• My message always stayed positive. I do not believe in attacking my opponents, and while this can be a winning strategy for many in politics, I choose not to partake in such tactics. Negativity, unfortunately, took center stage in the final weeks of this race. For me character needs to rise to the top.  My campaign was about ideas and character—not about attacking.  I hope my actions will inspire future races to follow suit.
• My team did a fantastic job.  Running a race as an independent candidate comes with a big built-it challenge—no party-backed support equates to fewer dollars and volunteers.  Acting on principle rather than party is important, and again, while not always the popular choice is something I’m proud to have accomplished and my team did a wonderful job in executing this vision.
• I met amazing people all throughout Omaha.  I believe in Omaha and its people, and will stay involved with this amazing community.  Omaha has always and will continue to remain home.  I am committed to making Omaha an even better place to live, raise a family and do business.  While unfortunately not as mayor, I can—and will—still contribute to Omaha’s health.
• Thank you to my family.  Running for office is tiring, intrusive and can be at times emotionally trying, for both candidate and family. I am grateful to have come home last night to a family who encourages and inspires me every day to be a better person and public servent.

My current position as a Nebraska Senator has been—and will continue to be—fruitful. I am thankful to be able to represent people of Omaha in the Legislature and will keep on keeping on. I am excited to be able to continue my work on reforming Nebraska’s juvemile justice system, among other opportunities.

I’m not sure what will happen for me down the road, but I do know I am proud of the campaign I ran, the people I met, and most, importantly, the supporters who stood by me through this journey and acted as Brad Ashford Ambassadors across our great city.

Sincerest thanks,
Brad

• Find your nearest polling place in Douglas County here. Find your nearest Sarpy County polling place here.
• Polls in both counties will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• To view a sample Douglas County ballot, click here (PDF).
• For information on how to register to vote in Douglas County, click here. And to register to vote in Sarpy County, click here (PDF).

A mere 15,000 votes. That’s the magic goal that the five major Omaha mayoral candidates believe they must hit in Tuesday’s primary to win a spot in the May 14 general election.

Although anything can happen, 15,000 translates into 30 percent of projected turnout. In other words, it’s going to be a tight election. If history is any indication, a few hundred votes could decide who advances.

For candidates, it’s time to turn out out their “true believers,” said Randy Adkins, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “It is easier to have a big impact in a low-turnout election if you mobilize your core of supporters,” Adkins said.

The top five candidates include three Republicans, one Democrat and one independent.

The Democrat is the incumbent, Mayor Jim Suttle, who survived a recall attempt in 2011 and is seeking another term.

His Republican challengers are three familiar Omaha faces: Jean Stothert, a member of the City Council; businessman Dave Nabity; and Dan Welch, a former member of the council.

State Sen. Brad Ashford, who left the Republican Party in 2011, is the independent.

About 18 percent of the city’s registered voters — roughly 50,000 people — are expected to cast ballots, said David Phipps, Douglas County election commissioner.

Clouding Phipps’ prediction, however, is a school board race.

For the first time in a city election, voters will be asked to cast ballots for the Omaha Public Schools board. The state whittled the board from 12 to nine members in the hope that a smaller board would be more effective.

Click here to view The World-Herald’s guide to the mayoral race.

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Omahans on Tuesday will begin the process of choosing the city’s next mayor.

This is an important election at an important time. The city has emerged from the Great Recession and the Flood of 2011 with eyes focused firmly on the future.

But serious issues remain, including the shortfalls in the fire and police pensions, the serious problem of gun violence and other crimes, the burden of an enormously expensive sewer overhaul and finding the best way to continue Omaha’s evolution into a modern city with jobs for all who want to work.

The political calculus suggests strongly that Mayor Jim Suttle, the only Democrat in the race, is likely to advance from the primary to the May 14 general election as he bids for re-election to a second term.

Given that, the question facing non-Suttle voters is straightforward: Who among the four leading challengers offers the best and clearest choice: State Sen. Brad Ashford, small-business consultant Dave Nabity, City Council member Jean Stothert or lawyer and former council member Dan Welch?

Looking back at their records and ahead with their campaign proposals, two candidates would offer Omahans the sharpest philosophical differences and the most vigorous general election debate with the current mayor: Jean Stothert and Brad Ashford.

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Ashford has given three decades of service to the community and state, including two stints in the Legislature, service on the state’s labor court, with the Omaha Housing Authority and on the Metropolitan Convention and Entertainment Authority board.

All of that is indicative of one of his strengths: Ashford is someone who could improve the city’s fractious relationship with state lawmakers. “Omaha is not an island,” he says. “The idea of building relationships to get things done is what intrigues me.” On many issues coming before the Legislature — including a likely review of the state’s tax structures — a respected voice from Nebraska’s largest city would be valuable.

