‘We’ve got to change our direction.’ John Anker aims to become Columbus’ next mayor
Selling a vision isn’t new work for 52-year-old Columbus businessman John Anker.
About two decades ago, it was Ankerpak, a small packaging operation, that he worked to get friends, customers and banks to believe in. It wasn’t easy.
Ankers remembers throwing up in a storm drain at its 11th Avenue facility and not being able to leave. He was violently ill. But there was so much work to do and not enough people to do it.
Now, the company has three facilities, and it handles everything from the production of grease pencils and textiles to packaging and warehouse services.
Now, in 2022, Anker is trying to sell another one of his visions to Columbus. He wants to be the city’s next mayor.
Frustrations with incumbent Skip Henderson and other city leaders led Anker to this point. He alleges they have not been transparent, accountable or good stewards of the taxpayers’ money. Anker told the Ledger-Enquirer that his approach will help make the city safer.
Columbus faces a shortage of police officers, low officer morale and saw record-breaking homicide numbers in 2021.
“I feel like it’s almost the same thing,” Anker said of campaigning and starting his business. “I’m only focused on winning this race so that I can start doing and driving and developing and innovating and serving.”
From Indiana boy to mayoral candidate
Anker was born in Anderson, Indiana. His family moved to Fitzgerald, Georgia, when John was five years old. His father, a General Motors employee, came down south to work at a Georgia plant.
Anker’s family eventually moved to Albany, and he went on to attend Georgia Southern University where he met his wife, Beverly, in college. The pair lived briefly in Albany before Beverly’s connections to the Columbus area brought them here almost three decades ago.
Anker quit his job as a successful salesman and started Ankerpak in 2003 with Beverly. He rented an 11th Avenue property from Hallmark Cards Inc., and his first client was military and law enforcement gear seller Ranger Joes. The business started with Anker and seven temporary employees. It’s grown to the three Columbus facilities and 165 total employees.
Of those 165, 65 employees are full-time, Anker said.
His business weathered the COVID-19 pandemic as well as it could, even shifting production toward items like face shields and COVID testing swabs. To keep the business afloat, Ankerpak received a $516,300 PPP loan, and Anker said he didn’t lay off any employees.
Anker relates his experience running a business to holding public office. Just as a business must fulfill and satisfy its customers’ needs, so too must a mayor give the people what they want.
It was something small — Anker can’t remember exactly what — that set him off a week before Thanksgiving. In the parking lot of one of his company’s Cusseta Road properties, Anker prayed about what to do.
His friends encouraged him to run for Columbus Council when Anker first mentioned running for public office months before. But Anker felt Henderson and other leaders didn’t have a vision and plan for Columbus’ future.
After a weekend of talking it over with Beverly, he entered the race.
Transparency over officer shortages
Crime and public safety are important, but Anker told the Ledger-Enquirer that transparency and accountability are this election’s biggest issues.
“It relates to everything,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons I’m running because I’m the only person who’s calling out and asking the questions.”
Anker said he takes issue with the unfulfilled promises of the 2009 Other Local Option Sales Tax (OLOST) meant to make Columbus “the safest city in Georgia.”
Anker alleges Henderson, Columbus Police Chief Freddie Blackmon and other city officials “are playing with numbers” and not being truthful about the city’s police officer shortage. Human Resources Director Reather Hollowell said during a Columbus Council meeting in February that the police department had 130 vacancies.
Anker maintains the department is 177 short based on the 488 officer goal outlined in the 2009 OLOST. He alleges 95 officers — not 74 as claimed by Hollowell — resigned in 2021 based on a list of names that he has previously seen. Anker also alleges that city officials lowered its number of budgeted officer positions from 488 to 444.
The shortage is so evident, Anker alleges, that more than 100 Crown Victoria 2010 police cars are parked on the top floor of police headquarters with no one to drive them. Anker posted a photo of these cars on social media.
“I’m paying attention to their play on words because they’re not transparent, they’re not holding people accountable and they’re not meeting the promise to the customer,” he said. “The promise was if you’ll pay this penny tax starting in 2009 through eternity, we’ll take 70% of that money to make us the safest city in Georgia. …They said we’d also have the best equipment and resources available and keep us at the top of the list of pay for our officers.
“I don’t think we did that,” he added.
In response to Anker’s statements, Henderson told the Ledger-Enquirer that numbers provided to him show 130 vacancies. He said that 20 positions were recently reclassified as cadets as part of a recruitment strategy to hire people straight from high school. Previous Mayor Teresa Tomlinson used the salary savings from 24 unfilled positions to provide “pay reform” for police officers, Henderson said.
Henderson said there were 444 budgeted Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council certified positions within the Columbus police department. However, those officer numbers don’t include the cadet positions.
