By Barnett Wright | The Birmingham Times
Alabama state Rep. Juandalynn Givan said Tuesday she will run for Birmingham Mayor in the 2025 City Elections and plans to make her announcement official today at 10 a.m. outside of City Hall.
“I am going to run,” she told The Birmingham Times on Tuesday. “This city is in decay. There is no way around it, especially the more urban areas of this city. So much has not been done over a period of time, and I’m not sure it’s going to be done.”
The lawmaker said she believes the city is salvageable “but it cannot be salvaged in the state it’s in.”
So far, Givan is the first person to announce plans to challenge Mayor Randall Woodfin, although she said she expects others to follow.
The next election for Birmingham Mayor is Tuesday, August 26, 2025. Woodfin is nearing the end of his second term after winning elections in 2017 and 2021. He said in an interview last year he was likely to run for a third term.
Givan, who represents District 60 in the Alabama House of Representatives, said she believes city “leadership has become desensitized to the realities of life in the city especially on the west side . . . just driving on the city streets you can’t hardly find a street on Birmingham that doesn’t have potholes or is not damaged in some kind of way … so my question is if not me than who for mayor?”
Woodfin’s campaign declined to comment late Tuesday.
Givan said she will run on a platform of “people, protection and progress.” Public safety will also be a central focus, she said. Thirteen days before the end of 2024, the city broke its 91-year homicide record after reporting its 149th slaying.
The out-of-control gun violence cannot be fixed until the city has the “proper manpower” in the Birmingham Police Department, Givan said. “All hell is breaking loose and unless you get more law enforcement officers you are not going to make it work.”
The key is to create a system of returning beat officers in neighborhoods, she said. “Why are the beat officers important? Because the beat officers then become the heart of the range of law enforcement in that area,” she said. “Once you get those beat officers in place they develop a relationship … [people] will be less likely to commit an offense because they’ve developed a relationship and they know there is a strong presence and at that point the realization of the likelihood of them being caught becomes more real. Birmingham has no community policing. You cannot have a system to eliminate crime until you do that.”
Givan first assumed her state house seat in Nov. 3, 2010 and has a B.A. from Miles College and her J.D. from Miles School of Law. Her professional experience includes owning the law firm Givan & Associates.
