James Mueller (born June 29, 1982) is an American politician and academic serving as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana since 2020. Prior to being elected mayor, Mueller held positions within the administration of his predecessor Pete Buttigieg.
Mueller won the Democratic nomination in a crowded primary and went on to defeat a Republican opponent in the 2019 South Bend mayoral election. In both his primary and general election campaign, Mueller proposed continuing what he regarded to be positive progress made under Buttigieg, whose endorsement he carried. He was reelected by a wider margin in 2023.
His tenure as mayor included the COVID-19 pandemic, and he collaborated with St. Joseph County to respond to the pandemic. His mayoralty has also seen him address homelessness in the city. He has also overseen efforts to reform the South Bend Police Department, including an update to the police department's use of force policy.
Early life and education Mueller was born June 29, 1982, to Thomas and Sarah Mueller. He was one of five children. His father, Thomas, was a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame. His mother, Sarah, was a teacher, homemaker and social service coordinator at the YWCA.
Mueller attended elementary school at St. Anthony de Padua School. He attended St. Joseph High School, graduating in 2000. He was classmates and became friends with Pete Buttigieg while attending school there. In 2004, Mueller graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame, triple majoring in mathematics, history, and philosophy. Mueller then studied ocean sciences and engineering at the University of Delaware, where he earned his PhD in oceanography.
Early career Mueller worked at George Washington University's Solar Institute in Washington, D.C., ultimately serving as its director.
Mueller also worked in the office of Senator Maria Cantwell for four years, first as a John A. Knauss Legislative Fellow, and later as a policy advisor on energy and natural resources.
Work in the Buttigieg administration In July 2015, Mueller returned to South Bend and became the chief of staff to mayor Pete Buttigieg, who had been a childhood friend of his. This opportunity came after the resignation of Buttigieg's previous chief of staff, Kathryn Roos. Among the projects he was involved in as chief of staff was the creation of South Bend's Department of Venues, Parks and Arts as well as its Department of Innovation and Technology.
On April 24, 2017, Mueller resigned as chief of staff to become the city's director of community investment. Early into his tenure in this position, he established an Engagement & Economic Empowerment Division in the Department of Community Investment. As director of community investment, Mueller was responsible for an agreement which was to bring a chocolate factory and dinosaur museum tourist attraction to South Bend, to be developed by South Bend Chocolate owner Mark Tarner. In 2017, he was also made South Bend's member of the Transit District Steering Committee, a committee created by NICTD, composed of representatives from the municipalities that currently had, or were slated to in the future have, South Shore Line train stations. Mueller left his position in city government in mid-2019, amid his mayoral campaign, to avoid ethics conflicts.
2019 mayoral campaign
On December 17, 2018, Buttigieg announced that he would not be seeking reelection to a third term. On January 22, 2019, Mueller announced his candidacy for mayor. This was Mueller's first bid for elected office. At the time he launched his campaign, Mueller lacked name recognition. Mueller's campaign manager in the primary was Malcolm Phelan.
Mueller's campaign closely tied him with Buttigieg, and promised to build upon what he regarded to be positive progress made during Buttigieg's tenure. He pledged to continue many of the policies and programs implemented by Buttigieg. Buttigieg endorsed Mueller in February. Mueller's campaign platform included a plan to implement universal preschool, a plan to make investments in infrastructure (including addressing the city's pothole problem), plans to focus on sustainability (including adopting "clean" energy), plans aiming to improve public safety, and plans relating to fostering economic growth (including plans aimed at making South Bend, "a national model for inclusive growth" by "expanding access to opportunities"). His slogan was, "Keep South Bend Moving Forward." On May 7, Mueller won a crowded primary to capture the Democratic nomination.
Kacey Gergely was Mueller's campaign manager for the general election. Mueller continued to campaign upon promising to continue the progress made during Buttigieg's tenure. One of the themes of a general ad campaign by Mueller was "Working with Pete". In the general election, Mueller outlined 32 actionable items to address crime in the city, categorized into four groups. The four categories of Mueller's plans were reducing violence; recruiting and retaining a diverse police force; building more relationships through community policing and improving resident participation; and officer training and policies. Key components of Mueller's plan included expanding the Group Violence Intervention program, establishing a summer youth jobs program, creating a community advisory board, and collaborating with Mishawaka and St. Joseph County leaders to incorporate the existing metro homicide unit into a “major crimes unit". Mueller's campaign placed an emphasis on racial justice reform, arguing that there needed to be community wide changes as well as changes within the police department to achieve this.
