Candidate forum held in Bryan County ahead of elections
BRYAN COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - Bryan County has quite a few races to keep an eye on, one being in the city of Pembroke. The entire city council and mayor are all up for re-election.
At Tuesday night’s candidate forum, every candidate collectively agreed that the growth is coming, that’s inevitable but it needs to be controlled.
It’s the not so shocking Hyundai plant in the room.
“We are the fastest growing county in Georgia and the six in the nation. This election is important because we need our leaders to know how to handle that,” said organizer Karen Hewitt.
The citizens of Pembroke filled the Harns Community center to hear just how each candidate intends to control the upcoming growth.
“It’s really important that people give consideration to the candidates that put themselves forward to make an informed decision on who they believe is going to best lead them,” said organizer Patricia Hewitt.
Other questions at hand involve the environmental effects, small business preservation, and affordable housing all being affected by the intended growth.
“We need to focus on moving forward, bringing that experience to the table and then of course, in networking that we have in the contacts that we have what are the in the local original or state, federal level,” said mayoral candidate Tiffany Ziegler.
“We don’t want people to buy us out. We want to stay local and have those mom-and-pop shops. Hi love, the ones that have come in. That’s great. We need to continue to talk to our citizens to see what it means there,” said mayoral candidate Sharroll Fanslau.
Two city council members do run uncontested while the rest of the seats are a two candidate race.
Bryan County could see a large turn over in the government this election cycle as the entire city council as well as the mayor in Pembroke are up for election as well as two seats in Richmond Hill.
The forum for Richmond Hill’s city council will be held on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
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