Mayor Nicholls delivers State of the City Address

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - Yuma local leaders filled the pivot point conference center to hear Mayor Nicholls’s address.

Mayor of Yuma, Doug Nicholls, delivered his State of the City Address Thursday.

Nicholls spoke about the good things happening in Yuma, along with the issues impacting our local community.

Mayor Nicholls addressed impacts of covid and immigration in our area, as well as construction and our current economy.

When talking about the border, Nicholls said he hasn’t seen many improvements, but praised border patrol.

“This fiscal year, to this date, we are 5 months into this fiscal year, we have already crossed that mark. We’re over 148,000. So the situation is not getting any better. What is getting better is our local border patrol,” said Nicholls.

When we spoke with the mayor after his address he touched on the economy and jobs.

Saying with Yuma's growth, comes a need to create more jobs.

“So industrial and commercial base level jobs here in our community pay higher, have more benefits and that’s gonna require a higher educated workforce. So providing those educational opportunities, working with AWC, the three state universities and the multiversity campus,” explained Nicholls.

Looking into our future economy, Nicholls has a plan to bring more people and businesses to Yuma.

“We’re in the middle of a strategic economic development process, which we will have the results here in the next couple months and then from that, will kind of put  a plan forward on how were going to positively and practically engage companies that might be looking to relocate or expand and show why yuma is a great choice,” said Nicholls.

The mayor has been in office for nine years now and his term is up in January.

He recently began his re election campaign.