Mayor of Bogota
In 1995 Lonegan was elected Mayor of Bogota, defeating incumbent Democrat Leonard Nicolosi. He was reelected in 1999 and 2003 by double-digit margins.
The 2003 mayoral election in Bogota was chronicled in the documentary Anytown, USA.
As Mayor, he cut municipal spending, merged several municipal departments and privatized some services. Lonegan ordered the municipality to hire civilian emergency dispatchers at lower pay than uniformed officers, angering the local Police union; successfully fought the implementation of LOSAP (Length of Service Award Program), which extended pension payments to volunteer fire and rescue personnel; and required that local union contracts exceeding inflation be put to voters for approval. While he was in office Republicans, long in the minority in Democratic-leaning Bogota, controlled the municipal council for 11 straight elections.
Lonegan did not seek reelection in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Steve Lonegan
Famous quotes containing the word mayor:
“Without infringing on the liberty we so much boast, might we not ask our professional Mayor to call upon the smokers, have them register their names in each ward, and then appoint certain thoroughfares in the city for their use, that those who feel no need of this envelopment of curling vapor, to insure protection may be relieved from a nuisance as disgusting to the olfactories as it is prejudicial to the lungs.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)