While many voters are thinking about the 2016 elections, there’s been a major new development in the 2017 Birmingham mayoral race: assistant city attorney and school board member Randall Woodfin told WBHM late Sunday that he will run for mayor.
Woodfin says he wants to “revitalize the way politics are done in Birmingham” and to “make the city more transparent with our tax dollars.” And he thinks Birmingham voters “see 2017 as a change election.”
Woodfin has been a city attorney for seven years. He’s been on the school board for three years, serving most of that time as board president. The 35-year-old calls himself “young, but not new.”
“City Hall needs a reset button,” he says. “We need someone who’ll both support our small businesses and put our younger generation first.” He mentioned uneven quality of life across Birmingham’s 99 neighborhoods and the perception that, in some parts of town, “people aren’t safe on their own porches.”
Woodfin’s campaign is set to officially kick off Saturday morning at the North Birmingham Recreation Center, very close to where he went to elementary school.
A spokesperson for incumbent Mayor William Bell said Sunday that Bell will run in the 2017 election.
Candidates for mayor can start raising money one year before the election. That’s today, August 22.