Fisher to retire, calls for younger mayor

By Randy Bell

Clinton’s mayor, Phil Fisher, has announced his retirement.

     Phil Fisher says politicians shouldn’t try to stay in office just because they can get re-elected.  And Clinton’s mayor says it’s time for him to step down.

     “The reason I am leaving at the end of this term is because I have accomplished everything I envisioned when I took the mayor’s office twelve years ago,” Fisher said at a news conference on September 16.

     Fisher says by announcing his decision now, it allows mayoral candidates more time to get organized.

     “They have a lot of work to do in getting a campaign together, and also getting their vision together for the city that they would want to lead.”

     Fisher, who is 70, believes the next mayor should be a younger person with small children.

     “That is where our future is, and a younger mayor will better know the needs of a younger generation,” he said.  “They need to know how to set the City up for success as we move into the future, and not just stay where we are.  We need to have somebody in there that’s enthusiastic and really is vested in the future with their own children coming up and their own families.”

     If a suitable candidate emerges, Fisher said he would consider offering his endorsement.

     “I would think about that, if they thought it would help them.  They might think it would hurt them,” he laughed.

     The mayor believes Clinton has a bright economic future.

     “The first thing you think about now is Rising Spring,” Fisher said, referencing the much-anticipated mixed used development that’s being built near Mississippi College.  “But we’ve got another development coming up in the middle of town,” he noted.

     Land is being cleared for CityPointe Centre, which is expected to offer dining, shopping and living space near the corner of Northside Drive and Pinehaven Drive.

     Fisher said, over the past twelve years, the City has seen parks and recreation improvements and increased public safety protection.

     “These efforts, coupled with the Big Black River sewer pipeline, give Clinton an opportunity to continue its growth and be a viable city into the next century,” he said.

     But the mayor warns that some in Clinton are opposed to further development.

     “Those who want to halt or slow our community’s growth do a great harm to future generations that may want to live in Clinton.”

     Fisher has spent more than thirty-seven years serving the City of Clinton and Hinds County, starting as a member of the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission in 1988.  He served as a Clinton alderman from 1992 to 2007, before being elected twice as Hinds County’s District 4 supervisor and then to his first term as mayor in 2013.

     Fisher is a retired Mississippi Army National Guard Brigadier General who deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.  He served as Commanding Officer of the Joint Sustainment Command-Afghanistan until July 2011 with over 43,000 U.S. military personnel, contractors and foreign nationals under his command.

     Clinton’s next mayor will earn an annual salary of $100,000, after the Board of Aldermen approved a $20,000 pay raise as part of the fiscal year 2025 budget.

     The municipal elections next year begin with the party primaries on April 1, with runoffs, if necessary, on April 22.  The general election is June 3.

     Candidates for mayor and the Board of Aldermen have from January 2 until January 31 to qualify at the City Clerk’s office in Brighton Park.