Wilmington mayor on what the next mayor needs to run Delaware’s largest city

After a twelve year run in office, Wilmington Mayor James Baker knows a thing or two about the city.  He had a few things to add about Tuesday night’s mayoral race.

 The Democratic nominee for mayor is Dennis P. Williams, and according to Baker,  that didn’t come as a surprise. “I don’t think there were any surprises, I think it pretty much ran as everybody was speculating or guessing,” said Mayor Baker.

Whatever the case, Baker says Williams has a lot to plan for especially if Republican candidate Kevin Melloy’s name isn’t written on the ticket in the General Election in November.

“He’s going to want to look at the finances and look at other things because nobody believes what they see when they first get elected,” said Baker, who also expressed that Williams will need to pick good people for his staff.

Baker even shares a few words of wisdom. “As mayor, you have to be political and you have to be an administrator, you can’t be just one.  You can’t do all politics and you can’t do all administration, so you got to have good people under you that tell you the truth, and then you have to make the decision on what to do and what not to do,” expressed the Wilmington mayor.

Looking back at some of the campaigns that the candidates ran, Baker admits he didn’t agree with all of them.  “This campaign, most people spent time talking about crime as if it’s some kind of a magic elixir out there that you can just turn on the spigot and crime goes away and everybody feels safe and sound which is nonsense and we should know that.”

Mayor James Baker continues his discussion from Wednesday night’s 5:30 special edition of “First” on Friday.  In the next exclusive interview, Baker will touch on many other topics as well as share how the next mayor should deal with the city council.  Baker will also give a list of things scheduled to be completed before he leaves office.