La Plata, MD – La Plata Mayoral Candidate Jeanine James and her husband had hardly settled into Charles County when the 2002 tornado ripped through the town. “I actually watched it descending right over our house,” she recalled.
For James, she is finding her persona as a “people person” fitting for the office she is trying to win. “The people are so nice,” James said. “I’m learning so much and meeting so many people.”
A resident of the town for 16 years, she noted, “we’re a military family. We thought it was a four-year tour of duty, but when my husband got picked to go the Pentagon, we thought we might be here a little longer.”
She turned degrees in communications and political science into a master’s degree. James said she views the town council as “the five of us working for the betterment of the town. As mayor, I would need them [the council] to have a similar vision. I’m not going to have in-house fighting.”
James has participated as a member of the town’s Design Review Board and laments stiff restrictions on signage throughout the town, something the town revised this past year. She spoke of one business which closed in the town because they weren’t allowed to place signage that would let people know where they were.
“She wasn’t allowed to put signs up and her business was tucked away and it hurt her business,” she said. “She ended up going out of business.”
The candidate says she has no political affiliation. “Politics here, that goes out the window,” she said. “We are not beholden to any political party.
“I have gone to the majority of businesses in the town, trying to find out what are their problems, their concerns,” she explained. She said she would like to be able to attract folks traveling through the town on Crain Highway to visit the town and patronize the businesses they find. She said the town has a good rapport with the county commissioners and the State Highway Administration and feels the town could apply for grants to help lure people passing through to the town.
“We have 22,000 vehicles a day going through our small little town,” she said. “We should be able to pull some of them in. There are a couple of ways we can do that without hurting businesses. You could use Hughesville as an example,” she added. “When the state put the bypass through there, it crippled the businesses within the town. We do not want that to happen in La Plata. We want to draw the people in”
She agreed with her opponent, La Plata Councilmember Lynn Gilroy, that the town needs to do more to draw out the vote.
“Five percent is not a fair representation for the town,” she said.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com