SUNRISE – A 23-year resident of Dawn, Mark A. Douglas credit that Broward County metropolis for his private {and professional} improvement. On November 5, he might be considered one of three candidates vying to be its mayor.
A Dawn commissioner since 2016, Douglas challenges incumbent Michael J. Ryan who was first elected to workplace in 2010. Neighborhood advocate, Niccole Pazos, is the opposite candidate within the nonpartisan election.
Douglas, a Jamaican who settled in Dawn along with his household in 2001, is a litigation legal professional and graduate of Florida Worldwide College. He’s vital of Ryan, who he says has little presence within the metropolis.
Mark A. Douglas
“Over the previous three years, the mayor has disappeared from the realm and others have stepped into the breach. Final yr, I served as deputy mayor and noticed how a lot of a vacuum the function had developed. A lot of the yr, he was absent and our neighborhood wants an engaged mayor,” Douglas advised South Florida Caribbean Information.
The New York-born Ryan was returned to his put up unchallenged for the final three elections. In posts to his web site, he factors to business improvement and improved infrastructure amongst his administration’s achievements.
However Douglas disagrees, saying that it’s he and three fellow commissioners who’re chargeable for that growth, significantly within the space of building.
“We spent $154 million on infrastructure, $94 million of that on parks and we’ve constructed a new city hall for over $60 million. It is without doubt one of the greatest investments we’ve got made and I’ve been on the forefront of constructing positive that that infrastructure rollout is managed,” he said.
Douglas, who’s in his late 40s, is from Clarendon parish in rural Jamaica. He earned a level in enterprise administration from the College of Know-how in Kingston, shortly earlier than migrating to South Florida in 2001.
In 2016, he grew to become the primary minority elected to the Sunrise commission, receiving over 17,000 votes. Douglas factors to a powerful monitor file in that place as proof of his capabilities, and has massive plans for the town if he’s elected mayor.
“We’re a service/supply area which impacts individuals’s lives. You want somebody who’s proactive and has a imaginative and prescient to ensure the town is delivering service to everybody,” he stated.
