Mayor Jones Names Business Insider Reporter an Honorary Citizen

Jun 28th, 2013

Mayor Sam Jones has named Business Insider report Julie Zeveloff an Honorary Citizen of the City of Mobile. Please see letter below.

June 28, 2013

Ms. Julie Zeveloff
Business Insider Magazine
257 Park Avenue South, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10010

Dear Ms. Zeveloff:

Back in March, Business Insider published an article by you entitled, “The 11 Most Miserable Cities in America,” which ranked Mobile as Number Three on the list. Like most Mobilians, I dismissed the story. After all, we know that Mobile is a great place to live and work, and, as a community, we’re working hard every day to make our city even better. We’ve made enormous progress during the past eight years, and we are poised to experience economic growth such as Mobile has never before witnessed.

But the story got under the skin of some people, and, to your credit, you agreed not just to take the statistics at face value, but to come take a look at the city for yourself and make up your own mind. And for that, we congratulate you.

We were following up with contacts made at the Paris Air Show and unable to meet with you during your visit, so I would like to set politics aside for a moment and thank Sandy Stimpson for sponsoring the trip and showing you our great city. I am elated that he agrees with me that our city is wonderful and our future is bright.

For your willingness to question the statistics, for keeping an open mind, and for making a personal journey to visit our fair city, the Mobile City Council and I take great pleasure in naming you, Ms. Julie Zeveloff, an Honorary Citizen of Mobile, with all the rights and responsibilities afforded thereunto. You are invited to come back to Mobile as often as needed—and we hope that it will be often—to see the great progress that Mobile has made in recent years and to document our bright future as we welcome Airbus and those additional industries that have already indicated to us their interest in locating in our area.

Sincerely,

Samuel L. Jones
Mayor