Omar Salaam makes second run for Albany mayor’s seat

ALBANY — The city of Albany’s problems in redeveloping the downtown is nothing new, according to mayoral candidate Omar Salaam. Like other long-running problems, including fixing the city’s aging sewer system and building a new transportation center, city leaders kicked the can down the road, the candidate said.

Despite years of hiring consultants to draft plans for the area, Salaam said, the area still remains underdeveloped.

“I’m running because in the 1980s I moved into downtown and opened a retail business, O&S Fashions,” he said. “By 1985, I was doing $200,000 in sales when there wasn’t supposed to be anything down there. The downtown development plan came in, and it destroyed downtown business.”

Salaam is one of three candidates looking to unseat incumbent Mayor Bo Dorough in the Nov. 7 election. The other two candidates in the race are former Albany City Commission member Henry Mathis and minister and businessman Antonio Screen Sr.

Prior to this year, Salaam ran for mayor in 2019 and also was a candidate in the 1980s for the Ward III Albany City Commission seat.

On the downtown topic, Salaam, who serves on the city’s Downtown Development Authority, said that one of several plans presented to the commission, this one from the University of Georgia, in 1988 was a good fit for the city but was never acted upon.

“There’s been a lot of money spent over the last 30 years with little success in the downtown development,” he said. “I’ll credit that to leadership, or lack of leadership, in this town.

“I made it a point for me to start attending the City Commission meetings in the 1980s to find information so I could make a good, sound business decision. I attended for 40 years just to learn, and what I found out was all the attention was going on the north side of town and they were basically (ignoring) this side of town … downtown, the east side, the south side.”

The candidate said he believes the neglect was due to commissioners looking out for friends and associates.

As mayor, the candidate said he would establish a friendly small-business atmosphere to develop home-grown businesses and provide employment. Another part of his business plan is partnering with educational institutions Albany State University and Albany Technical College to provide training in the community.

“As we start to develop and change and grow, I want to establish a 25-year economic development program for parts of this city that have been impoverished for so long,” he said. “We want to be very creative in those areas. We need good businessmen to reconnect with the city and put it on the right track.”

As a candidate, Salaam also has two proposals that would be sweeping in scope: starting discussions on reparations for descendants of enslaved people and enacting a four-day work week for city workers.

Discussions about reparations are occurring in other parts of the country, the candidate said, and should be extended to Albany.

“I plan to form a committee, and we will explore all of the areas, all of the ideas from the communities that are involved with this,” he said. “Then we would make an agenda.

“I know a lot of people say ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me,’ but I have my grandfather’s blood in my veins. My grandfather had a lot of property here in the 1800s, and we’re trying to research where it went.”

A four-day work week would provide employees the opportunity to spend more time with their families and do the things they need to do, Salaam said.

“I asked city workers for suggestions” and this was one of those suggestions, he said. “We’ll put it into place and see what happens. If it doesn’t work, we’ll look at another angle.”

While there have been recent announcements in downtown development, including a deal for a hotel, apartments and the ongoing renovation of the former Belk building as the future home of the Albany Museum of Art, Salaam said things are “not going well” for the area.

“They are not,” he said. “(With) the money that has been spent on administrative fees and payroll, we could have had a better downtown already.”

The transportation center, while completed this year, also has problems as tenant Greyhound pulled out and is now picking up and dropping off passengers at another location.

“The buses run all night, so why would you close it at 5 or 6 p.m.?” he said. “I guess we don’t have good, business-minded people to ask the questions that are important to the people using the services.

“I’m local. Albany’s my home. I know Albany. I know what we need in this city. I’m grounded, rooted, here in Albany.”

Staff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]
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