Election Day for the 2024 year fell on Tuesday November 5. Where Donald Trump won the race to become the 47th president of the United States, and the Republicans won the House Senate.
Although the mayoral elections did not take place during this voting day, many are preparing for it to occur in March 2025. In March 2025, Democrat Jasmine Harris is running against current Mayor, Republican Jean Stohert.
The role of a mayor is vast, but one of their greatest responsibilities is “supervises all executive and administrative activities,” according to the League of Women Voters of Greater Omaha.
Current Mayor Stohert, along with Governor Jim Pillen, announced on January 10, 2024, that there would be two major economic development projects in North Omaha. Total, North Omaha would receive about $125 million in state and federal funds.
These funds would help the community’s health care, education, infrastructure, public safety, social services and more in the North Omaha community.
Harris said that she would prioritize making Omaha a safer and healthier place for people in every neighborhood. She plans on doing this by making housing more affordable and economic development fairer according to the Nebraska Examiner.
Seniors at Omaha North High School believe that there are not very many problems with the Omaha North community but there are a few which the mayor should address.
RaShad Deal, 12, believes that the streets are a large problem area in the community. At the end of January 2024, the city of Omaha received over 200 requests for pothole repairs according to WOWT. Many of the students experience potholes while making their morning commute every day.
“Streets are horrible, like as far as the potholes and things like that nature” said Rashad Deal, 12.
Deal’s solution to the problem is that the mayor should use “our” tax dollars to fix the streets. Aside from the large potholes that students endure on their way to school, they also experience great amount of road closures. For the greater part of the start of the year, drivers were met construction while getting off or on the interstate on Ames.
Social Studies teachers such as John Skradski, also weighed in on the issue.
“More investment in companies that provide jobs for North Omaha, I think the infrastructure needs to be updated a little more street and, especially the city parks I think there needs to be more stuff for kids to do,” said Skradski.
Skradski’s solution was to form more job opportunities for teens, which means they would have something to do instead of getting themselves in trouble.
“Expand job programs for North Omaha teens at least during the summer to get them employed cause teens who are employed have money in their pockets so there less likely to do bad stuff,” Skradski said.
I agree with Skradski, and Deal in regard to the issues that they have brought to the surface.
I have also noticed the construction load around the North Omaha community.
I personally believe that the mayor should also address the littering problems which hurt the animals and the environment. As the environment becomes worse overall by having the undecomposable materials on the ground outside.
This could lead to animals getting stuck or sick from the trash. Also raising the possibility of the animals dying from the item altogether. The littering also causes problems with pollution in the water in the North Omaha community which results in hazardous drinking conditions for these animals.
This can be solved by putting out or providing more trash and recycling bins around North Omaha. Another way would be to increase the social media presence online by sharing posts or resources on Instagram, or Facebook regarding littering and the effects of it.
An improvement to road conditions helps not only the students of Omah North, but also the staff. The improvement would result in students being able to get to school easier.