In the November 5 general election, Mueller defeated Republican nominee Sean M. Haas. South Bend typically votes for Democratic candidates, and Mueller won more than 63% of the vote.
Mayoral transition After being elected mayor, Mueller worked to fill positions on his staff.
Mueller expressed a view as mayor-elect that, while South Bend had made tremendous progress under Buttigieg, it was not yet entirely "back" (i.e., revived), stating, “After decades of decline, we finally turned the corner, but we are not where we want to be as a community. There are a lot of people that haven't experienced the growth yet.” This was in contrast with Buttigieg's farewell speech as mayor before the Common Council (South Bend's city council), in which Buttigieg had declared that, "South Bend is back".
As mayor-elect, Mueller expressed that public safety would be his top priority upon becoming mayor. He declared that, in order to help the entirety of the South Bend community to experience growth, the city would need to address issues in its public safety system. He wanted to see the pending results of a study being conducted by the national police consulting group 21st Century Policing (21CP) on the matter. He intended to discuss the results of the study, once it completed, with police leadership, as well as discussing the department policy regarding body cameras. Mueller also expressed his desire to create a working group consisting of people that have an interest in the relationship between South Bend's community and its police force. He hoped that this working group could include community members and members of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the city's police union.
As mayor-elect, Mueller supported Dawn Jones to remain as South Bend city clerk, the only directly elected citywide office. Jones had been temporarily serving as city clerk since winning a Democratic party caucus vote in August to replace Kareemah Fowler, after Fowler had resigned as city clerk in 2019 to become chief financial officer at South Bend Community School Corporation. Fowler resigned too late to remove her name from the ballot for reelection in the 2019 general election, therefore creating a scenario in which Fowler was elected to another four-year term as city clerk and a Democratic precinct caucus needed to be held to again appoint someone in her place. Jones, touting Mueller's endorsement, along with the endorsement of South Bend Common Council president Tim Scott, defeated her challenger in the caucus.
Mayoralty Mueller assumed office on January 1, 2020, at noon. His ceremonial inauguration was held later that day at Century Center. He is the 33rd mayor of South Bend. Mueller took office at a time when South Bend had increased national and international attention from Buttigieg's presidential candidacy.
Appointments and staffing On January 6, 2020, Mueller announced several appointments, including Kacey Gergely (his 2019 campaign manager) as his Chief of Staff, Jordan Gathers as Deputy Chief of Staff, and Shalon “Shay” Davis as Director of Community Outreach. Mueller retained a vast majority of Buttigieg's appointed department heads, including Aaron Perri as Executive Director of Venues, Parks and Arts, Chuck Bulot as Building Commissioner, Daniel Parker as City Controller, Denise Riedl as Chief Innovation Officer, Eric Horvath as Director of Public Works, Kyra Clark as Director of Human Resources, Scott Ruszkowski as Chief of Police, and Stephanie Steele as Corporation Counsel. Mueller appointed Michael Patton the city's diversity compliance/inclusion officer. On February 14, 2020, Mueller appointed Maurice "Moe" Scott as directory of community initiatives, a new position that Buttigieg had created months earlier for the 2020 budget year.
On April 1, 2020, Mueller named Carl Buchanon as fire chief. In October 2020, Mueller named former South Bend innovation officer Santiago Garces to head the Department of Community Investment. In December 2020, after the city's Board of Public Safety president John Collins resigned after almost a decade on the board, Mueller appointed Darryl Heller, a local civil rights activist and the director of the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center, to fill his seat the board. In May 2021, Mueller appointed Chuck Leon as the city's interim corporation counsel.
Budgets On October 13, 2020, Mueller signed the city's 2021 budget. The budget had been approved unanimously by the Common Council the day before. The $354.7 million budget saw a $4 million decrease in general operation spending compared to the previous year's budget, as part of a three-year plan to balance city budgets to compensate for revenue losses experienced in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Housing Mueller has expressed concern for the maintenance of some buildings operated by the Housing Authority of South Bend.
Homelessness By the end of 2020, St. Joseph County, in which South Bend is located, had seen a 25% increase in homelessness per the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority (IHCDA). This was the third greatest increase homelessness of any of the regions categorized by the IHCDA (the IHCDA breaks the state into 17 "regions", of which St. Joseph County is one of only four single-county regions).
In May 2020, a tent city formed on a vacant lot located between two vacant structures the 500 block of Michigan Street. Mueller initially did not act to dismantle the encampment, declaring in mid-May,