Dearborn Mayoral Candidate Wants to Put More Police on City Streets

Editor's note: For the past several weeks, Dearborn Patch has profiled candidates seeking election to the city council and city clerk's office. We will conclude our election series with profiles of candidates seeking election as mayor of Dearborn. There are five candidates on the Aug. 6 primary ballot.

Today we feature candidate Nofila Haidar.

Candidate: Nofila J. Haidar

Office sought: Dearborn Mayor

Occupation: Self employed, Dearborn business owner

Education: University of Michigan- Bachelor of Arts degree in criminal justice, communications, and urban and regional studies.

Family: I come from a family of seven children, four girls and three boys. I have two daughters of my own. My siblings and I attended Dearborn Public Schools, and my daughters are currently attending as well. I am currently president of the PTA at Becker Elementary. My family has lived in Dearborn for 40 years. I have been a resident of Dearborn for 21 years. My father is a retired Ford Motor Company technician, and my mother spent years as a house wife to help my father raise a happy family.

What are two key issues in Dearborn?

Safety is presently a key issue in our community. We are 20 police officers below the requirement to keep our community safe. The officers missing from our force today were vital and should be returned to their positions. Recently we had a double murder in west Dearborn that may have been prevented if more officers had been on patrol.  

Business owners, employees and customers need to feel secure and welcome in Dearborn. Our goal is to attract residents and businesses to Dearborn, not the opposite. If our city is not safe, it will never be attractive.

Education, extracurricular activities and libraries are also issues in our community. We have pools and libraries being closed to make room in the budget for other projects. The issue at hand is not a pool being closed or a library, it is the after effect of this action. The issue is the youth that will have nowhere to be during free time. When a teenager has free time and no healthy activities available, mischief is the result.

Yes, there is a youth center with a pool and a gym available, but has anyone seen the membership fees? With the economy today, how can anyone afford to send all of their children to the youth center at once?

One example is summer camps. The cost is $150 per child per week.

How will you address these issues?

Our children are the future, and their security and education matters most. Budget cuts can be made in areas that will not affect security and our youth. We can address these issues as a community because resident involvement is very important. We can work out a budget plan that will be fair to the city and the residents.

What we need today is a new team who will be concerned about the needs of the residents while making a new budget. We need to acknowledge our residents as individuals, not statistics. Most importantly we need to acknowledge our residents voices during non-election years.

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Mayoral Candidates

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• Wayne State Accounting Student Running for Dearborn Mayor

City Clerk Candidates