Millwood would end up winning in the runoff election, taking over for former Ringgold mayor Joe Barger, who was mayor for 40 years before stepping down in at age Pennington could not be reached late Tuesday, but Mock said he was disappointed in the results and the low voter turnout. Only Whitfield County Election Supervisor Mary Hammontree said there won't be a runoff in the mayoral race, but "a recount can be made at the request of the losing candidate.
Mock said he is holding out to see the final results before deciding if he wants to call for a recount. Pennington previously was elected mayor of Dalton in In , voters gave him a strong victory over political newcomer Joel Goldberg in the mayoral race with 61 percent of the vote. He also has pushed to refurbish the city's historical areas and build green spaces in an attempt to attract young professionals.
In , Pennington took his anti-tax message statewide when he championed an end to Georgia's income tax as part of a campaign to unseat Nathan Deal in the Republican primary for the governor's race. When Pennington stepped down as mayor in to run for governor, Dalton was without a mayor for months. Mock defeated Miller Jones in November by 2, votes to 1, votes in the special election to fill the final 14 months of Pennington's unexpired term. Mock ran unopposed in for a full term. Before that, Mock ran in for the District 4 seat in the Georgia House of Representatives, losing by votes — less than 5 percent — to Roger Williams.
He ran again in but lost to Rep. Bruce Broadrick. Contact Patrick Filbin at pfilbin timesfreepress. Follow him on Twitter PatrickFilbin. The proposal passed with 2, votes for and votes against. Older and at-risk people are dying at a much higher rate, and their capacity to deal with the outbreak at current infrastructure levels is becoming catastrophic. People in critical conditions are unable to get the care they need which causes more deaths. They do not understand the resistance we are expressing to preventative measures.
My sincere hope is that a few months from now, those same people are still saying we overreacted because we effectively stemmed the outbreak. At this point, there have been no announcements to go that route, but the prospect of extended closures is very real.
In three weeks, the number of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations will have undoubtedly increased. Your local governments, along with our businesses and residents, are continually working to mitigate the spread of the virus, sustain services, and help those in need.
Our people have the heart to serve and this will be another example of how we overcome challenges together. I felt it coming, but it was still a shock when our schools announced a two-week closure three weeks with spring break. My classroom is moving online.
Tomorrow, all of us will begin the process of filling our Google Classrooms with instruction, practice, and interactive tools to supplement the time missing from the classroom.
Teacher in-service promises to be busy with a different kind of teaching in mind. Many of us are excited about this challenge and looking forward to giving our students great options for digital learning. This will be fun. I am also looking forward to having a little more time to help from a City of Ringgold perspective.
Ensuring our emergency personnel are supported has moved to the top of our priority list. We are also thinking about things from a long term economic perspective. I have high hopes in that regard, but a cautious outlook would be wise.
Our council will be discussing how to best prepare by analyzing potential revenue changes and addressing our budget accordingly. Projects such as additional sidewalks, dog parks, and capital improvements may need to be delayed while monitor the situation as it unfolds.
Personally, I will be doing my best to be available to you and our city personnel as much as possible. My phone number is Addressing your concerns and questions about city or school issues will be my main focus throughout this process. Stay safe Ringgold. He is unafraid to stand up to the current power structure and will continue to fight for what is right. The fact that he understands what is hurting our morale in the schools is so refreshing, and I hope my fellow teachers take note that he gets to the root of problems to enact change.
Representative Moore also tried to pass constitutional carry for our state and has consistently stood up or our 1st amendment rights as well. I admire his tenacity and ability to go right to the source of the problem and launch a public challenge to make a difference.
When I won the mayoral election as an outsider, politics in Ringgold had been poisoned by cronyism and getting things done was about who you knew and how well you fell in line with the power structure. Having a public opinion that spoke directly to the voters was heavily frowned upon and attacked as causing division among elected officials.
Specifically, one thing caused a great amount of turmoil on my council. When our charter was changed by senator Mullis without the council or public being given an opportunity to discuss, it became even more apparent that backroom deals are alive and well within my city. One of my councilmen absolutely ripped me during an open meeting and argued that I was potentially costing our city millions of dollars.
What he was saying, without actually saying it, was that our city would be punished because I was speaking out against a piece of legislation at our state capitol slipped in by our current state senator. Insisting on a public conversation about difficult topics and not demonizing, threatening, or marginalizing opposition should be the order of the day. It is time to start building a positive political environment in our district.
At some point, politicians can become more enamored with themselves, other politicians, Political Action Committees, and big donors as opposed to the people who elect them. If you are deemed as lying to the legislature, it strips your right to address the legislature for the rest of the session. A second offense would result in a lifetime ban.
Also, the wild amount of money Senator Mullis brings in from PACs like payday and title lenders and Insurance Companies also leaves me wondering if he is looking out for the best interest of voters or the insurance companies and loan shark businesses contributing to him. The feeling in the county is that you cannot publicly disagree with our state senator or he will come after you politically and use the state purse strings or his campaign war chest to punish you.
He has systematically worked to fill local elections with candidates who are loyal to him. I truly believe Colton is not that kind of politician. It was no easy decision to walk away from his state representative seat in order to continue his fight more effectively, but the best among us run toward the problems.
Please mark April 27th on your phone or calendar as the beginning of early voting and bring a breath of fresh air to our local politics by casting your ballot for Colton Moore. There have been so many questions regarding our Chief of Police resigning, and I want to answer some of those questions here. Needs of the police department have been a regular topic during my time on the council, and the chief has consistently lobbied to make the department the best it can be.
