On Tuesday, citizens of Salisbury, Md., flooded the polls to overwhelmingly re-elect Salisbury Mayor and ARCH alum Jake Day for a second term. Day, who was born and raised in Salisbury, received a whopping 85% of the vote to beat rival Wayne King.
“I think the city recognizes and appreciates what we’ve accomplished the last four years; they appreciate our style of leadership,” Day told Delmarva Public Radio on Tuesday. “What we’ve accomplished is something [the city] didn’t want to let go of, they didn’t want to lose.”
Day quickly established a strong track record during his first four years as Salisbury’s mayor, taking on a number of ambitious projects to increase quality of life in the Eastern Shore’s largest city. Under his leadership, he launched a revitalization plan for Salisbury’s Main Street, instigated programs to reduce homelessness and crime and inked a three-year contract with the National Folk Festival, an economic boon to the city.
“It’s important to us that we continue what we're doing," Day said to supporters at his victory party. "And the ground that we've gained is too important to give up. So, we couldn't even entertain for a moment the idea that we wouldn't be doing it again on Wednesday. Salisbury’s story is being written here tonight. This is the time that matters.”
Day has maintained close ties with the University of Maryland since he first entered local politics in 2013 as part of the Salisbury City Council. As president of the council, he collaborated with UMD’s architecture and Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS) programs to bring a community-driven design studio to Salisbury that conceived flood mitigation and revitalization plans for the city’s waterfront. Elements of the project were later integrated into the city’s master plan. Since becoming mayor in 2015, Day has also worked closely with the university’s Environmental Finance Center on “greening” measures, designating Salisbury as a Sustainable Maryland Certified city.
“It is so gratifying to see the success of Jake Day following in the tradition of ‘citizen architect’ initiated by Thomas Jefferson in the early days of the Republic,” said Associate Dean and Architecture Program Director Brian Kelly. “Jake was a leader as an undergraduate here at Maryland and later became the National President of the American Institute of Architecture Students. As Mayor of Salisbury, he has continued to advocate for beautiful, sustainable and equitable communities.”
-By Maggie Haslam