James Mueller: the chief of staff succeeds

2020 – today

The succession: James Mueller (born 1982) came home to South Bend in 2015 after work in federal public policy in Washington and joined the Buttigieg administration, becoming the mayor's chief of staff — the office's second chair through the second term and the presidential run. When Buttigieg stood down, Mueller ran for the office himself, won the election of November 2019, and was sworn in on 1 January 2020 as the city's thirty-third mayor. He was re-elected in November 2023.

The administration to date: Mueller's tenure is the consolidation era, and its landmark is a building: the purchase and conversion of the former school administration headquarters into the City Hall opened on 13 October 2025, told in full in the city-halls entry above — the first time since 1902 that the city had acquired a seat of government of its own, and the end of the fifty-five-year tenancy in the county's tower. Around it his administration has run the next round of the long downtown work: the Downtown South Bend 2045 plan, unveiled in February 2025, setting the frame for the Century Center block and the old City Hall site; the Morris's centennial expansion, whose Raclin Murphy Encore Center opened in 2026; and the maintenance, which the mayor's 2025 State of the City address reported to the council, of the city's AA bond rating. The city's adopted budget for 2026 records what no South Bend budget had been able to record for half a century: population growth in each of the past five years. The record of the administration stands open, as it should; this section will grow with it.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, "Meet the Staff" — Mueller the thirty-third mayor, sworn in 1 January 2020; the return home in 2015 and the chief-of-staff service under Buttigieg.
2. The mayoral-election record — the elections of 2019 and 2023.
3. City of South Bend — the new City Hall (see the city-halls entry and its sources); the 2025 State of the City remarks as prepared (the AA bond rating, the new city hall, the Morris 100's third phase).
4. South Bend Tribune (August 2026) — the Downtown South Bend 2045 Plan, unveiled in February 2025, and the Century Center questions it raises; the Morris record — the Raclin Murphy Encore Center opened 2026.
5. City of South Bend, 2026 Adopted Budget — population growth in each of the past five years; St. Joseph County unemployment at 3.0 percent (December 2025).