By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Junior Oliver puts forth a seven-plank platform he thinks he could help First Ward accomplish if elected to a two-year term Nov. 6 over Lori Hunt, appointed June 25 to fill the vacancy created by Donna O'Konski's resignation, and Bob Mortimore.
"I want to be a hands-on councilman," he said Monday. "Those people are my friends. I want to be able to help them." He's campaigning door-to-door.
Oliver, 64, 416 Chestnut St. for 28 years, a Missouri native who has lived in Dowagiac for more than 50 years (37 years in First Ward, including on Thickstun and Halstead streets), gives a couple of reasons why he sought the two-year term instead of challenging Darron Murray, a council member since 1999 seeking his third four-year term.
"I have been wanting to run for a long time," said Oliver, making his first bid for elective office. "(Councilman) Sam Fowlkes and I were good friends. I always said I would never run against him. Now I'm retired and I think I've got the time to provide adequate coverage of the people. I've known Darron since he was born. His dad and I worked together. I didn't want to run against Darron."
Also, "I'm new at it," Oliver said. "I thought two years would give me some training, then I can decide if I'd like to go any further. I've got nothing bad to say about Lori, but I believe it's my turn."
Oliver retired about a year and a half ago after working 35 years for Sealed Power and seven years at ICG Casting.
He and his wife, Glenda, an Arkansas native, have five grown children. Two sons and a daughter live here. Another is in Tennessee and another lives in Midland.
He attended agricultural school in Missouri and has taken classes at Southwestern Michigan College and at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
As leadership experiences he lists working with the Boy Scouts as a Cubmaster, a Scoutmaster, a unit commissioner and an assistant district commissioner.
"I have been a project team leader and a problem-solving team leader at work," he said.
His adoptive parents owned and operated a trash-hauling and lawn care business in this area from 1967 through 1980.
The 13th of 14 children, he said Junior is his legal given name.
He ended up in Dowagiac from Missouri because "my dad was sent here through the government. He had worked at a place in St. Louis called Midwest Pipe, watching for espionage. When Rudy's had that bomb contract, they sent him here. My real mom died when she was having my younger brother. He had meningitis all his life and lived to be 45. All of them are gone now except one sister 12 years older than me and one who's 14 years older than me. I went to Texas and stayed with one of my aunts and I went back to Missouri after I got married to go to agricultural school. When I was young, my folks traveled around singing Gospel music."
Oliver's platform includes: being available to help with getting low-income loans for property improvement when they are available; trying to see that all ordinances are fair and reasonable in context and that enforcement of them is equal to all residents; watching that the safety of all residents is monitored in an equal and proper respect to all residents; making himself available to all residents to discuss problems in the south-side ward and relay them to the City Council; attempting to keep the ward moving forward to get it in line with the rest of Dowagiac as far as street improvements and services the city provides; personally monitoring activities of First Ward residents to help provide a clean and safe place for children to play; and, for the city as a whole, "I will work diligently to make our city stay a Grand Old City for all cities" to emulate.
"My main thing is," he said, "over the years, from High Street south, I see a lot of things our city has neglected as far as services to the people and improvements to streets. To me, kids walking in the street to their bus stop because there are no curbs or sidewalks is a liability to the city, if there's not a safe place for them to walk. Another thing, I see a lot of dark spots where the street lighting is not proper. Another issue is drug use in Walter Ward Park. I'd like to see more enforcement done about that. It's so dark in the park you can't really tell who's out there. It's lighted, but not well."
Oliver served several years on the Dowagiac Volunteer Fire Department and Ambulance Service more than 20 years ago. He said he left to devote more time to a craft supply store in Bangor.
"I ran ambulance starting the second year I was on the fire department," he said. "At that time, I had a limited life support license."
Oliver, who addressed the Cass-Van Buren Emergency Services Authority meeting at City Hall Monday, said, "In my opinion, the city is trying to snowball 'em to get Coloma in here because they quoted that big word 'free.' They're not telling the whole story. It's 'free' because Coloma is not going to charge a subsidy, but the city doesn't have any control over the fees they'll charge, the equipment or any connection with providing housing for them. Putting them in the Fire Department would be detrimental to their insurance policy. I think they should look at better avenues, like years ago when we started the ambulance service and charged for subscriptions for people who lived here in town and (more) for people outside of town. I think if they charged the people here in town $28 to $30 right now, they could resolve a lot of this problem. When I had elderly parents, I would have been more than glad to give $50 a year to make sure that they didn't have stress on them about ambulance. If it's state statute that they have to have paramedic units, that's all well and good, but I don't see that our population can support two paramedic-level ambulances because that's a bunch of money, $600,000 or $700,000. Six thousand people don't support that kind of service."
"We have a problem in this town, I think," Oliver said, "because if Coloma comes over here, they've not made it clear that Dowagiac people are going to be involved with that service."