A Look Back: Mayor James Brown

Politics and business go hand in hand and that was the case under Mayor James Brown He says he was often forced to make the tough decisions, but always tried help the people of Rome. "Go in every corner in Rome, NY and this team of people and this team of people has affected it." He may have the title of mayor but James Brown says the office he holds is a team effort. Brown says he surrounded himself with good people to create opportunity for the area. And brown says he is focused on helping business grow in Rome. "Government creates the environment to help companies and the entrepreneurs and small business to help them and give them support to get them off their feet. so it's really how I've looked at this job for 8 years, it was one block at a time, one house at a time, one neighborhood at a time." Brown says it hasn't always been the easiest road but he wanted the job simply to better the people of Rome. "And I wanted this job to make a difference in the quality of life for the people in this community and put us in a situation so we can advance for the future and the tough decisions were made, we stood up and we were held accountable." With thirty-five years' experience in the private sector, mayor brown says he took lessons learned and applied them to the office of mayor. "It's not the political decisions that are going to create the opportunity in this region and in the future. Its going to be the business decisions and when you make business decisions in government that's where you put yourself in a position that it becomes more difficult as time goes on." Mayor Brown says he does not have any immediate plans of getting back into public service. But he says he's certainly open to right opportunity. In the meantime he says he's just enjoying learning something new every day.