a lot of traffic,” she said. “I like to make sure everybody who is coming through is respectful of our community and that they would think about coming back.”

She attends meetings of the town’s business district authority, meets at least once a week with the police chief to review complaints the department has investigated and makes recommendations to council regarding proposed ordinances, she said.

“We have an issue with ATVs running in yards and disturbing the peace, and we don’t have an ordinance for it,” she said. “I will do some legwork and offer some suggestions and samples from other municipalities.”

Bailey also serves on a committee that oversees a veterans memorial wall that displays the names of more than 1,500 local veterans in Mt. Pleasant’s Veterans Park.

That’s something that is near and dear to my heart,” she said. “The side that does not have the names looks into a parking lot. We are looking at an artist to come in and do several murals so it looks nice from the back as well as the front.”

Bailey is also advocating for local high school students to serve as non-voting junior council members. “I want them to bring their ideas to us and give us their point of view,” she said.

Cholock, 54, is completing his second term as a 1st Ward councilman and is chairman of the public safety committee. He works as operations manager for a stone restoration company.

He is running for mayor because he wants to be more involved with the borough police department while helping to promote the town, he said.

“When you’re on council, you’re not in charge of the police department, you’re in charge of their budget,” he said.

Cholock said he thinks the police force and the town would benefit from a move toward more full-time officers rather than part-timers. The department normally has four full-time officers, including the chief, but he said, “I think five would be more efficient.”

The move would provide the chief more flexibility in scheduling officers and would cut down on full-time officers working overtime when a part-timer isn’t available, Cholock said.

“It’s always good for the community to know the police officers,” he said. “A lot of part-time officers come here for a little bit and then they go somewhere else.”

Similarly, Cholock said he’d like Mt. Pleasant to have its own dedicated code enforcement officer. “Now, we pay a company,” he said.

City officials should have a closer working relationship with Mt. Pleasant’s business community, Cholock said.. He advocated relaxing a borough restriction on LED signs that he feels could help the promotional efforts of businesses and organizations.

Wagner, 57, works as a safety manager. He served as a councilman from the borough’s 3rd Ward, including a brief stint as council president, before resigning in December 2016, a year shy of completing his four-year term.

Wagner attributed his earlier departure from council to “differences of opinion at that time.” Now, as he pursues the role of mayor, he said, “This is a totally different opportunity for me.”

He said he wants to “give back to the community” as the area regroups from the slowdown that occurred with the covid-19 pandemic.

At the time he was on council and PennDOT was beginning a major project to reconstruct Mt. Pleasant’s Main Street, borough officials missed an opportunity to revitalize the town, Wagner maintains.

He said the Mt. Pleasant Business District Authority is “doing quite well,” but he said, “We don’t have the storefronts we had in the past.”

Wagner also believes the borough police department should have more full-time officers, as many as six, he said.

“I would like to have as many full-time officers as we can afford,” he said. “They’re more able to reach out and get to know the residents of the borough and have more camaraderie and a sense of belonging.”

Lucia, 29, is a small business owner and a Marine veteran.

He said he is running for mayor in an effort to counter the divisiveness in American society.

“I want to try to bring people together,” he said. “It starts locally.”

The city recently used pandemic recovery funding to purchase a new ambulance for the local Medic 10 emergency medical service. The service “got some new equipment,” Lucia said. “I want to continue providing that and new training classes.”

Lucia said the borough should look into updating its facilities and systems to make use of renewable energy and sustainable processes. He expressed interest in atmospheric water generators, which extract liquid water from water vapor in the air.

“I think Mt. Pleasant has been in a constant revitalization,” he said. “I want to continue making Mt. Pleasant better.”