Local mayors share updates on State of the Cities

By Stephen Milligan – The Walton Tribune

Chamber of Commerce hosts forum on growth, progress in Walton’s towns

Walton County’s seven mayors all spoke Thursday at the Walton County Chamber of Commerce’s annual State of the Cities update. From left are mayors Randy Carithers, of Jersey, Brendan Whitfield, of Loganville, Randy Garrett, of Good Hope, David Keener, of Social Circle, John Howard, of Monore, and Robert Post, of Between. Photo Credit: Stephen Milligan – the Walton Tribune

For the first time in Walton County Chamber of Commerce president Teri Smiley’s recollection, the chamber’s annual State of the Cities meeting had a full house.

“For the first time in my 31 years at the Chamber, we have all seven mayors here,” Smiley said proudly.

The Chamber held its monthly membership luncheon Thursday and the mayors of each of Walton County’s municipalities dropped by to give updates on how their cities were doing and what plans each had for the future.

Monroe Mayor John Howard kicked things off with a rosy picture of the county seat’s status now and in the days to come.

“Monroe is in a place we could only dream of 50 years ago,” Howard said.

Howard pointed to various projects going on around Monroe, from new business construction to ongoing development work for the north arc of the city’s truck route to the in-progres expansion of Athens Technical College.

“Athens Tech is investing $19.2 million in the Monroe campus,” Howard said. “It will no longer look like an old high school converted into a college, but like an actual real college campus. Overall, we have almost a billion dollars in projects in development or underway.”

And Howard said the city continues to attract people with new downtown business, local events such as the First Friday concerts on the town green to the county’s largest event each year, the annual Monroe Christmas Parade.

“If you really want to step into a Norman Rockwell painting, come see us at Christmas,” Howard said.

Robert Post, mayor of Between, said he’d overseen a great deal of growth in the little town since taking over as mayor only a few years ago.

“There are 27 businesses that call Between home,” Post said. “When I started, we had seven. We’ll be opening our first package store by the end of this year.”

Post said despite that extensive growth, the city remained selective about what to allow in.

“We’re sorta picky about what we want in town,” Post said. “But hey, we have five churches in 1.3 square miles. If you want to get closer to religion, come to Between.”

Brendan Whitfield, mayor of Loganville, said the city was undergoing a great deal of transitions lately.

“We’re in a weird spot in Loganville as our city manager is retiring after 10 years,” Whitfield said. “We’re in a time of transition. We’re focused a lot of money on downtown as we open our new library and prepare to unveil the new toddler park.”

Whitfield said the city has three major goals going forward.

“We want to be a safe city, we want to be a clean city and we want to work on our infrastructure,” Whitfield said. “A lot of our infrastructure work was last done in the 1990s, so we have a lot of work ahead to update and replace aging infrastructure around town.”

Still, Whitfield said he’s proud the city has continued to do such work without raising taxes in several years.

“The city is poised to lower its millage rate yet again,” Whitfield said.

Good Hope mayor Randy Garrett said Good Hope is continuing to deal with its own growth spurts of late.

“Good Hope has grown 21.5% in 12 months,” Garrett said. “We’re growing. Growth is inevitable. But positive growth is our aim.”

Garrett said the city council was working to make sure the city’s growth spurt, which has seen new homes built around the city, did not change the town’s essential nature.

“We want to preserve our rural ambiance,” Garrett said. “We want to make sure we still have our cotton fields scattered through town and our bicycle trails active next to our motorists and that you’ll still see our tractors next to our SUVs.”

In Walnut Grove, mayor Stephanie Moncrief said the small town was in the midst of several big projects.

“Walnut Grove is a small city,” Moncrief said. “But small doesn’t mean standing still. And we’re now thinking small. Our vision is bigger than our population.”

Moncrief said the city was doing a lot of work to improve current services and prepare for future growth.

“We’re improving city services, adding infrastructure, increasing our sewer system,” Moncrief said. “And we’re doing it before the growth arrives.”

And Moncrief said they’ve had great response to the revamp of the long-neglected city ballfields, which they added lights to two years ago and started renting it out again.

“We added the lights to our city park when I started and we’ve already recouped that investment,” Moncrief said.

Randy Carithers, mayor of Jersey, made an appearance at the chamber event after missing many over the years, but said Jersey was making its own moves as it saw the county grow around it.

“I would never have imagined in my lifetime what I’d see around our city,” Carithers said. “So we’re working on a park here in town. We’re trying to lease some land for that project right now.”

Finally, Social Circle mayor David Keener led off his remarks with a long-awaited announcement on a project deferred.

“First off, we are NOT getting an ICE detention center, thank you,” Keener said to scattered cheers, happily declaring victory after the federal government chose not to build a detention center at the edge of town. “The government is probably looking to sell that building instead, so give me a call if you know anyone interested, because they’re probably willing to make a deal.”

Keener mentioned another ongoing battle across the nation, as well, as he talked about the city’s relationship with the increasingly controversial data centers around the country, some of which already exist in town.

“We’re trying our best to limit the number of date centers in the city limits,” Keener said.

But there are positive projects in the works, too, including some new plans for park expansion and growth.

“We have a great new parks plan involving our old primary school and elementary school buildings,” Keener said. “And we’re working hard to ensure our city is prepared for growth. It seems a lot of people want to move to Georgia’s greatest little town.”