Mike Jones: Blind candidate says he can lead

Mike Jones arrived on the Art Museum steps yesterday with a message for city voters: He may be the first fully blind candidate to run for City Council, but that has “absolutely nothing to do with” why he’s seeking office.

He has a problem with how businesses are treated and taxed in the city, and with how the dropout rates are well past the point of troubling. Said the pastor of the Grace of God Church of Deliverance in Kensington, “I may be blind, but I have vision; and like my favorite book says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’”

Jones hasn’t been able to see since 1964 when, as a 10-year-old boy, his surgery for congenital cataracts proved unsuccessful. He remembers waking up screaming, but being told he can still do anything he put his mind to. Today, the Wynnefield Heights man works helping small businesses and churches advertise on cable television.

While one incumbent said he’d never heard of Jones, there’s no way of telling whether an upcoming Pentecostal clergy endorsement will help Jones prevail, like he did over a ballot challenge involving questionable signatures. He “absolutely” thinks he will win.

“I know what it’s [like] to go through hard times and make things work,” Jones said. “I want to help create a climate where businesses succeed.”