For a little while, it was up in the air if Ward 8 Selma City Councilman James Durry would run again this year.

The retired schoolteacher from East Selma suffered a slight heart attack a few months back. His family wanted Durry to hang up his spurs.

“They didn’t want me to do it,” he said.

But after getting the OK from doctors, Durry wants to get back in the saddle for another ride representing Ward 8.

“I decided to give it another shot,” he said.

The Alabama League of Municipalities recognized Durry this month.

He was named a Certified Municipal Officer after receiving 40 credit hours of training.

“The Alabama League of Municipalities teaches us to be good council people,” Durry said.

Durry said one of the reasons he would like another term is taking care of unfinished business. He mentioned the Senior Citizen House in East Selma.

With the Weed and Seed Program as well as Jonathan Daniels’ the house is ready to go, providing day care to elderly citizens.

“It’s pretty much ready to occupy, all they got to get is the insurance,” Durry said.

“It will double as a police precinct.

The police will have a room set aside for equipment.”

Also Durry said he used oil-lease money to purchase a tract of land near the East Selma Fishing Pond with hopes of turning into a playground.

“The hope is to develop that into a recreational park for the children,” he said.

Durry said there are several important issues facing Selma.

“I would say one of the most pressing things is more job opportunities offered within this community,” he said. “We need to get a grip on crime.”

Durry said a lot of the crime is linked to drugs and gangs.

“I think it is an issue,” He said of gangs in Selma. “I wouldn’t say it is the primary issue, it’s just like the drug issue.

There are gangs that we have in the City of Selma.”

But at the same time, Durry pointed out that despite its problems, Selma still has a lot of positives.

“Selma is a really friendly city, it’s an easy going city,” he said. “My aspirations are to make some kind of contribution to it.”

One of the hot issues in this election is the proposed youth curfew.

Durry said the curfew would be like some of the other ordinances on the books, hard to enforce.

“I look at the curfew like the noise ordinance,” Durry said. “With the type of manpower we have, who’s going to be in position to make things work? If they are going to add another law, how likely are we to make it work?”

One idea Durry has supported to help give kids an alternative to being out on the streets would be a series of monitored gyms placed around the city where young adults, kids and grown-ups could come and play basketball.

The gyms would be monitored, but just have a court and an office.

“We could have it open and have them play up into the night, I think that would play a great role,” Durry said.

Durry estimated the gyms would cost $100,000 each and he has set an ideal number of five throughout the city, but he added they could be built over a period of years as the money is available.

“It would give us what we have in our sports program now,” he said. “We’re teaching our kids these things in baseball.

They can go out and compete each other.

Why not allow teenagers and adult to have the same thing?”

Another program Durry is proud of is the Brown Bag program through the Food Bank, it distributes food to the elderly and disabled once a month.

“We’ve also had back-to-school giveaways with free school supplies,” Durry said.

Durry describes himself as an original East Selmian.

He was born and raised in East Selma.

After serving in the Korean War, he went to Tuskegee Institute and got his degree to teach biology.

After five years on Ozark, he came back and taught at St. Jude Parochial School in Montgomery for 30 years.

He worked part time at Sears to help support his wife and two daughters.

Durry’s oldest daughter is now a nurse with three children of her own and his youngest daughter has finished her pre-med work and is studying to be a doctor.

In the end, Durry says, he just wants to help Selma.

“I just care about doing whatever I can for the community,” he said.