Jack Micheau will run for mayor of Aberdeen

Aberdeen attorney Jack Micheau, a former Aberdeen City Council member, is running for mayor.

Micheau has hinted on social media lately that he would run, and made the announcement in a Facebook posting Thursday.

Incumbent Mayor Bill Simpson said Friday he has not decided whether he will run for re-election.

Micheau said in his Facebook post he would push for the city to hire a city administrator.

He also said he wants to see a crackdown on street-level drug dealers. “Only a fool would deny that Aberdeen has a serious drug problem,” he said.

“Obviously, we have a large number of intravenous drug users, who must be getting their drugs from somewhere,” Micheau said in reference to the number of needles handed out in the county’s needle exchange program. “Yet, the arrest and conviction of street-level drug dealers is an uncommon event. Why? Because enforcement of the drug laws is not a high-level priority. That is a policy implementation choice. A choice I find indefensible. This has to change.”

“There are many other areas of governance that need to change,” Micheau said. “We need to hire a city administrator. We need to restructure our management and administrative hierarchy so that more of our city employees are actually on the streets and not sitting behind a desk.

“We need to partner with the Port and other entities in trying to bring more living wage jobs to the harbor. we need to clean up our Aberdeen. We need to do more to get tourists to actually stop at our remaining businesses downtown. we need to make room in our existing budget for capital improvements and abatements and special projects. We need to make our city government completely transparent. We need to change our Aberdeen.”