ALTON - Ralph “Buzz” Ullrich has officially announced his campaign for Alton’s mayor.
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On Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, Ullrich met with press and constituents to talk about his platform and his goals for the mayoral race. He outlined Alton’s streets and the “customer service” at City Hall as two of his top priorities.
“It’s all about public service,” Ullrich said. “City Hall should be customer service-friendly, and it’s not always that way. In this day and age, if you’re customer service-friendly, the residents respond to that positively. If you notice on online media, there hasn’t been a lot of positive response lately…We’re hoping that with a new administration, we can have more customer service and friendliness of the City Hall can be part of what people see.”
Ullrich said that residents have been “denigrating” City Hall in recent years. He emphasized that he is not a politician, but a concerned citizen. In addition to his concerns about customer service, Ullrich said the streets are what finally convinced him to run for mayor.
“That was the streets,” he said. “One of the constituents had a conversation with me a few months ago about the condition of the streets. It looks to me like the aldermen have put forward some information, and the public may not have picked up on this yet about a new plan to get the streets fixed in a timely manner. That’s one of those things that, up until that point, was a sticking point with some of the people out there…Citizens don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not pointing fingers at the citizens, but City Hall can do a better job of pointing them out.”
He added that he has known current Alton Mayor David Goins for 14 years, and he believes Goins and mayoral candidate Brant Walker are “nice guy[s].” Ullrich said that Ray Strebel, who is also running for mayor, “does a good job” as an alderman. With multiple candidates, Ullrich said it will “make it an interesting race.”
“I find them to be very good public servants,” he explained. “However, customer service is that thing I don’t see coming out of them yet.”
Ullrich’s family is from Alton. He grew up in North St. Louis County and moved to Alton 15 years ago. He worked for many years in broadcasting and radio, where he became the Director of Operations at KFUO.
He currently works in security and customer service at the Argosy Casino in addition to working part-time at Crane Tree Farm in Caseyville. He believes his time at different companies has prepared him for the mayoral role.
“If you do multiple things, you get a good sense of what all’s going on around you,” he said. “I’m not sure that everybody goes down one line and understands what all is going on and what the questions are that people have. If you’ve done something in multiple places, you get more prepared to find out what’s your role in City Hall or somewhere else.”
All mayoral candidates must collect over 200 signatures by Nov. 18, 2024, to be on the ballot. Ullrich said that if he does not collect the required signatures by this date, he will start a write-in campaign.
For more information about Ullrich or to sign his petition, visit the official Buzz for Alton Illinois Mayor Facebook page or contact him directly at 618-402-5748.
“Hopefully, when I’m in City Hall, we can ask questions of all the department heads and tell everybody what they’ve been doing over the last several years and what they continue to do and plan to do,” he added. “A lot of times, those are directly impacted by what the aldermen do and the legislative process there. But sometimes, as I mentioned, people just don’t reach out to City Hall and ask the questions themselves. If they pick up the phone, if they send an email, they should be able to get a response. As mayor, I hope to elicit the reasons and the results of their jobs so that people know more.”
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