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ALTON - Former Alton Mayor Brant Walker has announced his candidacy for the 2025 mayoral race.
In a recent interview on “Our Daily Show!” with C.J. Nasello, Walker outlined his plans for the city and noted his disappointment with the current administration. He provided an overview of some of his achievements from his previous two terms, and he promised to do more for the city if he is once again elected to office.
“We have done better. We will do better. This city deserves better than what they’re getting out of their government right now,” Walker said.
He explained that he decided to run for mayor because of the “general decline and neglect in the city,” pointing to overgrown parks, bad streets and increased crime. Walker said there have been four shootings on State Street near his home over the last 18 months, and one of his good friends was recently assaulted.
Walker believes that crime has been increasing and property values are decreasing as a result. He noted that this makes it difficult to retain businesses and residents, specifically young people.
“Any time you have calls for services go up, property values go down,” he said. “Businesses and young people, no one is going to want to invest in a community where this is going up on the bad side, particularly police calls. That's ultimately going to mean your property values are going to go down. So we have to address what’s causing this over here. Once this goes down, you’ll see the scale tip back up.”
Walker thinks it’s important to “hold homeowners and landlords accountable for the conditions of their property” in order to minimize the number of “dilapidated” properties in Alton.
He also said he wants to see more police presence in downtown Alton and more enforcement of codes. He believes that the city needs to “attack the root of the problem,” not downtown businesses, to address crime.
“You don’t attack the business. You attack the root of the problem and you address the behavior that's going on,” he explained. “That’s why, before they unfunded, I had police officers and Building and Zoning to address those crime issues, which were significant in our rental properties. So we didn’t address the business. Figure out what the problem is…Whatever that problem has been identified as over the last several years, identify that problem, deal with the problem. Then if you have bad actors downtown that own businesses, then you deal with them.”
In a recent letter to the editor, Walker also addressed what he called an “inexcusable lack of information and an unwillingness by the current administration to answer residents’ basic questions” about the Gordon Moore Park sinkhole. He said his administration dealt with numerous floods and the COVID-19 pandemic while he was in office, and transparency was an important part of handling these issues.
“You don’t quell innuendoes and anxiety through secret meetings, and that's basically what they’re doing,” he said. “There’s no information, up to and including Channel 5. One week later, still no answers. Let’s have a press conference and not include anybody or let’s have a meeting with the mine and not include the press, not include anyone. It’s sad.”
Walker spoke about his accomplishments as the former mayor of Alton. He said they put “millions” of dollars toward parks and businesses and froze property taxes for businesses and homeowners. He is proud of the “affordable family fun things” that came to Alton under his administration, including the splash pad and movie theater.
He also noted that Alton won season three of the Small Business Revolution while he was in office. As a town, Alton received many accolades during this time; it was named one of the top 50 most charming small towns in America and one of the best places to retire in Illinois.
“I was really proud of the amount of park work and things we brought to the community,” Walker added. “I believe there’s a leadership and a vision that as a community we had with our administration that was pushing the city forward.”
For more information about Brant Walker and his candidacy for mayor, visit BrantWalkerForMayor.com.
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