We have increased that budget steadily , and it is our biggest line item of all our departments. Having said that, there are still needs for our police department and other departments.
We have been committed to keeping our tax rate steady for a number of years. Walking the line between keeping our tax rate low and effectively funding all of our departments has been one of the hardest tasks as an elected official. There were other issues brought up during the resignation that are easier to address than funding, and I believe the council should take action on those items as soon as possible.
Our hiring procedures can be adjusted to give our next police chief more options when trying to hire officers. We should also involve our next police chief in council discussions far more than we have in the past. I also believe that encouraging a dialogue between the mayor and staff would help diminish the disconnect between city staff and policy makers. Obviously, there are more issues at play than budgetary concerns.
In every profession and in every life, there are relationship factors that come into play when trying to make any business or government entity work. As a council, we are actively working to get all the facts and work as a team to avoid similar situations in the future. I will be less public about personnel issues that arise as part of those endeavors, but I also want to be clear that some hard conversations are necessary and inevitable after what transpired at our last meeting.
We are addressing, and getting to the bottom of various issues and rumors that have been circulating over the past two days. Our city employees should expect our council and mayor to handle personnel issues in executive session.
Our city employees and our citizens should also expect obvious issues to be addressed meaningfully. Ringgold can be assured that we are working to make our city the best it can be. No one on our council is the type to put our head in the sand and ignore situations that almost literally slap us in the face.
That work will largely be finished by the end of the year. We have a lot of work to do on the front end of that project, but we have the plans in hand and a motivated set of individuals working to raise funds to make it happen. I would also like the city to partner with our Downtown Development Authority and local businesses to decorate our downtown district with lights for Christmas in It would also be great to have some sort of Christmas tree lighting ceremony and to involve as many residents, businesses, and government organizations as possible.
Lighting up city hall and the courthouse would be a great event that could bring many people into our downtown district for the event and throughout the holiday season. If you would like to look through our charter and find specific things you think could be tweaked, the link is HERE.
A big point that has been coming up over and over again through the elections season and beyond is dealing with people speeding through residential areas. It is impossible to simultaneously patrol all these areas that are having constant issues, but something needs to be done in order for our residents to feel safe.
Because we try to run a lean government in order to keep taxes low, there are simply not enough officers to watch every neighborhood and city street. We increased our budget for our police department again this year.
I swore in another officer recently to bring our force up to fully staffed, but the problem is so prevalent that patrols alone are not enough. This is one of the biggest challenges I think we should be aggressively trying to tackle in the coming year.
Having a year in which there are no city elections will be nice. Political posturing and score keeping is generally kept to a minimum in those years. We can focus on providing efficient services that you expect, and support a robust and growing city.
Thank you for another term as your Mayor. As always, feel free to contact me at or by e-mail at mayormillwood cityofringgoldga. Marijuana is an interesting subject and has been fascinating to watch evolve in regards to public opinion. This polling breaks the data down into things like age and party affiliation. HERE is another poll from Gallup showing very similar results.
The question is if this is too much of a punishment, not enough, or just right. Unless another penalty is expressly provided by law, every person convicted of a violation of this section shall be punished as provided in section ; however, the total length of sentence for imprisonment and total length of public service work shall not exceed one year. Each day any violation of this Code or of any ordinance shall continue shall constitute a separate offense.
Anytime I write something like this, I feel like I need to include a disclaimer. Recently, one of our councilmen put an item on our agenda about requiring drug testing for our elected officials.
Apparently, there are legal issues involved with putting that into our charter, but nothing is stopping elected officials from doing that voluntarily. I went the day after it was on our agenda and took one just like any other city employee. I have no problem continuing to do that while I hold this position. I know that some will try to label anyone who even brings this up for discussion as a pot head, and it would be nice to have a meaningful conversation without innuendo or false accusations.
This post is not to argue for or against marijuana legalization. It is meant to inquire about public sentiment regarding penalties laid out in our city charter for these crimes. This election season has been….. I have spent the last 4 years in office going out of my way to involve people in their local government and ensure the council was informed about where our electorate stands on a number of issues.
I am sure that is what carried me through the election and ensured a solid majority in a race that was unnecessarily messy at times. I want to talk about the election specifically and what my perspective is on how it all went down.
Obviously, the most noise was made by Paul Lee. One city voter recorded the conversation they had with Paul while he was campaigning, and he was telling people that I took money from the flag fund to buy my campaign t-shirts. I had more than one person tell me this, but the recording made it apparent he was, in fact, telling this to people. It would have been nice for Paul to have addressed that with me personally, but I believe his goal was to do as much damage as possible to my reputation than to find true answers.
Paul showed me anonymous letters he had received in which he was being told to pull open records requests with very specific dates and subjects in which only someone intimately involved with city business would have access. Obviously this was an attempt to capture a narrow view of my efforts to raise money for the flag fund, and responding by providing the complete picture of those funds was the best way to bat away those claims. There were other open records requests that I would liken to finding a needle in a haystack.
I believe I know who originated those letters. I also do not believe they were trying to help Paul win. The intent was to damage me to the point that Tony could win. For the record, I truly believe that Tony had nothing to do with any of this. Overall, I am excited about the new council and our opportunity to make some great things happen for our city.
I am happy to have Sara serving another term. She has been a steady hand the last four years. She has great expertise at the state level and builds relationships in a way that will benefit our city for the next four years.
While we have been on different sides of some issues, I appreciate her professionalism.
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