Henderson also stood by the numbers provided by Hollowell showing 74 officers resigned in 2021.
“I would suggest he verify his source and his numbers,” Henderson said.
The Columbus Police Department indirectly responded to Anker’s social media post. The department said there are 146 police cars sitting in the parking lot that meet the criteria for replacement. The department is in the process of getting new police vehicles and removing old vehicles from its fleet. The vacant patrol cars, the department said, do not represent the number of unfilled officer positions.
“We have acknowledged and made very clear that we have a shortage of officers. We have a strategic plan in place to address those shortages to include a pay study with $10 million set aside for implementation,” Henderson said in a statement.
Anker lays the blame for those shortcomings at the feet of Henderson. The current mayor served several years as budget chairman during his tenure on the Columbus Council before taking the city’s top spot. Henderson is effectively the city’s public safety director.
“He has had his finger on every single penny of the budget,” Anker said of Henderson. “He’s watched every single penny. He was there in 2009 when that promise was made. He’s been there for the last four years when we failed to deliver on the promises made.”
Policing and public safety in Columbus
Anker called a February council meeting where Henderson and City Manager Isaiah Hugley engaged in a heated debate with Lt. Ralph Dowe, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police chapter, “the worst display of leadership.”
Dowe presented results of a survey indicating most officers in the city didn’t have faith in Police Chief Freddie Blackmon’s ability to lead the department. In response, Hugley presented a slideshow of historic Black Columbus law enforcement officers, implying that Dowe’s stance may be racially motivated.
In March, Dowe and another officer filed a federal lawsuit alleging, among other things, that Blackmon made an effort to avoid promoting white men and worked to achieve a predetermined racial and gender balance within the department. Blackmon, Henderson, Hollowell and the Columbus Consolidated Government are named as defendants.
Anker said he’s listening to “a lot of officers” who feel unheard. The conflict resolution and communication skills he’s learned from his business will help address morale issues within the department, he said.
Anker did not say if he would push to remove Blackmon from his post. If elected, Anker said he like to sit down and get to know the police chief better. Henderson has previously said he will continue to support Blackmon.
“I know he’s a good man,” Anker said of Blackmon. “I would say that had I been mayor, and he was reporting to me — he’d have better success.”
When asked how he’d handle policing in Columbus, Anker said he’d work to address retention problems by continuing to speak with officers about their concerns and spending tax dollars where they are most needed.
Anker has previously touted a public-private partnership that would see a third-party firm conduct a study of the city’s police department. Private donors would fund the effort, and it wouldn’t cost the city anything.
Anker previously said he’s gotten commitments from Columbus business owners, but he has refused to identify those potential donors. The candidate said he “stepped” back as the effort gathered steam, and a proposal is currently in front of Henderson, Anker said.
“We’re not going to make it a political ploy,” he said. “It’s on the mayor’s desk because he’s the public safety director, and I’m not going to cut out his feet from under him. I’m trying to help him.”
In response to Anker’s statement, Henderson said that he has been meeting regularly with “a group of civic-minded individuals from the private sector” since August 2021 about how to improve the city. One of the suggestions is hiring a company to assist the chief of police with recruiting, retention and other measures.
Henderson said the process is in the vetting stage, and he looks forward to bringing a recommendation to Columbus Council. He added that he was unsure of what study Anker is referring to.
In addition to these measures, Anker proposes a workforce development program similar to the one he runs at Ankerpak to help address the root causes of crime.
For the past several years “high-risk, high school students” come to work at his business for four hours a day, five days a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays during the first part of their shift, students attend a life and work skills class, and they are paid an “entry-level, hourly wage.”
“It’s making a big difference,” Anker said. “Kids are learning how to dream, how to follow the dreams and ... some good work ethic that they can carry with them.”
Economic plans
Anker’s larger economic proposals seek to undo moves made by Henderson.
Anker has objected to how the city handled the $50 million deal to buy and renovate former Synovus downtown properties. The properties are prime real estate and should be privately held, he said.
Rather than demolish the Government Center, Anker wants to see the tower sold to a developer and turned into apartment buildings.
Anker proposes using $250 million set aside from the recent SPLOST approval, an estimated $6 million from selling the Government Center, and the $7 million saved from not tearing down the buildings to construct a judicial complex near the jail.
The “Liberty, Lance and Loomis” District, as Anker calls it, would also see a city administration center built in the area as well. The goal is to spur economic development around the Liberty Theatre.
Anker has also advocated for the creation of a land port in Columbus and better connectivity to the Port of Savannah. A railway connecting this city to Georgia’s eastern coastline would make Columbus a gateway, he said.
“We’ve got to change the culture and the way we serve our citizens,” Anker said. “We’ve got to change our direction. We’ve got to have a plan and a vision. We’ve got to go. …That’s the only way you win on big elephants like that.”