South Bend mayor delivers final State of the City address

SOUTH BEND, Ind. --- On Tuesday, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg delivered his final State of the City address at the Morris Performing Arts Center in Downtown South Bend.

Mayor Buttigieg told the crowd he had mixed emotions delivering his eighth address after taking office in 2012. This year he started his address by the numbers.

“Population is estimated to have grown 1 percent between 2012 and 2017,” Mayor Buttigieg said.

Since 2012, more than 4,000 private jobs have been created and South Bend has seen more than $800 million in private investment. The downtown area has also changed dramatically.

“Put simply downtown South Bend is back,” he said.

The Mayor touched on the current mayoral race going on in the city. He said the work he has put in over the past eight years is possible because of the people who’ve come before him.

“The work of a mayor, the speaking and the listening, the hiring and the firing, the building and the redesigning, inventing and implementing, celebrating and mourning is a daunting task for the most confident person,” he said.

In 2018, Mayor Buttigieg face obstacles of crime, finding a homelessness solution, and what he did not note in his address, preparing for the 2020 fiscal cliff.

“We didn’t just wander into having the best fiscal ratings in the state,” Buttigieg said. “That was hard work it took discipline, took new ways of looking at cost efficiency, as well as looking at ways to make sure we have the right revenue that’s what we need the federal government to do as well.”

Mayor Buttigieg is a possible contender in the 2020 presidential race and he was sure to mention what is happening in the nation. At the end of his address, the mayor told the crowd that America needs to find ways, as South Bend has, to embrace it’s future.

“America needs to seek greatness, not by dredging it up from some possible ‘again,’” he said. 

ABC 57 News asked Mayor Buttigieg what his focus will be in his last year of his mayoral term. He said transportation, infrastructure and public safety are just a few of the issues he will focus on every day that he is mayor.