There are two candidates on the Nov. 4 election ballot for Jeannette mayor — the incumbent and a council member.

Incumbent Curtis Antoniak is being challenged by Michelle Langdon, who has spent the last four years on council.

The two candidates have diverse perspectives on what they hope to accomplish if elected to the four-year term. The mayor oversees the police department and is compensated $2,400 annually.

Antoniak, 66, is seeking his third term as mayor. He’s on the Republican ticket.

“I really feel my experience makes me a great choice for mayor,” he said. “I’m very knowledgeable with how the city runs and the tax base and the budget and expenses.”

He wants to continue pushing along improvements in Jeannette that have begun to come to fruition during his two terms, such as development at the former Monsour Medical Center property, similar prospects for the former Fort Pitt Brewery land in West Jeannette and removal of blighted buildings around town.

The development projects are setting Jeannette up for increased tax revenue in the future, Antoniak said. Once that tax base is built up, he said it could allow the city to spend money in areas where it is tight now.

“We’ve worked very, very hard to get back to being financially stable,” he said. “I know a lot of people want to spend money that you don’t have, but you can’t do that.”

Residential and commercial developments are planned for the old Monsour site. A project to remove the old brewery buildings was completed this year. No plans have been announced for the site.

Antoniak said he is proud that more technology has been added to the police department during his time as mayor in the form of surveillance cameras, license plate readers, dash cameras and body cameras.

He also is proud that the city has kept its sanitation department as some municipalities recently have undertaken starting their own garbage collection services in the face of rising costs from commercial haulers.

“That alleviates a lot of burden off taxpayers,” he said.

He retired from the city’s public works department as a truck driver/laborer in 2017. Antoniak said a city manager has been hired during his time as mayor and property taxes have remained steady in recent years.

“I never want to balance a budget with the reserve money,” he said, referring to an account created after the 2015 sale of the city’s sewage authority.

Langdon, 68, has served on council for four years. An accountant, she previously worked five years for the city in varying roles including chief fiscal officer and clerk. She is on the Democratic ticket. Langdon said she switched from Republican to better align with her views on women’s rights.

“I feel like city hall needs to be part of the community and the community needs to be part of city hall,” she said.

If elected mayor, Langdon said she’d like to shift the police department to a community policing model. Officers could be assigned zones and focus their efforts on those areas, she said.

“Community policing has been proven to lower crime rates and also develop relationships between the police department and the citizens,” she said.

Langdon also wants to increase the number of officers who are trained in deescalation techniques when working with someone having mental health issues.

She hopes to improve transparency at city hall by adding information about finances to the website, such as grants, expenses and account balances.

“I don’t want people to feel like they have to be suspicious of city hall,” she said. “I think communication is lacking, to some degree, at city hall.”

Langdon also is running for re-election to council. If she wins both races, she will pick one seat.

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