Ashford advocates merging city and county functions and smartly suggests that more cooperation among the city, county and other government entities could lower tax bills. His record on economic development is solid; he was a strong backer of Legislative Bill 775 to provide tax incentives for businesses expanding or moving to Nebraska.

The rap on this political independent? A reputation as something of an absent-minded professor whose attention can bounce from one subject to the next. Ashford and legislative colleagues attribute that to his interest in many different issues. He says he will surround himself with a strong staff to help keep things focused. He also insists, “I rarely change my mind once I set a priority.”

READ BRAD’S GROWING LIST OF ENDORSEMENTS

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Do you favor adding more police officers?

Brad Ashford

In every election, everybody says we need more police officers. I think we need to assess where we are with the officers we have. Obviously if you need more officers in certain places, you try to address that. But we also have police officers who are retiring at 45. And they’re going to be doing that for the next 15 or 20 years, that’s not going to change. There’s no incentive to stay, and that has to change. We have to negotiate that with the police union.

Dave Nabity

I want to do a performance audit first, and get a better understanding of how we’re using our staffing now. But I definitely want to add or rearrange manpower so we have more people in the high-crime area. Whether that’s gang units or uniformed officers or undercover or intelligence-gathering, that’s yet to be determined. I’m confident I can work with Police Chief Todd Schmaderer to come up with the innovations we need.

Jean Stothert

First and foremost, we need to keep the Omaha Police Department running at its full sworn strength. They have been running short for the last four years. Right now, we are — for the first time in four years — at full sworn strength. If there is any department I would add more people to the department, it is the police. It is estimated a city of our size should have more police officers than we are currently budgeted for. I would not raise taxes to hire more officers, but we can hire more officers if we’re smarter and more efficient with our budget.

Jim Suttle

Every one of my opponents is saying things like they’re going to cut taxes and they’re going to raise the number of police officers. Ask them how they’re going to pay for it. I don’t subscribe to the old criterion that this city has been using, that you have so many officers per 100,000 population. That’s not how it works. We have to assess what our problems are and then begin to put together the strategies that are necessary to make the problem into a solution. That has a cost. That cost is what we’re going to reflect into our budget, and then reflect into the tax picture.

Dan Welch

The mayor should always watch and review the number of police officers in the city to ensure the safety of individuals in the city. Currently I would add to the gang unit and likely supplement the police force with private individuals, so we’re not paying overtime to officers and instead we could use those officers in the high-crime area of the city. I would supplement the police force with non-sworn employees so that we could use the police officers for high-crime areas as opposed to office duty, non-criminal-related activities and non-dangerous activities. By doing so, we would have more police officers to fight crime, but it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers additional dollars.

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In their last joint appearance of the campaign, the five leading candidates for Omaha mayor seemed ready to put the grueling race behind them.

The candidates offered suggestions on better connecting neighborhood groups with city government, fixing more potholes and supporting development in the eastern half of Omaha.

But they also were interested in keeping the discussion moving, often waiving their allotted time for rebuttals to other candidates’ answers. Some used the event as a last chance to push back at their rivals on hot-button issues.

The forum was hosted by the Benson-Ames Alliance and held at Goodwill Industries’ headquarters at 72nd Street and Ames Avenue. Two of the candidates will advance in Tuesday’s primary election. The general election is May 14.

Attorney Dan Welch used his time for introductory statements to challenge City Councilwoman Jean Stothert on her advertisements, her campaign contribution from the owner of a north Omaha property where the city plans to build an industrial park and on contributors in her earlier campaigns for other offices.

“I do apologize to all of you for not having an appropriate opening statement,” Welch told the crowd, “but it’s late in the campaign and we’ve got to get these issues out.”

The moderator then instructed the candidates to focus on the forum questions, which drew applause from the crowd.

Issues up for discussion included the candidates’ plans for improving the city’s transportation system, particularly for older residents.

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OMAHA—If you’re mayoral hopeful Brad Ashford, it’s the good news and the bad news.

The bad news is he’s under attack.

The good news is you don’t get attacked if you’re not a threat.

Leading the charge against Ashford—it’s the first time in the campaign he’s been attacked— is Douglas County Republican Party Chairman Bryan Baumgart who says Ashford is for higher taxes and more government spending.

“Brad Ashford is clearly out of touch with Nebraska values,” writes Baumgart in a letter posted on the party’s website.

Ashford, who has been on the news sidelines in recent days as his Republican rivals fight it out, tells Nebraska Watchdog that Baumgart’s attack makes him “feel like part of the group.”

Nebraska Watchdog: This is the first time anyone’s really come after you. Does that say you’re in the race?

