Mayoralty
During his early months in office, it became clear that Dow was on the same mind as Outlaw when it came to issues such as downtown redevelopment. In fact, despite campaigning against the convention center, he began actively supporting the build. Dow began work on what he called "The String of Pearls", a series of projects meant to help spur the redevelopment of downtown. He moved forward with both the strategies outlined in the 15 year plan of Outlaw, and the convention center itself, which in the end would be named for the man who lost his job for proposing it. He also dramatically increased capital spending, as well as the city's sales tax, raising it to 4%, giving Mobile an overall sales tax rate of 9%.
During his first term, Dow worked with county leaders to secure the construction of Mobile Government Plaza, the first governmental structure in the United States to house both city and county government.
In 1993, Bess Rich was elected to the city council in District 6, in the same year that saw Dow winning re-election with more than 65% of the vote. Bess Rich frequently questioned Dow's adgenda of capital spending without a sustainable revenue source, and she was often the lone vote in the 6-1 votes that all supported the Mayor. When the Mobile BayBears team approached the city, Rich opposed the borrowing for construction of the stadium because she believed in allowing the public to vote on non-basic service capital projects. She also opposed the attention Dow gave to capital projects downtown, because of the increased debt load from borrowing it placed on the community with no thought to paying back the debt or obtaining funds to support maintenance of the projects. As a result of Dow's aggressive capital building program, the city was left with little money in its future budgets for basic capital needs. In 2001, Bess Rich would give him the strongest challenge for his office since his initial election in 1989.
Another key feature of the Dow administration were attempts at annexation. The Mobile city limits, with the exception of a few areas, had largely been set with the mass annexation of 1956. At various times, Dow put forth proposals to annex parts of West Mobile and Tillman's Corner, all of these attempts failing. Dow was highly popular in the city, but his popularity dropped immediately upon exiting the city limits. Dow also gained unpopularity with parts of the white backlash community (which was more Evangelical Protestant in nature as opposed to the city's general mainline Protestant, Episcopalian, Catholic middle and upper classes) for his support of expanding gambling in Alabama, which he supported in his belief that legalized gambling would be a boon for Mobile, and the fact that the casinos in Biloxi were drawing a large clientele from Mobile. Another concern of this area was their concern that Dow would increase their taxes as he did in the city. His terms as Mayor saw a general erosion of white support over time (though overtime he picked of most of Outlaw's voters from 1989) while he steadily increased his support amongst black Mobilians. Dow cruised to re-election in 1997, and began to be mentioned as a gubernatorial candidate.
During Dow's third term, downtown redevelopment continued and in 2001 Dow signed a deal with the Retirement Systems of Alabama to construct a skyscraper in downtown Mobile. The RSA Tower now towers over the city at 745 feet, a visible reminder of the administration of Mike Dow. In 2001, Bess Rich, who had limited herself (she believed in term limits) to two terms on the city council, decided to make a bid to become the city's first female Mayor, as well as the first Mayor of the city in the 20th century who was not of southern origin. Rich continued to question the mayor for focusing on massive borrowing without means to pay the debt back. Dow won the election 61-39%, winning every district except Rich's own District 6, where he lost 55-45%. (By comparison, Rich had won that district with 70% of the vote in her re-election bid in 1997). However, 2001 saw the defeat of two key allies of Dow, Charlie Waller and Mabin Hicks, who were replaced by Steve Nodine (a man who used to call himself the unofficial mayor of downtown on Uncle Henry radio broadcasts) and Ben Brooks. Bess Rich's seat was taken by a woman who was sympathetic to her views, Connie Hudson, and together, these three became the anti-Dow bloc on the city council.
The main issues of his fourth term were an annexation of West Mobile which failed, a vote in West Mobile to incorporate it, which also failed, and the construction of the Alabama Cruise Ship Terminal on the waterfront, which added its second ship in August 2008. Dow also began actively courting Thyssen-Krupp, who was looking to build a steel mill and Boeing, that was looking for a site to build their Dreamliner plane. (the site they rejected became the site that Airbus selected for the KC-45 tanker bid). During the course of his fourth term, crime in Mobile continued to drop, and his residual popularity began to rise as people began to see the efforts of his labor bear fruit, as downtown Mobile became a place that people went to for something other than work and Mardi Gras from the beginning of the 2000s onward.
It was also during his fourth term that the proposed "Mardi Gras Park" was approved, in a deal with the Mobile County Commission.
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