Andre Powell

Andre Powell

Andre Powell was a 2016 unaffiliated candidate for mayor of Baltimore, Maryland. Powell initially filed for the general election on November 8, 2016, but did not submit sufficient signatures to reach the ballot.

Campaign themes

2016

Powell's campaign website listed the following themes for 2016:

“	1. $15 MINIMUM WAGE NOW! Baltimore must join other cities in passing a $15 minimum wage. Low wages and part time work are one of the major causes of poverty forcing workers to work two and three jobs just to survive. Many of our largest institutions; including hospitals, banks, and hospitality services pay less than a livable wage. Make Baltimore a sweatshop free zone, guarantee worker’s rights including the right to join a union and pay a livable wage. 2. JOBS, NOT JAILS! The trickle-down theory of giving money to big businesses through tax breaks and favors so that ultimately they will provide jobs is a failed strategy. We will enact a “Works Progress Administration” style jobs program designed to rebuild Baltimore’s crumbling infrastructure and its communities, much like the programs enacted during the Great Depression. The city will have the ability to end all forms of discrimination in these programs, pay a livable wage, and give those convicted in the criminal “injustice” system a second chance. A citywide jobs program would hire youth to plant trees and refurbish our green spaces, build safe bike lanes, promote and expand free mass transit, hire additional teachers to aid in our overcrowded schools, hire men and women to work in recreation centers and build health and crisis centers in every neighborhood. 3. END RACISM AND POLICE TERROR! Disarm and disband racist police, instead build Peoples Peace Patrols from the community based on the Black Panther Party model that can protect and serve our communities. We immediately call for a fully elected Peoples Board to control and regulate police, with the ability to hire and fire police. We will in the interim hold quarterly “Peoples Assemblies” to allow the community to speak out about abuses and have input into police policies and procedures. The city must protect the people! 4. HOUSING FIT FOR HUMAN BEINGS! We would immediately end the slum conditions in our public housing and fire housing commissioner Graziano. This includes hiring additional workers to make the needed repairs and forming a worker’s cooperative based on training and hiring public housing residents to make public housing livable. We oppose any plan that seeks to gentrify our city, in other words move the poor out to make way for wealthy residents. Addressing the blight of abandoned housing is crucial for Baltimore! We will create a massive jobs program for the jobless and underemployed by refurbishing and saving housing where possible and demolishing where absolutely necessary. We would enact a program of sweat equity where the homeless and those who lack adequate, decent housing could own their homes by participating where they are able to in rebuilding abandoned housing. We support Community Land Trusts. Make slumlords responsible for lead poisoning. On Governor Hogan’s announcement of allocating funds to demolish Baltimore vacants: bottom line, any program must be by, for, and controlled by the community itself. Too often, state and city programs become boondoggles for wealthy contractors, who pay poverty wages, hire people from outside the city, and make off with millions. 5. RELEVANT EDUCATION FOR ALL! We need to end the disparity in funding between the richer counties in Maryland and Baltimore City. The city must make it a priority to overturn Governor Hogan’s skewed priorities of spending $480 million for a new jail while cutting funding to education; fight for an elected school board composed of teachers, students and parents accountable to the community; hire more teachers and teacher aides; and allow youth a critical voice in their education and reopen and expand recreation centers for youth. We cannot tolerate a system where students can not drink from water fountains for fear of being lead poisoned and where children and youth are not valued. End the school to prison pipeline. 6. HEAT, WATER, AND LIGHT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS! Immediate halt to all shut-offs of utilities and water to families with young children, seniors, people with health problems and disabilities, the unemployed, and youth struggling to make ends meet. Utility shut-offs are a health crisis that impacts everyone. Stop BG&E’s robbery! Enact a city owned peoples controlled utility to administer affordable gas and electric in Baltimore. Roll back water rates to working class and poor residents and end the practice of taking people’s homes for unpaid water bills. No privatization of Baltimore’s water system. 7. GOOD HEALTH FOR ALL PEOPLE! End racism and economic disparity in Baltimore city. In Upton and Druid Heights the life expectancy is only 63 years old compared to the life expectancy for Roland Park which is 83 years old. We will fight to build centers in every community based on the model of East Baltimore’s Men’s & Family Center which provides holistic care and set up free community based clinics and crisis centers to administer not only to people’s physical health but also mental health, including violence prevention. Understanding that poor health is related to numerous causes we will convert vacant city lots into vegetable gardens which can be utilized to feed the people healthy food and end environmental pollution by shutting down polluters and converting to green energy. We support Medicare for all. 8. MAKE BALTIMORE FREE OF ALL FORMS OF RACISM AND BIGOTRY! Black lives matter in Baltimore! Let’s tell ICE hands off! Tell them that immigrant families are welcome! Let’s make sure that all people can walk the streets safely including Muslims, transgender people, LGBTQ and women! Baltimore city must lead the way and take an affirmative stand for reparations for the descendants of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Once that is done, we need to figure out how to concretely implement reparations! 9. TAX THE RICH, NOT THE POOR! CANCEL THE DEBT! The banks and big businesses have not paid their fair share. We need to close the tax loopholes for bankers, contractors and big businesses who too often take more than they give. Reduce property taxes for working people, seniors and the poor. How can it be fair for older homeowners living on fixed incomes, who have seen their neighborhoods gentrified and taxes increased, to now face the likelihood of being pushed out of their homes? Don’t let Baltimore become the next Detroit. This means preparing to take swift action to prevent the banks from holding the city hostage; we need to examine the present bond situation which has been described as worse than Detroit’s and prepare to cancel debt and declare a moratorium on bank interest. Both our candidates have pledged to accept no more than the $25,062 a year in salaries. This is the more recent per capita income listing by the U.S. census bureau. We will make no more than this per year and return the rest of the mayor’s $163,365 and city council president’s $108,173 salaries back to the city. Our well-being will be tied to the well-being of the people of the city; close to 25% of which live in poverty. 10. BUILD PEOPLE'S POWER THROUGH PEOPLES ASSEMBLIES! The present power structure has failed the people – abandoned buildings, joblessness, lack of hope, and despair abound. The people have very little power in a system that has put banks and businesses before people’s lives; it has kicked real democracy to the curb. We pledge to empower people by holding quarterly Peoples Assemblies, where the decisions are made by the people. Decisions that impact our dailies lives must not be made behind closed doors, or behind people’s backs determined by wealthy bankers and business interests. Power must emanate from the people. We will fight to lower the voting age to 16 to begin to empower city youth. Our campaign will extend voting rights to those who are incarcerated and to undocumented immigrant workers.	”
—Andre Powell (2016),

Recent news

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Andre Powell - Google News

See also

• Baltimore, Maryland
• Municipal elections in Baltimore, Maryland (2016)
• United States municipal elections, 2016

External links

Suggest a link

• Baltimore Campaign for Peoples Power