Brad Ashford: “I just don’t know what this means. Maybe it does. I hope so.

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How would you approach taxes in your term?

Brad Ashford

We have a very narrow tax base in Omaha — it’s primarily property tax — and a very narrow sales tax base. The more exemptions we remove, the more money will come into Omaha in the normal course, without having to do occupation taxes or restaurant taxes. You’re raising taxes on restaurants, for example, because you don’t want to raise property taxes, or for whatever reason. That doesn’t stop people from going to restaurants, but it’s just bad policy to hit one industry that way. You have to find efficiencies by removing redundancy first, but then you have to aggressively work with the Legislature to broaden the tax base.

Dave Nabity

One of the ways you get tax relief is you grow the economy, grow the population, so that you have many more taxpayers sharing the load of government. That’s one of the outcomes of all the things I’m trying to do here. We also need to invest in growth and development, in selling Omaha better than we are. All that helps to grow population and get visitors in here spending money, paying local sales taxes. It all kind of goes together.

Jean Stothert

My goal is to reduce property taxes. My goal is to repeal the restaurant tax. We can achieve this by getting our union contracts under control and running all 13 of our city departments as well as we can, as well as being a more business-friendly community and attracting more businesses to the city. Then we can raise more revenue, to reduce property taxes.

Jim Suttle

You don’t start with the taxes and figure out “are we going to raise them or lower them.” You start with what are the services you’re delivering and that the people want to see, and where’s the strike line between (that and) your affordability. That’s what taxes are about. How do you cover the cost of the services that government has to provide and the citizens want? That’s first. And two: How do you put tweaks in that tax policy to provide incentives to invest and create jobs? Those are the two things we look at.

Dan Welch

As mayor I would do everything in my power to reduce taxes. That goes back to the idea of streamlining government. If you provide effective, basic public services and you are able to grow your city, you are going to be able to reduce the tax burden to the average Omaha citizen by spreading out the tax burden among more people. If we are able to control spending on our employee contracts and pensions, we will be able to reduce taxes. I would typically be in favor of temporary spending cuts over any increase in taxes.

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Bicycles and urban sprawl. The Omaha mayoral candidates were all over the road Tuesday on those two big-city issues, with several questioning the wisdom of Mayor Jim Suttle’s decisions to hire a bike czar and to develop bike lanes downtown. Republicans Dan Welch and Dave Nabity both criticized Suttle for parts of his bike initiatives, including the hiring of a czar from California for $65,000. “Not wise,” said Welch. “Out of touch,” said Nabity.

“Out of touch,” said Nabity. Both men questioned the bike lanes. Welch said he drives Leavenworth Street every day and believes that the lanes are tough on traffic. “I haven’t seen a bike yet, but we’re backing up traffic,” Welch said. Nabity agreed: “It was a lot of energy about something that wasn’t really moving the ball down the field.”

Suttle, the only Democrat in the race, stood by his bike-friendly initiatives. He said that when he became mayor, he decided to adopt an all-inclusive transportation policy that took into consideration all modes of movement, including foot traffic, trolleys, buses and bikes. Other candidates at the forum included Jean Stothert, a Republican, and Brad Ashford, an independent.

The forum, held before a crowd of 250 at the Omaha Playhouse, was sponsored by Omaha by Design, the Greater Omaha Young Professionals and the Eastern Nebraska Development Council. The five have entered the final stretch of the primary race. Next Tuesday, voters will narrow the field to two in what is officially a nonpartisan race. The general election is May 14.

The candidates appeared tired Tuesday night and eager for the campaign to end. More than eight forums have been held this month. This one stuck to design and city planning issues. One question centered on urban sprawl, with the candidates asked how they would address this issue.

Each came at it from a different perspective. Stothert, a former Millard school board member, made it clear that she did not think Omaha has an urban sprawl problem. She said she appreciated efforts to ensure that the city’s “urban core” was healthy, but she also respected people who preferred the “big homes and big yards” found in west Omaha.

For his part, Ashford said he comes from an urban perspective. He gave a long list of projects that he has supported, including the renovation of Josyln Castle and development of the Omaha riverfront. His interest, he said, has always been in historic preservation.

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OMAHA (KPTM)- The primary elections are just eight days away.

As campaigns go into crunch time, Fox 42 is bringing you complete coverage of the Omaha Mayoral candidates.

“I believe small business and entrepreneurship are the drivers for Omaha’s economy,” said Nebraska State Senator and Mayoral candidate, Brad Ashford.

Just last October, Ashford announced he was running for the Mayor of Omaha.

He said, he’s been involved in the Omaha community for more than twenty-five years.

He said he spent time working on the Omaha Housing Authority and he is currently finishing his 16th year in the Nebraska legislature.

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